Biblical Discernment

The speaker discusses the importance of discernment and how it is related to maturity and the ability to distinguish between good and evil. The speaker references 1 John chapter 4 and emphasizes the need to test spirits and discern whether they are of God or of Satan. The speaker also highlights the importance of understanding what the spirit is confessing, particularly regarding the belief that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. The speaker warns against false prophets and teachings that mislead and deceive. The speaker encourages listeners to rely on the Word of God as the ultimate authority and to compare everything they hear to scripture. The speaker concludes by emphasizing the significance of recognizing whether teachings are of the world or of God. 4, 1 John chapter 4. We talked about discernment this morning in the morning message and lack of maturity for helping with that discernment tonight. We're going to look at biblical discernment in 1 John chapter 4. Beginning verse 1, he says, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but a tribe of spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know you the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of antichrist, whereas you have heard that it should come, and even now already is, it in the world. You are of God, my little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. They are of the world, therefore they speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God. He that knoweth God heareth us, and he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. As we look at this passage of scripture tonight, as I mentioned this morning, we've looked at discernment as being an after effect of either maturity or immaturity, spiritual immaturity, not being able to discern between evil and good. Tonight we also are going to see that Satan can also cause us not to be able to discern. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4, that the God of this world has blinded our eyes. And so any time we step away from the Word of God, we open up areas to be able to be confused, to be manipulated, to be tricked in our discernment. And sometimes it doesn't have to do with maturity, but it helps our senses, if we are mature, to be able to see. And so how do we make that discernment? And John, as he writes this epistle, this letter, he gives us four different tests. And the first one, he says, the test one is the Spirit. The Spirit. And it mentions the Spirit in chapter 3 and verse 24. He says, And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him, and hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us. And so he mentions that this Spirit, when we are saved, when we ask Jesus Christ to come into our hearts, the good thing is, is that God's Spirit indwells us. And so we are now in Christ, Christ is in us, and the Spirit is there to guide us, to direct us. But how do we know sometimes if it is the Spirit of God, or is it, as Jesus referred, the Spirit of Beelzebub, the Spirit of Satan? You've got to know which Spirit you're dealing with. And so how do we know if this is the Spirit of God, or if this is the Spirit of evil? He says there, as I mentioned in 1 Corinthians 4, that the God of this world, referring to Satan, has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine under them. And so he sets us up here, and we see so many different ideas and many different things today. We see the charismatic movement that's taken place, and there are those that we've got, we've been dealing with the guy in Malvern, through some inner circles of ours, that he now believes he has the power to cast out demons and stuff. And so how do we know if that's true or if that's not? Well, we've got to try the Spirit. And see, Satan is more than excited to come alongside of individuals and show them false to be able to persuade and lead people away from him. And so John, first of all, gives us this requirement. Notice what he says in verse 1. He says, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try with spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Not only are we setting ourselves up to be deceived because of immaturity, but we also have those that are going about in our world that are trying to deceive us. Today we live in a very deceptive world. Constantly we're being attacked. If you're on Facebook at all, then you've been attacked. If you have email, you've been attacked. If you have a phone number, guess what? You've been attacked. You've been called about different things or whatever. They finally got a hold of my name. And about last month, several of you got a call from me. They said they were representing me, needing money and everything else. And fortunately, people saw the deception. They called me and asked, Is this true? And I said, I would never ask for money through a text or a phone call, right? And so you ought to know that that wasn't me to begin with. But he said that there are these spirits, there are these false prophets, these false teachers that are out there, that their desire is to mislead you. Their desire is to trick you. Their desire is to bring you in. And we have seen in the past, we've seen these cult leaders that have deceived people and brought them in. And looking at the end of it, we say, how in the world could they have done that? How could people be so gullible to fall in that? But do you realize we have a whole lot of people sitting in churches today that are just as gullible and will follow that pastor or follow that one no matter where he leads them or what they decide to do? And so we see this requirement and it gives us the reason. Notice the reason. He said, why don't we try the spirits? Because many false prophets are gone out into the world. These false prophets are energized by wicked spirits. They are guided and they are directed by these wicked, evil spirits. And so they look real. They sound real. They sound good. And they appeal to our flesh, as we'll see here in just a minute. And so they easily get us tricked. They easily bring us in. And so the first thing that we have to do to make a biblical discernment is we have to know which spirit is it. Is it a good spirit or from God or is it an evil spirit? And so that's the first test. The second test is we have to understand what is that spirit confessing? What are they saying? And this is the part I believe that we a lot of times get messed up in our society today. Look at what he says in verse two. Hereby know you the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And so that is the test. When we look at the spirit, we have to determine if that spirit speaking from Jesus. We know the Bible tells us, I'll meet you this morning in John chapter one, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And so one of the things that Jesus Christ constantly in the Gospels claimed was that he was fully man. But we also saw during Christmas, not only was he fully man, but he was also fully God. He didn't have two different natures, but he was fully one nature in two different forms. And so it's very important that we understand and do this fact. John was dealing with Gnosticism when he wrote this letter, and he was dealing with a lot of false teachers that were saying that Jesus Christ really wasn't all man, because therefore, if he was all man, then he had to be a sinner. And so they were going and there's some things of this. You remember Jesus Christ asked his disciples, what think you of me? He said in, I didn't put it in here, but you remember in Matthew 42, 42, he says, what think you of Christ? Remember, some said that he was Elijah. Some said he was John the Baptist. But he says, who do you say that I am? Who do you think that I am? And so how do we try that spirit? We've got to come back to the Word of God, come back to Jesus Christ. We have the authority, we have scriptures. And that's the cool thing about the Reformation that happened is all of a sudden, the Word of God gets placed in every one's hand. You are not going to be able to stand before God and plead ignorance, because we have the Bible. We have it in every language, every dialect. There's so many different translations. There's so many different. You have the opportunity to know what God says and what he don't. And so we have to look at the Word of God. In verse 3, it says that every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come, and even now already is in the world. And so here's the test that the Holy Spirit demands that everything that we hear, we apply. What is the Spirit saying, and who is that Spirit pointing to? When we talk about the spirit of antichrist here, he's talking, we mentioned, he uses the example of the Spirit says that either Jesus Christ is man or he's not man. That's what he's dealing with here. But it also comes down to the same deal. Is what's being taught of the world, or is it pointing to Jesus Christ? And we have the Word of God. If you remember the Bereans in the book of Acts, when Paul and them went to them and preached to the Bereans, it says they searched the Scriptures daily. In other words, they would take what they would hear, and then they would go back and compare it to the Scripture, which is what all Christians are commanded to do. We have to follow up. We have to know, is it of the world or is it of Satan? And so when we do that, when we look at this, that is the acid test. That's what Jesus Christ asked them in Matthew. Whose son is he? They say unto him, the son of David. Why the son of David? Because Jesus Christ is human. He was born of flesh. And so when we look at this, you remember all down through the entire Bible, if you remember, there was always this gift of prophecy. God would speak to people, but the prophet had to speak what was of God. And only what was of God would come true. And so you remember in 1 Corinthians, it says, chapter 1, verse 22, the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. And that was the problem with the Jews, that they were always going back and prove to us according to the Scripture. The problem is, is their eyes was scaled over. And Jesus Christ, how many times did he tell them, he that hath ear to hear, let him hear. He that has eyes to see, let him see. They would hear the truth, they would see the sign, but then they would deny the sign. They would reject it as being Scripture. And so when we go to the Word of God, we have to understand this interpretation of the Word of God was that we are being taught concerning the person of Jesus Christ. It should point us to Christ. It shouldn't point us to a church. It shouldn't point us to an individual. The message of God always points to Jesus Christ. He was, He is, and He always will be. Everything is focused around Christ. And so as we look at this, John is demanding that everyone, every believer, every teacher, every prophet, every tongue speaker, everybody that is doing whatever that they are doing, that they have to equivalently be drawn back to Jesus Christ. It has to be supported in the Word. There is no new revelation. There is no new teaching. There is no new ideas. Solomon said everything is there under the sun. There's nothing new. God has given us everything. And so we have to be able to come back to the Word of God and be able to see it and support it. And so he mentions that this spirit, that one of the confession is the spirit of antichrist has been predicted. The Bible talks over and over that there is this deception that has taken place, that Satan is trying to deceive us. You go all the way back to Genesis chapter 3. And who convinced Satan and Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Satan. Who deceived Cain and told him to kill his brother? And then when God came and confronted him, what did he say? God said, if only he would repent and acknowledge, but he wouldn't do that. He said, I want to give of my hand. He had convinced himself in his mind something that was opposed to the Word of God. He worshipped with his hands. He worshipped with the flesh rather than with the sacrifice. And so this spirit has always been around. That's what John said here in verse 3. This is that spirit of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come. And so it's always been that way. And it's always going to get worse. The antichrist, the spirit of antichrist is here amongst us today. Satan is sowing seeds of doubt and turmoil. And we have all of these different religions. We have all of these different ideas. We have all of these things that people are claiming, but we're not comparing it to the Word of God. We're not getting it from the same source. And so he says this spirit of antichrist has been predicted and the spirit of antichrist is also now present. Look at what he says at the last phrase of verse 3. Even now, already is it in the world. You know, as believers, we talk about the day of the Lord. It cannot come. The second coming of Christ cannot happen until what? The antichrist is revealed. That's biblical prophecy. That's got to take place before the second coming. That doesn't have to take place before the rapture. It will take place after the rapture, but it has to take place before the second coming. And so they're looking for that antichrist. But what John is saying is, guess what? Two thousand years ago, when John was writing that spirit of antichrist, that spirit of deception, that satanic leadership was already existing and was already there. Satan is this diabolical monster. He is out to lie to us, to deceive us, to trick us. He is doing it and that spirit has always existed and it's always been here. Even when Jesus was here, He had to face the deception and the wickedness of Satan. You go all the way back to Nimrod at the Tower of Babel and Satan had been preparing the world for the coming of this one. And time and again, you go through the Word of God and you see these periods to where God would allow this wickedness to overtake the people in order that He might deliver them and set them free if they would look to Him and trust Him. Paul said in 2 Thessalonians, the mystery of iniquity does already work. Only he who now leadeth will lead until he be taken out of the way. The only thing that is hindering the work of the Holy Spirit that has prevented an end time judgment from coming about, from revelation springing forth, is this restraining ministry of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit is gone, then guess what? Satan is going to have full reign and full opportunity of this world and he's going to deceive many. He's going to deceive so many that is there. And so as we look at this, notice what Paul told the church at Thessalonica. He said, let no man deceive you by any means for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition. We talk about this falling away. Now when we look at the book of Hebrews that we're going to be in for the next six weeks on Sunday morning, when you look at Hebrews, what was their final accusation that the writer was worried about? Them falling away. In other words, they tasted Jesus Christ, but what do they do? They're wanting to turn from Jesus Christ and they're wanting to go back to what they had. A worldly system. A system that was built around the flesh and works. And that was the problem. But guess what? Jesus said that's always been the problem and that's the problem today. Even today we have people that want to return to the flesh. They don't want to trust Jesus Christ. They don't want to see the spiritual. And so he says, don't let nobody deceive you. Then he tells us in 1st Timothy chapter 4 and verse 1, the spirit speaketh expressly that in latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving ye to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. What's he saying? He's saying there's those that are going to depart from faith. What is faith? Faith is simply trusting God to the point of obedience, right? And so they're not going to lose their salvation. That's not what he's saying, but what are they going to do? They're going to walk away from obedience to God. They're going to turn away from obeying God to obey the flesh, to live in the flesh. Don't we see that happening today? Don't we see that all around us? And what is leading them away from following and obeying God? Seducing spirits and the doctrines of devils. This worldly idea and this fleshly nature that we have. But Paul adds that the time will come when, he says, they will not endure sound doctrine. We don't want doctrine, preacher. We want to be made to feel good, right? You look at a lot of the big evangelists that are rising to the top of the world standards and everything today. They're not much on doctrine, but they want to tell you how to feel good, how to be successful, how you can be blessed and all of these things. And look, he says, and after their own lusts, shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. What is a fable? It's a make-believe story. It's a fairy tale, you know, in the beginning, way back yonder, once upon a time, right? How many fairy tales of Disney was made famous on the first phrase, once upon a time, right? And it's always this first prince or this princess that's involved and somebody that overcomes it is a fable. But notice what happens, because it's the same thing that the author of Hebrews was telling us this morning. It says they will not endure sound doctrine. And so what do they do? They bring to themselves teachers that teach and say what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. They want to be their ears tickled. They want this fantasy world of the Christian life. And so what have they done? They've turned away from the truth and the Word of God to all of a sudden to believe fairy tales. It is amazing today. Get on YouTube and go and just pick random preachers and listen to their messages and see how many of them on YouTube never do open up the Word of God. They never have a text. They never have a passage. They just all of a sudden, they may read something, but then they go off telling stories and illustrations. It's full. And people love it. People want that. Why? Because it doesn't deal with sin. It doesn't deal with repentance. It doesn't deal with faith. It's the laying on of hands and baptism and the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. And so they do this. And so sound doctrine is based upon proper hermeneutical principles and sound exegesis. In other words, it's not what Brother Donnie wants to say. What does the scripture say? What does the scriptures teach? That's what we have to adhere to. And so test number one is try the spirit. Test number two is see what they are communicating. Test number three is test yourself. Test yourself. How do you test yourself? Well, two ways. First of all, ask yourself if you are of God. In other words, have you been born of God? How many times have I stood at the invitation and said, can you go back to a time and a place that you asked Jesus Christ to come into your heart? That's test number one. You've got to make sure and know that your relationship with Jesus Christ is what it ought to be. In John chapter 2 and verse 29, he says, if you know that he was righteous, you know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him. In other words, righteousness is being holy as God is holy. A sinner, a wicked person cannot be righteous. Paul laid that out in Romans, didn't he? He said, there is none good. There is none, no, not one. There is none that is righteous. There's none that seeketh after God. Every man seeks for his self and what he wants. And so what is he saying? He's saying there is those, though, how do we know by doing righteousness? And this is where we have to be very, very careful when we talk about, and we'll get into this on Sunday morning when we get to faith and accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior. James put it this way. James says, show me your faith without works and I'll show you my faith by my works. In other words, the works is not what saves you. You're saved by your confession in Jesus Christ. But if you have made a profession in Jesus Christ, guess what? If he is your Lord and he is your Savior, then you are going to work. You're going to try. When you mess up, when you make mistakes, you're going to be like the Apostle Paul. He said, it breaks my heart. He said, it hurts me to know that Jesus Christ gave his life and died for me and I can't do what I'm supposed to do and what I want to do because sin is ever with me. So ask yourself, first of all, if you are of God. Number two, ask yourself if you are overcoming the spirits of false teachers. The Spirit of God is in you. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. And so if you have the Holy Spirit living within you, are you following that Spirit? And that Spirit ought to line up with the Word of God. There ought to be proof that is there. Man, there are so many false teachers today that are persuasive. Me and Dad was sitting down over the Christmas holidays and he was just popping up quotes. We was talking about Calvinism and different things about it. And he was bringing all of these quotes and he was and some of them sounded good. And then we would say, man, I agree with that one. Well, I agree with that one in this context, but I don't agree with that statement in this context. And they're real clever how they word things. They're real clever how they make things sound. And so these false teachers are good at what they're doing. I mean, even Satan himself convinced Eve and Adam to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. And so note these words. You have overcome them. We are overcomers. And so if we are truly saved and the Holy Spirit is in us, we should be able to take the Bible. You know, when somebody says, well, I can't understand the Bible. The first question I want to know, ask is, are you saved? Because if the Holy Spirit is in you, then guess what? He will guide you into all truth. No, it doesn't all make sense. I don't know everything there is about this Bible, but here's what I do know. After being a student of this Bible for over 40 years, I know more today than what I knew 20 years ago. And I'm constantly learning and I'm constantly applying the cold wine. The spirit is starting to bring things together. The spirit is starting to show things together. And all of a sudden, the more you study, I was doing my morning devotion the other day and all of a sudden the light bulb is like it just turned on. It's come to get me. And the next minute I'm hearing my devotion, looking at a verse. And now I'm over here in the Old Testament. And now I'm chasing all of these rabbits because all of a sudden, what's happened? Through something that was totally unrelated, the Holy Spirit took it and brought me back to the Word of God. And so I began to search. I began to go and chase and see what there what was there. And he said, those that are truly born of God confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who has come in the flesh. And if Jesus Christ is the Son of God and in the flesh, then this is his Word and we can trust it and we can apply it. The last test is look at the followers. Look at the followers. We look at the people that follow the teachers of whether or not this teacher is false or not. False teachers have worldly followers. They live in the world. They participate in the world. Look at what he says in verse five. They are of the world. Therefore, they speak they of the world. And the world, what? Hear a thing. People, when you look at the followers of false teachers, their people are going to be worldly. They're worldly. And we see that today. We see so much of our worship services that if you go into some churches, you don't know if you are at a worldly event or if you're at a Christian event. Am I at an event that I'm worshiping Jesus Christ or am I at an event that I'm worshiping an entertainer or myself? You can't tell the difference. And so you look at these followers and these people will be worldly. And so then notice also, he said they will speak of the world. What does that mean? It means that they teach a worldly or a human approach to God. If you really are close to God, then you're going to worship God this way. If you're really close to God, then you're going to do this or you're going to do that. In other words, all of the relationship to God is built around human stuff. Every false religion out there deals with worldly ideas for getting to God. You know, the ideas that you can reach God by being good or bad. How many people have we heard, you know, that when we stand before God one of these days, there's going to be this scale. And I hope that all of my good takes over the bad, right? That's not taught in the Bible. That's false religion. That's false ideas that is there. We have those that teach that a man becomes acceptable God by living a religious life, by doing religious things, by being a part of a certain denomination or a certain particular people, by being baptized, by going to church. All of these things are added and they're presented to control people, not build a relationship with God. And so that the man secures God's approval by combining His Spirit with God's Spirit through communion and through righteous deeds. All of these approaches to God center and focus upon man and what we do. God focuses on what Jesus Christ has already done and what He will do. It's not on what we do, it's what Jesus Christ has already done, what He has done. Jesus Christ has already performed in the past. He brought salvation. Jesus Christ is performing right now by sanctifying us, making us in the image of Jesus Christ. And it will be Jesus Christ that will glorify us. When we see Him, we shall be like Him. Every bit of it is Jesus Christ. He saved us, He sanctifies us, and He glorifies us. It has nothing to do with us. So anything that we say, you do this and you will be sanctified, or you do this and you will be glorified, or you do this and you will be saved, guess what? None of it is based upon scriptures because it's based upon you, not on Jesus Christ. And that's what Paul, the author of Saint Paul, I've been trying to be very careful not to say Paul with Hebrew. The writer of Hebrew, we don't really know who it is, I believe it's the Apostle Paul, but whoever that writer was told them what? He said, these are the orcs, we've got to understand what we believe about Jesus Christ. If we don't have a foundation with Jesus Christ, then nothing else is going to matter or make sense. And so we've got to go back to somewhere. But then notice the next thing he says. He says that here are the false teachers. The message of false teachers appeals to men. If the Son of Man has not come to earth, then there's no absolute or infallible rules for governed man, right? If Jesus Christ was just a teacher and He wasn't God, then why should I follow Him? Why should I believe Him? What makes Him any different from any other prophet, priest, or king? We see all kinds of failures with prophets, priests, and kings in the Old Testament, don't we? And so if Jesus Christ was just another prophet, just another priest, or just another king, then why should we believe Him or why should we follow Him? All of these teachings excuse sin. They exalt man as their own Savior. They stress our ego and self-image. He said, for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourself it is the gift of God. True teachers, on the other hand, have godly followers. True teachers have godly followers. In other words, you're not following the teacher. You're following the Word of God. And if the teacher is using the Word of God, then guess what? The teacher can come and go, but the people continue on because they're serving God. That's what we want. We want you grounded in the Word of God. We want you to know what you believe and what you look at. Verse 6, 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. What has John proven there? In other words, he's fighting with all of these false teachers of Gnosticism in this particular day and time when he writes 1 John. But if you'll go back to 1 John, you will see that John has already said, my eyes have seen, my hands are touched. I have lived with Jesus Christ. I am the one that Jesus Christ told on the cross of Calvary, behold your mother. I was given the responsibility to take care of Jesus' mother. Are you going to listen to me that has had eyewitness proof that is backed up by the Word of God? Are you going to listen to these guys that are living in fairy tales and make-believe? And so that's the argument that John is saying that here, you know, we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Look to what we say. Those who know God are followers of God and of the truth. And so the question that I have is, what does your test reveal about you? What does your test reveal about your relationship with Jesus Christ? When you go down and you look at the spirit, when you look at what you're communicating, when you look at what you are listening to, when you look at what you are applying, how does the test follow? Is this the spirit of God or is it the spirit of sin? I won't allow us to become like the believers in Acts. I want us to search the Scriptures and know that I am not perfect. I don't know everybody. I'm going to make mistakes. And you know what? I expect people to come to me when I make a mistake. I expect people to come and say, hey, we can do this, and we can get the Word of God and use it together. Let's see what Scripture says. Let's see how this fits and how this makes sense. And if we continue to discern what's said in the Scriptures, how are we going to discern all of the stuff that's going on in the world and the choices that we make that are easier to discern? And so to start with the foundation of the Word of God, since we believe that Jesus is God and that He is full name. And so how does this test apply to you? Are you living completely dead over in Jesus Christ, or are you still trying to earn your way as we stand and stand in the presence of Jesus Christ? Page 415.