Sermon Tone Analysis

Eureka! was the cry of the ‘49er’ who found pay dirt in the California gold fields.

It’s a Greek word—meaning “I have found it!”

It summed up every treasure hunter’s dream and expressed the thrill of striking it big.

For James Marshall (the first to discover the precious metal in 1848) and the 49ers who followed him, the term eureka meant instant riches, early retirement, and a life of carefree ease.

But would-be prospectors quickly learned that not everything that appeared to be gold actually was.

Riverbeds and rock quarries were full of golden specks that were entirely worthless.

This “fool’s gold” was iron pyrite, and miners had to be careful to distinguish it from the real thing.

Many an amateur miner would labor for days only to be told by the local assayer that his pouch full of golden dust was worthless.

Experienced miners could usually distinguish pyrite from gold simply by looking at it.

But, in some cases, the distinction was not quite so clear.

So, they developed tests to discern what was genuine from what was not.

One test involved biting the rock in question.

Real gold is softer than the human tooth, whereas fool’s gold is harder.

A second test involved scraping the rock on a piece of white stone, such as ceramic.

True gold leaves a yellow streak, whereas the residue left by fool’s gold is greenish black.

In either case, a miner relied on tests to authenticate his finds.

Spiritually speaking, Christians often find themselves in a similar position to the California “49ers” of the mid-1800s.

When confronted with various doctrines and religious teachings, all of which claim to be true, believers must be able to tell those that are biblically sound from those that are not.

As was true in the gold rush, just because something glitters doesn’t mean it’s good.

Christians need to be equally wary of spiritual “fool’s gold.”

They must not accept something as true without first testing it to see if it meets with God’s approval.

If it fails the test, Christians should discard it as false and warn others also.

But if it passes the test, in keeping with the truth of God’s Word, believers can embrace and endorse it wholeheartedly.

California gold prospectors would cry “Eureka!”

only when they found true gold.

When it comes to spiritual things, Christians should be careful to do the same.

So how do we discern false prophets from true prophets and false Gospels from The Gospel?

!

I. THE TRUTH TEST (v. 1)

* /“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”/

(1 John 4:1, NIV84)

#. the command to not believe every spirit is in the present tense

#. it literally means stop believing every spirit

#. it indicates that some in the congregation had been too gullible and accepting of false prophets and different gospels

#. it’s important to have a healthy skepticism when it comes to spiritual claims

#. to that end, the Apostle tells his congregation, /"Listen friend, don't believe everything you hear.

Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you.

Not everyone who talks about God comes from God.

There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world."/

#. we must examine, we must prove, and we must scrutinize the claims of those who say they have a word from God

#. the term translated test used in v. 1 refers to a metallurgist’s assaying of metals to test their purity and value

#. is also in the present imperative and indicates that believers are to continually test the spirits to see whether they are from God

#. the urgency of John’s command resides in the fact that not a few but many false prophets have gone out into the world

#. this is still true today

#. from this verse two truths should be embraced

#. 1st, We Must Be a Student of the Scriptures

#. 2nd, We Must Evaluate All Speakers, Teachers and Preachers by the Word of God

#. how do we recognize false teachers?

!! A. 1st, FALSE TEACHERS WILL DENY FUNDAMENTAL CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

#. they will claim to have a new teaching or new revelation that you’ve never heard before

#. the Apostle Peter said /“there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them”/ (2 Peter 2:1 NKJV)

#. many false teachers will claim they are the only ones who have the truth

* ILLUS.

One of the early claims of Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—better know as Mormons—was that Mormonism was a new truth from God, and that all other Christian denominations were corrupt.

All were believing in incorrect doctrines, and none of them were acknowledged by God as being a true church.

In a supposed vision, Smith was told not to join any of the churches that then existed, but that the "fulness of the gospel" would be revealed to him at a later time.

#. unfortunately, Mormonism is a false gospel that is ensnaring many, many people

#. for the early believers, there were certain fundamentals of the faith that were non-negotiable and which were not up for discussion

#.

people have asked me over the years, “Are you a fundamentalist?”

#. usually I will ask them to tell me what they think a fundamentalist is before I answer the question

#. if, by fundamentalist, you mean that I am a red-necked bigoted, racist, woman-hating, homophobic, intolerant, anti-intellectual, anti-scholarly, anti-science, anti-cultural, conspiracy-theory-obsessed, King-James-only bible thumping, snake-handling fanatic, then No, I am not a fundamentalist

#. if, by fundamentalist, you mean that I believe in a strict adherence to the Bible as the sole source of our faith and practice as a church and as individual believers, that I am a biblicist who believes in the inerrancy of the Scriptures, that there are some biblical doctrines that are simply non-negotiable, and that I oppose the accommodation of Christian doctrine to modern scientific theory and philosophy, and culture then Yes I am a fundamentalist—guilty as charged!

#. there are certain fundamentals of the faith that ought to be non-negotiable and which are not up for debate in the Christian faith

#. between 1910 and 1915, R. A. Torrey—an American Pastor, theologian, and biblical commentator—wrote 90 essays published in a series of 12 paperback volumes containing scholarly essays on the central doctrines of the Bible

#. they came to known simply as, The Fundamentals

#. the books delineated some of the non-negotiable truths of the bible: They included

#.

The Trinity

#.

The Inerrancy of the Scriptures

#.

The Deity of Jesus Christ

#.

The Virgin Birth and the Miracles of Christ

#.

The Substitutionary Atonement of Jesus Christ for Men

#.

Salvation by Grace Alone Through Faith Alone

#.

The Visible Second Coming of Jesus Christ to Earth to Establish His Kingdom

#. ours is a definite faith and there are some doctrines of the faith that are non-negotiable for Bible-believing Christians

#.

Be Wary of Those Who Claim That They Have a New Truth or New Doctrine You’ve Never Heard Before or Who Would Deny History Christian Orthodoxy

!! B. 2nd, FALSE TEACHERS WILL DISPLAY AN EXCLUSIVE SPIRIT

#. they will pull away from other evangelical groups and orthodox denominations because they are unorthodox or even heretical

#. the Apostle John spoke of this

* /"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us."/ (I John 2:19 NKJV)

* ILLUS.

Some of you will remember the mass suicide that took place in the Jungles of Guyana almost 35 years ago at a place called “Jonestown”.

The incident began in November 1978 when US Representative Leo J. Ryan of California visited the People's Temple Christian Church—a California-based religious cult—in Guyana, South America.

His group went to investigate reports that some of the people there were being held against their will.

After visiting with Temple leader, Jim Jones, the congressman and his party dove back to the airstrip were they were ambushed and murdered by church security guards.

A few days later, Guyana soldiers were horrified to find hundreds of bodies of cult members who had been shot or committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.

The Rev. Jim Jones lay near the altar of their worship shelter with a bullet wound in his head.

The final death count was 918.

The mass suicide and killings at Jonestown resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural, non-accidental, non-military disaster prior to the events of September 11, 2001.

Jim Jones had stared the People’s Temple in 1955.

He was a charismatic figure who demanded total loyalty from his members.

Members were required to be exclusively committed to the political and social goals of the church.

Members were required to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with fellow Temple members rather than their families.

Eventually, Jones demanded “religious communalism” where members donated all their possessions to the Temple in exchange for the Temple meeting all the member’s needs equally.

During the 1960s, he preached that the United States was the Antichrist and that capitalism was "the Antichrist system," and that America would soon come under nuclear attack.

Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion," and rejected the Bible.

In 1974 Jones and almost 1,000 followers eventually moved to Guyana where the tragedy of mass suicide eventually played out.

#.

Be Wary of Those Who Display an Exclusive Spirit—an ‘Us’ vs. ‘Them’ mentality with the ‘Them’ being every other Christian group

!! C. 3rd, FALSE TEACHERS WILL MINIMIZE THE AUTHORITY AND PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST

#. one of many false teachings about Jesus in the first century was Docetism

#. the word comes from a Greek word meaning, /"to seem"/

#. the Docetics said Jesus only seemed to be human and that his physical body was a phantom or an apparition or spirit