There's only two chapters left in 1 John. We're breaking into chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. 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 already. As Elder Craig mentioned, we're breaking into a brand new Chapter 4, and it's a marvelous, fantastic one. By God's grace, I've already finished next week's sermon, and that is so exciting, I can hardly restrain myself. But I wanted to get it done in advance so that when we go off to Pittsburgh next week, we're in good shape. We're here today to hear this text, and so let's do it with joy, shall we? Let's pray. Father, we need Jesus every day, and we pray that you'll fill us with your Holy Spirit and grant us the full measure of the person and grace and atonement of Jesus Christ our Lord. You've told us some important things in just these three verses that open up chapter four, and all of them Lead us to the visible, concrete, personal, physical person of the God-man, Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen. So everything in the world is essentially spiritual. Even material things that can be seen or physical are in their basic nature spiritual. This is why when we look at things like atoms, we can never get to the bottom of them. There's always something more. It's because we don't really know what we're looking at. But we do know it's real. We know God created it and we know that it's essentially spiritual because God is spirit. He doesn't create from himself, his own being, but what he does create is essentially spiritual. So, it should not surprise us that the Bible's uniform teaching, not only here in 1 John, but throughout all the Old and New Testament, teaches us that every human being follows some spirit. Now, only one of these spirits is ultimately and absolutely good, and that is the Holy Spirit. And all other spirits devoid of the person of Jesus Christ are not good. One of the reasons for this is that only the Holy Spirit leads any sinner to the Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. And he does that through means, and you, and me, and people. ministrations, but it is the Holy Spirit Himself who guides us to the Savior. Therefore, we had better know who this Good Spirit is, what characterizes Him, and how He can be identified. And remember that the third person of the Holy Trinity is a person. We should never speak of the Spirit as a thing. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity. So let us make it our goal this Resurrection Day to faithfully test the spirits as God's wise and loving church. Looking together at 1 John 4, 1-3, title of the sermon, Testing the Spirits, the doctrine. Everything depends on which spirit we believe. Now, of course, that doctrinal statement was intimated in the introduction, but how can it be overemphasized? The obvious importance of it is dramatic. Now, someone might say, and I'm sure a lot of people in the world would say, ah, you're wrong. I don't follow any spirit. But the Bible says very clearly otherwise. In Ephesians 3, Chapter 2, verses 1 to 3, referenced on your outline, makes this abundantly apparent, that every person follows some spirit. We're actually created that way, we're created in the image of God, and so it's an inevitable thing that we do. Let us now seek to better understand how everything depends on which spirit we believe. In truth, everyone religiously obeys some spirit. Not only is it true that every human being believes some spirit, whether they want to admit it or not, even more spectacularly and radically and amazingly, we faithfully, dutifully and in most cases slavishly obey or willingly comply with that spirit that we're following, whether we admit it or not. Now, several weeks ago, we saw a text out of chapter 3 at verse 10, and we noted that the Apostle John laid out the reality that ultimately there are but two fathers of humankind. God and Satan. And if that doctrine is true, that ultimately there are these two, not dualism, it's not like Satan and God are on the same plane, Satan was created good by God, he became evil of his own will, but these are the two great spiritual fathers of all the family of the world, every human being. If that is true, Then the two definitive wellsprings of rational spirits in the universe of actuality are indeed God and Lucifer, if you will. Lucifer, the one who sinned first in heaven, came down and tricked our first fathers into their sin, too. And let us never forget this very humbling truth, in fact, and that is that when we sin, when we're outside of Christ in any way, when we are in any way alienated from Him. And it does happen, happens to all of us, because we're still sinners and we're still struggling. That's why we're here. We're in the sanctification process. There's tension, there's stress, there's things going on. But when we are alienated, from God because of sin, we are actually willing accomplices who agree with and follow Satan in that case of our sin, who is the principal evil spirit in the world. Now that's an embarrassing fact, isn't it? And we hate to admit it, and we do rightly hate to admit it, but it's also true. On the other hand, the world gladly follows along and tags after the devil, but no truly regenerate Christian churchman can do that for long without repentance. And when we are in that state, it's an extremely uncomfortable place to be. And that's a good thing. That means that we're in the right spot with God. If we're outside of God's will and we don't feel good about that, we're uncomfortable, that's good. And that will lead us back to Jesus. In truth, everyone religiously obeys some spirit, but only one spirit shepherds sinners to Jesus, and that's accurate. The one spirit, the Holy Spirit, directs us to the great shepherd, Jesus Christ, And again, that's the third person of the Holy Trinity, the person of the Holy Spirit himself. Now this spirit works through other rational spiritual agents like elect and redeemed Christians, parishioners like you, faithful in your calling and your worship and your convictions in your covenant faithful in Christ. You take your vows seriously, your baptisms seriously. You're grateful to be identified with Christ. You're thankful that your children are identified with Christ, that they're baptized into the church. You take those promises seriously. Indeed, you are ones that the Holy Spirit works through, as he does through elect and redeem pastors, and even angels. We're going to actually quote the angels out of Luke later on in this sermon, too. On occasion, the angels speak these words of the Holy Spirit, too. But ultimately, when we do that, when I preach, when you share the gospel, when you live or speak the truth, it is ultimately the Holy Spirit's work leading people to Christ. What we're doing right here is a perfect example of that. You're hearing the Word of God, Jesus Christ, the Divine Logos, being preached to you. And every single one of you, in whom dwells the blessed Holy Spirit, are even now receiving, resting on, thanking God for, and believing, and relishing the person of the Word of God, Jesus Christ Himself, in the preaching that you're hearing. And you do it by faith, faith coming by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And after you hear it, your souls are lit up by grace through faith, and you take your witness, your life, what you've heard, your gospel, the gospel of Christ, into your dark worlds and share it with others there, exuding and shining the glorious light of Christ everywhere. This is the way the healthy, God-loving church operates, and that's what you do. It's not all that complex, but it's extremely important. And as you do that, God gets all the glory in and through Jesus Christ and your ministrations on his behalf. Let's look at these exciting verses 1 to 3, chapter 4, 1 John. and consider why testing the spirits is a main occupation of faithful church members. Now notice that we say faithful church members here and not just professing Christians, somebody who who says a sinner's prayer, or maybe lifts his hand in a meeting, or goes forward somewhere, or throws a stick in the fire, and is told that he or she is fine with God forever and ever, and that's the end of it, and that they have nothing more to do with Jesus, the gospel, or the church. Now, that does happen. And that's why we're saying faithful church members, because nowhere in the Old Testament or the New is the discerning of spirits ever able to be done outside of the context of the covenant of the gathered church bodies of believers that come together on Sundays to worship God. This is a corporate thing. And even John writing this is doing it in that form as well. We have to have each other. But for us, who are even here faithful in Christ, who by God's grace are able to keep the covenant, even though we're wicked sinners of ourselves, we have no goodness in ourselves, but God has called us and he's allowed us to be able to be faithful. It's a great miracle. That we're here, keeping the covenant, it is our basic job description. And we must understand why testing the spirits is the main occupation of faithful church members. First, because there are so many frauds in the world. F-R-A-U-D-S. Phonies, children. Verse 1. 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." Now, it's not like it just started then. We've had false prophets in the world since the fall of Adam in the garden. You might remember Moses telling the people, don't believe the false prophets. Even if what they say comes true, still don't believe them. If they tell you to worship false gods, don't believe them. And it's not the fact that there are many false prophets in the world that is the church's concern. We accept that. We live in a fallen world. We expect that there's going to be lots of false prophets in the world. That's not our concern. God hasn't called us to do much about that fact. He's left them here for a reason. Our role with regard to false prophets is to identify them, expose them, and reject them. and to teach others, especially Christians, to reject false prophets that are in the world. But even more, John overtly says that we are to test these spirits, and most of this will come out in verses 2 and 3a, and we'll look at that in a while, but the litmus test is a very important one. But for right now, let's look at verse 1, And it teaches us that we are to be wise and discerning and even skeptical regarding spirits in the world. And I would encourage you to be that. And also teaches us to be slow to accept them. You know, lots of times people are anxious to get on board with the world's latest spiritual whatever. And this goes beyond just religion. Yeah, it is religion, but it's more than that. It's any evil spirit in the world that captures the essence of a culture, or a nation, or a society, or anything like that, that is very dangerous. We are just plain to not accept it. In fact, just as soon as you see it, you should be skeptical. your radar should be up and you should definitely not give it the benefit of the doubt. And also, we are to, quoting John, see whether these spirits are from God or not. You know, really, only fools gullibly and naively accede to all the religious and secular nonsense and deceit and myths that spew forth from a world of lost sinners. The true and redeemed Church is called by God to do much better than that. ultimately for the glory of God, but also for the good of the whole church, our own souls, our families in the church, and the rest of the world itself. Why testing the spirits is a main occupation of faithful church members? because there's so many frauds in the world, and because Christ's historical incarnation is at the center of our faith in that ironic that we're at the Christmas season, verses 2 and 3a, 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. So keep in mind the particular context in which John is writing this first John epistle in the first century AD. The Docetic Gnostics had gone out, and they were people who denied the physicality, the actuality of the body, the human body of Jesus Christ. So a Docetic would say, oh, Jesus only appeared to be in a body. He didn't really have a body, because that would be below God to have an organism, an organic body. So the docetists were a problem here in the context of 1 John, and they saw this body as more an illusion than a verity. But the fact that there aren't a lot of self-proclaimed docetists around today doesn't make this doctrine or this verse and a half irrelevant for us. It's still very much an issue for us today. In fact, we know that it's absolutely true that there are people who do not, quote, confess Jesus, as per verse 3a. On the other hand, of course, God be praised, there are people who do, quote, confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, verse 2b. So what are we to make of all this? John says, those who confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh are from God. Well, those who make that confession of verse 2b, which I just mentioned, that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, they are from God in the sense that this confession is true, and therefore, as true, it is from God. Now, do we need to argue that every single person or being or rational spirit that can make that claim is necessarily regenerated? I don't think so. Part of the reason is in the New Testament we see numerous examples in the Gospels where the demons have great theology and proclaim to the people around them that this is the Son of God Himself, and obviously there He is in the flesh, and yet they're not redeemed. And there could be people who, just out of assent or formality, might profess the Chalcedonian Creed, which we use today, the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed, especially the Chalcedonian. It talks about the nature of Jesus Christ, keeps saying over and over that he's not divided, he is one man, he's God and man, not two persons, etc. The reality is that those who believe this with Regenerating faith, though, are certainly from God. And I would say even the statement itself is from God, because it's clearly true that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. What are we celebrating in this season? That Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. And John does mean, I think it's important to say this here, that he does mean that this profession that I just mentioned, Jesus Christ come in the flesh, is to be taken in the most positive possible way. And this is a good thing, especially in those days, but even today, it is a wonderful thing and we should view it that way. Why testing the spirits is the main occupation of faithful church members, because there are so many frauds in the world, because Christ's historical incarnation is at the center of our faith, and finally, because anti-Christianity is the true church's great foil, verse 3b. This is the spirit of the anti-Christ, which you heard was coming, and now is in the world already. Again, keep in mind the context. I'm going to argue here, just from this half-verse, that I believe 1 John was written before 70 AD, because I think the Antichrist is Nero. And John also wrote the book of Revelation, and in it, he details how the great King Jesus slew Antichrist and all his followers. So, this is another case where we have a contextual situation that also still is relevant for us today, because the spirit of anti-Christianity, anti-Christ, is certainly very much with us today. Now, when I say FOIL children, F-O-I-L, I mean anti-Christianity is the absolute opposite the mirror inverse image of what we are. We are pro or affirming Christianity. The world is anti-Christianity. Okay, so the Antichrist is sort of the ultimate anti-Christian, if you will. Now, as I already told you, I believe that Antichrist is come and gone, but the spirit of the Antichrist is still in those in the world. And we should also say that anti-Christianity is not only the church's great foil, but to use a similar word, it's also one of our biggest foes or enemies as well. Anti-Christianity is an enemy, and I am of the mindset that anti-Christianity is to be both resisted and defeated by God's people. by the Church of the Living God. I don't share the perspective that we are to succumb to it, that we are to accept it, or that we are to become complacent about it, which I think is the state of many Christians in the West today. I don't share that perspective. I think that the Bible is very clear that we are to defeat anti-Christianity. And I believe our brother the Apostle John supports this militant position, spiritually militant position. done in grace and done in the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God. And we're going to see it in the verses that immediately follow these, and also in chapter 5 verses 1 through 5. He affirms that our faith in Christ, the redeemed church, overcomes or conquers the world. And that's not just a mild overcoming. This is a defeating, a crushing, a conquering of the world. That's what you're in. The world and the church are at odds. There's no question about it. The Spirit and the world cannot commingle any more than water and oil. They are completely at enmity with each other. Now I'm talking about the true church, of course. Much of the false church has already long ago collapsed into the world. They're irrelevant. The true church is very much at odds with the world. That's something we need to accept. If we don't, then we're just going to weaken our own faith and our own witness and we will not be honoring God, which is the worst thing, and making any input which is also bad. So, this much is for sure. that the church and the world are at odds, and that anti-Christ and anti-Christianity are not good things. They're not neutral things. They're not okay things. They're not healthy things. They're not something we should just accept as if it is what it is. No, it's not. These are not good things. And verse 3b makes this point very forcefully. Also, without any shade of doubt, anti-Christianity stands virtually no chance against the true church. I keep thinking, as I was preparing this sermon, of one of the vignettes in one of the obscure Star Wars movies. And I even tried to look it up, I couldn't find it. where Skywalker is in a completely hopeless state. His enemies are all around him. And he says something like, here's your chance to surrender. And they're like, what? Surrender? I'm not quoting just right. You Star Wars people probably, unless I'm dreaming this up, I'm pretty sure this is true. But that's the picture of the church. Yeah, we're outnumbered, if you will, but not really. So we got the angels with us and all the saints. But the world doesn't stand a ghost of a chance against Jesus Christ or his faithful church. It may appear that anti-Christianity is doing very well, but in fact, it really isn't. But this doesn't mean that we won't suffer and have to persevere, because that's exactly what we're going to have to do. And by God's grace, we will. Well, dears, as you know, we always like to add a little more application at the end of the exegetical sections. Let's do that and understand why testing the spirits is good for everybody. As usual, what's good for the church is good for the world. The old expression, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And testing the spirits is no exception to this universal rule. But the only people who can do this testing of the spirits are the rulers of the world. the leaders of the earth, those to whom the earth has been given, Matthew 5, 5, the meek members of the church, the true Christians. You're the only ones that can do this testing of the spirits, the faithful and regenerated members of Christ's loving church. So let us be more fully convinced concerning why testing the spirits is good for everybody. First, Because deceit, D-E-C-E-I-T, damages every human soul. Lies, myths, prevarication, deceit, and whatever other descriptive, unsightly terms you might think of, are not good for human beings or for the creation itself. It's just bad. But the fallen world exists in the spiritually toxic environment all the time, every day. They breathe that air constantly. And we used to too. And as the fact that we still live in a fallen world, those toxic fumes still seek to get to our nostrils. And they do sometimes. We might sniff it and we hate it. It's really bad. Here's how all this works. The world lives in darkness and death and lies and deceit, which leads to more lies and more deceit. And then when a lie or a deceit is challenged, in some way or another, and someone might start wondering about a certain lie, or a lifestyle, or a belief system, the lies and the liars get hanked up to the next level, where people are again told that their lie is the truth. And that's the world you live in. So there's this constant cycle of building lies upon lies, deceit upon deceit, ad nauseum, like a narcotic drug, until finally destruction comes with the truth. The judgment day. Not only the ultimate judgment day, but any other judgment day. If, and this is a huge caveat, if faith in Christ and repentance is not forthcoming. That's how the world that you live in operates. But the means that God has given us, his church, to deal with this dynamic is to test the spirits. Isn't that interesting? That's the medicine, if you will, test the spirits to counter this deceit, the very subject of today's text and sermon. But the service we do in Testing the spirits is not just for ourselves, it's for the world's benefit too, since they cannot do this testing of the spirits because they, like we used to be, are in complete bondage to the spirit of Antichrist and Satan himself. You know that the truth is always better than lies, even though truth can sometimes hurt. And this is why I would always encourage you to invite your unbelieving friends to a faithful church where they may be committed to a bunch of lies that the world thinks are okay. You know, everybody's got their opinion. But bring them somewhere where they can hear the truth. If the Holy Spirit's at work in them, be amazed what God would do. It's a wonderful opportunity for us to do that. And this will be the subject of our last point here. Why testing the spirits is good for everybody, because deceit damages every human soul, but the truth, Jesus Christ, benefits all of creation. And notice that the truth is the person of Jesus Christ himself, as he boldly claimed in John 14 6. Now this doesn't mean that there's not also theological, philosophical, propositional, empirical, ordinary, or even mundane truth, but it does mean that all truth is God's truth, and that all truth ultimately centers on and emanates from the person of the truth who has entered the world, through whom God created the world, the divine Logos, Jesus Christ himself. All truth funnels through Him. He is the church's head and Redeemer, and He is the world's ruler, judge, and sovereign. But there's, especially in this beautiful season of Advent, are we not vividly reminded that the gift of the Son of God was offered to all people everywhere? And that even though we must, as the faithful church, view the world as it is, and as God would describe it and tell us to view it, is it not true that the whole created realm is given the benefit of Christ's incarnation? He is offered to all people everywhere. Did the angel not say this on Bethlehem's plain to the humble shepherds in Luke 2, 10 and 11? Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. This is the answer to the problem that we were all in as slaves of Satan, the Antichrist, the world, sin, hell, death, damnation, and condemnation when we were under the wrath of God, which we were. Every single one of us was conceived under the wrath of God. At some point, we were regenerated. We were baptized. We were brought into the church. We have the blessings of Jesus. This is the hope for the world. The only way out of the lies and deceit web is the person of the truth, Jesus Christ himself. And there's in a sanctified way you may put him to any test you want. Jesus Christ will pass it. He's not threatened by it or put off by it. He is able to meet every single need of a sincere heart. He will answer every prayer of those who truly want Him. All who desire Him may have Him. And this is the hope for the world in which you live. But there is no other hope, dears. All the rest of it is pure deceit. Every false gospel, every false god, will lead people nowhere but to hell. They need this gospel. We need to test the spirits. For all human beings who are by God's grace alone regenerated by the blessed Holy Spirit, and who because of this are now justified, adopted, sanctified, and glorified, We, by God's grace, believe in the person of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, the Divine Logos, the Son of God, God-Man, shed his blood for us, and we love God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ's blood has atoned for our sins. We receive that by faith. That's the good news for us and the world. and we live in him by faith. Beloved, testing the spirits is our responsibility as the church. We really don't have any alternative. We honor God our Father when we discover Jesus his son through testing the spirits. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for that. It is a great thing to be able to do that. We do it in the community of the saints here in the church, and we thank you that you have granted to us the glorious Holy Spirit himself through the Lord Jesus Christ, the one that we have believed in by grace. We thank you that you did this and you led us to yourself by the Holy Spirit. We pray that we would be those who live in the fullness of Jesus in the Spirit. In whose name Christ alone we pray, amen.