Please turn with me in your copies of God's Word to the book of 1 John. This morning we'll be looking at 1 John 4, verses 1-6. Again, 1 John 4, verses 1-6. Hear now the Word of God. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world Little children, you are from God, and have overcome them. For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world. Therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." This ends our reading of God's Word. Let's once again bow in prayer. Our great God, we do thank you, Lord, for this Word that you have given to us this morning. We pray, Lord, that you would open up our minds and our eyes, our ears, our hearts, and help us, Lord, to hear and to listen and to understand and to put to practice your Word this morning. We do ask, Lord, that you would bless my mind and my mouth, that I may think and speak clearly your word this morning. And in Jesus' name we ask this. Amen. Probably the greatest story of deception that has ever been told and probably will ever be told happens at the very beginning of time, in the Garden of Eden, when that serpent of old deceived our first parents, Adam and Eve, deceived them into eating that fruit that was forbidden by our Creator, our Heavenly Father. This is the greatest story of deception when you think about the circumstances around that deception. Think about Adam and Eve. and the created world at that time, it was still perfect. There was still no sin in it. It was not fallen. It was beautiful. It was glorious. And yet they fell. We who, in our day and age, and have had many experiences of being deceived, or maybe even have deceived ourselves, we live in a sinful fallen world. Some could argue it's much easier now to deceive someone because we live in a world full of sin, full of error, full of corruption. But our first parents didn't have a corrupted world. They had that freedom to choose whether they would listen to the evil one or they would listen to their Creator, their Heavenly Father. And sadly, we know what happened. We know who they listen to. And that is what Satan has been doing since the beginning of time. If we recall that deception, Satan calling into question the very words of God, you shall not surely die. That's not what God meant when he said that to you. You'll be like God. And they bought the deception. And as one of my seminary professors always said, Satan has the same bag of tricks that he always uses. Every so often he repackages it, makes it look shiny and new, but it's always the same. He has been striving to deceive God's people since that very first deception of our first parents, Adam and Eve. And this is what John is addressing directly here in these verses this morning. encouraging his audience and encouraging us, actually commanding us, admonishing us, exhorting us not to listen to that serpent of old, that great deceiver, but to do what our first parents couldn't do, to listen to the voice of God, to listen to His Spirit. And so the theme that we're going to be looking at today is that we are to listen to the Spirit of Truth and you will not be deceived. Listen to the Spirit of Truth and you will not be deceived. Before I continue on, I'm going to go off a little side note here. Past few days, something has been nagging me that I've been forgetting something. And I just remembered what it was. You don't have any bulletin inserts of the outline for this morning. I apologize for that. I knew it the past couple days. I'm forgetting something. What is it? But the theme we'll be looking at this morning is, Listen to the Spirit of Truth, and you will not be deceived. The first point we have is that in chapter 4, verse 1, John reminds us that there is more to this world than merely the physical. John reminds us that there is more to this world than the physical, and this is in chapter 4, verse 1, when he writes, Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world." Test the spirits, he says. Do not believe every spirit. This reminds us of what Paul was saying in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12. When he launches into his armor of God, he first says that we are not dealing with a physical battle. But our war is with the spirit of the ruler of the air, the prince of the power of the air. It is a spiritual battle that we wage, that we fight. John is dealing with false teaching. False teaching that is opposed to God, and he gets to the heart of it that this is ultimately a spiritual battle. This is ultimately a spiritual war that is being waged between Satan and God himself, which has been waged from the very beginning. To remind us also that we live not merely in a physical world, but in a spiritual world, I'll direct your attention to the book of 1 Kings. You can turn there with me if you like, but you are not required to. 1 Kings, chapter 22. I'm going to read verses 13 through 28 of 1 Kings, chapter 22. To give some background to these verses, this is where, by this time, The God's people have been divided. There's the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. We have in these verses the king of Israel, Ahab, who is trying to get the king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, to come along with him, to join him in battle. And so the scene, the chapter begins, and we've got all of these prophets before them that are just saying to Ahab, go, fight, you'll be victorious. And Jehoshaphat guessing that there's something amiss here, says, is there not a prophet of God here? And so Ahab begrudgingly sends for a prophet named Micaiah. And here's where we pick up. And the messenger who went to summon Micaiah said to him, Behold, the words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to the king. Let your word be like the word of one of them. and speak favorably. But Micaiah said, As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. And when he had come to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth Gilead to battle, or shall we refrain? And he answered him, Go up and triumph. The Lord will give it into the hand of the king. The king said to him, How many times shall I make you swear that you speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? And he said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, These have no master. Let each return to his home in peace. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil? And Micaiah said, Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramath-Gilead? And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, I will entice him. And the Lord said to him, By what means? And he said, I will go out. and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, You are to entice him, and you shall succeed. Go out and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets. The Lord has declared disaster for you.' Then Zedekiah the son of Shananah came near and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, How did the spirit of the Lord go from me to speak to you? And Micaiah said, behold, you shall see on that day when you go into an inner chamber to hide yourself. And the king of Israel said, seize Micaiah and take him back to Ammon, the governor of the city, and to Joash, the king's son. And say, thus says the king, put this fellow in prison and feed him meager rations of bread and water until I come in peace. And Micaiah said, if you return in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me. And he said, hear, all you peoples. It's a fascinating account that we have of the prophet Micaiah before King Ahab and King Jehoshaphat. And I believe this is a, not simply just a vision, but a window that God has allowed his prophet Micaiah to see into the very throne room of heaven. To see, behind the scenes, what is going on. You know, in Ahab and Jehoshaphat's eyes, they are preparing for battle. They're contemplating preparing for battle. Going up against another nation. But what this account shows us is that behind the scenes, there is a spiritual war being waged. God is sovereign. He directs the hearts of the kings, as the Proverbs tells us. And we have here an account of God working and leading a couple of kings into battle to accomplish his purpose, to bring the king of Ahab, king of Israel, to judgment. There's a spiritual war behind the scenes that we don't see day in and day out. And that is what John is reminding us of here in this opening verse. I don't know if any of you have seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's kind of a goofy sci-fi film if any of you have seen it. It's kind of funny if you like those sorts of things. But there's one scene where this guy on Earth is learning for the first time that his friend is actually an alien. And his alien friend is recalling to mind the first day they met. He said, didn't you think, I'm paraphrasing here, it was odd how we met. And it flashes back. And his friend, the alien, is standing in the middle of the street, holding some flowers, and this car is driving towards him. Instead of moving, he's going, uh, and making a honking noise. See, his alien society was looking down on Earth and saw all these cars driving around and they thought the cars were the intelligent life. So he was standing in the middle of the road with flowers trying to communicate with this car coming towards him. Well, they met when his earthly friend jumped and pushed him out of the way to save his life. You see, we look at the world around us and we see one thing. We think we understand it. We think we know it. We think we can comprehend it. There's a whole other side to the reality we live in that we so easily forget in our day and age. There is a spiritual world. We live in a physical and a spiritual world. And God is at work directing and guiding everything that is going on in the world around us. The application that we can make in this verse is that we need to remember in our scientific world that there is a spiritual reality. there is a spiritual reality that is waging war all around us. How do we know who to listen to? How can we understand, how can we know who it is that we are to listen to, what voice we are to listen to? When the Section of God has graciously given us a very simple test, to know and to understand what voice we are actually to listen to. If someone is speaking from the Spirit of God, or if someone is speaking from the spirit of Antichrist, or the spirit of the evil one. This simple test is seen in verses 2 and 3. And to summarize it, it is simply this. Those who confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh are from God. Those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh are not from God. It's a very simple test. Water is something we all know and need and ingest, hopefully on a daily basis. But water has a very simple chemical compound or formula. It's two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom, H2O. Now if someone comes to you and says that water is something else, you know they're not speaking the truth. You know they're trying to deceive you. But someone that comes along and says that water is indeed H2O, you know they're speaking the truth. that they're not trying to deceive you in this regard. It's a simple test. Those who profess Jesus is the Christ, come in the flesh, are from God. Those who do not profess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, are not from God. This verse kind of carries with it the idea, this phrase, profess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, carries with it the idea of Jesus is the Christ, come in the flesh. And one of the things that John is combating here is the very beginnings of a teaching that say that Jesus was just a man that was a natural child of Joseph and Mary, and that when he was baptized, the Christ, the eternal Son of God, then came down upon Jesus and dwelt in him, empowered him through his ministry, but then before his crucifixion and his being turned over, the Christ left him and went back to be with the Father, and the human Jesus of Nazareth suffered and died on the cross. This is one of the teachings that John is combating here. He is saying that those who do not profess that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, is the eternal Son of God, come in the flesh. Not that the Christ somehow is separated from him, but that he is the Christ, the promised Messiah. come in the flesh. See, Jesus had to come in the flesh. He had to come in the flesh. He had to be born. Anyone who denies the Incarnation is not from God. Why was it important that the eternal Son of God take on human flesh and be born? It was important because he had to be born under the law. You see, God established a covenant. And as part of that covenant, he gave a law that his subjects were to fulfill, to obey. As part of that covenant, he would be their God. They would be his people. He would bless them and prosper them. Well, as we all know, through the example of the Old Testament, people of God can never keep that covenant, and we can never keep that covenant. And that's what God is pointing us to. As Paul says, the law was a tutor to show us that we're sinful. But that covenant still stood. It had to be fulfilled. So the Eternal Son of God had to be born of human. See, as the Eternal God, He is the lawgiver. He is not subject to and underneath that covenant. But in order to earn our salvation, to win our salvation, He had to empty Himself as Paul says, and be born under the law, to become someone who is under the law and not above it. So Jesus Christ is both the law giver, but he's also the law fulfiller. He had to be born of a human to take on human flesh so that he could fulfill the covenant that God made with his people. That is how we are saved. Christ lived the perfect life. He fulfilled perfectly the law that God had established and God had given. And then he went to the cross and he paid the punishment for our transgression of that law. And when we place our faith in him by the grace of God alone, our unrighteousness, our breaking of the law is put upon him. But his righteousness, his fulfilling of that law is placed upon us. And so when the Father looks at us, He doesn't see this lawbreaker, this covenant breaker. He sees the precious blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, who fulfilled His covenant. That is how we are saved. If Christ, the Son of God, the Anointed One, the Messiah, did not take on human flesh, did not suffer and die, did not live the perfect life here on earth, then we have no salvation. We are still lost in our sins. There is no sacrifice suitable except for the sacrifice that Christ laid his life down upon the cross. John goes so far as to say that anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ, he is the Messiah come in the flesh. Which, by the way, that word come is in that perfect tense we talked about a while back. That perfect tense in the Greek that means it was a past action that continues on. Jesus Christ is still 100% man and 100% God. Two natures in one person forever and ever. He did not leave behind his physical body when he ascended into glory. He still has that physical body. He is still 100% man and 100% God. This is what John is addressing here in this verse, come in the flesh. He came in the flesh, something past that continues on. Everyone who denies this, John says, does not have the spirit of God. Instead, they have the spirit of the Antichrist. They have the spirit of the evil one, that serpent of old. So every single system of thought in this world that does not profess that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, come in the flesh, is the eternal Son of God, Every system of thought in this world that denies this truth is not only not from God, but it is from the evil one. Continuing his same bag of tricks that he had in the very beginning in the garden, trying to get us to doubt God's word. God said, this is the way. This is the way you are saved. Satan slithers in, in the tree, and he says, are you sure? Did God really say that? What about this way? This way is just good. These people are good. causing us to doubt what God has said. No, no matter how outwardly it may be good, anything that denies the truth that Jesus is the Christ is not from God. And if it's not from God, it can only come from the evil one. So how do we apply this to our lives? Our world is full of voices. It is full of voices competing for our allegiance, which is due to God alone. And what John is reminding us here is to be careful, to remember that there's more to this world than what we see around us. There is a spiritual battle. And people are either trying to bring us to Christ or take us away. Those who are teaching us and leading us to Christ are from God, have His Spirit. Those who deny the truth really have a spirit of deception. We must be cautious of anything that claims that Jesus is not the Christ. We must ultimately reject any spirit of deception. The last thing we can learn from this morning is that if we listen to the voice of God, we will not be deceived. This is what we learn in the final verses this morning. If we listen to the voice of God, we will not be deceived. These three verses are separated by three different pronouns. The first, in verse 4, Little children, you are from God, and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. What a comforting phrase that John gives to us. Dear children, you have overcome them. You have overcome those false teachers. You have overcome those deceivers. You have overcome their false teaching, directing you away from Christ." Then he goes on to say, and to reveal to us, how we overcome this. It is not any own strength in ourselves, any soundness of mind or heart that we possess. But he says in verse 4, that you have overcome them because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. About a month ago, or a few weeks ago in our evening service, when we looked at Joel 3, verses 1-8. This is a section of scripture where God goes into great detail, or not great detail, but He goes into some detail of what awaits those who have persecuted His people. And we looked at it, and the title of that sermon was, You Mess With Them, You Mess With Me. That's kind of the same thing that John is pointing us to here. God is comforting us, and He's saying to us, You know what? I am greater than He who is in the world. The Spirit of God dwells within His people. How many times have we stopped to think about that on a day-to-day basis? The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, dwells within you if you are in Christ this morning. The very Spirit that created the universe. The very Spirit that rose our Lord and Savior from the dead. is the very spirit that truthfully lives within you if you are in Christ this morning. That is the power that we as God's people have within us. I know I myself all too often forget this. It's very easy to do as we look around us and we lose sight of the fact that this is a spiritual world as well as a physical But although there is much in the world, and the world looks powerful and imposing in this spiritual battle, remember, we have the Holy Spirit of God with us. He who is in us is far greater than he who is in the world. Then John breaks it down. He is basically summarizing what Jesus said in John 10, verses 11-6. He says in verses 5 and 6, they are from the world, therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. In John chapter 10 verses 11 to 16, there Jesus gives the wonderful truth that he is the Good Shepherd. He is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. He says in that passage that all his sheep listen to his voice. They know his voice. They follow it. And that is what John is saying here in these verses. God's sheep will listen to his voice. They will listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to them. They will listen to the truth of the gospel. Those who are the goats of the world, you could say, They will follow their shepherd. They will follow their teachers. They will follow their shepherds and their voice. The God's people will follow their good and great shepherd. I'm reminded of my mom saying she was growing up. It was kind of a different world than it is now. The kids in the neighborhood would just go out in the day. They'd maybe come back for lunch, but then they would go out again and just spend the whole day out there playing somewhere. At the end of the day, when it was time for dinner, each set of parents had a whistle that they would call out. There was a particular sound that they would make. And you knew who was supposed to come home by the sound that you would hear. So whenever my grandma would whistle her whistle, my mom and my uncle would come running home. If they didn't, there would be some problems at home when they got there later. This was true of the neighborhood. They understood the voice of their parents. They could understand and hear and listen. And that is the case spiritually as well. As children of God, we hear his voice, we understand his voice, and we follow his voice. And we can think what John says here is kind of arrogant, especially in verse 6, when he says, we are from God. Whoever listens, whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. If John were a mere human being, this indeed would be arrogance, saying, well, if you don't listen to me, you don't have God. But he's not simply. Well, he is simply just a man. But he is an apostle. And this is what he was referring to here in the we. We are from God. He's referring to himself and the other apostles. The teaching that they have been given from God. The teaching that they have been given from the Holy Spirit. Whoever does not listen to this teaching, the truth of God, proclaimed by the apostles, set aside specifically for this purpose, to write his word, to carry it on does not have God. Then he summarizes this passage again by saying, this is how we know the spirit of truth, or it could be the spirit of deception. Spirit of truth, or the spirit of deception. How do we guard against following after the spirit of deception? We listen to the voice of God in his word. We listen to the voice of God in his word This is how he speaks to us. And if we listen to the voice of God in his word, proclaimed by his servants, by his prophets, by his apostles, we will not be deceived by that great spirit of deception. The same spirit who deceived Adam and Eve at the beginning is still hard at work in our day and age. But it's the same attack that He attacks us with, that He attacked our first parents with. Every sin that He tempts us with is a calling into question the Word of God. Are we going to listen to God or are we going to listen to Him? That is what the temptation is. And when we fall into temptation, when we fall into sin, we fall into the same trap as Adam and Eve. We listen to Him instead of the voice of our Good Shepherd. I also want to leave you with a very encouraging And this is one of the times that we do fall and stumble in this life. Recall to mind the times that God has given you victory. Recall to mind the times when temptation has come and you have said, no, I'm going to follow after my Savior. Brothers and sisters, that is something that our first parents, Adam and Eve, could not do in their perfection in the garden. But you who have the Holy Spirit of God can do it. in a fallen world, in a sinful world, where you are berated by temptations, berated by voices drawing you from Christ. That is the power of the Holy Spirit within us. We must learn to follow after His Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, and not the Spirit of deception. So by being in His Word, sitting under the Preached Word, reading His Word daily, We brothers will draw in and listen to the voice of that great and holy spirit. And as we do this, we will not be deceived. We will be sanctified according to his truth. We will not hear or listen to the great spirit of deception. And so, brothers and sisters, listen to the spirit of truth and we will not be deceived. Amen. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank You, Lord, for Your great Spirit of Truth. The great Spirit of Truth that lives within us. Lord, it is such a powerful Spirit. You, Lord, who created the heavens and the earth. You, Lord, by Your power formed this world into being. You, Lord, have given us Your Spirit. pouring it out into our lives when we, Lord, accepted Jesus Christ by faith, by your grace alone. It was that Holy Spirit, Lord, that first entered into our heart, softening our heart so that the truth of the Gospel may pierce and convict us of our sin. And, Lord, it is by this same Spirit that we are now molded and shaped more and more into the image of our glorious Savior, Jesus Christ. It is by your Spirit, Lord, living in us that we have overcome the evil one, that we continue to overcome the false teaching and the spirit of deception, the spirit of the Antichrist, alive and well in this world, day to day in the temptations that we face. Lord, we know that we stumble and we fall from time to time, but you, Lord, in your grace, forgive us. And Lord, as we come to realize the times that we've stumbled and fallen, May we, Lord, rely all the more on the power of your Holy Spirit and come humbly before you, confessing sin and being strengthened once again, prepared for the battles ahead. For, Lord, we wage a spiritual battle. And if there be any here who do not know Christ, Lord, may you convict them to their heart. Convict them, Lord, of their sin. Penetrate deep within and draw them to Christ. May they humble themselves before you and seek your forgiveness. In Jesus' holy name we ask this. Amen.