Good morning, everyone! I’m dreading tomorrow. I’m dreading tomorrow. The thought that this should come to an end. I’ve just been sending a message back to our elders in Zambia, just so that they can turn from brown to green. You know green is the colour for envy, as they see what is happening here. They are praying for us, something that I always treasure is belonging to a team of elders.
Well, if you have your Bible with you, please turn to 1 John and this time we are looking at chapter 4.
This morning, as soon as I finish preaching, I have to disappear. I’m lecturing. You know with these days of technology; you can’t be too far away from your duty. So, I’ll be missing your first presentation, brother. I’ll be busy trying to convince a few students back home in Zambia and to be the best students possible. But hopefully we’ll see you by lunchtime and have some fellowship with all of you here.
Recap of 1 John
We’ve been making our journey through 1 John, and we began by a quick peek in chapter 5 and verse 13. And there we had the privilege of knowing, ahead of time, why John wrote this epistle and we saw that it was primarily to give assurance to those who are trusting in Christ, that they, in fact, possessed eternal life. That those who were disturbing them by false teachings were the ones who were in error. In actual fact, those who trusted in Jesus, were the ones who were in the truth. That’s where we picked from.
And then we made our way all the way from chapter 1, and we have been seeing how John has been doing this. Emphasizing that we who are believers in Jesus are the ones who are in real fellowship with God. He’s also dealt with how we can know that we are truly in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we saw something about obeying. We saw something about living like Christ and so forth. But, in the midst of all that, we saw his warnings against worldliness, his warnings against false teachers.
In fact, that’s where we’ll start from, as we enter chapter 4 – that aspect of false teachers taking some of our friends away and destabilising us for a while, because of that reality. And it being assured, if we are truly God’s children, we are those that have his anointing, his seed in us that keeps us on the true path.
Yesterday, we entered chapter 3, oh, yes, and so, in that chapter, this whole issue of the fact that Christianity enables us, at its very nature, to love God and to love one another. And in the loving of God because it is a vertical relationship, it is proven by our obedience to him.
But notice how we saw at the very beginning of chapter 3, that we are motivated by love itself. God has loved us. We are amazed at how much he loves us and then we are basically loving him back.
It’s very different from all other religions on the planet. In all the religions on the planet, they are trying to earn God’s love by doing all kinds of good works. For us, it’s in the reverse. We have been amazed at what he has done for us, and we say we can only love him back.
We saw how that works through obedience again. We also saw how that works through loving other believers. And we ended yesterday with this aspect of, ah those moments of doubts, when our hearts condemn us. Perhaps because we have actually sinned against God and the devil is the very first one to say, “You see? You see, you are calling yourself a Christian but look at this.” And He is the one who is tempting us in the first place, but anyway. How do we then get back into that position of buoyancy?
And again, we saw that it is as we see the grace of God that’s already working in us – the spirit of God and the fruit he is producing in us a genuine repentance that still is ours, even in that moment, that enables us to be able to still go ahead knowing I am the child of God.
Well, that’s where we ended, in those words at the end of chapter 3:
“And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” (1 John 3:24b) He is the one working all these things in us.
Ensure true doctrine
In chapter 4, I have entitled my message: Ensure true doctrine and true affection. Ensure true doctrine and true affection.
Notice there is an “and” in between.
A lot of people think that if you are somebody who is concerned about, the word we normally use is orthodoxy, okay, true doctrine, then you are a person who lacks love. On the other hand, true Christianity, they say, is love, love, love. Let’s love one another and don’t worry about doctrine, lets just love one another. Well that is not John’s understanding of Christianity.
John’s understanding of Christianity is that these two go together. And remember we said that at the very beginning, when I was introducing this, that John says, “I write these things to you…”
And what are these things? I said essentially, as you make your way through his letter, you find that it is truth and love, truth and love, truth and love. And we see this especially in this chapter.
Let’s begin then, with the aspect of ensuring the true doctrine. The way in which it begins is one of those statements that’s fairly rare in this book, and it is with an imperative, with an imperative. He begins on a negative and then goes into the positive.
He says there,
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God…” (1 John 4:1)
And in case you are thinking that it is some kind of litmus paper test that, sort of, you wave in the air to see what spirit is in this room, that’s not what he has in mind. He’s talking about teachings and look at the way he puts it here: “For many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1b)
We must remember that we are never completely safe, that we can let down our guards. We will always be surrounded by individuals that have been taught by the devil, and they are selling their teachings all around. How do we test the spirits? How do we confirm what we are dealing with here?
That’s what he goes on to quickly do and notice it is a doctrinal test, a doctrinal test.
He says there,
“By this we know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the anti-christ, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. “(1 John 4:2–3)
So that’s the test.
Beware of false doctrine
Remember what we said earlier on that there was a common heresy that was doing its rounds, not just outside the church but was infiltrating the church as well. And we gave it its historic name – gnostic heresy. You remember, with that “g” at the beginning. And there were individuals who were separating the divinity of Christ, from the man Christ Jesus. And so, this spirit who is the Word, basically sort of just came onto this man – this ordinary man, Jesus, enabling him to do all those miraculous things that he did, to teach those wonderful things that he thought and so on. But before he could die, he was abandoned, so the one who died was an ordinary man.
What we are reading here is that, in fact, God the Son came in human flesh. Everyone that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. In other words, there must be orthodoxy or true doctrine concerning the person and work of Christ. Get that wrong, you cannot be a child of God. Individuals that teach heresy concerning the personal work of Christ, are not teachers from God. They are teachers from Satan, and you need to be able to ensure that you do not follow them.
So that’s really the teaching that we have there.
I was watching yesterday the presentation from ACFAR, and I noticed that that’s basically something that they are seeking to do all the time; to enable the Christian church to smell heresy in its ranks and therefore avoid falling under. Now that’s not being unloving, that’s being Christian! It’s being Christian because you are caring for the eternal welfare of souls.
Thankfully he says that those of us who are believers, will be able to see the truth. Why? Again, that anointing we spoke about earlier. The Spirit of God who is in us, he enables us, in the midst of the confusion, to discern the truth about Jesus and serious errors concerning Christ.
Look at the way he puts here it in verse 4 downwards,
“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. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 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.” (1 John 4:4–6)
So again, don’t be surprised at this T-junction in your Christian life where individuals that grew up in your ranks have gone, veered off to the left, and gone following after false teachers. Those who have a major following after them.
And you’re saying, “How can someone believe such a lie? How?”
Well, the reason why you’re surprised, is because the Spirit of God was in you is enabling you to see through all that. And for you, the truths that are in God’s Word are your anchor in the midst of all the false teaching that surrounds you. Don’t be surprised that for you, you turn right and even if when your friends are going to the other direction you turn right and you say, “If I’m going to be the only one, I’m going to continue this way, because that’s where the truth is.”
In the early years of the Christian church, there were a number of major doctrinal battles. One of them was around the Trinity and the other was around the person and nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. And one of the greatest champions for the truth, there was a gentleman called…
