The Test Question
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
I love libraries but they also confound me. Shelf after shelf of books stare at you. More books than you can read are there. And that’s only one dilemma.
The other is when you do read something, do you believe it? I have read different books about the same topic which are so different in their conclusions.
And it only gets worse when it comes to teaching. Our world is awash with religious ideas. While it is easy for the mature to navigate the rapids of these ideas, think about those who are young in the faith.
Just listen to some of them.
All roads lead to heaven.
God is the same regardless of your religious persuasion. In fact, if you want, God can be a tree.
Nothing is wrong as long as you have good intentions.
Then the issue is how do you know what you should believe? What happens when a persuasive teacher speaks about God and truth. Do you believe him? Reject the teaching?
And don’t we need the challenge of new ideas? Or do we just “believe what you’ve always believed?” What happens when you sit down and teach the Bible to someone? Do you want them to believe what they haven’t believed before? We want them to be open but we act differently with the Jehovah’s Witness at our door. Do you believe him?
Whether we like it or not, we struggle with ideas and beliefs. That’s what John’s audience did but it was even harder. How do we handle ideas that come to us about God, Christ, and morality?
John knew the Christians of his time had the same struggle and so he tells them how to handle teaching that they heard. It remains relevant for us in our wild idea world.
Discussion
Discussion
The Background
The Background
Let’s take a journey back in time.
It is toward the end of the first century. Eyewitnesses to the events of the first third of the first century have died. A few letters written on papyrus are floating around groups of believers, but they cannot read them for themselves. They depend on what is told them.
Most of the converts came to Christ because of a teacher. An Apollos or Epaphroditus or Demetrius. Their only credentials were “God has spoken.”
One day a different kind of teacher comes to town. He is persuasive. He is polished. He sounds profound and he starts to say, “I have received a revelation from God. Here is what God told me to tell you.”
But it sounds impressive but different than what they had heard before. But other teachers had come that way as well. Each seemed to add to their faith. But what about this one?
Should they believe him? Should they ignore him? If they believe him, are they doing the right thing? If they reject him, why should they? Their confusion twists them in knots. And worse, the church is splitting. Some believe what he says. Others reject him and now, there is a parting of the ways of those who a few weeks ago were close.
How do you handle this?
It was always a problem.
Adam and Eve had the serpent
Moses had Nadab and Abihu
Elijah faced Ahab and his prophets
And it continued, even in the early days of Christianity.
Jesus waved a red warning flag about this same situation.
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
You see the picture of what appears to be a placid sheep but under the wool are killer fangs.
Paul banged the same drum.
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.
There would always be pretenders who had the language without the faith.
In Acts 19, we meet Jews who are impressed with the power but rejecting the one who gave the power. They thought of Christianity as a convenient incantation.
Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.
Today it is a different but very similar. Teachers don’t have revelations but “interpretations.” They may even say, “the Bible says” but a concordance doesn’t reveal that language in the text. Bookstores sell “Christian” books that tell us this is the truth. But this new view contradicts what Brother Old Preacher taught us as kids. Do we read the books or not?
And what about a preacher who brings the message of Christ in a fresh way? Do you believe him or run him out of town?
Sermons should provide insights we never saw. I can say as someone who shares a message to the church, I strive to be fresh. Is that wrong? Should I just retread old ideas and rehearse the doctrine? Is this lesson true or not?
So before we go to “reject it all” or “accept it all” let’s listen to John.
The False Prophets
The False Prophets
John has already warned the readers of his letter of the teachers coming who portray their teaching as hot off God’s presses.
Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
Scholars called them Gnostics. They taught an impotent Jesus. Jesus was a great religious teacher. But because he wore a mantle of filthy flesh and God would never touch those kinds of germs. He would practice more than social distancing from the earthly Jesus.
Some say that he seemed like he was divine but it was just imaginations run wild.
Yet, at the core was the idea that their enlightenment through secret knowledge vaulted them over what John’s church already believed.
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.
John says that, in retrospect, you can see them.
But they continue to come, wave after wave, each teaching their message. Each is persuasive and seems knowledgable.
It’s not enough to know they are there. How do you spot them?
In 1960, a man named Bernie Madoff opened a brokerage. He was successful beyond belief.
The problem was he was robbing Peter to pay Paul. He took in money to pay off investors. There was no fortune, no real investments, just a Ponzi scheme.
In retrospect we say, “how could anyone fall for that?” But highly intelligent people. There were banks from all over the world. The chief economist at Soloman Brothers invested in him.
No one could see that he had built a house of cards.
Just because it sounds believable doesn’t make it so.
That’s why John says “test the spirits.”
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.
He doesn’t say accept their message or reject their message. He says to check to see if they are really of God or not.
"Test” is a word to mean “examine to see if genuine.” We know about it with money
Current technology lets you put a $20 bill on a color copier and get almost an exact copy, So the Treasury Department wove special paper that had an invisible thread in the fibers. It can only be seen under black light.
Without it, good money is worthless.
They are to examine a teacher when he comes. It’s not just about listening to see if it is pleasing but does it stand up against the genuine teaching of the apostles?
John is in perfect agreement with Paul.
Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.
But how do you test them?
The Old Testament provided different ways to measure prophets.
Moses, when he wrote Deuteronomy, understood the challenge so he records tests.
One is the test of outcome.
If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.
If it doesn’t happen, you know his message is warped.
The second is the test of fidelity.
If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. That prophet or dreamer tried to turn you from the way the Lord your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.
God would never give you a message that contradicts what he has clearly spoken. If he says, “let’s do different” it is false.
Remember, all deception sounds like truth.
My grandparents lived in Escondido, California for decades. Their house was across the street from the church building. As time went on, the church shrunk in numbers. The elders started looking for ways to energize the church.
A couple of young men came to town and started worshipping with them. They started using the right words. They wanted to “evangelize. The goal of Christianity was “discipleship.” Both perfectly good words but also good words to open the door to other things. Soon, their ideas, covered with Bible talk, caught on. But the problem is they stole the church. Members left and truth gave way to the “new way.”
So John says, we need to test things. But how? What’s the test?
For John it comes back to the central truth of Christianity
This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
Here was the test.
He talks about “acknowledging” or “confessing.” It is not about using the right words but it is an unwavering position and forthright proclamation of the essential truth.
It doesn’t hide behind words or flowery phrases. Instead, it is forced upon them. It was so distasteful that they could not say or agree with this simple truth—Jesus, the man born to Mary, who lived on earth, was God’s Christ—complete and total.
Once on the record that flesh is evil and God would never touch flesh, the confession made it impossible to say, must less agree to. It destroyed their ability to sway others to their way of thinking.
But there’s more at stake than the simple statement. It is the central knot that holds the Christian garment together. If Jesus is not the Christ come in human flesh, then Christianity collapses.
There is no forgiveness. The basis of the atonement was God took man’s sin upon himself at the cross. The death of Christ takes away sin. Without being the Christ, his death is just a tragedy.
Second, there is no pathway to God. He remains behind the curtain. We have no access because we have no high priest. We remain lost looking for an unreachable God.
Third, everything written about Jesus is a wild tall tale like John Bunyan and his blue ox Babe. We cannot believe any of his teaching because we cannot believe the man.
And, for us, we can’t trust the New Testament as a guide. Jesus brings God to man. He taught it to apostles who imparted it to others and we have believed their testimony. If their testimony is false or fraudulent, there’s no reason to accept scripture as anything but an old book of fairy tales, which is where many are today.
So, ask them the question. It will reveal where they come from.
but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
If they cannot come to grips with Jesus, it is not from God. It is a antagonistic teaching.
People struggle with an idea. What if someone believes God but can’t believe Christ. Are they still Christian?
John, in his black and white teaching, says “no.” How can you practice Christianity when you deny the source of what you believe? It is a terrible contradiction.
John Stott stated the case clearly. Neither Christian believing nor Christian loving is to be indiscriminate. In particular, Christian faith is not to be mistaken for credulity. True faith examines its object before reposing confidence in it.
The Christian’s Confidence
The Christian’s Confidence
This can become confusing, leaving people to scratch their head in doubt. Are we following the right way? Do we believe the right things? Perhaps, we are off course as well!
John doesn’t want to leave them with the empty feeling that they might be wrong. Instead, he says three things to bolster their confidence.
First, they should have no fear.
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
It must have been intimidating to listen to the polished speakers spouting their philosophy. Who were they to dispute such knowledge?
John says they have overcome the false teachers. The faithful are the victor in this battle.
The one in them is greater than that which is in the world. The Holy Spirit which came as part of their spiritual birth gives them God’s presence in their lives. They lack nothing. They have God with them.
It is something that none of the false teachers could say. All they had was an empty philosophy which would disappear in the sands of time.
The second thing John tells them it they can now understand the situation.
They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
Why did it seem that the whole world was turning to these teachers?
The reason is simple. The crowd mentality.
When I was growing up, my mother had an idea about where to stop to eat on trips. It was simple. Wherever the truckers stopped must be good. We let the masses decide where we would have our hamburger.
While that doesn’t hurt you when you eat out, it does when you dine on teaching.
Tragically, Christians ask the question “what draws the biggest crowds?” The answer is tell them what they want to hear. Make the message palatable and pleasant. Change your methods to please the masses. Arenas and auditoriums fill with people looking for spiritual anesthesia. Spiritual truth sometimes echoes in half-empty halls,
John reminds them and us that the popularity of a teacher or a teaching is not an indication of the truth. And the lack of an audience doesn’t indicate the lack of truth either.
The success of the false teachers was not due to the message but the narcissistic need of listeners wanting to hear what pleased them.
It is easier to understand the popularity of false teachers if you realize this concept.
Finally, John assures them they have true security.
We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
If you listen to the old apostle and his eyewitness message, you are listen to God. You can separate falsehood from truth by who you choose to listen to.
Security is always found in delivered truth rather than novel ideas. When confronted with new ideas, if we cannot put our fingers on the verse that says that, we should be suspicious. It is a short path from “the Bible says” to “this is what the Bible means.” One is holy scripture and the second is human interpretation.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The essential truth that John speaks of at the end of the first century is essentially the same as today. Test everything. We should apply the Thanksgiving turkey test. Eat the meat and spit out the bones.
The truth is that any preacher or teacher worth listening to welcomes the investigation. Their attitude is not “believe me” but “believe God.” Any teaching that cannot stand being tested is not worth listening to.
How do we test the ideas that come to us?
Don’t accept or reject based on what someone else says. Examine it for yourself. I have met self-appointed curators of what is truthful and what is not. Many times, their own biases, not reality guides them. Look for yourself.
Honest examination of beliefs is a healthy practice. There are times we need to ask ourselves, “why do I believe what I believe?” Faith that is not examined is not a faith worth having. We need to know whether faith is from God and his truth or just tradition and previous practice. It’s easy to grow intellectually lazy.
Finally, don’t follow the crowd. One of our problems of the modern society is the conspiracy followers. They listen to each other. They share with each other and confirm what they don’t know for real. Dig in for yourself. Look for truth with your own heart and life without the subtle pull of the voices of others.
There is too much at stake to take the wrong way.
In 1879 Lieutenant George De Long set out with a crew on the USS Jeannette in hopes of claiming the North Pole for the United States. De Long's plans were based on maps developed by mapmakers at the time (cartographers). Like most mapmakers, Dr. August Heinrich Petermann believed there was an open polar ice-free sea, teeming with marine life "whose waters could be smoothly sailed, much as one might sail across the Caribbean or the Mediterranean."
Unfortunately, every previous expedition that had sailed north in search of the sea had run into a problem—ice. Now you might think that running into ice every time would lead scientists to abandon the theory of an Open Polar Sea. Not so. Instead, Petermann merely modified the original theory by adding the idea of a "thermometric gateway." As Hampton Sides recounts the story in his book In the Kingdom of Ice, "If an explorer could just bust through this icy circle, preferably in a ship with a reinforced hull, he would eventually find open water and enjoy smooth sailing to the North Pole. The trick, then, was to find a gap in the ice… a natural portal of some kind."
George De Long and his crew of 28 men wanted to find that portal. It didn't take long for De Long to realize that all the cartographers, scientists, and geographers had been wrong. He wrote, "I pronounce a thermometric gateway to the North Pole a delusion and a snare." Eventually, De Long began to doubt the existence of the Open Polar Sea. He and his men encountered ice that seemed to stretch out forever.
De Long and his crew came to grips with the fact that they had been duped. The team had to "replace [their wrongheaded ideas] with a reckoning of the way the Arctic truly is." They were running up against the rocks or hardened ice of reality. In September 1879, the USS Jeannette got trapped in the ice pack and his crew escaped and tried to go toward Siberia. The crew got separated. Some made it to Siberia and survived; others continued their lonely trek through the ice. As for George Washington De Long, he died in late October 1881 of starvation. He was covered up by snow, except for one of his arms, which was raised as if to signal toward the sky.