Take your Bibles with me again and go to 1 John. 1 John 4. We are going to be looking at the first six verses tonight.

Let's go ahead and read those verses:

[!bible] [1 John 4:1-6 - KJV](https://bible-api.com/1 John+4:1-6?translation=kjv)

1. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
4. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
5. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.
6. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

Remember that 1 John was written during a time of great upheaval in the churches. Many people had fallen for these false teachers, leading to a great split in the churches, leaving those who remained a little shell-shocked.

The questions in their minds were: "Are we right? Are we the real Christians? How do we know?"

So, John wrote this book to reassure them that they were true Christians, that those who had left were not, and to show them how they could know.

This book is a little repetitive. Twice, John gives the same three tests to tell the true from the false. Those tests are:

1. Obedience
2. Love
3. The doctrine of Christ

You see this in chapter 2.

Verses 3-6 are about obedience. Verses 7-12 are about loving the brethren. Verses 18-29 are about the doctrine of Christ.

Then in chapter 3, John repeats the same three tests in the same order:

Verses 1-9 are about obedience. Verses 10-18 are about love.

And now, in chapter 4, John is repeating and expanding on the third test: the doctrinal test.

There are lots of little insertions and parentheses in there, some of which we may have to come back and cover, but this is what John has done.

And the passage we are on is all about testing the false doctrine of false teachers.

So, let's go through it. Look at verse 1:

[!bible] [1 John 4:1 - KJV](https://bible-api.com/1 John+4:1?translation=kjv)

1. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

In this day, there was a great deal of emphasis on the gift of "prophecy." They didn't have the completed Bible yet, the sign gifts hadn't ceased yet, and there were people who were claiming to be inspired by the Spirit, and apparently, there were lots of naive people in the church who were being led astray.

And so John said, "You have to try the spirits." You can't just believe everyone who says they are of God. You have to test them. You have to try them. Because at the end of the day, there are two sources of spiritual knowledge:

1. It is of God.
2. It is of the devil.

The great emphasis of these verses is seeing what is coming from God.

The phrase "of God" (and in Greek, "of" and "from" are the same word with the same meaning - so you can read this as "from God") is found in every one of these verses except verse 5. It's found twice in verse 6.

So, the emphasis here is on finding out if these teachers are from God or not. Because that, in the end, is what matters.

Now, John tells us "many false prophets are gone out into the world."

Satan wants to destroy the truth, but if he can't destroy the truth, he's going to water it down, he's going to confuse it - and so he has a whole army of false teachers who are pretending to be of God and who are not.

So we, as Christians, can't be naive. We can't assume everyone who claims to be a Christian is a true Christian. We especially can't believe that everyone who claims to be preaching the truth is preaching the truth. There are many false prophets, so we can't just believe everything we hear. We have to try the spirits. We have to test the teaching to see if it's from God.

Well, how do you do that? How do you test the spirits? You do it two ways:

First, you look at what they are teaching. Second, you look at who is listening to them.

So, let's start by talking about...

Try the spirits by seeing what they are teaching

Look at verses 2-3 again:

[!bible] [1 John 4:2-3 - KJV](https://bible-api.com/1 John+4:2-3?translation=kjv) 2. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 3. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

So, the first test that John gives is a doctrinal test. What are they teaching about Christ? Do they teach that Christ came in the flesh?

Now, that might seem kind of basic to us. That might seem like a really basic test. But in the way it's worded, there are actually two things that the false teachers of John's day wouldn't agree with.

You see, the phrase "come in the flesh" indicates that Jesus was always Christ. He was born Christ. He didn't become Christ for a small part of His life. He was born to be Christ. He was Christ before He was born.

Remember, the false teachers of John's day taught that Jesus was just a man, and he became Christ at His baptism, that this spirit of Christ came on him at his baptism.

It seems like they denied three basic doctrines of Christ:

1. His eternal deity.
2. His eternal sonship.
3. His incarnation or humanity.

We believe that Jesus didn't become God. Jesus always was God. Remember what He said in John 8:58?

[!bible] John 8:58 - KJV 58. Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

Jesus didn't become God. Jesus always was God. He always was Christ.

John 1:1

[!bible] John 1:1 - KJV

1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And John 1:14

[!bible] John 1:14 - KJV 14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Jesus always was God. Jesus really did come in the flesh.

Those are two very basic doctrines and they are two doctrines that most cults do not believe.

Listen, we aren't talking here about minor doctrinal differences. We aren't talking about Baptists vs. Methodists vs. Presbyterians vs. Lutherans. We have reasons why we believe what we believe, but there are saved Methodists and Presbyterians and Lutherans that love God and love the Bible.

We are talking about cults. Demon-inspired cults masquerading as the truth. If you study out what they believe, almost always they have some odd views on the person of Jesus.

For instance, our neighbor Jeanette is a Jehovah's Witness. Wonderful lady. Good neighbor. We've grown to really like her and I think she's grown to like us.

But if you study what the Jehovah's Witnesses teach about Jesus - it's weird.

They do not believe that Jesus is God. They believe that He is a god. They actually believe that "Jesus was created as the archangel Michael and is a lesser, though mighty, god" and that while Jesus was on the earth, he was just a man.

We know other people who are Mormons. Nice people. Moral people. But if you study out what they teach about Jesus - it's weird.

They believe that there are a bunch of gods. That gods have flesh and blood like we do in heaven. That Jesus is just one of those gods and God the Father is one of those gods. They do not believe in the virgin birth but believe that the flesh and blood god had relations with Mary and that is how Jesus was born.

They also believe that Jesus was married to both Mary and Martha and maybe Mary Magdal

ene.

Now, where does that come from? That stuff comes from the devil. It changes the nature of God.

The Muslims claim to believe in the same God we do - the God of Abraham. But they do not believe that God had a son and they do not believe that God's followers have a son-like relationship with Him.

On the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem - one of the most holy sites to Muslims, it says "God is only One God. Far be it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son."

They are explicitly denying the deity and sonship of Christ.

So, if you know your doctrine, and you study what most of these cults teach - they deny Jesus is the Son of God.

So if you are going to try the spirits, you have to try their doctrine.

Now, do you want to know the best way to do that? Know right doctrine. Know the scripture. You don't have to study the counterfeits - study the real thing and you'll be able to see the counterfeits.

Look at verse 4. I just love this:

[!bible] [1 John 4:4 - KJV](https://bible-api.com/1 John+4:4?translation=kjv) 4. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

It might seem overwhelming when we think about all of the false teachers out there. When we think about the many false prophets who are gone out.

But we have something they don't have. We have Christ. Greater is He who is in us than He who is in them.

We have this tendency to overestimate the power of the enemy and underestimate the power of God. But we are the true overcomers.

So, we have to try the spirits by looking at their doctrine.

But that isn't the only way John tells us to try the spirits to see if they are of God.

There is a second way this passage tells us to try the spirits. We don't just test their doctrine, we also

Try the spirits by looking at their followers.

Look at verses 5-6:

[!bible] [1 John 4:5-6 - KJV](https://bible-api.com/1 John+4:5-6?translation=kjv) 5. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. 6. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

Here is a second way John tells us how to try the spirits. Don't just look at what they are saying - look at who is following them.

John says that they are of the world, so the world is going to follow them.

Can we just stop and marvel for a minute at the number of people who fall for these false prophets and hucksters?

I mean, you ever watch those guys on TV. They have a big crowd. They are abusing that big crowd.

I'm still getting mail every week from Uncle Bob for some charismatic faith healer he gave money to one time. He didn't have anything to give.

I saw a few weeks ago that Greg Locke (who used to be an independent Baptist) got anointed as an Apostle. They are speaking in tongues and casting out demons.

And you look at that and you think "good grief" - but man it draws a crowd. They can't meet in their church building, it's too small - they have to meet in a tent.

It's popular!

Error is always going to be more popular than the truth because there are more of the world's people than there are saved people.

That's what John is saying.

When you are born again, you get a new hunger, a new desire for the things of God. You have a desire for the milk of the word.

The lost world doesn't have that desire.

[!bible] [1 Corinthians 2:14 - KJV](https://bible-api.com/1 Corinthians+2:14?translation=kjv) 14. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The truth is, when you teach the Bible and good doctrine, it's not going to be super attractive to the lost world. They are going to think it's kind of boring. They aren't going to hear true teaching.

I remember phoning up a friend from college and I was asking about where he was going to church and he said "You know, I love this place and one of the things I love about it is that it is so boring. All they have here is Bible. If you were a lost person - you'd be bored to death here."

(I believe you used to go to that church, Jody.)

But that stuck with me. If we are teaching the Bible - the lost man isn't going to receive that. It's going to be like the teachers in Charlie Brown (wom wom wom wom wom).

But the flip side is that it is going to be attractive to true Christians.

So if you want to discern if something is true or false - look at what they are teaching (specifically about Jesus) and then look at who is listening.

That's how we try the spirits.

Now let me close with just one thought: This isn't nice. This thing we said today - it isn't nice. It doesn't go with the inclusivistic spirit of our age. We aren't supposed to say that one thing is true and one thing is false. We aren't supposed to talk about doctrine. Doctrine divides.

Listen, it might not be nice - but it is biblical. It is the truth. And if you love people, you'll tell them the truth in love.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me."

That sounds pretty black and white. There is one way, and it is through Jesus. If people are going to twist who Jesus is and point people away from Jesus - then we need to mark them and avoid them.

Try the spirits - this is a command. Believe not every spirit - this is a command.

Don't be a naive Christian that falls for everything that says it's from God. Know your Bible, know your doctrine, and try the spirits.

Let's stand for prayer.