Latest / HBCWestminster / Exam Day • Sunday Sermon 6.22.25 • 1 John 4:1-6

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Exam Day • Sunday Sermon 6.22.25 • 1 John 4:1-6 · HBCWestminster

• 0:13
  Well, praise the Lord. Amen. Amen. Yeah. If you've got your Bibles, open them up to 1 John chapter 4.
• 0:21
  It's where we're going to be camping out this morning. And if I don't know you, my name is Sam.
• 0:25
  I'm one of the pastors here, and I have the privilege of opening God's Word and sharing it with you today.
• 0:31
  And so we're going to be covering 1 John chapter 4, verses 1 to 6.
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  I don't know if you guys are fast food people.
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  I heard someone, I'm not even going to look at them, just whisper, yes, as I said that question.
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  I know some of you guys are probably like, no, absolutely not. Some of you guys are probably, yeah, I really like fast food.
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  I am a fast food person. I don't eat a ton of it, but I don't mind it either.
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  And fast food is one of those parts of life where people have strong feelings about what's good and what's not.
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  And where there's...
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  There's so much, like, known deception.
• 1:14
  So is it deception? I don't know.
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  But there's, like, known deception in the fast food world.
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  Everyone knows that fast food isn't healthy, right?
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  And it's hilarious to watch fast food companies market their food in a way that makes it seem more healthy.
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  Like, I mean, just recently, I'm watching these McDonald's ads.
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  It's like, we use grade A eggs in our, you know...
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  You know, skillet thing or whatever, or we use 100% beef on our quarter pounder with cheese, the QPC.
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  And no one watching that is like, I knew I should have been eating here more.
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  Like, I knew it, dude. There's the justification.
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  I'm justified now.
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  And, you know, you can't just get one QPC either.
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  It's got to be multiple.
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  But, like, no one thinks that, right?
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  And this last week, I read a couple of articles, and one of them said this.
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  I don't know if you knew this, but in 2011,
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  a law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against Taco Bell alleging that its beef wasn't beefy enough to be called beef.
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  And the claim was that it was actually only 35% beef.
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  And so Taco Bell, obviously, is like, how dare you, came to its own defense.
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  They spent three to four million dollars in defense of its beef,
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  resulting in the declarative statement that our beef is not 35% beef, it's 88% beef.
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  How dare you? 88%. It's a B+.
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  Which leaves us to think, like, what's that other 12%?
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  You know what I'm saying?
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  88%, what's the other 12%? It's their, quote, signature recipe.
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  I don't know about you guys, but for me, 88% is enough.
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  Like, I'm still going. You know what I'm saying?
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  I have a friend here at the church, a very good friend,
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  who has gotten food poisoning from Taco Bell's chicken multiple times.
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  And we will still go to him.
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  We will still go to Taco Bell together.
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  It's like, I'm in. I'm in. Right?
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  I read this other article about Subway.
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  Subway bread has a sugar content of 10% of the weight of the flour that's used.
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  So the sugar content is 10% of the weight of the flour.
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  And the level is so high that, listen to this, this is unbelievably funny to me. Okay?
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  In 2020. Five years ago.
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  In 2020, Ireland's Supreme Court ruled that Subway bread does not meet the legal definition of bread.
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  It is more accurately labeled and classified as a confectionary.
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  Which in Ireland is a higher tax rate.
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  And so 2020, everyone was having a hard time.
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  Subway was having a real hard time in Ireland.
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  Because Ireland's like, you got to pay more taxes on this bread because it's not bread, it's a cupcake.
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  All right?
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  So if you're eating Subway, like, it's cake.
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  That is how it's classified.
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  Right?
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  Eat fresh.
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  Right?
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  But with fast food, we all use our discernment to see through that advertising.
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  Right?
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  Like, none of us is naive enough to be like, oh man, it really is fresh.
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  100% beef. It's healthy.
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  No.
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  We see right through it and we judge fast food rightly.
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  And so this morning, as we turn to 1 John 4, what we're going to do is we're going to focus our attention on using that same discernment.
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  But obviously not on food.
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  We're going to use that discernment on people who claim to speak for God.
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  People who claim to speak for God.
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  And so if you're turned there to 1 John 4, let's stand in honor of God's word as I read our passage this morning.
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  1 John 4, verse 1.
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  Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
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  For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
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  By this you know the spirit of God.
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  Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.
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  And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
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  This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
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  Little children, you are from God and have overcome them.
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  For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
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  They are from the world.
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  Therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them.
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  We are from God.
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  Whoever knows God listens to us.
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  Whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
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  By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
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  Father, I do pray this morning that the spirit of truth would reign in this church.
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  And that your Holy Spirit would cause all of us to overcome the false messages of our day and to cling to Jesus.
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  Help us in that, we pray.
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  In Jesus' name.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.
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  Thank you.
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  You may be seated.
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  Well, we learned in our last study of 1 John, which was about a month ago, how to experience assurance of our salvation and ward off doubt.
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  And we concluded our study of 1 John chapter 3 with this ballast for our faith in verse 24, which is the verse right before what I just read.
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  Where John says, whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God in him.
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  And then he says this.
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  By this we know that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us.
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  Maybe the greatest assurance we have as believers is that inner testimony of the Holy Spirit that we are indeed children of God.
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  And if John makes clear, if that spirit is testifying that to you, then you must walk in obedience by keeping in step with the Holy Spirit.
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  Right?
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  And so coming fresh off the heels of talking about the Holy Spirit in chapter 3.
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  The apostle John takes a detour from his discourse on love to address the discernment we must exercise as it pertains to those who claim to speak with the authority of God's spirit.
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  We are told to test the spirits.
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  And so here's what I want to do this morning.
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  We're just going to look at these six verses.
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  We're going to see the test that John prescribes for testing spirits, testing the prophets.
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  And then we're going to take the principles of what he says and apply them to our faith.
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  To our own context.
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  Okay?
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  And so John begins in verse 1 with this command.
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  I'm going to read it again.
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  Verse 1, look with me.
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  He says,
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  Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
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  For many false prophets have gone out into the world.
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  You know, when I was younger, I used to read this passage very differently.
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  I thought it was...
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  I thought testing the spirits was kind of this ability of the super spiritual.
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  Like you're deep in prayer.
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  And then you're just fighting the spiritual war.
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  And you're praying.
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  And you're like, nope, that's a good spirit.
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  Nope, that's not a good spirit.
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  I'm testing the spirits.
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  Nope, be gone, Satan.
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  Right?
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  And that's clearly not what he's talking about here.
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  He's not talking about mystical spiritual perception.
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  But rather, analytical sermonic examination.
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  John here is talking about evaluating the messages of those who teach in the church.
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  To see whether they are speaking the truth.
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  Right?
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  In verse 1, he parallels spirits with prophets.
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  Right?
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  Test the spirits for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
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  Now, here's why this is so important.
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  In John's context, in the early church, believers relied on oral communication from spiritual leaders to be taught.
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  They didn't have New Testaments against which they could judge every message of God,
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  about Jesus. At best, they had an assortment of letters from the apostles. They had maybe some
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  collections of teachings about Jesus, and then they had emissaries sent from the apostles. Think
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  of like Timothy or Epaphras, right? Emissaries sent to them with messages from the apostles. And so
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  they would come into contact with all kinds of itinerant preachers claiming prophetic authority.
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  And you can imagine that there were many claiming prophetic authority who were actually teaching
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  false messages and taking advantage of these early believers, these baby believers, right?
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  Even teaching persuasive messages. And so John warns them against indiscriminately believing
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  everyone who claims the title of prophet. Rather, he says, test them, for many false prophets have
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  gone out into the world. And so they were actually teaching false messages. And so they were actually
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  the world. And interestingly, the word he uses here for false prophets, it can be transliterated
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  pseudo prophets. Many pseudo prophets have gone out into the world, he says, and they rely
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  on ignorance in the sheep to gain their following. False prophets, false teachers rely on listeners
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  who aren't trained in the faith and who aren't critical in their listening.
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  You catch what I'm saying? False teachers rely on people who don't think while they are listening.
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  They're uncritical thinkers. If you've ever heard of the skill of critical thinking, right? We teach
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  that in school. We train our kids to think that way. Well, false teachers rely on uncritical
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  thinkers because those people are easy prey. And false teachers would love for you to come to the
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  altar and dedicate your life at the end of their message. They would love that. He says, these people
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  have gone out into the world. These false teachers, these false prophets have a great commission.
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  It's not Jesus's. It's their own. But these false teachers are out on mission. They want to make
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  disciples of all nations. They want converts and they want you. All of this reminds us that the
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  dangers to the church aren't always those from without. Sometimes the greatest dangers to the
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  church are those within. It's those who are not within. It's those who are not within. It's those
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  carrying the label of Christian. Those claiming to speak in the authority of the Christian God.
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  And so don't be deceived, John says. Not everyone who possesses a pulpit preaches
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  truth. So he says, don't believe all of them. Now, on the other hand, I don't think John wanted
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  the church to become like cynical, mistrusting skeptics who don't believe anyone and who don't
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  believe anything. And so what he offers to us is kind of this middle ground.
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  Don't believe all of them. Don't become a cynic. What's the middle ground? You have to test
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  them. Now, you may notice in the first and second verses that the responsibility of testing does not
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  fall on the pastor alone. The responsibility to test the prophets doesn't fall to those with
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  theological degrees and letters after their name. No, it falls on the church as a whole.
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  Like, Highland, it is your responsibility to be adequately biblical,
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  knowledgeable, and to practice discernment between the truth and lies. Like, this is what
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  we pastors want for you. It's not just, you know, wholesale, whatever Pastor Sam teaches,
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  whatever Pastor Danny teaches, just believe all of it. No, you need to know. You need to discern.
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  This is why we make such an effort on Sundays and on Wednesdays to teach from this book,
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  so that you are equipped and you know, because this is your responsibility. Testing, right?
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  And this communal responsibility to test the prophets was not new. In fact, it was commanded
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  in the Old Testament. Look up on the screen at these verses. These are from Deuteronomy 13,
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  right? This is Moses talking, and he says this,
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  if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder,
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  and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, let us go after other gods
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  which you have not known, let us go after other gods which you have not known, let us go after other gods
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  which you have not known, and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet
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  or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord
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  your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and
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  fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to
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  him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught
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  rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and brought you out
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  and redeemed you out of the house of slavery to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God
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  commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. You know what I find really
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  fascinating about that passage is the first couple of verses where he says, if someone arises among
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  you who claims to be a prophet, and all a prophet was someone who speaks for God, the mouthpiece of
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  God, right? They claim to be a prophet, and they perform a sign or a wonder among you, and if you
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  come to pass, and then they tell you, no, let's do something that breaks the covenant. Let's go
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  serve another God. He says, they're a false prophet, and the Lord is testing you. Now,
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  just put yourself in that situation with me for a minute. Imagine that today, I predict something
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  that's going to happen this week, and then when we all gather again next Sunday, what I predicted
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  came true. And it's not just some general prediction, like there's going to be tension in
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  the middle of the night, or there's going to be tension in the middle of the night, or there's
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  going to be tension in the middle east. You're like, yeah, we know. No, something specific. I predict it, and then
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  you're at home watching the news, and you're like, dude, Pastor Sam said it. He said it was going to
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  happen, and then next week when we gather, I'm up here teaching again, and I begin teaching things
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  that go against this book. Imagine how difficult that would be when you're looking at someone who
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  is like performing a sign, performing a wonder, telling the truth, telling the future, and then
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  they say something that goes against this book. A lot of people would feel attention with that.
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  Like, do we obey what he's saying? Because he can tell, like he told us what's going to happen.
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  And Deuteronomy says, no, no, no, that's God testing you. It's God testing you to see whether
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  you actually love God. And so even in the Old Testament, testing the spirits, testing the
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  prophets was there. This isn't something that's a New Testament thing. It's not something that's
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  brand new. There have always been false prophets, and we've always been told to,
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  test them, right? And so if a prophet's ever, in the Old Testament, if a prophet's ever
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  doctrinally or morally saying, let's break the covenant God has instituted, God's like, uh,
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  junk food. Junk food. You have to see through it for what it actually is. See through that
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  advertisement, right? It's false. It's a false teacher. And so that idea of testing has roots
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  in the Old Testament, but here in 1 John, the testing has a particular contextual,
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  intellectual element, which affects how John defines which prophet is truly of the Spirit of
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  God. And so look with me at verse 2. He says this,
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  By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the
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  flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. Now,
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  that's kind of a peculiar criteria for testing, isn't it? Because wouldn't we
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  expect, uh, like some kind of doctrinal statement? How do you want to know this teacher is a true
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  teacher? Well, what do you believe about inerrancy? What do you believe about the resurrection or the
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  second coming of Christ? We would expect this list of things, and all we get is Jesus Christ
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  has come in the flesh. Like, John, aren't you, that's setting the bar kind of low, don't you think?
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  John is not attempting to provide a full statement for what one must believe in order to be a
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  preacher.
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  Uh,
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  but this single
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  statement,
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  this single statement about Christ's incarnation had everything to do with the religious context of
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  John's day. In the first century, a budding heresy called Gnosticism threatened the orthodoxy of
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  the early church. And I want to run you through real quick what Gnostic belief is, and then talk
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  about its implications. So stick with me here for a minute, okay? Gnosticism is kind of like a cult
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  kind of thing.
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  Um, but here's what Gnosticism believed. There is a supreme God who created the spiritual realms.
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  Then there was what's called the demi-urge, which is like a lesser created evil God who created the
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  material physical universe, right? And so Gnostic belief was dualistic. The immaterial, the spiritual
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  is good, but the material,
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  the flesh is evil. It's dualistic between the two, okay? And every person, every one of us, has a divine spark within.
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  And that spark is awakened through the acquisition of secret knowledge, Gnosis. That's the word for knowledge, hence Gnosticism, Gnosis.
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  Uh, when you receive that special knowledge, you are awakened to recognize the true good spiritual nature of the world.
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  And you can commune with that supreme being. Now, the way that we acquired that knowledge is that supreme being has sent
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  his emissary, the Christ to impart that knowledge to us.
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  And one, uh, flavor of Gnosticism, called Docetism, taught that Jesus was a phantom who did not actually have truly a physical
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  body.
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  Another flavor of Gnosticism.
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  claimed that when the man Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, the spirit of the Christ came
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  and rested upon him throughout his ministry. But then at the crucifixion, the man Jesus was
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  crucified while the spirit Christ departed and went back to that supreme being. And so regardless
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  of the flavor of Gnosticism you want, what you end up with is this. Christ was not truly human.
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  Are you tracking with me? Okay, well done. He's not truly human. Now, what are the implications
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  of that? Let's just think together for a moment. If the incarnation, God becoming flesh, if the
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  incarnation is not literally and historically true, what else is not true? Okay, number one,
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  he could not have died for our sins because he didn't have a body, which means that there's no
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  atonement for sins and there's no forgiveness. There's no forgiveness for sins. There's no
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  forgiveness for sins. That's number one. Number two, he could not have been raised from the dead.
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  We believe in a bodily resurrection. This isn't just kind of Christ spiritually rose from the
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  grave. No, we insist, historical orthodoxy insists that it's a bodily resurrection, right? So the
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  resurrection isn't true then if he doesn't have a physical body, which means that we are still in
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  our sins and there's no hope. And then number three, it means that Christ cannot represent us.
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  He can't represent humanity to God.
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  In heaven, so we don't have a savior or an intercessor in heaven.
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  Now, do you see the implications of the incarnation? Do you? These are huge. I mean,
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  if the incarnation is not real, like none of it works, nothing. You have to have this. If you
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  don't have the incarnation, you don't have the real Jesus, right? And so now it makes sense.
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  Think with me. Why John emphasizes that these prophets must confess that Christ has
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  come in the flesh. He's talking into his context, right? He makes clear that Jesus and the Christ
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  are the same person because he says Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. And he even used the, he
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  uses the perfect verb tense for Jesus Christ has come. It's the perfect verb tense, which means
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  that it's not just something Christ did. He came in the flesh and then it's done. You know, he came
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  in the flesh and it has lasting impact, lasting consequences, lasting, lasting, lasting consequences.
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  Reality. So even to this day, post ascension, Christ has kept his physical body.
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  Do you see how John is confronting the Gnostic heretics of his day? Because there were many.
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  And he's writing to these believers to look out for them. For John, this was not seize,
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  get degrees, Christology. Like, yeah, you have the divinity of Christ, but you don't have the
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  humanity. So yeah, like you're still welcome in. No, that's central tenants of Christology
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  are necessary to believe.
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  Namely, you have to believe that he's truly God. And you have to believe that he's truly
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  man. And so John's point is this with these false prophets, they don't have Jesus, right?
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  They don't have Jesus, right? And therefore they can't be speaking from the Holy spirit because
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  we know from John 16, that the Holy spirit loves to glorify Jesus. And he loves to make the truth
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  about Jesus known. And so again, John takes this very seriously. He's not saying these,
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  these false prophets, if they don't believe in the humanity of Christ, it's a simple doctrinal
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  error that needs to be corrected. No, he calls them the antichrist. This is the spirit of the
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  antichrist. He says in verse three, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
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  And so by denying Christ's humanity, they are denying the true Jesus. And they are therefore
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  false prophets. And John had already warned the church in chapter two, verses 18 and 19,
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  that antichrist is coming, but indeed many antichrists have gone out into the world.
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  And these who denied Christ's humanity were in league with them. You've tracking with me.
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  And so this is the first test. What are these prophets saying about Jesus? It's the Jesus test,
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  right? Because everything hinges on him. In Highland, if you get Jesus wrong,
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  it doesn't matter how much else you get right. You are wrong.
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  John makes,
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  that's super clear. The whole testimony of the scriptures makes that really clear.
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  Okay. And so that's the first test, the Jesus test, but let's look to the second test,
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  which is the test of audience, test of audience. Look at verse four.
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  He says, little children, you are from God and have overcome them. And he who is in you is
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  greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world. Therefore they speak from the world
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  and the world listens to them. The first test asks, what do you say about Jesus? And the second
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  test asks, what do you say about Jesus? And the second test asks, what do you say about Jesus?
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  The first test is much simpler. It simply asks, who's following you? Who's following you? Those
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  who believe the message of the false prophets prove that they're not from God, but from the
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  world. And by the world, we've covered this before, but the world doesn't refer to people.
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  God loves people. He loves the world. We love the world, right? This world is referring to that
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  anti-God system of values. It's the anti-truth kingdom that stands in opposition to the kingdom
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  of God. And so the first test is much simpler. It simply asks, who's following you? Who's following you?
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  God. Those who are of the world listen to the world. He simply says, but those who are of God
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  listen to the truth. And so John encourages these believers by assuring them that they are from God
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  because they're listening to him and not the false prophets. And he says, you have overcome them.
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  You've prevailed. You've won the fight against these false prophets because you have rejected
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  their message.
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  And the power that has allowed them to do this, he says, is the very spirit of God
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  who lives in them and who is greater than the antichrist spirit that is in
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  the world. John concludes with this simple statement in verse 6. He says, we are from God.
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  Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
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  By this, we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Now, let's just pause.
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  When you read verse 6, doesn't it sound really,
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  really arrogant of John to say what he just said? If you agree with me, you're of God. And if you
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  disagree, you're not of God. And our world is like, whoa, like how intolerant. John, you can't
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  say that. And yet that is what he says. Now, the us here, whoever listens to us is of God.
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  The us refers to him and the other apostles. So that John is unequivocally stating here,
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  uh,
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  if you agree with our apostolic witness about Christ, you are of the truth. But if you deny us,
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  you are not of the truth. Man, these pseudo prophets, they may have gone out into the world
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  with their own mission and under their own authority. But John is reminding these readers
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  here, we went out, we apostles went out on the commission of Jesus,
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  on his,
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  his mission and with his authority. And so the apostolic witness becomes the standard for the
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  truth about Jesus. Hear me. When I say that the apostolic witness becomes the standard for the
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  truth about Jesus. And so not only, uh, did these false prophets fail the first test,
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  the Jesus test, but also the second, they got Jesus wrong and their following prove that they're
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  of the world. It's like worldly people are following you. So you're probably preaching
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  a worldly message.
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  Right. And John wanted nothing more for these believers than to know Christ accurately and to
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  be protected from false messages. And so his message in summary really just is test the
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  spirits. First John four, one to six. What I find is that it has never lost any of its relevance
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  because there are false prophets in every age who slither into churches and who teach false
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  messages.
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  Every age. Like you ever wonder why the early church creeds were written the way that they were.
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  It's because they were combating heresies that were arising in their day.
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  The Protestant reformation came about in response to the corruption of the Catholic church. That's
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  where the fight was for those reformers. In 1934, Germany, the Barman declaration was written by
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  Christians who denied that the Third Reich had anything to do with God. Because the Third Reich,
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  was saying, we are truly Christian. And therefore we can demand obedience from the churches.
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  And confessing churches, what they became known as confessing the true Jesus. They were like, whoa,
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  no, absolutely not. And so they wrote this declaration saying no, you're not of God.
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  And therefore we will not obey you. But every Christian, every generation of Christians has
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  been faced with their own theological and religious issues. And so it's a new generation. And so you,
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  and moral battles, including us. Including us. You best believe, you guys, that if there were
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  many false prophets 2,000 years ago, there are many more today. And never before have so many
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  false messages within the church been disseminated so quickly and so easily. I think the internet has
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  some to do with that. But you guys, I'm not talking about like other religions, other cults. No, I'm
• 29:44
  talking about messages within the church that are not true. We're confronted with an ocean of
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  religious messages and claims all the time. And so how can 1 John 4 help us to navigate that ocean?
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  That's where I want to end today. And I want to leave you just with three tests. John gave us two.
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  I want to leave you with three. Number one is the authority test. How do we know which messages
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  today are true and which are not? First is the authority.
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  Test. Where's the person who is preaching deriving their authority?
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  What are they basing their message on? That's what we need to ask.
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  One thing John made very clear was that the apostolic witness was the authority. And you
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  guys, for us today, we have both the prophetic and the apostolic witnesses written down for our
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  benefit in the scriptures. And therefore, taken as a whole, the Old and New Testaments are our
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  authority.
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  This is the authority. We just sang about this. Jesus' firm foundation. This is it. Amen? Right?
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  Like, it has to be this. And unfortunately, many today prefer to base their messages on
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  reinterpretations of the Bible, reinterpretations of the apostolic witness, rather than on historic
• 31:08
  Christian orthodoxy. And these are those progressive Christians.
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  I'm sure you've heard that term, progressive Christianity. But these seem to go along with
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  every worldly pursuit of the day. They claim the name of Christ, and yet everything from the world,
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  they just import it into the faith. Whether it's DEI, the LGBTQ stuff, elevation of personal
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  experience as an authority, or modern liberal scholarship. Everything is just welcomed in.
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  And it's really progressive Christianity that I'm going to focus on in our application today, because
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  there are a lot of false prophets. But progressive Christianity poses a big threat to the church
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  today. And it is a hive of pseudo-prophets. It is a hive of pseudo-prophets who, and get me when I
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  say this, in their desire for progress, what they've done is they've actually progressed. They've moved
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  on from the actual gospel. They've reinterpreted the scriptures. They've moved on from the actual gospel.
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  You don't even have Jesus anymore. You don't have what the Bible has historically been understood
• 32:26
  to be taught. What the church has believed about this book. They don't have that. They've moved on
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  from the true gospel to gospels that cannot save. They've abandoned the testimony of the
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  scriptures and crowned themselves as the authority. Man, we see this right now with all the LGBTQ plus
• 32:45
  stuff. The scripture is not authoritative. I am. And so really, I am the authority. I am the
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  authority. I am what's immutable. I don't change. How I was born with the inclinations that I
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  naturally have within me, that is the authority. Now, church, do we love people who are in that
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  movement? Of course we do. Of course we do. It's really interesting that for how non-binary their
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  sexuality is, they only give us a binary choice that we have to affirm them or hate them.
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  And we just say no to both. Like, no, I'm going to love you in and out of this. I'm going to love you
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  in the truth. That's the ground. That's a third option I choose, right? So of course we love them,
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  but they are proclaiming themselves as the authority. And then they reinterpret the
• 33:36
  scriptures in light of their own authority. But this is the first test we need to bring to
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  any message that would claim the name of Christ. Any message that is out there is, number one,
• 33:45
  what's your authority, okay? Number two, the second test is the Jesus test.
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  So we've got...
• 33:52
  We've got the authority test. Now we've got the Jesus test. Does the preacher hold to the biblical
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  Jesus, or are they jettisoning parts that they don't like? Progressive Christianity does not
• 34:04
  believe, you guys, that Jesus is the divine Son of God. They think of Jesus more as a moral example
• 34:09
  that we should follow. Oh, it's really funny. They don't believe Jesus judges anyone,
• 34:18
  right? He said, don't judge lest you be judged. Even though Jesus said in John 5 22, the Father judges no one,
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  but has entrusted judgment to the Son. Jesus told people to stop sinning. He flipped tables against
• 34:32
  the religious elite who would take advantage of people and who didn't actually love God. Like,
• 34:35
  Jesus judged, and one day he will judge again, right? And so he says, yes, I am the judge. This
• 34:42
  whole love is love idea that Christ, in his compassion and in his love, sets up compassion
• 34:49
  as the highest good, even above truth. So you just need to love people. Love is love.
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  You listen, Hyland. No, it's not. It doesn't mean we hate people, but all love is not love. John
• 35:06
  already told us this in chapter 2. He says, if you have the, if you love the world, the love of the
• 35:10
  Father is not in you. Because God doesn't love the, the anti-truth system of the world. He loves
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  people. He doesn't love that. The God of this world loves that who's Satan, but the true everlasting
• 35:24
  Almighty God does not love that. And so this love is love idea is not,
• 35:29
  true. Progressive Christianity doesn't believe that we need a penal substitutionary sacrifice
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  for sins. And so they don't believe that Jesus hanging on the cross pays for our sins. It's more
• 35:41
  just an example of humility. It's an example of self-sacrifice, but it's not paying for our sins.
• 35:46
  Is that true? No. It's heresy to disregard the sacrifice of Christ as a, as a substitutionary
• 35:59
  sacrifice for sins.
• 36:01
  That's something that was set up in Exodus, man, in Genesis. To, to deny that is to deny the
• 36:09
  testimony of this book and to deny the apostolic witness. And so don't be deceived. Sometimes I
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  think we look at progressive Christianity and we think they're making moral compromises that
• 36:18
  aren't doctrinal. No. The moral compromises can always be traced to doctrinal compromises. And so
• 36:24
  we just need to ask, what do you say about Jesus? Because if you don't get him right, you ain't got
• 36:29
  anything right. That's the second test.
• 36:33
  Third and final test. And I'll end with this. The sheep test, the sheep test or the audience test,
• 36:40
  uh, who's following them, who's following them. Worldly preachers will always be followed
• 36:47
  either by those who don't know any better, but very often, more often, um, by those who have
• 36:54
  no interest in denying themselves, taking up their crosses and following Jesus. Those people will
• 37:02
  comprise that crowd.
• 37:05
  They'll preach that all you need to gain access to God is faith. All you need is faith. Now this
• 37:15
  morning, aren't you like, well, yeah, all you need is faith. But what they teach is you need faith
• 37:20
  without repentance. Just come to God. You don't need to repent of your sin. God just accepts you.
• 37:28
  Listen, not once ever in the old or new testaments does God comfort sinners in their sin.
• 37:35
  Ever. He welcomes you, but repentance,
• 37:38
  is attendant to faith. Of course it is. It has to be right. And so, um, worldly teachers will
• 37:46
  attract worldly people, but true messengers will attract Jesus's sheep. John 10, my sheep hear my
• 37:52
  voice and they follow me. Jesus said. And so I just want to leave you with this in kind of this
• 37:59
  ocean of pluralistic messages and stuff out in our world. Uh, don't be deceived Highland.
• 38:05
  There are many false prophets, many false messengers,
• 38:08
  in our day. And so be discerning. Determine what their authority is. Listen for the true Jesus.
• 38:16
  And then just assess the sheep, assess the crowd. And so with the help of God's spirit,
• 38:22
  we have, and we will overcome the messages of the world because we want to know Christ
• 38:29
  accurately and we want to follow him wholeheartedly. Amen. Amen. Let me pray. And then we're going to
• 38:36
  sing one more closing song.
• 38:38
  Father, we are grateful for the wisdom of the scriptures. We submit ourselves to
• 38:47
  their authority. We submit ourselves to you because you're just way wiser than we are.
• 38:54
  God, you have the power by your spirit that we need to be discerning and to overcome the world.
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  And so we are grateful this morning that we have nothing to fear because the spirit of the
• 39:08
  almighty eternal God is with us. And so we are grateful for the wisdom of the scriptures.
• 39:10
  God lives in us, but help us to have eyes to see and ears to hear. We love you. Go before us.
• 39:21
  Help us to be a church that loves the truth, loves people, clings to the truth,
• 39:26
  and eagerly awaits your return. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.