Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program. I'm glad
you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles with today's message, I'll be preaching from 1 John
4, beginning at verse 1. I concluded with this verse last
time, but we're gonna begin with 1 John 4, verse 1, and the title
of the message is Testing the Spirits. Testing the Spirits. And it starts out where the apostle
John is encouraging and actually commanding. This is a commandment
to the people of God to when they listen to preachers, preach.
And that's what it's talking about, preachers and preaching,
to listen critically. Now, when I say listen critically,
I'm not saying that we should listen to find something wrong
or just to trip somebody up. You know, the Pharisees and the
Sadducees and the Herodians, when they spoke to the Lord in
that day, they tried to trap Him with their questions. And
they tried to trap Him in His own words, but they couldn't
do it. Well, we don't want to be like that. You don't want
to listen to somebody trying to find something wrong, trying
to find something to argue about. But listening critically, what
I mean by that is that you've got to hold the preacher's feet
to the fire in the sense of making sure that what he's telling you
is from the word of God. We always talk about the Bereans
that were mentioned in the book of Acts, how the apostle Paul
went and he preached to the Bereans. And the Bereans went to the scriptures
to see if what Paul was telling them was true. And they're called
the noble Bereans. And I've often said jokingly
about preachers that every preacher applauds the noble Bereans until
they meet one. Because most preachers don't
like to be questioned. They don't like to be, as I said,
their feet held to the fire by the congregation because many
preachers have the idea that, it's what I call a pope-ish attitude,
that when they speak, you listen and you don't question. But that's
not the way the New Testament tells the people of God to be
in the church. And here's what he says, look
at what John says here. Beloved, believe not every spirit. Now the spirit there has to do,
it's a way of speaking of those men and women too, because we
have to put up with that today, that they come speaking, claiming
to be spiritual people of God, preaching spiritual truth by
the Holy Spirit. And so John says, don't believe
every spirit, because everyone is not preaching the truth. He
says, but try the spirit. Now that word try means to test
them. Put them to the test. And the
test that we mainly deal with, do rightly, is the gospel. You can think about it this way,
over in the book of Galatians, where the apostle Paul, he began
that book, that letter to the churches in Galatia by telling
them this, he said, I marvel that you're so soon removed from
the truth, the gospel. And he told them this, he said,
if any man comes preaching any other gospel, another gospel,
And the Greek word for another in that passage is another of
a different kind. So if anybody comes preaching
another gospel, let them be anathema. In fact, he went so far as to
say this. He said, if we or an angel from heaven preach any
other gospel than that which we've preached, let them be anathema.
That is, you're to judge them not to be of God, but to be cursed
of God, actually. And Paul even applies that to
himself. Paul had preached the gospel of God's free and sovereign
grace in and by, conditioned on the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is none other than God manifest in the flesh, God-man, and he
had preached the gospel of the saving work of Christ as the
surety, the substitute, the redeemer of God's elect, given to Him,
their salvation conditioned upon Him, and whom He had met all
those conditions to secure their salvation. And the conditions
that He met was by His obedience unto death on the cross, shedding
His blood as the complete, total payment for all their sins, their
sins forgiven, their sins cannot be charged to them, and bringing
forth an everlasting righteousness of infinite value, the righteousness
of God revealed in the gospel, the merit of Christ, obedience
unto death, imputed to the people of God. So that ensures that
they will be born again by the Spirit. It ensures that they
will be given God-given faith and brought to repentance. faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance of dead works, which ensures
that they will persevere, continue in the faith. They cannot leave
it. They cannot deny it. They cannot be lost again because
God cannot impute their sins to them. He imputed them to Christ.
They have his righteousness imputed to them. And that's their justification
before God. And they've been given life from
the dead. by the Spirit of God from Christ, who is their righteousness. And they will be brought to glory.
I quote all the time on this program, John 6, 37, where he
says, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. He said, this is the will of
him that sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should
lose nothing. but raised it up again at the
last day. He said in John 10, no one can pluck them out of
my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. So the
gospel of God's grace, not salvation conditioned on you or me, but
conditioned on Christ alone, who fulfilled those conditions,
righteousness that can only be found in the perfection of the
law that Christ accomplished in his obedience unto death.
If you find righteousness any other way, it's a false gospel.
Paul said that in Galatians 2.21. He said, if righteousness come
by the law, then Christ died in vain. Christ is dead in vain.
And he said, nothing we do can contribute to the ground of our
salvation. That's what Christ did. Now,
he said in Galatians 1, if anybody comes preaching any other gospel
than that which we've preached unto you, let him be anathema. So back here in 1 John 4, when
he says, but try the spirits, test them, and the proper way
of testing is by the word of God. by the gospel that is in
God's word. Are they preaching according
to this word? Back over in the Old Testament,
in the book of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah, he had to deal with false
preachers. And he told the people, this
is Isaiah 820, he said, to the law and to the testimony, if
they speak not according to this word, there's no light in them. And so when we test the preachers,
test the spirits, you're to test me, hold my feet to the fire,
to see whether or not I'm preaching the word of God or my own opinions,
my own ideas or worthless things. And so that's the proper standard
by which the preacher's gonna be tested. Not by appearance,
not by speaking ability. Some preachers have a better
ability to deliver a message than others. But that's not the
proper way of testing. The word of God is the proper
way. So in that context, listen, beloved, believe not every spirit. Don't believe everybody who says
they're preaching by the spirit of God. And he says, but try
or test the spirits, whether they are of God. Now, how do
I know if they're of God? Are they preaching the Word of
God? That's how you know. It's not
how you feel. It's not how they make you feel.
It's not by any sort of entertainment value. Maybe they can hold your
attention with their entertainment, their jokes, or their stories,
or their illustrations. Maybe they can. But are they
preaching the Word of God? Are they preaching the true gospel? Are they preaching the true Christ?
You know, Paul dealt with that in 2 Corinthians 11 when he said,
for if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus. You know, there
are false Jesuses, there are false Christ. The Lord said that
they, in the last days, that there'd be many false preachers
and false prophets coming and saying, here's Jesus, and there's
Jesus, and we have Jesus. And he said, don't listen to
them, and think about this. He said, some will be so close
to the truth that if it were possible, they could deceive
the very elect. That's how close they would be.
Some are way far off of the truth. You know, I think about the Mormons,
for example, who have that extra biblical book, the Book of Mormon,
and it conflicts with the word of God. It's a religion of works,
salvation by works. See, test the spirits. If they
speak not according to this word recorded in the Bible, The Word
of God. And I know the Bible's not always
an easy book to understand. Believe me, I know that well.
That's why the scriptures say, study to show yourself approved
unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth. And I wrote a book on that. We
offer it here in our website, in our church, called Rightly
Dividing the Word. And it's a study of rules of
interpretation. And so many people, they read
the Bible without understanding how it's to be interpreted. And of course we know that nobody's
gonna see the reality of the truth of the Bible unless God
reveals it. It takes a revelation from above. Think about the gospel. Paul
said in Romans 1 16, And 17, he said, I'm not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to
everyone that believeth. And that's the gospel preached
in the power of the Holy Spirit to the Jew first and to the Greek
or the Gentile also. And he says in verse 17, for
therein, in that gospel, is the righteousness of God revealed. Now it has to be revealed, and
it's revealed, he said, from faith to faith. Now what does that mean? Well,
from faith means the knowledge revealed by God to His people. Knowledge revealed. to faith. What is that? That's believed. So it's from faith, knowledge
revealed, to faith, knowledge believed, and that believing,
that faith, is the gift of God. And he says the just, the justified,
shall live by faith. Who are the justified? Those
whose sins are forgiven on a just ground, the blood of Christ.
Those who are declared righteous in the sight of God on a just
ground, the imputed righteousness of Christ. And they live by faith. They live by the knowledge that
God has given them in his word revealed to them, and they live
by looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith. And as I said, that faith is
the gift of God. It's not given to everybody.
That's what Ephesians 2.8 says. For by grace are you saved, through
faith, that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. So what we have to be concerned
with, testing the spirits, is are they preaching the word of
God? Go back to 1 John 4.1. I know I'm spending a lot of
time on this, but this is important now. Beloved, believe not every
spirit, but try or test the spirits, whether they are of God, because
many false prophets are gone out into the world. Many false
prophets. Think about Matthew chapter seven. where the Lord, in the Sermon
on the Mount, taught about this very subject, about false preachers. And over in Matthew 7, in verse
13, he began with this. He said, he said, enter ye in
at the straight gate. All right, enter in. Now what's
he talking about? He's talking about salvation.
He's talking about the kingdom of God. Enter ye in at the straight
gate. And he says, for wide is the
gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. And many
there be which go in there at. Now the broad way is a way of
death and destruction. It's the way of false gospels,
false religion. It's the way of the world. And
he says, many there be which go in there at. But in verse
14 of Matthew 7, he says, because straight is the gate, and narrow
is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find
it. Now the way of life is a narrow
way. It's a straight gate. That word
straight there doesn't mean straight as far as direction. It means
a straight like in an ocean when a ship comes upon, they're going
into port or something, they have to go through a straight.
It's a very narrow way and they have to navigate very carefully
not to hit the rocks on each side. Now what is that straight
gate? What is that narrow way? Or better
yet, who is that straight gate? Who is that? That's Christ. The
only way of eternal life, the only way to enter into life,
the only way to enter into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of
heaven, salvation, is by the Lord Jesus Christ crucified and
risen from the dead. Christ said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. The way of salvation is the way
of the cross. It's the way of grace, freely
given. And what I mean by grace is this,
and we have to do this because just about every preacher says
they believe salvation by grace, but they don't. The false preachers
in Galatia were saying they believed salvation by grace, but they
didn't. That's why Paul had to tell them, he said, if you believe
what they believe, you've fallen from grace. Not that you've lost
your salvation, you're denying grace which you claim to believe. So it's the way of grace, and
grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. So it's a way of righteousness
that is in Christ. So in other words, the way of
salvation is not the way that I work my way into it, or work
my way into the favor of God, or decide my way into it. A lot
of preachers preach that Christ died for everybody, now it's
up to you to make the decision. I heard a preacher preaching
the other day, and he said he saw a church sign that said this.
that God does not give, let me make sure I quote it correctly.
He says, God does not give guarantees. He gives opportunities. Well,
that's a lie. The salvation that God gives
to his people is a guarantee. It's an assurance because the
surety of that covenant of grace of salvation is Christ. The Bible
says in 2 Corinthians 1 verse 20 that all the promises of God
in him are yea and amen, sure and certain. God guarantees. The Holy Spirit in the new birth
is the earnest of our expectation. We fully expect to be glorified
because it's God's word. And God's word is a guarantee.
And it's all conditioned on Christ. Now, if any of it were conditioned
on me or you, it wouldn't be guaranteed. It'd be guaranteed
to fail. But it's all in Christ, who cannot fail. Well, let me
take you once a little further in Matthew 7. The way of salvation,
the straight gate, the narrow way. One way, the only way, not
many ways, You know, I know preachers today who call themselves Christians
who say, well, there are many ways to God. Well, Christ himself
said no. That's the broad way that leads
to destruction. The straight and narrow way is
the one way of salvation by God's grace in this person, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is God manifest in the flesh, and by his righteousness,
which he accomplished on Calvary in his obedience unto death,
signified by his resurrection from the dead. Well, he goes
on in verse 15 of Matthew 7. Beware of false prophets. Now,
How are you going to beware, be wary, be careful, not to be
deceived by false prophets if you don't discern or judge? You know, over there in Matthew
7-1 where it says, judge not that you be not judged. A lot
of people read that and they apply it to every situation,
but that's not what it applies to. Christ, the judgment that
he forbids is self-righteous judgment. the kind of judgment
that the Pharisees used, which was character and conduct, or
that sliding scale of righteousness. But he says here, beware of false
prophets. We must judge righteous judgment.
We judge it by the word of God. We test the spirits by the word
of God. And so he says, beware of false
prophets, verse 15, which come to you in sheep's clothing. Now there's a deception. These are false preachers who
claim to believe in Christ, claim to be Christian. But inwardly,
they are ravening wolves. Now look at verse 60. He says,
you shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes
of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt
tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not
forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire, wherefore
by their fruits you shall know them. Now a lot of people are
confused about that passage. And when they speak about the
fruits, they'll go to the fruit of the Spirit, listed in Galatians
chapter five. and the works of the flesh. And
that's true, what Galatians 5 teaches is true, but that's not what
this is talking about. By their fruits you shall know
them. What are their fruits? Well,
their fruits are their false doctrine, which produces false
believers. In other words, under the preaching
of a false gospel, that evil tree that points sinners to the
broad way that leads to destruction, all that can be produced by that
is evil fruit. That's all it can do. Nobody
can be saved under the preaching of a false gospel. That's what
this is teaching. But under the true gospel, in
the power of the Holy Spirit, all that can be produced is believers,
true believers, children of God. And that good tree, Christ, is
the tree of life. That good tree, that true gospel,
the power of the Spirit, all that can be produced is good
fruit. That is a sinner saved by grace. Now, does that mean
that false believers cannot sit under the truth for a while?
No, they can sit under the truth for a while. But they weren't
produced by the good tree, they were produced by an evil tree.
So understand that. Now, back over to first John
four now. Many false prophets are gone
out into the world. And it's up to us to discern.
The book of Hebrews talks about that, that we need to be skillful
in the word of righteousness. Hebrews five, to discern good
and evil. Look at verse two. Hereby know
ye the Spirit of God. Now that's what I want to know.
I want to know when I'm listening to a preacher that he's speaking
in the power of the Spirit of God. And it's not by the miracles
he performs. It's not by anything like that.
Here it is. Every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. In verse
three, every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh is not of God, and this is that spirit of antichrist,
antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come, and
even now already is it in the world. Confessing that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is of God. Well, what does that mean? Well,
my friend, that's the gospel. because the gospel is embodied
in the person and work of Christ. His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. His name shall
be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. Jesus
Christ, the Messiah, The Lord of glory, the Lord our righteousness
has come in the flesh. He walked this earth as God manifest
in the flesh. He kept the law perfectly. He
knew no sin. He had no sin. He's the impeccable
Christ. He suffered and he bled. He wept. He grew tired. He grew hungry.
Natural infirmities of the flesh, but yet sinless. and he went
to the cross and suffered and died for the sins of his sheep. That's what the scripture says.
Not for everybody without exception. If Christ suffered and died for
everybody without exception, then we would have to say everybody
without exception will be saved. And the Bible doesn't teach that.
The Bible teaches that his suffering unto death was a propitiation.
We read about that in 1 John 2. A propitiation is a sin-bearing
sacrifice that brings satisfaction to the law and justice of God.
So in Christ, we have the gospel. And those who do not confess
that are antichrist. Understand how that works. Test
the spirit, because many, many false preachers, false prophets,
are gone out into the world. Look for that one who is preaching
the truth, who is preaching the Word of God, who is telling you
the truth. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2-1. Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia
31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterrofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.