Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. 1 John 4:1 NLT
Read 1 John 4:1-6.
I am going to start with some very tough questions, but it is beneficial to consider these carefully.
Why do you believe what you believe? Is it because you have studied the Scriptures for yourself, or is it because of what you have been told? Do you rely on tradition or church teachings? What makes you interested in a particular minister or teacher? Is it because of an emotional experience? The excitement? Their popularity? Or, have you examined this person to see if he/she is truly of God?
Or, I can take this the other way. What makes you reject a minister? Is it because of what someone else has said about him/her? Because of articles being passed around the internet? Gossip? Often, when we disagree with one point, or if they make one mistake, we might be tempted to reject this person all together. It’s like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There is a major difference between an anointed teacher who isn’t perfect and a false teacher who deceives others. We must be careful not to confuse the two and participate in slandering an anointed minister of God in the guise of warning others about heresy.
While I have great respect for tradition and the wisdom of those who are more educated than I am, I feel that it is important to study the Bible for ourselves to determine truth rather than depending on someone else for our spiritual nourishment. John instructs us to test those who say they speak by the Spirit to see if they actually come from God.
We must be careful not to fall for sensationalism and assume something is a move of the Spirit just because it makes us feel a certain way. We cannot simply take someone’s word for it when they say they speak for God. We cannot base our beliefs on mere feelings alone, but we absolutely must line up our experiences with Truth from the Word of God.
In my personal experience growing up, my family belonged to a wonderful church where I learned to love God with all my heart and soul. The grown-ups who mentored me instilled tremendous respect for the things of God, and the teaching of the Word was rich. However, many of my elders were easily swayed when it came to ministers who spoke with a certain tone, or scrunched up their face a certain way, or who raised their voices and gave people chills with an extremely dramatic presentation. They held firmly to their favorite teachers, often for the wrong reasons, and that was the very thing John was warning against. This could eventually lead to more serious deception if we aren’t vigilant about testing the spirits.
A particularly charismatic preacher can easily convince a crowd to follow him if he can pull their emotional strings just right. In one of the most extreme cases, that is how Jim Jones convinced his followers to travel all the way to Guyana to build the community of Jonestown and drink the kool-aid.
Here is the litmus test John gave us to test preachers of the Gospel. If they claim that Jesus came in a real body, they are from God. It is that simple. However, if they do not speak the truth about Jesus, they are not from God, but have the spirit of the antichrist (verses 2 and 3).
John added another powerful truth, and this is what I want you to let sink in. As believers in Christ, we belong to God, and we have already won the victory over these false teachers. The Spirit who lives within us is greater than the spirit in the world.
Did you get that?
Whenever we are afraid or upset, let this truth ring profoundly in our hearts, that the Spirit of God within us is greater than anything this world, or that the devil may throw our way. God’s Spirit is greater than any false prophet that would try to deceive even God’s very elect. If we are alert and discerning, we will not be hoodwinked by the false teachers who are really nothing more than puppets of the devil. However, the key is to test the spirits and seek truth for ourselves.
Let us heed the words of John carefully and not be too quick to either blindly follow every popular new teacher that comes along, or to jump on the bandwagon of those who make sport of slinging mud at every popular teacher with whom they disagree.
Let us carefully examine Scripture and learn all we can from God’s Word so that we are not easily swayed by fads or corrupt teaching. And, let us not hold so obstinately to tradition for tradition’s sake that we are unwilling to learn or grow as we learn Truth from God’s Word. The Holy Bible is our only source for all Truth, and we must be careful to follow only teaching that aligns to it accurately.
Let us follow the example of the early believers in Berea during the ministry of Paul:
Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Acts 17:11 NIV
