Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has
for us here today.
If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in First John, Chapter
4.
You can open up with us there to First John, Chapter 4.
And we've been looking at First John here for a little while.
We've gone through chapters one, two, and three, and what we've
been looking at so far has been the idea of fellowship with
God.
And really that's what the book of First John's all about.
It speaks of having fellowship with God, and then from there it
talks about how as we as believers are having fellowship with
God, what that looks like with fellowship with others.
And so we started with in First John, him talking about what
salvation is, how we can have that relationship and that fellowship
with Him.
And then what do we do when we stumble in that relationship with
Him?
That means we come to a place in our life where we've made mistakes
through sin and we've allowed that divide to come between the Lord
and the believer in our hearts.
And then what do we do?
First John 1:9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So it talks about things that will hinder our fellowship.
And chapters one, two, and even into three talks a little bit
about things that would hinder our fellowship.
And then obviously on the other side of that, things that help
our fellowship with God and strengthen our fellowship.
And just as even in a relationship that we have, maybe
with a spouse or a friend or a family member, there's things that
we can do to harm our relationship, and there's things
that we can do to strengthen our relationship.
And I, I many times when we're dealing with people that have struggles
with fellowship with each other, one of the biggest things
is communication, right?
You, you've heard that communication is key in all relationships,
and that's same thing for our relationship with God.
Now, how does God communicate to us?
Well, we're going to look a little bit more about that here this
evening.
But God communicates to us through His Word and through the
speaking and guidance and conviction and comfort of the Holy
Spirit.
And how do we communicate with Him?
Well, we communicate to him through the way that we pray to him,
we call out to him, we praise him, we worship him, we follow his
word in obedience.
These are all ways in which we can have that fellowship with God.
And so if you can learn anything through this study, I think
a meaningful understanding of that word fellowship.
And we've used the Greek word koinonia.
And if there's one thing I will drill into you, in my tenure
as a pastor here, probably if I'm here for 50, 60 years, one of
the words I'll say the most is that Greek word koinonia.
What does that mean?
It means not just being with each other physically.
I mean, that's one aspect of fellowship.
But it's.
It's deeper than that.
It's a spiritual connection.
It's.
It's connecting with a common bond.
And obviously we know that we as Christians can connect with the
common bond of our salvation and the Spirit that indwells us.
But obviously we have that bond with the Lord now that he is
our Father and we are his children.
And that's why we see in 1st John 11 lot of references to believers
being called little children because we are in the family of God.
If you go back to chapter three one John three one, behold
what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we believers
should be called sons of God or children of God.
And so there's this beautiful picture that John lays out here in
this book.
And he says, basically, when we are in fellowship with God, it's
like walking with him as his children.
But with that comes things that hinder our fellowship.
We talked about unrepentant sin hinders our fellowship.
Bitterness, anger, all these things that we talked about in chapters
one and two, this idea of a false religion, fake love, empty
faith.
And we saw that throughout.
And they basically says, you got to abide in me.
If you're not abiding in me, you're not walking in fellowship
with me.
Because you can say you're walking with me, you can tell other
people that you're walking with me.
But really what makes the truth is that you're actually walking
with me.
So that you don't just love in word, but also indeed, you're not
just loving with what we would call maybe a disrespectful or dishonest
spirit.
But we're loving God with truth, and we're loving others with
truth.
But we get here to chapter four and we're going to see that
there's another aspect of our life that can cause a division not
in our salvation but in our relationship with God, when it comes
to fellowship.
And that's what we would see as false teaching.
Some people call it heresy.
But we would see here that he's going to warn believers, he's
going to warn his children not to believe and trust in and live
in false teaching.
And so verse number one speaks to a really interesting truth.
It speaks to this truth that not every spiritual experience comes
from God and not every encounter that we have with our emotions
or we have in church or we have when someone's teaching us something
is from God.
And we're going to see that here in verse one, he says, beloved.
Again, a reference to believers believe not every spirit,
but try the spirits, whether they are of God.
So if he says, try the spirits, whether they are of God,
that means that some spirits, some teaching, some lessons, some
experiences can come from another place other than God.
And he's already spoken here in this book about the spirit of
Antichrist, which essentially is this.
The, the enemy is against God.
And so therefore anything the enemy pushes forward, any teaching
that the enemy pushes forward, any, any action that the enemy is
presenting to us that is against God is from this spirit of
Antichrist.
It's against God.
And so he says, try these spirits, try these teachings, whether
they are of God, because if they're not of God, they're from
another place, another source.
And then he gives his reasoning why he says, because many
false prophets are gone out into the world.
So we understand through way of context that the way that these
spirits are spread amongst the brethren is through what we see here
is false prophets, people that are proclaiming the truth, seemingly
proclaiming the truth, but yet at the same time they're proclaiming
lies.
Because that's what that word prophet means.
By the way, prophet just means someone who's proclaiming the truth.
They're, they're, they're at least their truth.
The, the truth that they believe or maybe a lie that they
want to have people believe that is true.
And so he says there's going to be false teachers, false prophets
that are in the world.
And those false prophets are going to try to get believers to
believe something contrary to what God would have us believe.
And so John is warning believers to not just believe anything
they hear, to not just see an amazing feat and go, wow, that must
be from God.
Don't just go with what people say when they say, oh, this is from
God now, trust me.
And there's no source to their teaching.
Their teaching is their feelings.
Their teaching is their experience.
Their teaching is Their emotion.
I've heard people say this.
They said, you know, God has given me a word today.
And then they proclaim something that is contrary to Scripture.
What God says in this passage is that that is a false teaching,
that is a false prophet, because God is never going to speak
to an individual and contradict himself in accordance
to his word.
And so that's what this warning is all about.
He says, don't assume that every spiritual experience, every
spiritual teaching, every demonstration of spiritual power
is from God.
And I think that's sometimes what we automatically think.
Well, if the person's using the name of Jesus or they have a
miraculous thing happen in their life, something that we can't
explain, that that must be from God.
Now, I don't want to get too far down this rabbit trail here this
evening, but what I will tell you is that there are spiritual things
going on behind the scenes that we don't visibly see.
And not all those spiritual things that are going on behind the
scenes are good.
We know that there's darkness in this world.
Ephesians says that we're dealing with principalities and powers
and workers of darkness.
There's evil in this world.
I think all of us would understand that.
All of us would agree that there are spiritual things that are
going on that are not from God.
Now, they're not going to conquer God.
We're going to talk about that here in a few moments.
Even the Bible is going to say that even we as believers can overcome
them in the power of God.
But he says here, be cautious about this.
We must test the spiritual experiences, the spiritual teachings
and spiritual phenomenon that we see in our life, and to see if
they are really from God.
So he says here, why should we test these things?
Well, because there's false teachers out there.
And so many people think that when they encounter something, maybe
with an emotional thing or a spiritual thing, there's an impression
there.
There's.
There's an amazement.
And ultimately there can be some people that believe in lies
and overlook things that they should see because of all this power
that's happening before them.
And it's important to realize that there are false prophets in
this world.
I think a lot of times we can recognize that, but maybe we can't
discern it when it's in front of us.
And so even though the.
The.
As we see here in First John, even though the early church had
a really a direct connection to the original church, what we would
call church leaders like John and others, there was still at that
time false teachers and if there was false teachers at that
time, all the more reason to believe that there's a lot more false
teachers even today.
And so he says, test the spirits.
Now, we're going to talk here in a few moments of how we test the
spirit, because this isn't going to happen like this.
You hear a voice and you go, hey, where are you from?
That's not how it always goes.
Sometimes it might be happening from behind a pulpit or
it might be happening from a screen.
We might be hearing a person who has the title pastor before his
name or whatever, some credentials, and we must say, well,
you know what?
If he has those credentials, he must be trustworthy.
He must be speaking the truth.
But that's not what the Bible says.
The Bible says that we have to be careful not about the person who's
preaching, but we have to be careful about the message that's
coming out.
And so what we see here is that there's a responsibility, not
just for pastors, not just for leaders, but there's a responsibility
of every Christian, specifically, I would say leaders,
but every Christian, to test whether the teachings are coming
in accordance to the Word of God or those teachings are coming
from a different place.
And so this would come through the gift of discernment that the
Holy Spirit brings us to teach us unto all truth.
And so all of these things need to be judged by what we would
say is God's standard.
Now, what's God's standard Scripture?
We have to judge every experience, every teaching, every
display of power by the Word of God, because if it does not match
up with the Word of God, it's coming from a different source.
That's what the Bible is telling us right here.
And we know that in second Peter, chapter one, verse 20 and
21, that true prophecy does not come from private interpretation.
Okay?
It doesn't come from a person.
It comes from true prophecy comes from the Word of God.
And the preacher or the teacher is just a vessel of the truth
that's coming from the Word.
So if there is a person that's proclaiming a truth that is contrary
to Scripture, that is, that constitutes a false teaching.
Now, I'm not talking about someone misspeaking from the pulpit.
I'm talking about someone willingly or even some ways, unwillingly,
not even knowing what they're doing, misleading people away from
the Word of God.
And so this means that there will be agreement with the Word of
God to the message.
And so how do we know whether or not a message or a person is coming
from God or coming from evil coming from, as it says here, this
false place, these.
These evil spirits.
Well, verse two, hereby know ye the spirit of God.
So this is how you know that this message, this experience, this
feeling is coming from God and not from another place.
Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in, come
in the flesh is of God.
So he says here, the very first test that we test this message
from or this teaching from, or this experience from is whether what
they teach about Jesus, whether they teach Jesus properly
or they teach Jesus contrary to the word of God.
And so true prophecy or true teaching will always present the
true Jesus.
I want you to hear this tonight because if you could take
any practical thing with you here this evening that you could
take with you as fuel or as a tool for your spiritual life is to
test it first and foremost with what they teach about Jesus.
What is the message about?
Is it about the true Jesus?
So.
So the way that you could phrase it is this true teaching,
the true message, will always present the true biblical Jesus.
So.
So let's say someone comes knocking at your door.
Some, probably most of you have had that experience.
Someone comes knocking at their door and they say, hey, we
want to tell you something.
We want to tell you what we believe.
And they come across and they sound good, they sound spiritual.
They might even bring out a Bible and start quoting the Bible.
The very first thing that I would advise you to do is ask them
what they believe about Jesus.
Completely ask them, do they believe Jesus is God?
Do they believe that Jesus came to this earth and lived a perfect
life and died on the cross for our sins and he's the only way, and
that he conquered death through the resurrection.
Ask those questions and ask pointed questions, specific questions,
because the Bible does say that there will be people who preach
Jesus, but it's not the Jesus that we see in Scripture.
And I want you to see that passage of Scripture, because I think
a lot of times people will say, well, they're saying Jesus and
they're saying Bible, and they're saying all these different
things.
So doesn't that mean they're good?
Doesn't that mean that they are someone that we can trust?
We'll go to Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 4
with me, because I want you to see this here this evening.
One of the cautions that I would have for all believers is to
be aware that just because someone says Jesus or church or heaven
or the kingdom or whatever, it doesn't matter what they say.
It matters what they're preaching about.
Jesus completely.
Completely.
And so if you go to Second Corinthians, chapter 11, and you
look at verse number four, you're going to see that even the
apostle Paul warned us against people preaching a different Jesus,
a different Gospel, a different spirit.
And I'm not going to sit here this evening and list out all the
false religions and all the false teachers, because that would.
Would take all of our time.
So when I want to teach about the true Jesus and the true gospel
and the true word of God, the best thing to do is expose you to
the one and only truth.
And then anything else that doesn't match up with that is counterfeit.
You don't need to know all the false religions out there.
You just need to know the one true faith in Jesus Christ.
If you know the true Jesus, anything else that doesn't line up
with him will be a red flag.
And you'll say, nope, warning sign.
That's not true Jesus.
And so I want you to see what Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verse
4, says.
It says, for if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus whom we have
not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, here's another reference
to the spiritual realm.
He says, if you receive another spirit which ye have not
received, or another gospel which ye have not accepted, ye might
well bear with him.
And so the idea here is to be aware and recognize that people will
come with fancy religious language, but it will not be the
true Jesus necessarily.
So we need to test that.
And so we go to back to First John, and we see, okay, he says,
test it.
So it's not the only test, by the way.
I need to be clear about that.
It's not the only test because someone might have Jesus, right?
But they might skew some other aspects of that.
And we need to be careful.
But I would say the first and most important test is testing what
they say about Jesus.
So if you go back to First John, chapter four, verse two, he
says, okay, test the spirits, test the message, test the spiritual
experience.
And then he tells you how to test it.
He says, here's the easy test.
Do they confess or profess or proclaim that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh and is of God?
Now you would say, why do they mention that?
Because at the time here in this case, the major prevailing false
teaching out there was something called Gnosticism.
And what Gnosticism was was essentially a belief that Jesus came
from God.
But Jesus did not come as a man.
He did not come and.
And come in flesh and bone.
And so what they would say, is this Jesus?
We believe Jesus came, but he's not who you say that he is.
He didn't come as a man.
He didn't come in the flesh.
Well, that would be contradicting what Gospel of John
says.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And we know that he was born of a woman.
He was 100% God.
Yes, but 100% man.
And so here in this case, John is contextually dealing with one
false teaching about Jesus.
That doesn't mean that the only thing that we ask them is, do
you believe Jesus came in the flesh and is from God and is God.
But what he's saying here is they need to test completely that
Jesus is the true Jesus of the Bible.
In this case with John in the early church, it was dealing with
Jesus's humanity.
And so that's why he's talking about that there.
So it's not the only test, but it's the first and most important
test.
Verse 3.
And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus has come
in the flesh is not of God.
Meaning if there is an inconsistency with their teaching
of Jesus, it is not from God.
If they're willingly misleading people in the fact that
Jesus is not who he says he is in Scripture, they are not from God.
And so John, in John's day, the issue was about Jesus coming
in the body, truly coming in the body, and, and having a bodily
resurrection.
And we must believe that to be true.
And by the way, I would stop right now and say that if you do
not have a strong grip on what you believe about Jesus and who he
is and what he has done, that's a good place to start when
it comes to your own personal study.
Discipleship starts with who Jesus is.
And so if you say, well, I'm not really sure about Jesus, or I
really, I don't really don't know what I believe about Jesus,
I would say that's really where you need to dig your heels
in and start to study.
Because really we know that Jesus says in John 14:6, I am the
way, I am the truth, and I'm the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
And so if you don't understand completely who Jesus is according
to his word, I would say you shouldn't go anywhere else.
That's the first place to go.
Because there's going to be no way to discern whether something's
coming from God or somewhere else if you don't even know what
you believe about Jesus.
And so he.
We need to know that in John's case, John is saying, hey, look,
you need to have a proper view of who Jesus is.
And in this case, believe that he came in the flesh and that he
dwelt among us and that he died on the cross for our sins, and
they conquered death through the resurrection with a bodily resurrection.
By the way, there's people today that don't believe even in
a bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
They believe that it was some sort of a spiritual resurrection,
that his power is amongst us today, but his body is still in the
grave.
Folks, if that be the case, the whole Bible is a lie.
Because what, what if Paul.
I mean, if you want to get into a deep study, go to First, First
Corinthians, chapter 15.
Basically, Paul says in First Corinthians, chapter 15, if we don't
have the resurrection, we don't have anything.
Okay?
Everything that we do is in vain if Jesus didn't conquer death
through the resurrection.
So if you're having a conversation with somebody and it
goes like this, well, oh, I believe Jesus existed.
I believe he's God.
I, I believe he died on the cross and paid the price for my sins.
But I don't really believe that a bodily resurrection is necessary.
He can just spiritually live with us today, folks, then what Paul
says is that you have no hope in your resurrection one day.
Because if Jesus didn't conquer death and bodily resurrect,
then.
Then we don't have that same hope that's promised to us throughout
the New Testament as well.
So we have to believe Jesus in the word of God and what that says
completely.
So I, I won't spend too much time on the Gnosticism and, and that
belief system, but go to verse number three with me.
He says, every spirit that confesses not that Jesus has come,
come in the flesh, is not of God, and this is that spirit of Antichrist.
So what is he saying here?
He says anyone that doesn't preach Jesus properly, who denies
one element of Jesus is, Is against him.
It's, it's the spirit of Antichrist that's already been mentioned
before, earlier on in chapter two.
And so the way that we could summarize it is this.
To deny the true Jesus is, is the basis of false teaching.
It's the basis of that spirit of Antichrist.
And essentially what it is, is.
It opposes the truth of God and it offers what we would consider
some sort of a substitute or a placeholder for what God has already
said.
So it's basically people trying to create their own belief
system, their own gospel.
And if we go back to Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 4,
he says if someone comes to preaches a different gospel, be aware,
be on guard.
I read this quote and I wrote it down.
It says this.
The devil doesn't care at all if you know Jesus or love Jesus or
pray to Jesus, as long as it's a false Jesus, a make believe Jesus,
a Jesus who is not true, cannot save.
So I want you to be aware of that.
That don't just the way that I would say it is this.
Don't just take for granted that, hey, I believe that there's
a big man upstairs.
I believe in religion.
I believe that Jesus was a good man.
So I'm okay.
Satan would love that.
Because Satan loves religious people.
He loves religious people that are against God.
Okay?
Because religion is all about how, in many cases, religion is all
about how a man or a person can earn their way to heaven.
We know biblically we cannot earn our way to heaven.
So therefore Satan wants people to flock into that path.
He wants people to think that they can earn their way.
He wants people to believe in idols and false gods.
And so what we need to see here tonight is that it's not just
about being religious.
It's not just about having a spiritual experience.
That's not just about going to church.
It's about knowing and believing and trusting in the one
and only true Jesus who can save us from our sins.
And so he says, if they are preaching something contrary to that
true Jesus, they are the spirit of the Antichrist.
Where if ye have heard that it should come, meaning ultimately it
will be fulfilled in this one leader in the end times.
But as it is as a spirit, he says, and even now has already is
in the world today.
So what we can see is that he says the spirit of the Antichrist
was already there at that time.
The spirit of the Antichrist is here today.
Now, there's a lot of confusion with, with that.
I will say that the ultimate consummation of this spirit of Antichrist
will be found in what I believe is an end times political
false religion leader of the world in the end times.
But in essence, what John is saying here is that the spirit of
the Antichrist is promoted back at this time and it's promoted
today.
So you would say, wow, well that sounds pretty scary.
Like how, how do I know how?
How can we overcome evil?
How can we overcome the spirit of the Antichrist?
Well, John mentions here in verse 4 something amazing.
He says you are not of that.
You are not of that evil spirit.
You.
You cannot be controlled by that.
He says, ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them.
So you're.
What is he saying here?
He says you're an overcomer, not in your own strength, but as
he says here at the end of verse four.
And this is an amazing verse that we can take as way of testimony
in our life if we're believers.
Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
Folks, the Bible is very clear that there is evil in this world.
The Bible is very clear that even the world system is run by evil.
The Bible is very clear that Satan, our greatest adversary, is
alive today.
And he's moving about looking for opportunities to seek, kill,
destroy, devour.
And that sometimes makes Christians fearful.
But what this verse is telling us is that in the power of God, in
the presence of God, with our identity set in Jesus Christ, there
is no reason to fear.
Why?
Because he that's living within us is greater than the one
that is in the world today, now, in our.
In our own strength, outside of the blood of Jesus Christ, on
our account, outside of his grace.
If we're just unsaved people trying to walk about being good people,
the Bible does say that the evil one will overcome us.
But ultimately we see that it's not our strength, it's the one
who is living within us that gives us the power to overcome the
enemy.
And so I would call this the protection of God to his children,
the protection of the child of God.
So the child of God does not need to fear evil or the spirit of
the Antichrist.
Even though we need to be warned about the dangers of it, we
need to be warning about the false teaching that comes along with
it.
We need to understand that the Holy Spirit that indwells us as believers
is greater than anyone that could come against us with false
teaching.
And so there's no reason to fear false teachers.
I mean, sometimes when I teach about false teaching, people are
like, well, how can any of us know?
You know, maybe I'm being deceived.
There's no reason to fear.
Go back to Scripture.
Go back to His Word and allow the Holy Spirit to guide you into
all truth, as the Bible says.
And so the believer has a resource.
The resource is the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit leads us to the Word of God.
And the Word of God leads us to understanding God more and strengthening
our fellowship and our relationship with him.
And so Jesus gives us the victory.
So the everlasting Presence of the spirit gives us the confidence
to know that we can overcome evil in this world.
We can overcome the enemy.
And so this means that the Christian has no reason to fear.
Second Timothy, chapter 1, verse 7.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, power, and of love
and of a sound mind.
And.
And I think that a lot of times, including my own life, I've
seen the spirit of fear grip me to the place where I'm not able
to do the things that God has called me to do because I'm so afraid
that I'm either going to fail or I'm going to lead someone else
astray.
Or.
Or maybe I'm gonna fall for a false teaching or maybe God can't
redeem what I've just done.
The Bible says, no, God has not given us that spirit of fear
that grips us.
It doesn't mean that we don't have fear.
Like, for example, you know, like, I think it's okay for you still,
like, if a snake slithered through the floor here tonight.
I don't think, like, you're not a good Christian if you get upset
and scared and, like, move away.
That's not what that's talking about there.
It's talking about that fear, that spirit of fear that grips us
and petrifies us to a place where we can't move for him.
So the opposite of that, the thing that God has given us is power.
The Greek word for that word, power is where we get dynamite from.
Power, explosive power.
God has given us not a spirit of fear, but a power and of love
and of a sound mind, clear thinking, sober thinking, understanding
that, hey, you know what?
What Satan wants to do is he wants to scramble our minds and get
us so confused and filled with anxiety and doubt and confusion.
And the Bible says that God is not the author of confusion.
Confusion.
And so if we're defining our place as a believer as we don't know
what to do, we don't know where to think, we don't know where
to turn, that's the place in our life where we need to go back
and say, no, God has not given me the spirit of fear.
He's given me the power of a sound mind.
And I need to start thinking clearly about what God's word says.
And then that I need to go back and claim in my life and believe
in.
So it says in verse four that God, the one who lives within you,
is greater than the ones who are in the world.
And then it says in verse five, they are of the world.
Those evil things, that, that's of the world system.
Therefore speak day of the world.
That's, that's all about the world.
That's the world's way.
It's the world's thinking, it's the world's actions and it says
the world heareth them.
So that, that kind of teaching resonates in this world.
Satan's thinking resonates in this world.
Why?
Because it makes sense to us.
Because if you're of the world, if that's where you live,
that's your identity, then Satan's path, Satan's idea, Satan's
wisdom is his teachings are going to make a lot of sense to people
because they're going to say, well, yeah, that makes sense.
That's what makes me feel good.
That makes sense to me.
Your truth is your truth.
Make it up however you want to be.
That's the world system.
And that sounds good to someone who is not redeemed by the
power of God.
So you, you think about like today, like I, I've heard someone
recently, they were like, well, that's what you believe and
that's great.
This is what I believe and that's great.
And I think we both can be right.
The problem is, is like, what if we both put believe two different
things that contradict each other?
How can one be right and one be wrong at the same time, but then
be okay?
It's not.
And so what we see here in this case is that he's speaking to
this idea that we would expect the world to be evil.
Why?
Because the world is run by an evil, evil spirit.
And the evil spirit that guides them is something that makes
sense to them and the world's going to hear it.
But verse six, we are of God, meaning we're not of the world.
We're not in the world.
Even though we're in the world, we're not of the world.
He says we are of God.
He that knoweth God heareth us.
He that is not of God heareth not us.
Hereby know we, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
The way that we can understand the truth of God is understanding,
number one, that we are children of God, understanding that
when his voice comes, we can discern that and we can know that.
And when it's not the truth, when it's counterfeit, when it's
something contrary to the word of God, the spirit of God and the
way of God, we can identify that and put up our hands and say,
you know what?
That's not something that's going to enter into my mind.
It's certainly not something that's going to enter into my heart
and it's not going to enter into my actions.
And so those who are of the world act like the world, speak like
the world.
Those that are of God should act.
The ways that God has called us to act, speak the way that God
has called us to speak.
I think about Matthew chapter 12, verse 34.
Jesus is speaking and he says, O generation of vipers, how can ye,
being evil, speak good things?
For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
So really what we are harboring in our hearts will be manifested
by what we say, by what we do, regardless of, of what we want people
to think about us.
Because there's a lot of people in this world that are trying
to, to falsify their testimony.
They're trying to have people think about good things about them,
even though that it's not true about them.
But what Jesus is saying is that evidently eventually what's
in our heart will come out of our mouth.
It will, it will be manifested by the way that we live our life.
Our testimony will align with what we are trusting in.
And so the people that are in the world, they're going to reject
the truth of God and actually preach against the truth of God.
You see that today with, with things that are what the Bible says
is good, people say is bad, what the Bible says is bad, people
say is good.
It's a complete opposite of what God has ordained for us in this
world.
And so we can see that the world and the people that are defined
as the world evil are going to feel comfortable and celebrate evil.
That's what the Bible says.
It's in their character.
But it says those who hear God, those who are of the Lord, are
going to enjoy the truth, they're going to enjoy fellowship,
they're going to enjoy things that honor the truth of God.
And so what would this look like?
This would look like even though I hear a truth that my flesh
does not like, I rejoice in it because it's from God.
I, I don't know about you guys, but there was a time in my
life when I would hear preaching that would step on my toes,
that I would get really upset.
I would just be like, who does that guy think he is up there preaching?
He doesn't have that right to say that about me.
He doesn't know what I've gone through and I don't like what he's
teaching.
Okay, that's flesh speaking.
Because Flesh wants to reject truths of God.
But when we are walking in fellowship with God, as much as we
might not necessarily like the feeling that this preaching is bringing
to us because it makes us uncomfortable, that should bring
us to a place of conviction.
That should bring us to a place of confession, which should
bring us back to a place of fellowship.
So the preaching of the word of God is there to help us.
It's there to teach us.
It's there to convict us.
It's there to get us to a place in our life where we can, as
First John chapter one says, get back into the right relationship
with him to have a spirit of repentance.
You can't have revival without repentance.
You can't be on fire for God unless you recognize the things in
your life that are causing you to have your fellowship separated
from the Lord.
And so what we need to see here in this case is that when true
biblical preaching comes, whether you like it or not, it's
there to help you.
And that's what this passage of Scripture is speaking to.
Like, we can discern the spirit of truth.
And so understanding this allows us to get to a place where
we can identify the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
And so we want the spirit of truth in our lives.
The way that we can discern the spirit of truth in our lives
is to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us and to cling and hold on
to the relationship that we have with God.
It goes all the way back to what we see in First John, chapter
two, where Jesus is talking about abiding in me.
If you go back to First John chapter 2, verse 24, he says, Let
that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning.
If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in
you, she also shall continue in the Son and in the Father.
And he talks about this idea of abiding in the Lord and he in
us.
If you want to know more about that beautiful picture, you can go
to John 15 and look at that passage of scripture talking about
Jesus being the vine and we the branches.
We have to abide in him, who without him we can do nothing.
And so that's what this passage is all about, about teaching
us to be be able to identify false teaching around us.
Because I. I have been around certain situations in my life that,
you know, people have said, well, this must be from God, because
this was an amazing experience.
Well, not every experience is from God.
That's.
That's what first.
First John 4:1 says, Test the spirits, whether they are of God.
Not every person who stands behind a pulpit or a podium or is
on a video is from God.
And we have to be careful about that.
And, and so what happens is the temptation is to look at the
way the preacher is preaching.
So a lot of times put.
People put a huge premium on confidence.
If someone gets up and they're just super confident, they have all
the, they have statistics to throw out at you.
They, they have stories to tell, they have experiences in their
own life.
They go, by the way, I have this degree and this degree and this
degree.
And this is what you should believe immediately in our human
nature.
Sometimes it's like, well, maybe they're right.
Like, okay, they're confident.
But, but I want you to understand that confidence does not
always equal competence in the teaching of the word of God.
Now, should a person be confident in preaching the word of
God?
Of course.
But at the same time, just because someone is confident in what
they're teaching, it doesn't mean that it's the truth.
They could just be confident in their lie.
They could be confident in their delusion.
And so what I would encourage you to do is not just look at someone
who's a powerful preacher and go, they must be speaking truth.
I mean, I grew up with, with different types of preachers coming
into our Christian school, okay?
So we would have chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week.
I did that from kindergarten to 12th grade.
So you can imagine how many preachers that I've heard in my life
preach.
All different types of preachers.
We had preachers that would stand behind the pulpit and just
read, never look up, keep monotone voice.
We had preachers that would get up and yell and scream and spit
and run up and down the aisles, get in the pew, jump over
the pew, all that kind of stuff.
We had guys who literally told jokes the whole sermon.
Like it was just a whole joke.
So it was like a 30 minute set of Christian comedy.
And you know, through that you, if you ask the kids, like, who's
your favorite preacher?
It was always the guy who was yelling and screaming and the guy
who told jokes.
Why?
Because it kept their attention.
They were like, oh man, that was so great.
He was the best preacher.
He had all these awesome stories and it's like, what did he,
what did he preach?
I, I couldn't tell you what he preached.
And so the idea is we have to be very cautious with equating entertainment
with true teaching.
Like, I'm not saying a preacher should get up or a Teacher
should get up and be monotone and not tell stories.
Jesus told stories and Jesus connected and gave symbols and analogies
and parables.
Like, so I'm not saying a bad teacher, like a bad skilled teacher
is a good preacher.
Preacher.
But what I'm saying is this.
We can't just look at somebody who is a polished public speaker,
someone who has a great following, someone who has good videos
on YouTube and has clear pictures and has great analogies
as saying, okay, everything they say must be true.
So what is the test?
If the test isn't, hey, they sound good.
What is the test?
The test is the word of God.
What did the Book of Acts say?
Be like a berean.
Okay?
Check what's being preached.
Double check it.
Match it up to scripture.
If it doesn't sound right to you, it might not be right.
So double check.
If you have access to talk to the person.
If you have a confusion about what was said, go up and ask them
a question.
Any preacher or teacher who is having the right motivations will
be willing to say, like, let's talk about that.
Maybe I misspoke.
Maybe I didn't wait.
Maybe I wasn't as clear.
Trust me, that's happened a ton of times with me.
I said something and someone came up later and goes, did you mean
this?
I'm like, no, I did not mean that.
Let me clarify.
But, but at the end of the day, what we need to see is that
the true test is not the skill of the orator.
The true test is the message.
And, and so I've been really thinking about these three words
here recently.
All right, so, so, so you have, you have the idea of motive.
What's the person's motive in bringing forth a lesson or a teaching
or a video or, or whatever.
What is their motive?
If at the end of all of their sessions they say, okay, now just
for the simple price of xyz, you can buy my Prague program and
now you can have more information.
I'm not saying it's wrong for people to sell content, but what
I am saying is that their highest motivation is trying to make
the dollar.
That might be a caution to be careful about what they are preaching.
But then you go to, okay, what's their method?
What's their method of preaching and teaching?
Well, if it's a method of, well, speaking of knowing a lot of
preachers, they would read one verse, they say, close your Bibles
and look up here at me and you're going to hear that.
It's like, well, that method might not be the best method.
Or, or let me just be honest with you.
The method I have heard one time was someone quoted a verse and
it wasn't anything about what that verse was talking about, but
they took one word out of that verse and preached a whole sermon
around that one word.
I'm like, that's not what that verse is saying.
So, so I'm not saying that certain types of preaching are right
and wrong.
What I'm saying is, is if their method is not the biblical
method of looking at it from a contextual picture and saying this
is what God wants us to know and live by in this, it's probably
the wrong method.
If the method is me getting up and telling you jokes for 30 minutes
and at the last five minutes, I tell you, okay, and just love God,
that's probably not the best method to bring forth the Word of
God.
That's not the way Paul preached.
It's not the way anyone preached back in the word of God.
Okay?
I'm not saying a pastor that tells jokes is wrong.
I'm just saying if that's his focus, okay, then we get lastly the
message itself.
And I think this is the core of all of this.
If the message that is being conveyed either through a 30 to 40
minute sermon or a five minute devotional, if the message does not
align with the word, reject it.
You know, you don't have to say, well, it's coming from a good
publisher, it must be good.
No, if it's something that throws up those, those radar, the,
the red flag and say, no, that doesn't sound right.
Look it up, test it.
And then I would say cast it out.
Don't, don't believe it.
And, and so it's so important to believe the right things because
we go back to what we believe is where we'll trust.
And where we trust is ultimately what we're staking everything
on.
And if I'm putting my trust in something that is not part of scripture,
that is not where I want to be, because that's, that's not surefooting.
The sure footing is found in the Word of God.
So wanted to stop there.
We could talk a lot more about that.
If you have any questions.
I, I have a lot of people telling me this.
Okay.
Do you think that so, and so is a good preacher?
And I'm, I, I love to you come to me.
I would love to give you my $0.02 about the preachers.
I might not know that person, but what I will say is that you have
been given every tool every, as a believer, to discern whether
or not someone's from God or someone is not from God.
Okay, God has given you the same spirit, the same spirit that
lives within me.
It's the same spirit lives within you.
You got the opportunity, you've got the guidance of the spirit
to lead you to a place.
If you have doubts, I would say trust that the Holy Spirit's
giving you that conviction.
Just say, no, that's not a person that I want to listen to.
But what I would say is this.
If you do want to talk about that you want to talk more about,
hey, what.
What is this?
I heard a preacher say this.
I would love to talk to you.
I know many other people would love to talk to you, but don't get
the fleece pulled over your eyes, because the Bible does say
that there are what we would call wolves in sheep's clothing.
They will look good on the outside, but you got to test them.
Test those spirits, whether they be of God or somewhere else.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
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You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch
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Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.