08 What John Means by ‘Test the Spirits (1 John 4:1-6)

Speaker: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word, our serious Bible study applied to real life. Today is October 30th, 2013. Our passage is 1 John 4, verses 1 through 6. And our teacher is Krisan Marotta. This is the eighth message in our series on the book of 1 John. Krisan Marotta: Good morning. Good to see all of you braving the rain and the and the uh kind of cold weather. We are gonna be in chapter 4 today. We're gonna start we are almost to the end of the book. Isn't that amazing? We only have two more chapters. We're gonna start chapter four, and this is where John calls his attention to the false prophets. And I'm just gonna give you the thumbnail overview. He's gonna encourage us to identify false prophets two ways by the content of what they say and by the origin of what they say. So they may be brilliant or charismatic, and very often false prophets are dramatic and popular. And in fact, he even tells us the world listens to them and loves them, they gain a huge following, but none of that is critical. What's critical is what they say about Jesus. That's from 4.2, so that's the content of what they say. And then, second, whether or not they teach the same gospel the apostles taught, which is from 4.6. So that's the origin of what they say. So false teachers come and go, and I don't most of many of you probably live long enough to see many bad versions of Christianity kind of blaze into prominence and take over by, you know, kind of the community by storm, and then they fade away, and then there's another falsehood coming along right behind them. So I think there's always going to be one or two on the market, but they don't last. And John's going to tell us we don't need to be afraid of them because God is greater than the one who's in the world. Alright, so that's the overview. That's where we're headed. Let me just review where we've been. Remember, John starts this book by saying, God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. So he says, God is holy and good and right, and in him there is no sin, no shadow, uh, no evil, nothing that mars his character. And then he says, Therefore, this is how you can know those who follow him, or know who genuine believers are. So in chapter one, he tells us genuine believers will know they're sinful. In chapter two, he tells us three things. We will love the things of the world, not love. I mean, love, let me try that again. We will love the things of God, not love the things of the world, and confess that Jesus is the Christ. So, and then uh he starts chapter three with saying we will pursue a lifestyle of holiness rather than a lifestyle of sin. And he finishes chapter three saying we will show a kind of self-sacrificing love that is willing to forfeit its own rights for the rights of others. So that's kind of my thumbnail overview of where we ended. And I want to actually back up a little bit and go back to three, the end of chapter three. So we're gonna look a little briefly at 323 and 324 to tie us into four. Chapter 4, and also before we leave it, there's one thing I want to make sure we all understand. So he says, This is the commandment that this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another just as he commanded us. The one who keeps his commandments abides in him, and he in him, and we know by this that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. So this is his commandment, I think, is referring back to 22. He says, We will know those who are are his by um by the fact that they keep his commandments, and then we'll kind of which commandment is most important. What does he have in mind? And he says, the one I have in mind in 23 is that we believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the one who does this then is the one who is a genuine believer. And we've talked about abiding a lot, but just to review, I don't think by abiding he means some kind of emotional or psychological state that we get ourselves into, but he simply means we stay faithful, we persevere. So we stick to it, we don't abandon the gospel, but we just remain faithful to the gospel that we've heard and been taught. So remember that's the fundamental theme of the letter is how do you tell true believers from false believers? How do you tell people who are genuinely teaching the message that Jesus taught from those who aren't, like the uh Gnostics or the Docetists or the Greek philosophers, and he's saying, who's the one who's remained faithful to that message, that message that we heard from the beginning? And again, the Apostle John is uniquely qualified to settle that dispute dis debate or dispute because he was one of the twelve, he was one of the inner circle, and he is in a position to say, these are the people who remain faithful, and these aren't in a way that we aren't. So, anyway, so what he means by abide is not some, I don't think, some metaphysical or emotional state, but just that I remain faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ. So, and I think he repeats, abide in on the one who abides in him, and he in him, the he flips vice versa just for emphasis. All right. So before we leave chapter three, I wanted to make sure we answer a very important question because he tells us the key thing is that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ. And I would just want to make sure that everybody knows what that means. So, what does it mean to believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ? If that's the summary statement for John, then what does he mean by that? What uh that's a shorthand for the Apostolic Gospel and what is it? So we're just gonna have to hopefully this is review for most of you, but if not, listen up. This is important. So we're gonna start with the bad news. Uh remember, Paul tells us in Romans that the wages or the consequences of sin are death. And what does he mean by that? Death is the phenomenon of human existence where everything breaks down, everything, both physical and spiritual, decays, falls apart, turns evil. So parents and children become estranged, their marriages fall apart, there's bitterness, depression, frustration, war, tragedies, um, evil in the world. All of that is death. And when the when Paul says the wages of sin or death, he means more than just the fact that now at some point our hearts will stop beating and we will stop breathing. He means we will have this life that is now marked by all this kinds of corruption and decay and tragedy and breakdown. Life is the opposite of that. So when the Bible talks about obtaining life, it's a kind of existence, doesn't mean that we'll live forever. I mean, that's not the main emphasis, but it will be a kind of life that is free from sin and death. A kind of life where, I mean, just imagine, where marriages naturally got closer together and you didn't even have to work on it. And parents and children always understood each other. They didn't even have to work on it. And no office politics, you know, no lying or cheating or stealing or any of that stuff. That's life. And the Bible tells us life comes from holiness and righteousness, death comes from sin. So just like the law of gravity, if I drop this pin, it's gonna fall. If I sin, I'm gonna experience death. And if I want life, I have to have righteousness. You can't get one without the other. There's no shortcuts. So if we want to have life, we have to solve the problem of our sin. And God is the sole source of life because He alone is holy and He alone can give holiness. So we don't have life within ourselves. Uh God's intention was to give it to us, but we rebelled and we lost that opportunity. So we were born saying, I'd rather do it my way, I'd rather decide what's right and wrong, I'd rather decide what's good. Thanks, God, I'm gonna look for life on my own, even though we don't have it in ourselves. So some of you have seen this before, and it's my hands analogy. This is again, this is comes from our second grade Sunday school years. So this is the way we used to explain this. So if if my left hand is us and my right hand is God, we start face to face, and I have my hands facing each other. So we start in fellowship with God, and um he grants us life. But what happened in the fall then is we metaphorically turn our back on God. So we rebelled, so I've turned my left hand away. And the logical result of that, there are two consequences. The first is now we get sin and death, because God is the sole source of life, and we've turned our back on him. So now our existence is going to be marked by sin and death and corruption and decay and bitterness and frustration and all those things we just talked about. That's the first consequence. But the second consequence is God turns his back on us. So I've turned now my right hand away because our rebellion was not just unfortunate, it was wrong. So we have now deserved punishment. Justice must be satisfied. So there's a judicial penalty for our rebellion. God says you want death, you got it. I'm not giving you life anymore because what you did was wrong, and that consequence is devastating. Because in this state, and I don't think we can, but if we could turn back to God, there is no life there. Because justice must be satisfied. Now I don't think we can turn back to him unless he calls us, but if we could, there is no life. So until God's justice is satisfied, he's not granting life. So Paul talks about this as the wrath of God. The wrath of God is him turning his back on us, the second consequence of our rebellion. Um, and it's the graver consequence that if I could turn back and beg for forgiveness, the answer is no. So, and this, if you want to know where this comes from, there's lots of passages, but Romans 1 is a good one to look at in that section, Romans 1, I think it starts in about 18, Paul makes three claims. He says we rebelled, the consequences of our rebellion is death, and then God hands us over to sin and death. So those are the, it's a legal term. He hands us into the custody of sin and death so that we are now prisoners. And he gives this long list of evils in that section that says this is what the wrath of God involves and the consequences of our rebellion. Um, so man rebelled, and God, we now experience sin and death, and then God hands us over into the custody of sin and death. Alright? So follow me so far. So the natural consequence is we will experience death. The judicial consequence is we are now under God's wrath, and we have no way to get out. So now we're going to throw in some theological terms. Justification. Justification is having this problem of God's wrath solved. So it's being right with God, and being right with God means my debt to justice has been satisfied such that now God can turn back and offer me life. So to be justified is to have the position where God can turn back, his wrath is satisfied. So I owe no debt to justice any longer, and I'm qualified to once again receive life. The question is, how do you get there? How do you solve the problem of God's wrath? It's clear we have to be justified, we have to solve this problem of God's wrath. But how do we get there? And Paul tells us in Romans 1, you can't get there by keeping the law. In Romans 2, he says, you can't get there by having perfect doctrine, and then he sums it up in three, saying, uh, justification is a gift of God. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. That's Romans 3, 23 and 24. So we don't earn it, we don't merit it, neither Jew nor Gentile can receive it. The whole point is we are stuck with this under we are prisoners of sin and death and slaves to sin and death. We can't get out of it. But justification is based on God's mercy, and it's made possible by the death of Jesus Christ. So because God is so profoundly merciful, he does what we can't do for ourselves. He sends his son to die in our place. That satisfies his justice. He can then turn back to us. He is now both just and the justifier, as Paul says, or he's both just and merciful, and then he calls us back to him so that we are now in fellowship. So saving faith, then, we've talked about this before, but just to review, is the permanent, ongoing trust that God will free me from my sins, uh, eventually all the consequences and effects because of the death of Jesus Christ. So it's four things, and this is what we've been seeing in John. It's a genuine desire for holiness in and of itself. So what Jesus calls hungering and thirsty is after righteousness, what John calls loving the things of God. So I'm not just sick of my sin, but I want to be holy. I want to be freed from it. Um, so it's not like, well, if I could just get away from the consequences of my sin, I'd still want to sin. It goes beyond that to say, I want to be free entirely from sin. I don't like it anymore. It grieves me, I want to be saved from it. So a genuine so faith, the first aspect of saving faith is a genuine desire for holiness. The second one is understanding that left to myself, I cannot get there. So left to myself, I'm incapable of obtaining holiness. I can't keep the law well enough, I can't work it up, I can't muster it up, uh, I can't earn it in any way. I need to trust God for it. So again, more than I would how I would vote in a theological debate, it ought to be kind of the working principle of my life. So I don't, I know I am stuck in my sins and I can't get there on my own. The third aspect then is a genuine understanding that God owes me nothing and I am unworthy of the gift. So the difference in the attitude between, say, the Pharisee and the tax gatherer in that parable in Luke 18, that I've done nothing to be deserve my my salvation. So I have there's no divine spark within me that requires God to save me. There's nothing I've done that made him choose me versus uh not choosing someone else, but that it is a gift of God and his grace, pure and simple. So it's again, that's really easy to affirm as a doctrinal creed, but it's another matter to let it be the way I see myself, to realize at the core of my being that I'm totally unworthy and can expect nothing from God on my own. So wanting to be holy, knowing I I can't get there by myself, knowing God does not deserve, I don't deserve it, I've done nothing to deserve it, and then finally a firm trust that God, because of what Jesus Christ has done, both intends to and will in fact make me holy in the age to come. So trusting God to grant that life we talked about to ultimately free me from sin and death. So when John says in 323, this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ, that's what I think he means. We start in fellowship with God, we rebel, and now we're stuck, we're we're stuck in sin and death. God responds in wrath. He is now, we are now given over into the custody of sin and death. We are stuck there, there's nothing we can do on our own, but because God is so profoundly good and merciful, He does, He sends His His Son to die in our place, such that now justice and wrath are satisfied, and then He calls us back to Him. So just before we leave that, I want to make sure everyone understands that. So that brings us into chapter 4, then. So He says, let's start again. So, beloved, 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. Alright, so that raises the question: how do we tell a false prophet from a true prophet? When John says many are gone out into the world, how do we know? We have some help from the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 1822 says, A prophet from God will say what is true. So it's 1822. He says, When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if a thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing what the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously, you shall not be afraid of him. So one thing, they have to speak truth. And Deuteronomy 13 tells us they should not encourage the worship of other gods, or other, we might say they other philosophies. This is 13, 1 through about 5. If a prophet or dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or wonder, and the sign and wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, Let us go after other gods whom you have not known, and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall follow the Lord your God and fear him, and you shall keep his commandments, listen to his voice, serve him or cling to him. Notice how similar that is to John. He's saying, Okay, what he says may come true, but if it encourages you into a different gospel or to follow another God, ignore it. That's not where you should go. So even in the Old Testament, we see what John says, don't trust everyone who comes along and claims to speak for God, or we would say claims to speak in the name of Jesus. You have to evaluate them. Um what is it that characterizes them? What are their words may sound good, maybe even great or appealing, uh, because they frequently tell us what we want to hear. So, how do you evaluate them? And he's gonna tell us every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, so the gospel that we just talked about, and then it's the same message that the apostles were teaching. All right. So the other thing we've learned just to review, he talked about back in chapters two and three. The other way we can tell is their lifestyle. What what's the motivation behind what they're saying? Are they bending the text to make their point? Are they are they seeking life and the things of God, or are they seeking the things of the world? Uh so eventually I think if they are still slaves to sin and not really teachers from God, that e they will their lifestyle will give them away. They will uh eventually turn their back on the truth or stop seeking the truth. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about that in the application section. And my personal opinion is when you hear a good teacher, you should know not only what they think the passage means, but why they think the passage means that. Because that's what's most helpful, not just saying, and I hope we always strive for that on Wednesday mornings, that we teach you not just what we think it means, but how we got there. Um, what about the the verses or the text or the Bible study methods that we're using that led to that? So that that's just my my personal opinion. The other interesting question in 401 is why does he use the term spirit for teacher? Which I think is what he means here. Test every spirit. I think he's talking about test um those who are who are coming to you claiming to speak for God. And why would he use the word spirit? Why not just say teacher or why or prophet or something? Um I think he uses teacher or spirit because it's a teacher teaches what they think is true, and in that sense, that's their spirit. They judge depending on what they see, the worldview they're using, and false teachers look at the world differently. They have a different eye in that sense, they have a different spirit controlling them. So I would sum up verse four as saying uh something like, Beloved, don't believe everything that every sincere religious teacher might teach you, but test to see if the things they are teaching arise from eyes that have been given by God or agree with God, because there are many teachers out there who claim to speak for God but don't. Okay, and let me just make a disclaimer: no teacher is perfect. Every single teacher today after the apostles is going to teach heresy at some point, myself included. We will all make mistakes, we will all not have a perfect understanding of every passage that comes along. So every teacher is going to get something wrong. So I don't think that's what he's saying, that you have to have a hundred percent flawless track record today because none of us would pass that test today. However, when you are, I think one of the things that can be very instructive as to what's driving you is what happens when you find out you're wrong. You know, what's the reaction? And I was one of my early mentors in Bible study. I had only been listening to him, we were at this big seminar he was giving, and and I was a really young Christian and hadn't heard much of his teaching, and some guy in the audience raised his hand and said, But Jack, two years ago you taught the exact opposite of that. And I thought, oh no, you know, lightning's gonna strike or whatever. And Jack said, Oh yeah, I was wrong then. And I was like, wow. I mean, this was like there were hundreds of people there. I thought, what does it take to say, oh yeah, I was wrong then? God changed my mind. I learned whatever, X, Y, Z since then. And that's a good sign that that kind of humble, God isn't finished with me yet kind of response is what you'd expect given what John's been talking about. So when we see our sin or we see where we're wrong, um, what do we we ought to be willing to say I was wrong or or I don't know, or here's my best guess, I have more to learn. That's that to me is a mark of a good teacher. So that's my aside. Oh, I'm going too slow. Okay, let's look at verse two and three. Write faster. Well, I just looked at the clock. Sorry. By this you it's just I have so much I want to tell you. 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 Antichrist, of whom you've heard that is coming and is now already in the world. So I think that's a restatement of what we've been talking about. By this you know teaching which comes from God. They will acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, fully human, fully God, what he came to do, that he came to die in our uh to pay the penalties for our sins. And um these are the teachers from God. So the any mistaken view of Jesus, uh which you've heard, is not true. So he gives us a litmus test. How do you evaluate a teacher? How do you know whether or not he's from God? The drop-dead giveaway is what do they do with Jesus? If they accept him as the Messiah, they're from God, and if not, they don't. And I think he specifically adds, has come in the flesh, because that was a big deal in the heresies of his day. There were a lot of the Gnostics and the Docetus were all denying that Jesus was actually physically human, and that was a big stumbling block. They couldn't believe, because they thought that the spiritual world was good and the physical world was evil and dirty, they could not believe that God would soil himself by coming in a physical body. So that was a big stumbling block to them. They thought, well, he just looked like a man, but he wasn't really a man. He didn't actually have a corporate bot or corporal body and and so on. I think so. I was trying to think, well, what would the comparable heresy be today? And probably today it would be do they believe that Jesus is an actual historical figure who lived and died and was resurrected? I mean, there's a lot of theology out there that says, well, Jesus, the Jesus story was kind of a myth, you know, or maybe there were a random collection of teachers and they all got rolled up into this one idea of Jesus. And it's not really important whether he was a literal, actual person who lived and died. You just have to kind of believe in the Jesus spirit or the Jesus idea, and you can hear that a lot. And I think that would probably be the comparable myth today. Um that we might say that Jesus Christ actually was a historical figure, that he lived and died, he was a real uh person uh born in the flesh. So, um, and I think, you know, if John, when confronted with one of those teachers that said, you know, you don't doesn't really matter whether he was born of a virgin, doesn't really matter whether he performed miracles, doesn't really matter if he was literally resurrected or, you know, literally crucified, what's important is that you just believe the truth he taught, and John would say, that's not enough. You have to believe he was an actual historical figure who lived and died and was resurrection. Now, it's probably a little more complicated than just walking up to a teacher and going, So, do you believe that Jesus was real or not? I would imagine every false teacher would say, Of course, because they lie usually. Um, and that might have worked in John's day. I don't know, you know, because there were groups that flat out denied that Jesus was the Messiah and that he was had lived in a physical body. Today it's probably a little more tricky because I suspect most false teachers would say, of course he's the Messiah, and what we mean by that is maybe something else, um, maybe distorting that. So it's you have to, I think that's why John would say test. Test and see, listen, what you know, pay attention and see what they are actually teaching. And confess in verse 2 has the idea of more than just acknowledge, but they trust, like they stand on it. So remember in the Gospels the demons uh acknowledged who Jesus was. So when he appeared to them, they said, We know who you are, you're the holy one of God. So they acknowledged Jesus was who he said he was, but they didn't confess it. They didn't believe it, they didn't trust in it. And I think that confess carries more the idea, not just they know who Jesus is, but that it makes a difference. They embrace that they need him as Savior and Lord. And that's why we talked about a few weeks ago what's the center of the circle. What are the two questions we have to get right? Who is Jesus? What did he do for you? And we not only have to get them right intellectually, we have to let them change our hearts and our lives and our perspectives. All right, so let's look at four, five, and six. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of errors. So again, he stops, I think, to encourage them to say, I'm not worried about you, I believe you have genuine faith. I'm not writing this to scare you because I doubt your faith, but I have seen evidence of faith in you. And he's basically, I think, saying, Um, so the you I would think are his readers, and he's trying to encourage them as to where he they stand, and that um he says, You have overcome false teachers. What does overcoming mean? Refusing to be persuaded by them. So standing firm in the truth, abiding, as he's talked about. So he says the world will lie to you, will try to seduce you into materialism, or persuade you of other gospels, or that the pleasures of of the world are greater than the promises of God, or tempt you every day to say, Well, I can't see that, so it must not be real, or something. And he's saying you can't trust them. The trials and the troubles that tempt us to give up and to doubt who God is and to what and to doubt what he's done for them, they're there every day, but you have overcome them in the sense that you haven't listened to them. You haven't been persuaded, uh, you haven't been seduced by the bright lights and promises of, say, fame and fortune and earthly glory, but remain true to the gospel that you have heard. And then this I think is actually one of the most encouraging things he says. How do I know? How do we how how is it that we overcame them? Well, he doesn't say because you were exceedingly smart or smarter than them, or you had intense training in cults, or you went to seminary, or you gave really clever arguments, or you know, you developed this great theological knowledge. He says, because God is greater than them. God is in you and he cares about you and he will get you to the finish line. So he loved you enough to save you while you were a sinner, and he loves you enough to finish the job, and I have confidence in that. And that ought to be really comforting because we don't have to go worry about is every every moment of every day, or am I going to be taken in by some new book or some new philosophy that comes along? Faith is a gift of God from beginning to end, and once he gives it to you, he doesn't take it back. He sustains you. The perseverance of the saints is in God's hands. And you know, as Paul says, who can separate you from the love of Christ? And we might say, who can make the Holy Spirit stop working in you? No one. There's no force in the world that can do that. God is greater than all of them. And if he has given you faith, you will get there. You will, you may get taken in for a season, but God will bring you back. And he has confidence in that. Then in five, they are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. I think the idea is they will say the things the world wants to hear. So they are really popular. Everybody loves them. Their message is going to find a hearing because it's what the world wants to hear. And the the thing that came to mind is I don't know if you all remember the prayer of Jabez phenomenon that came up years ago. Heresy, complete heresy, I think. I mean, because it was basically pray this and God will make you rich. And the Bible never says God will make you rich in this life with wealth and and health. And but it was hugely popular because who doesn't want to be rich? I mean, it's what everybody wants to hear, and all you have to do is pray this prayer every day like Jabez. Well, what could be easier than that? So they will that kind of message will find a hearing in the world. And it seems like, you know, every time some liberal scholar comes up with some ridiculous new story about, well, Jesus wasn't really a man, or actually he was married to Mary Magdalene, or actually, you know, they come up with some ridiculous story and that gets spread all over the newspapers and you hear it everywhere. But anytime archaeologists bring up evidence that supports the claims of the Bible, no mention. Never gets never sees the light of day. You have to go hunting in the journals to find it. So that's, I think, another test. If the world loves it, it, you know, evaluate closely because generally the world hates, the darkness hates the light, and we've seen the world hates the people of God, and generally will not love the message of God, but they will love a message that isn't from God. Okay, and then verse six, we are from God, he who knows God listens to us, he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. I think the we in this verse is the apostles, that he is speaking of the twelve and saying, Those of us who were there in the beginning, who saw, who heard, who touched, who walked with Jesus, we are the ones that have the true message, and anyone who teaches the same message we taught is from God. And anyone who doesn't teach the same message that the apostles taught is not from God. So, and by this you can recognize those who are of the truth and those who are of error. So, when he says from God, I think he just means a genuine believer or born of God, and false teachers will have the eyes of the world, so they are their teaching will not fit with the apostles. Spirit of truth, spirit of error, again. The spirit of truth would be those who see and accept the truth, recognize it when they hear it, long for it, trust in it, uh, want more of it. The spirit of error are those who are blind to the truth, they don't recognize it when it slaps them in the face. So the litmus test is uh who do they think Jesus is? And are they teaching the same gospel that the apostles taught? What do they do with that message? So again, who was Jesus? What did he do for you? Those are the critical questions. So what have we added in 4, 1 through 6? So he appeals to John appeals to his readers to say, don't believe everything that gets taught in the name of Jesus, even by sincere teachers. Um, and just because a teaching includes some notion that Jesus saves in some sense doesn't make it right. You want to make sure it's actually the the apostolic message. So what a teacher teaches and a spirit receive or student receives will ultimately dictate it by the spirit at work in them. Either God has given them the eyes to see or he hasn't. And um you should you can be aware of that. Okay. So what now we're going to turn to applications. So that's what we've learned today. What does that mean in our day-to-day lives? And I I um the first thing that came to me was it's as important that you not believe some things as it is important that you do believe others. So we talked about this a few weeks ago, how our society values tolerance. And tolerance used to mean I might vigorously disagree with you, but I would vigorously uphold your right to believe whatever you believed. And that, when I was growing up, that's what tolerance was. Today, tolerance is all ideas are equal. And if I say this idea is right and this idea is wrong, I am being intolerant because truth is relative, and I can't, you know, you can't judge another idea and say this idea is better than that idea, or this idea is truer than that idea, and if you do make that judgment, you're being intolerant. And John would say that's not wisdom, that's foolishness. You can't love righteousness without hating sin. You can't love Christ without rejecting the world. We've seen his contrast. You can't love truth if you embrace error. So it is important that you recognize truth from error. So sometimes we have to take a stand. There's no value in accepting everything. Thinking all ideas are equal is not wisdom, it's foolish. So that would be the first thing. We have to take a stand. There's some questions that are crucial that we want to get right, we want to pursue truth. I'm probably preaching to the choir here since you're all here for Bible study. You know, because that's what we're doing. We're in a in a pursuit of the truth. And that we that means we will have to reject some ideas as wrong. And sometimes that means we're in conflict with other believers, and that's um that's always uncomfortable. But that's where we have to re-approach each other with respect, humility, seeking the truth together, and always being open to the fact that I could be the one that's wrong. Um all right, so you we have to make a judgment call, we have to believe some things and reject others. The second thing that struck me in this is that we ought to evaluate teachers by their content and not their charisma. So by their content and not their outward facade. And I don't know about you, but I'm much, you know, I my first judgment call is well, that was fun to listen to, or entertaining, or a really good speaker, or something, and that's um not actually the right motivation. So teachers may be attractive, charismatic, easy to listen to, soft-spoken, gentle, and but we don't want to get seduced by the package on the outside. So we have to know more than their outward demeanor. I take great credit, comfort in that. It's like because I don't always feel like the most polished or charismatic teacher, so it's like, yay, see, I can still listen to me. Anyway, that was an assignment. Well, I might edit that out of the tape. Um, anyway, pay attention to the content, not necessarily the outward facade. Everything that gets taught in the name of Jesus isn't always true. And sometimes we can use the right vocabulary and still be wrong because we mean other things by it. So John would say, think critically about the content. You know, think how far we've slipped down to valuing style over substance or the charisma of the messenger rather than what he's actually or she is actually saying. Okay, so then I thought, well, that that's kind of vague in general. Can I give you anything more specific? So I started trying to think, well, how, what are red flags? So if I'm in a debate with someone or a talk with someone, what are might be red flags that would tell me I'm dealing with someone who's not actually seeking the truth? And these this is just my own kind of, you're free to reject this. Um this is just kind of my own trying to put a list together and thinking um about it. Because my husband and I we love theological debates and we actually we go seek them out, you know. We find, you know, we create them at home. Like he'll take one side of an issue and I'll take another, even if we agree just to try to refine our thinking, and we seek out other teachers and and sermons and all kinds of things that we know we're not gonna agree with, just to have the debate. So I was trying to think about all those kinds of debates and think, well, what are the red flags that maybe this person isn't someone I should listen to? So this is just I'm gonna give you five. Um, and again, this is just kind of from my own experience, you're free to to think I've gone a little overboard. But the first one I thought about is false teachers deliberately ignore the truth. So when I'm dealing with someone or trying to to run uh to like debate or or work through an issue, if they deliberately ignore all the relevant facts, that's a red flag. Or they make no effort to learn all the relevant facts, that's also a red flag. And you can see this from John because he talks about we will love the truth, we will long for the things of God, and seeking the truth is not always easy. So I think teachers who are from God will want to des they long to teach and believe the truth, regardless of how inconvenient it may be. I mean, sometimes believing the truth makes you look foolish in the world's eyes, or it makes you look um like unsophisticated or something, and and and the beautiful people of the world or the academic elites, they think you're silly if you believe the truth. And genuine teachers long to teach, believe the truth no matter what. So even if the world mocks them or says, well, you're silly, or you're just unsophisticated, or you're not academic enough, or whatever. And um sometimes it's it often will manifest itself as well, I don't even want to deal with the facts, I don't even want to listen to that argument. Um and that can be a red flag. We ought to be willing to listen. So I think teachers who genuinely seek the truth want to have the conversation, they want to grow and mature, they want to have their eyes ideas refined and shaped and improved. And that often happens in dialogue and debate. Um, so good teachers don't want to hold a position that cannot withstand scrutiny or a serious biblical challenge. So if you're not even willing to have the conversation, that can be a red flag. If it's just like, no, I'm right, and that's the end of a discussion, it's like, well, that's that's kind of a red flag for me. So I would think false teachers ignore the truth and ignore facts, especially if they're inconvenient, and teachers from God tend to seek the truth even when it's not easy. Now it could be that they may not want to be in a debate because they think, well, you're just not worth talking to, and you know, that's another issue. But um, but if there's just this marked tone of, I believe what I believe, and I don't care what anyone else says, that that can be a red flag. Okay, related to that, number two, I think, is a false teacher says nothing will ever change my mind, and a true teacher lets the Bible change their mind. So uh when a teacher will explicitly say something like, I no matter what, you will I will never change my mind, that's a red flag for me. Because I don't know anyone who studies enough that doesn't realize that there's always more to learn. There's always something I can I can get better and do better at understanding, even if it's a passage I've I've studied a hundred times. I was discussing um an issue of the question of should women be in pastoral leadership with another teacher, and I asked him what he thought about a particular verse, and he responded with, Well, I don't know what I think about the issue yet, so I haven't studied the verse. And I thought, wait, don't you mean you want to study the verse to find out what you think? I mean, don't we go to the Bible to figure out what it says and then make up our minds what the issue says? And at that point he backpedaled and said, Of course. And knowing this man, I think that probably was just a slip of the tongue. Um, that that's not the tenor of his life. But if that had been the pattern or lifestyle that he exhibited, of first I will decide what I think, and then I will go to the Bible and figure out where it teaches it, I would say that's a bad sign. No. That and again, I think the person I was that was just a misstatement on his part. Um so a good teacher lets the Bible change their mind. Even if they have, you know, sometimes it's like God has to pry your presuppositions out of your cold fingers, but you've got to let the Bible change your mind. Um, another one, when confronted with the truth, I think a false teacher often gets angry, and a good teacher will change his mind. Now, assuming, of course, that the dialogue is respectful and not, you know, personal insults or attacks or something, but if it's actually a respectful debate, um, I think anger in in response to that is a is a bad sign. Um it's generally fear of maybe, you know, I don't have it right. So genuine teachers, when they see the truth, they will respond with something like, um, you know, I was I was wrong then, or I've learned more, or uh I'll have to stop and think about that. So they value truth more than their reputation and they don't get angry. Instead, they repent. Okay, and fourth, then I think false teachers tend to dismiss and ignore facts and information that's inconvenient or challenges their position. So it's and I don't mean by just saying, well, I disagree with you, but where they they won't even engage the idea. They won't even pause to consider could that be true. They just kind of summarily dismiss it and say, nope, don't believe that. Um and I won't even consider that. And I think genuine teachers, because teachers long uh for the truth of God, when they see a challenge, they want to overcome it, they want to understand it. So you have to be willing to know and love the God who actually reveals himself in the Bible, not the one I wish existed, or the one I'd like to have in my back pocket, but or the one who might please the world or the you know the academic elites or the cultural icons, but the one who has spoken through his prophets. So I was having a conversation with another church leader, and we were talking about the issue of suffering, and he said, Well, if that's who God is, I don't want anything to do with him. And again, I think that was a rash statement made in a moment of frustration and not the actual tenor of this man's life. And all of us have those moments of despair where we say things we don't really mean, and I actually think that's what was going on here. But if that was the tenor of his life, of well, if God that's who God is, I don't want to know him, that would be a big red flag. So that's the spirit of a false teacher who says, I despise a God who's really. There, I I only want the God that the you know that fits my presuppositions or acts the way I want him to act. Um, so that would be another m model. So that's what I mean by ignoring information, just dismissing information that's inconvenient. Um the other thing is uh the last one is false teachers often don't even show the desire to answer those who question them. They don't even want to engage in the debate. And I think genuine teachers are genuinely seeking truth. They can't sleep at night until they find answers to the questions. You know, it may take weeks and months and years, but they want to know. Um so they there's this longing to say, I want to know God, whoever that might be, whoever, and I want to answer those questions. Whereas false teachers tend to say, no, that that's a settled issue, I'm not even gonna go there. And I was um at a women's conference where Ligan Duncan was speaking, and some of you may know him, he's a pastor of a church in Mississippi, and he was the head of the PCA at the time, so the you know, the big overarching denomination. He was the the head of the the General Assembly. And we were at this conference where he was speaking, and it became to be lunchtime, and I saved a seat for Diane Gillam, who was with me, and she went off and sat someplace else. So leaving me alone, so there was this one empty chair next to me, and who should sit down but Ligan Duncan? So those of you who know me know that I'm not one for small talk. And I thought, I have this man who's brilliant sitting next to me. So I kind of waited till everybody in the at the table was in conversation with you know other things. So I leaned over and I said, So tell me what you think first Timothy 2 means. Which is like one of the most, you know, difficult passages about women and leadership in in the Bible. And I admit I expected that he would, because he's a very southern gentleman, that he would kind of give me some brush off, like, oh, you know, don't worry your little head about this, you know. Let the scholars debate it. But he did not, not at all. He, in like a 20-minute conversation, he challenged my thinking. He got, he was willing to go as deep into the technical, kind of theological aspects as every time I asked a question that he said, okay, well, if you know Greek, then let me bring this up, you know, and he kind of matched me and took me deep. And in 15 minutes, he exposed like two gaps in my thinking that I had just made assumptions and had never answered. And it was fascinating to me. And I thought, you know, that kind of willingness to engage in the debate was a uh very exciting. I I had great respect for him. And it was funny because after about a few minutes I realized everyone else at the table had stopped talking, and they're all listening in, and then all the tables behind us are kind of like, you know, leaning in. And then the rest of the conference, I'd be walking down the hall, and people go, wait, were you the person talking to Dr. Duncan? What did he say in this? I couldn't hear him. Could you, you know, it was really kind of funny. So anyway, I learned a lot, and I had to go back and say, okay, how do I prove those two assumptions? Because I debated people who were much more liberal than me, but I'd never had the chance to debate someone who was more conservative, took a more harder conservative line than I understood. And I've always now, when I I think I answered those two questions, and I've always I keep praying for the opportunity to say, okay, what do you think? Did I get it? Here's my answers to your questions. What do you think? Um so anyway, that kind of willingness to engage in the debate, I think, is a great sign. Um willingness to learn the truth. Now, just as a disclaimer, just to wrap this up, um, this is not a test of who we befriend or who it's it's more who do you listen to? I mean, that's the question we've been asking in 1 John. What verse, what voice carries weight? So if you run into someone and you think, ooh, maybe not on the up and up, you don't have to ostracize them. You don't have to, you know, none of us are doctrinally pure. None of us have, you know, perfect theology. So if we start using that as a litmus test and we start ostracizing people, we're only going to get in trouble and we're not going to learn. In fact, one of the most important lessons I learned, I was in college and I was talking with the dean of the chapel at the time, who's a very, very liberal theologian. He didn't believe Jesus actually existed in the flesh. He didn't think the resurrection actually happened, and he didn't think it mattered whether you believed that or not. So he was very liberal, and we were debating him. I took a class from him, we were debating him, and at one point in the discussion he said, you know, don't let your fear of teaching heresy keep you from proclaiming the truth. And I thought, huh. We all teach heresy, but we ought to, all of us know some truth. And we don't want to let that fear of teaching heresy keep you from proclaiming the truth. And I've stuck I've hung on to that ever since, because I thought this man taught a lot of heresy. But you know, if you're talking to someone or you're engaged in a debate, or you're even you're teaching your children, and you think, well, oh, maybe I don't know everything I need to know, maybe I don't know everything. That's where I think come back to that. So don't let your fear of teaching heresy keep you from proclaiming the truth. We all know the basics. Who was Jesus? What did he do for you? We're all gonna make mistakes in our theology. Um, we will learn and grow, but keep proclaiming the truth that you know. Oh, I went a little bit over. Let's stop there. And uh let me pray and I'll give you a chance to ask some questions. Father, thank you that you um you are greater than whatever's in the world. And when new heresies or or um doctrines or philosophies or worldviews or things come along that we don't have to quake in fear, that we know that you hold us in your hands and that once you give us faith, you will grow it and mature it and get us to the finish line and into your kingdom. And just pray that we would all humbly and um respectfully uh seek truth together, knowing that we all have a lot to learn and that there's always more that your word can teach us. And just pray that if anyone here does not know Jesus in a real fundamental way, that he is her Lord and Savior, that you would open her eyes now to know who Jesus is and what he did for her, and that he died to take our place, and we can accept his love and grace. Uh, we only have to ask. In Jesus' name. Amen. Speaker: Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. For notes and study questions related to this message or more talks in this series, please visit our website, Wednesday in the Word.com. 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