If you would turn back with me to 1 John, we’ll be in 1 John chapter 4, the first six verses tonight. That’s on page 1023 in the Bibles located in the pew in front of you. First John chapter 4. I’m sure most of us know someone who calls everybody, “Sweetie,” or “Honey,” or “Baby” or “Darling” or “Precious.” That’s just how they talk. They’re being friendly, and maybe it’s somebody they’ve never met before, maybe it’s a spouse, a child, a grandchild or their best friend. It doesn’t matter. It’s “Sweetie” for everybody! Well, that’s because we’re here in the South and we have good old Southern hospitality.
Well maybe you’ve noticed in our study of 1 John over the last few weeks that John himself is quite fond of using his own terms of endearment when he is addressing his readers. And so, we saw back in chapter 2 verse 1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you.” Chapter 2 verse 7, “Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment.” “Do not be surprised, brothers,” chapter 3 verse 13. Over and over and over again, John is expressing his love and his concern for those two whom he is writing – children, young men, fathers, brothers, beloved. And these are no filler words. These are not mere colloquialisms. No, this is for a people whom he has in his heart. He cares deeply for his readers. And on top of that, these terms of affection, they lend a sense of urgency, don’t they, to his message. This message that he is trying to communicate to them, you get the sense that he is pleading with them; he is appealing to their hearts to listen and to apply what he is saying to them. It’s because the well being of their souls, the health of the church, the body of Christ, is at stake in what he is writing to them and writing to us. And so he is very much concerned that they listen and respond appropriately to his message.
And as we look at these verses tonight in 1 John chapter 4, we find in just six verses, we find two of those terms of endearment. Verse 1, “Beloved,” and verse 4, “Little children.” And in some ways, John is re-emphasizing some things we have already seen at multiple times along the way in this little book. But there are two sides to his message that I want us to see tonight. Number one, we see fakes, frauds and false prophets. And then secondly, we see spiritual discernment and the gift of God. Fakes, frauds and false prophets, and then spiritual discernment and the gift of God. Those will be our two points for this evening. Before we look to God’s Word, let’s pray and ask for His help.
Our Father, we have just been reminded in the children’s catechism that You desire for us to come to You and to pray and to ask for help from the Holy Spirit. So, we stop right now and do that very thing. There is so much that’s going through our minds that could distract us, that could lead us astray, that could pull us away from what You have before us tonight. There’s so much in our hearts that are unable to understand on our own, and we need help. We need the help of the Holy Spirit. So, we pray that You would give us that help as You have promised, that You would help us to see Jesus, that You would help us to see His beautiful sufficiency for our every need, and His provision for grace on top of grace and salvation for eternal life. Would You give us hope and joy in believing this evening. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
First John chapter 4 verse 1:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore, they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
First, fakes, frauds and false prophets. Not everything that is spiritual is of the Spirit, and not everything that is theological is from God. In fact, there are false prophets out there in the church and in the world. The spirit of the antichrist now is in the world already, according to verse 3. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit,” John says in verse 1, “but test the spirits, test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” Now John introduced the Spirit in the verses right before the ones that we read this evening. In fact, in chapter 3 verse 24 it says, “And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given to us.” It’s the first time that that word “Spirit” is found in 1 John. Now John has already written about the Holy Spirit at different times. He’s written in chapter 2 about being “anointed by the Holy One.” And whenever he speaks of “abiding,” so for example, “Those who are born of God have God’s seed abiding in him,” and “Those in whom He abides should abide in Him,” whenever John speaks like that, he is referring to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But this is the first time that the word “Spirit” or “πνευμα” in the Greek is found – in chapter 3 verse 24.
Remember the big picture; remember what John is trying to accomplish in writing this to us. He wants his readers; he wants us to be filled with joy. He wants for us to have an assurance of our salvation, an assurance that new life, eternal life is within us. In other words, he is writing to them, he is writing to us in order to show what to look for as evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. And that evidence, the evidence of the Holy Spirit in them, would include things such as knowing the truth and practicing righteousness and loving one another. In fact, some people call those things the theological, the moral, and the social tests of life in this book of 1 John. And these three tests, they all belong to each other because faith, love and holiness are all works of the Holy Spirit. “They are marks of the continuing, reciprocal, indwelling of God and His people,” as John Stott puts it.
But there’s another test. There’s another spiritual test that John talks about in these verses, in the first six verses of chapter 4. And he says to test the spirits, test the spirits to see whether they are from God or not. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,” verse 1. And so, what is he saying? What he’s saying is that joy and assurance in the Christian life requires vigilance in the Christian life. And it’s always been that way because there are fakes and frauds and false prophets out there. It’s always been like that, but surely, surely it is worse than ever because we live in a time of the internet and social media. I saw an image recently – it looked like a piece of paper that had been aged and yellowed and unfolded, and it had a typewriter font on it. And it said on this little piece of paper, on this image, it said, “My dear Wormwood, be sure that your patient spends lots of time reading sources that only confirm beliefs he already holds. Do not let him read from papers, books or other sources that might cause him to ask questions or to examine his long-held beliefs or to start thinking deeply about how he knows what he thinks he knows. Never underestimate the power of a well-crafted echo chamber.” What does that sound like? It sounds like something from C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters.
Then it goes on. It says, “If you play your cards right” – and by the way, you know in The Screwtape Letters, Lewis is crafting this fiction of one demon writing to another in how to tempt someone to lead them astray. So, this goes on. It says, “If you play your cards right, soon he will only trust news and ‘facts’ he receives from his own favorite sources, which are of course curated for him by others. Above all, don’t let him question the validity of quotes he finds on the internet. Let him assume their accuracy based on a famous name and a particular style of font or meme image. Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.” You see what it’s doing. It’s a fake. It’s an obvious fake of a C.S. Lewis quote and it’s pointing; it’s done to point and to bring attention to a particular issue. And that is, in this case, fake C.S. Lewis quotes. And apparently, they are all over the internet. In fact, someone wrote a book several years ago called, The Mis–quotable C.S. Lewis. Not every C.S. Lewis quote is a C.S. Lewis quote. It’s sort of like Yogi Berra said. “I didn’t say everything I said.”
There are fake Bible verses too. In fact, if you Google Psalm 93:4 you will find images, social media posts, wall art that say, “Mightier than the waves of the sea is His love for you.” The problem is, that’s not what Psalm 93:4 says. Not the ESV. Not the NIV. Not even The Message. And it’s not that it’s all that offensive or even heretical on its own; it’s just not what Psalm 93 says. And I would guess that there are a number of other things like that, that you could find out there. And I know it’s a cliche, but you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. Or like John says, “Don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.”
You see, John is writing to an audience; he is writing to a people. They were exposed to all kinds of philosophies and spiritual novelties. Remember what Luke writes in the book of Acts about Paul and his visit to the city of Athens in Acts 17. He said all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. It was like a sport to them. It was entertainment. All of these competing messages, all of these competing voices. “Let’s hear what they’ve got to say! It sounds interesting just to let them voice their opinions.” And it’s the same way today, isn’t it? In fact, I’ve talked to pastors in other churches who have experienced conflict, they have experienced division in their churches because a particular type of Old Testament, old covenant teaching that has gained traction with a following online. I’ve heard stories of churches that have ballooned in size and whose leaders have gained a loyal following because they have given themselves over to making their message mostly about current events and politics. I’ve talked to people, church members here and others who have had family members, loved ones, who have been led astray by unbiblical teaching or maybe have even joined themselves to a cult. In our own city, there are pulpits, churches that have nice messages about the example of Jesus but would try to scrub out anything supernatural out of the New Testament or anything about Jesus as the only way to salvation.
You see, it’s spiritual, but it’s not of the spirit. It may be theological, but it’s not from God. They’re fakes, they’re frauds, they’re false prophets, and it calls for discernment. It calls for discernment from us. In fact, many studies will show that when it comes to telling a lie from truth, most of us are not very good at it. Studies show that even parents with their own children, people they know better than anyone else, they have a hard time telling truth from lie about the same as chance – 50/50. It’s something that we’re not all that good at. It requires discernment. Maybe that’s why John is so concerned for those to whom he is writing. They need, we need discernment.
The second thing we see in this passage – spiritual discernment and the gift of God. What is it? What is discernment, spiritual discernment? Well, here is one writer’s definition. “Discernment is the skill of understanding and applying God’s Word with the purpose of separating truth from error and right from wrong.” In other words, its wisdom, its shrewdness, its the maturity to turn from what is dangerous and a lie and to turn to God. Isn’t that what John is writing about in these verses? And yet it’s not just John; it’s all over the Bible. Solomon prayed in 1 Kings, “Give your servant an understanding mind that I may be able to discern between good and evil.” Jesus said to His disciples, “Beware of false prophets. Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Jesus said, “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” And Paul encouraged his churches as well, “That your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment that they test everything and hold fast what is good.” It’s over and over and over throughout the Scripture. It’s one of the most basic needs for a believer, and yet in many ways it is a lost art and a neglected practice.
But what does John say about it here in these verses? What does John say about spiritual discernment here? What is discernment all about? Well, I think we could say two things – discipline and dependence. Discipline and dependence. Do you remember Jerry Bridges’ book from about thirty years ago called, The Disciplines of Grace? Bridges compared the Christian life and the pursuit of holiness to an airplane. He said that a plane needs two wings to fly. You can’t have one without the other. And he said that the Christian life must exercise both discipline and dependence in the pursuit of holiness. You can’t have one without the other. Well it’s the same with discernment. And in these verses that we have before us tonight – what do we need for discernment? We need both wings. We need discipline and dependence.
First, there’s discipline. And to see the discipline you have to take a step back in a way in what we are reading here and look at this whole picture before us before you see anything else. Think again about those terms of endearment, those terms of affection that John writes with here. Don’t skip those over. “Beloved,” verse 1. “Little children,” verse 4. What do those tell us? Well, they tell us that John was exercising loving, pastoral care over those who were entrusted to him. He is providing spiritual oversight. He is giving spiritual guidance. Why? Because they needed it. They needed reminders of the truth. They needed warnings against error. They needed someone to shepherd and to care for them.
And one thing we notice about those terms in these verses is that they are both plural. They are together as beloved. They are beloved with other beloveds. They are children with other children. It’s because they are a part of the church; they are a part of God’s people. They are in fellowship and community with one another. That is one of the keys for discernment. It is the discipline to recognize our need for pastoral care. It is the discipline to submit one’s self to loving and compassionate authority from God. Just before we came in here, there was a session meeting to receive new members into our congregation. We all have that need to commit ourselves, to commit ourselves to a local church. We need that kind of oversight and accountability in order to gain the kind of discernment that John is talking about here in these verses.
But we also need another discipline, and that is the discipline of knowing God’s Word. Several years ago, Crossway books put out a little video to promote one of Dr. J. I. Packer’s last books before his death. It’s called Taking God Seriously. And the video, it’s basically a simple shot of Dr. Packer, he’s close to ninety years old, he’s feeble, nearly blind, he is sitting alone in a pew of a simple, historic church sanctuary, and he says there is trouble in the church today. The trouble is that we don’t take our God seriously enough. “What’s the proof of that?” he asks. He says that the proof of that is that we are not taking His Word seriously enough and we are not making sure that our faith matches the teaching of Scripture. He says, “We don’t even seem to be interested in finding out. That’s not good enough,” according to Packer in this little video. What’s he talking about? He’s talking about being discerning. And that comes with the discipline of knowing the truth. It comes with the discipline of taking God’s Word seriously.
John writes in verse 2, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” You know what that is? That is basically the most basic Christian confession – that Jesus is the Christ. In fact, in John’s gospel, at the end of John’s gospel when he’s writing his purpose statement, John said, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing in His name you may have life in Him.” What do we find in the book of Romans? “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” And on the last day, Paul writes in Philippians, that “At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Everything in all of Scripture is pointing to this realization. It is pointing to this fulfillment that Jesus is the Christ. All of Moses and the prophets speak of Him.
How do you test the spirits? How do you discern between truth and error? Well, what does it say about Jesus? And does it conform to the whole of God’s Word about Him? Actually, a pretty good diagnostic question to ask for a sermon, for something you read, is, “What did he say about Jesus?” More than stories, more than humor, more than morality, more than the therapeutic. What does it say about Jesus that forgiveness and salvation are found in no other? Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. So you see, discernment, it comes from the discipline of knowing that Word of God, knowing the confession of our faith and how it all points to Jesus Christ as Lord.
Last weekend, our youth had a retreat at Twin Lakes and the teaching topic was “Habits of Grace.” There were multiple talks on lessons on the topics of the spiritual disciplines. And so the talks were on things like the Word of God, fasting, the Sabbath, showing hospitality to one another. And you could add to those the disciplines of meditating on the Word of God, the discipline of adversity, the discipline of serving one another. But I got to thinking, what about discernment as one of the disciplines of the Christian life? And actually, someone wrote a book over fifteen years ago called, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment. But you know, as I start to think about the disciplines of grace in the Christian life, couldn’t we say that all of the disciplines work together to nurture discernment. They all work together to equip us to teach the spirits. We need these disciplines of grace, but not discipline alone. We also need dependence.
And secondly, there’s dependence. There’s dependence on the Holy Spirit. How do we withstand the lies? How do we withstand the distractions of the world and of the false teachers? “How do we overcome them?” as John says in verse 4. Well, it is because, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” You see, it’s not by your own strength; it’s not by your own wisdom. It’s not even by your own discipline. No, it is by the power and the might of the Spirit of God that has been given to us. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit gives discernment. He is the Spirit of truth. He is the Spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of God. “The natural person,” Paul writes, “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”
We can’t do it on our own, but that’s the good news is that we are not on our own. We have the Holy Spirit. If you are in Christ Jesus, if you have trusted in Him, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,” you have the gift of the Holy Spirit. And can’t we say that if “He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world,” then couldn’t we say that He who is in us is greater than us? I’m not the Holy Spirit, you’re not the Holy Spirit, but we depend upon the Holy Spirit in every way. That means that we are dependent upon Him in prayer. We are committed to bow before God in seeking His well and asking for His help, as the catechism said tonight. That we submit, we ask Him to help us submit and to live according to His Word. We don’t know what to do sometimes, “but our eyes look to You, O Lord.” Discernment starts there.
And it means being dependent in humility. It’s a humility that has a healthy suspicion of ourselves, of our own abilities, of our limitations. A humility that is teachable and ready to learn, that is able to be corrected, a humility that is repentant, in other words, a humility that, as someone has said, “It calls for a childlike faith but not a childish faith.” Discernment, you see, is a gift from God. It’s a gift of the Holy Spirit within us, showing us the distinction between what is from God versus what is of the world. Showing us what is of the Spirit of God versus what is the spirit of antichrist. Showing us what is truth versus error. If we could summarize it all we could say it’s almost like an equation that “discipline plus dependence equals discernment.” “Don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.”
I was at a funeral out of town this week, and someone after the service asked me jokingly, “When you go to other churches, other places, do you feel like you are scoping out the competition?” No, it’s not that, but what I am doing is listening alertly and I’m reading carefully and I’m wanting to be judicious without being judgmental. I’m wanting to have sensitivity to what is being said without being cynical to the one who is saying it. And to do that, I need to check my own heart very often, but I also need to have a confidence that He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world and that there is a protection and a grace that comes by the Holy Spirit in giving us the discernment that we need to live lives to honor and glorify God in all that we do. In this time when our friends’ choices may tell us what to do, the algorithms tell us what to watch, the marketers tell us what we need to buy, but we need discernment. We need a discernment that is committed to the spiritual disciplines – the Word, prayer, fellowship of God’s people in the local church – and in complete and utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit.
May God allow us to do such things as He gives us discernment to live for His glory. Let’s pray.
Our Father, we pray as we go from this place of worship and a time of hearing Your Word that You would give us eyes to see, that You would give us understanding, You would give us hearts that love You and love our Savior Jesus above all else, that we would have hearts that would desire nothing that would dishonor Him or to lead us astray from Him. In the midst of so many distractions and temptations, we plead and beg that You would give us a spiritual discernment, that Your Spirit, the One who is in us, that is greater than he who is in the world, that You would lead us in truth and away from error, that we would know Your blessing and a joy and an assurance that comes from You alone. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.