We're going to be looking at
1 John 4 from last week. We left off dealing with verses
1-3 of 1 John 4. We're going to recapitulate just
a bit to touch on the basic target of the adversary as John is warning
us in 1 John 4. Two spirits in the world, the
spirit of truth and the spirit of error. that John says we need
to deal with the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. This
is in verse 6 and that spirit of error is really targeting
the Son of God in terms of his authentic claims to be the Son
of God, to be very God of very God. This is the battle that
we saw being waged in the first century during the time of the
Apostles and more particularly the Apostle John as he is working
with a fracture that took place in the church toward the end
of the first century and the heresy that drew away many to
the conclusion that Jesus Christ was not God come in the flesh
and So John is reinforcing what became over time a confession
of the church, homologeo, a confession of the church, and that is Jesus
Christ have come in the flesh. Now that statement needs to be
understood because we can pour into it all sorts of meaning
that does not actually correspond with the biblical testimony.
I'm going to read verses one through three, then I'm going
to read verse six. I'm going to back up and talk
about where we were last week with the attack of the enemy
against Jesus Christ and his authentic claims for being God
manifest in the flesh. Verse 1, Beloved, believe not
every spirit. We learned that that term spirit
is not speaking about incorporeal beings or non-corporal beings,
angels, spirits or demons. It really is a nomenclature or
an appellative appellative for teachers. Every teacher is a
spirit. Every teacher has a spirit behind
them. Every teacher is ostensibly moved
by and motivated by a spirit. That is the assumption when we
call ourselves proclaimers of some type of revelation, special
revelation, divine revelation. We are a spirit. It is a pneumatikos. It is a gift that we have allegedly. And what John says is, don't
simply believe them. This is in the present imperative
verb form. That means stop believing them
and start testing them. That means do not be undiscerning,
fickle, Christians who swallow everything people say just because
they sound good. So John says you've got to test
the spirits Whether they be of God because many false prophets
are going out into the world. It's a Legitimate premise upon
which we are to test Teaching because there are many false
prophets that are going out into the world now that term is going
to come back up in a few verses and we're going to deal with
that and Hopefully either in this outline or the next one
where I have the title worldly prophets Verse 2 hereby know
you the Spirit of God every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is of God He gives the litmus test for
determining the Authentic teachers every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God every spirit that confesses
Not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God and
this is that spirit of Antichrist Whereof you heard that it should
come and even now already is in the world verse 3 tells us
that John has clearly delineated the false prophets and and the
true prophets in his generation. by this clear insignia. They do not acknowledge the eternality
of Jesus Christ as being one with the Father, equal with the
Father in his deity, and then coming from eternity into time,
assuming a human nature as God manifested in the flesh with
the purpose of exclusively redeeming sinners from their sins. They do not acknowledge that.
That means In reality, what they do not acknowledge are a number
of theological doctrines that are what we call orthodox doctrines
for which we die. The first is that Jesus Christ
is by nature God. To assert him not being God is
to deny a cardinal doctrine of scripture. For him to not be
God is to make him a liar and to make him less than what is
necessary for the redemption of our souls. Secondly, to deny
that he was incarnated, that is took on a human nature, is
another cardinal doctrine of which if we deny that, we are
also denying a truth claim that is not only in scripture, but
it is declared in the prophecies of old that Jesus would indeed
be born of a virgin. Born of a virgin, Isaiah chapter
seven around verse 11, Give you a sign a virgin shall be with
child and we shall call his name what? Emmanuel in the Greek it
is interpreted God with us So Old Testament New Testament combined
gives us the formula of the incarnation of God Almighty Old Testament
New Testament combined so to reject the incarnation of Christ
the assuming of our nature and to reject his deity is to reject
the truth of the gospel that essential Work of God by which
you and I are redeemed that's something worth fighting for
which means this if in the teachings of men they will use biblical
language to appear to be in agreement with orthodox truth. But once
you test their teachings, test their doctrine, find out that
they do not believe the same things that the Bible believes
about the deity of Christ or about the humanity of Christ.
That is, he was very God of very God. These are the confessions.
And he is very man of very man. He is truly God and he is truly
man. If they do not believe this,
they have another gospel. And John makes some very clear
and emphatic statements both in 1st John as well as in 2nd
John. But what I said to you last week
was the devil's objective was to so bring into doubt in the
minds of the believer the authenticity of who Jesus was that he was
willing to even test Christ. on Christ's own claims to be
the Son of God. You guys remember that. So we're
going to look at the model once again because it's going to help
us work our way through the Scriptures. Go in your Bible to the Gospel
of Matthew, you can see it. Now this is absolutely fascinating
because you would think that the devil being created by Christ,
and he was, who trembles at God, as James says, and knows that
there is one God, would not be inclined to want to take Christ
through this test of which he knows he cannot fail. And yet the test that's before
us in Matthew's gospel, chapter 4, verses 1 through verse 10,
and I'm just going to reiterate and highlight those portions
that are relevant to John's exhortation and polemic over against false
teaching. We read over in verse three and when the tempter came
to him, that's Christ. He said, if you be what the son
of God. So now that proposition there
automatically exposes the devil's objective and targeted goal.
And that is to question the deity of Christ. If you be the son
of God. So that was the claim that the
devil knew was about to go all through the land of Judea, all
through Jerusalem, all through Galilee. Christ is beginning
his ministry now, right? Messiah has come. He's just been
baptized. The father spoke from heaven,
declared him to be the son of God. The spirit of God has situated
itself upon Messiah. He has led him into the wilderness.
He's about to show the world that the Messiah of the Old Testament
is here. And yet he has to go through
the test. Now, what's relevant about this test is that the Son
of God, prior to His incarnation, was God with God, the Father,
Son, and the Holy Spirit in that absolute pristine place of perfection
without any kind of capacity for being tested, now has taken
on a human nature. And the human nature of Christ
is just as real a human nature as yours and mine. which means
there is a kind of test that the son of God is going through
now that he couldn't have gone through prior to his incarnation.
He could only be tested in his humanity by assuming a nature
like ours, because apart from his humanity, God cannot be tested. Isn't that what James says? Make
sure of this. Let no man say that he is tempted
of God. Why? Because God does not tempt
any man because God himself cannot be tempted. But the God-man can. And the God-man was. And this
major trial before his ministry started was an essential model
and pattern for you and I with regards to even our understanding
and our commitment to the biblical doctrine of the incarnation.
If you be the Son of God, if you be the Son of God, command
these stones to be made bread. You guys see that? Then we go
over again at verse 6. And he said unto him, if you
be the Son of God, cast yourself down, for it is written, he shall
give his angels charge concerning thee. And in their hands they
shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against
a stone. You see, it's laid out. Again, it's laid out again. And
then the devil goes on to tempt him further down the line over
in verse 9 He said unto him and the devil in verse 8 and the
devil takes them up into an exceeding high Mountain and shows him all
the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them This is going
to be important when we go back and said them to him all these
things Will I give you if you will fall down and do what? Worship
me Worship me then Jesus said unto him get thee hence Satan
for it is written You shall worship the Lord your God and him only
Shalt thou serve and the devil left him and behold the angels
came and ministered to him quite interesting The angels came and
ministered to him after the test Why because he was a human being
just like you and I and do you understand how weak and vulnerable
you are after a test? Do you understand how you need
to be nurtured and buoyed up and strengthened by the spirit
of God after a test? Do you realize that after a test,
you are so weak, so inclined to doubt, so inclined to fear
because of how easy you were thrown off track by the test. And our Lord actually, he actually
successfully overcame this test with no appearance of weakness. And yet we know in his human
nature, this was a real viable test. And so this is a model
for the church of the living God as well. We can know for
sure that one of the very real tactics of the devil is to bring
into question the authenticity of the claims of Jesus Christ.
So go back to the first John chapter four. Let's work through
exegetically a couple of these verses and see if we can get
through our outline. So in your outline, John the
Beloved, Contending for the Faith, we were looking at verses one
through three, and we dropped down to verse, point number three
in our outline. The goal of the devil is to cast
doubt on the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is what
we are looking at in Matthew's gospel. His strategy to cancel
out the possibility of redemption. Now that's an assumption that
I'm making. His strategy is to cancel out the possibility of
redemption. And this is what we mean by this. If a person
is willing to accept The false notion that Christ is not really
God, but he was some type of Superman, some type of Messiah
type, an individual who had unusually impeccable gifts, but he was
less than God. He was not God. Such a conclusion
would render your redemption unsuccessful. In other words,
you cannot be redeemed by a Christ who is not both God and man.
For you to be redeemed requires Christ to be both God and to
be both men. If a person buys the assumption,
this is called docetism in the history of what we call heritage,
that Jesus was God, But he really didn't assume a human nature.
He just appeared to have one. He just appeared to take on a
human nature. He just appeared to have a body. He appeared to
die on the cross. He appeared to be buried. He
appeared to be raised from the dead. This is a kind of phantom
theory. This is part of Gnostic theology,
which basically argues of the futility and the weakness and
the incongruency of the flesh with deity. That deity could
never, as it were, hypostasize itself to the physical body and
somehow make the physical body to be good and and practically
usable in the realm of the redemption of sinners so that the only thing
that they conclude was that Jesus only appeared to take on a human
nature If Jesus only appeared to take on a human nature, here's
the problem with that. He was not a real last Adam. And we have been learning that
it is critical for those who are going to be redeemed to have
a federal head like the first Adam in order to redeem us. That means our federal head must
take on the very nature of humanity that we possess so that he can
be a legitimate and viable representative before God. Am I making some
sense? He has to be a legitimate and viable representative. Angels
can't save you. God, in his absolute nature,
cannot save you. But the God-man can. Because
now what he has accomplished is a legitimate and proper mediatorial
role between the true and the living God, who is pure spirit,
and humanity, who is pure flesh. Am I making some sense? the twain
becoming one in the person of Christ, he now allows you and
I by his redemptive work to be a partaker of what? The divine
nature. This is a kind of exaltation
of our humanity in a sense in which we ought not to get our
heads puffed up But in reality, that's exactly what Christ did
when he took on the responsibility of becoming our federal head.
He brought us into union with himself by his sacrifice on Calvary
Street and his successful redemption and thus taking the title deed
to the universe. He was able to accrue to himself
many brethren, many men and women who bear his nature as he bears
our nature. Now, those cardinal doctrinal
truths are non-negotiable. You and I cannot question whether
that is the case. And that is to say we cannot
compromise these basic and fundamental truths of his deity and his incarnation.
And this is what John is saying. And here's what John says over
in verse two and three. Hereby know you the spirit of
God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in
the flesh is of God, which is what I just did for the last
10 minutes. Verse three. And every spirit
that confesses not that Jesus has come in the flesh is not
of God and is that spirit of antichrist Where have you heard
that it should come in come and even now is already in the what? Okay. So now I just want to talk
about a sphere and a realm that's going to be critical to our Exercising
of our senses today a sphere and a realm with regards to the
false prophets which you are going to see here in a moment
And this is actually in your second outline and it's called
the worldly prophet. What John is doing when he says
they are already in the world is explaining the process by
which they actually are brought into existence, formulating their
doctrines, and then reinsert themselves into the church to
disseminate their doctrine and thus affect men and women in
terms of their eternal destiny. So let me put it like this. A
true prophet, a true prophet is not in the very biblical and
technical sense of this world. I want you to hear that now.
We're going to work this language through in a moment. I just want
you to hear it. A true prophet in the biblical and the technical
sense is not of this world. He or she, they collectively
are not part of this world system. That's the word cosmos that John
is using. It's the same term that Christ
used in Matthew's or John's gospel, chapter 18, around verse 36 and
37. When Pilate was testing Jesus
right before he sent him to be crucified, he says, are you the
king of the Jews? And he plainly says, for this
cause came I into this world and I have accomplished that
for which I have come. And those who know the truth
know who I am. But he said, however, I my kingdom
is not of this world. For if my kingdom were of this
world, of this world system, my people, my servants would
fight for me to keep me from being crucified. So what Jesus
did was explain or at least articulate in an expression the character
of the kingdom of God. I want to say it again. The kingdom
of God is not of this world. Christ is not of this world system. And those who are servants of
Christ are not of this world system as well. And we get ready
to unpack that in terms of explaining what it means to not be of this
world. We are not saying when we say we are not of this world,
that we are folks who walk around kind of goofy and crazy and quirky
and weird. Those folks might not be of this
world, but they certainly are not of that world. They kind
of in between somewhere, spacing out. When we say that we are
not of this world, what we are fundamentally saying is that
that other realm called the kingdom of God. which is the dimension
where God exists and where his authority and his dominion has
precedent over everything, that sphere, that realm is where all
true believers have been brought into by virtue of a translation
out of darkness into the kingdom of light. That realm is a whole
different realm and sphere than the kingdoms of this world. And
the way you detect it is by the philosophy and by the worldview
that this world system holds, which is diametrically opposed
to the world system of scripture. Scripture's biblical worldview
stands over against the worldview of this world system. The two
are at odds with each other. And this is how you detect true
prophets from false prophets. You can detect true prophets
from false prophets because false prophets have their dwelling
in this world system. They develop their ideology,
their worldviews, their doctrines, their teachings, their whole
construct and system is rooted in the world's philosophy down
here in this physical, empirical, evidential system that we call
the earth. And they can fall under the category
of three things. And this is actually in your
other outline, the worldly prophets. They can fall under the category
of politics, They can fall under the category of carnality, and
they can fall under the category of selfishness. You guys see
that in point one of your second outline? Politics, carnality,
and selfishness. I just quoted John chapter 19
verse 15 about Christ's kingdom not being of this world. And
it was evident by Jesus doing ministry among his own people
which he said to them in John chapter 5 43 I've come in my
father's name and you do not receive me if another comes in
his own name him you will receive and then Jesus said to these
same rulers of Israel these were theological and religious rulers
in John chapter 8 he says if you were of God you would hear
me for those that are of God hear my words And what Jesus
was teaching, and he plainly said in the gospel of John chapter
eight as well, you are of this world, I'm from above, you are
from beneath. He makes a clear distinction
then between the foundation and the principles out of which Judaism
was operating at that time, a very political system, a very religious
political system, and its religious political roots, watch this now,
were not only political, but they were carnal, and they were
selfish. You guys see those three? I want
you to keep this for a moment, this will help you. So years ago I used to tell you
that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John really is the gospel versus
what? Religion. I use those little
axioms because they help you actually adumbrate what's internally
being developed. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
is what we call the gospel versus religion. If you wonder what
the antithesis was, what the hostility was, what the battle
was between Jesus and the rulers of the church, what is that all
about? Why, from the moment Christ entered
into this world, did King Herod try to kill him at two years
old? What is a little baby boy at two years old gonna do to
a despotic king? We are not dealing merely with
flesh and blood here. We're dealing with a spiritual
dynamic in a spiritual realm of the highest proportion. The
devil had absolute dominion over Israel because it had absolute
dominion over Rome. And Israel had subjugated itself
to Rome. And in subjugating itself to
Rome, Israel failed to be the authentic representation of the
kingdom of God. Israel had become political. Israel failed to be the spiritual
kingdom of which every local church or denomination should
be in That it had given over its right as a spiritual kingdom
operating out of spiritual principles Established by spiritual truth,
which is the Word of God. It now has to take up a worldly
construct and foundation out of which to operate so it borrows
from the Roman system and the authority and the power and the
government and the influence that Rome gave to it because
it's a slave of the Roman system. It is for this reason, after
Jesus does three and a half years ministry and every time they
came at him, he refuted their propositions and their arguments
by the word of God and clearly identified them as not being
part of the kingdom of God. Finally, they said, let's do
what? Kill him. And how did they kill him? by
resorting to the Roman empire to execute punishment on him
as some type of heretic, not only against the church, but
against Rome. How did they indict him? They
said that he made himself a king that is having authority over
Caesar. Now you have in Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, ladies and gentlemen, a precursor in foreshadow of
the antichrist system. that moved from the gospel age
into the early parts of church history and manifested itself
in Catholicism and then manifested itself in the apostate church
of our present time. So I'm helping you understand
how the construct goes. You can't tell a kingdom by its
outward veneer, how we dress, how we act. You can only tell
a kingdom by its worldview. Only by its worldview like you'll
go into any local church and you'll think that the local church
may very well be Christian if it has all of the external paraphernalia,
but I had a An individual asked me a very serious question a
couple of weeks ago last Sunday and they were sincere about it
They say how come you don't have a church cross up in your church
and I said the reason we don't have a cross is in our facility
is because we do not want people to have as the object of their
faith, a symbol, but rather a substance who is a person and his name
is Jesus. We do not have a cross up because
we do not need to have a physical sign to determine and witness
to the world that we are Christians. Signs do not authenticate your
sphere, your realm of existence. They can fool people all day
long, but the real reality of what you profess to be is based
on who you believe and what you believe. People will know whether
you are of the kingdom of God by what you say and by what you
do. This is why I've taught again
for years. Do not just run around quickly
telling people you are a Christian. That means nothing, especially
in the 21st century when 85% of Americans are Christian. So
they say, be sure to understand that what I'm talking about is
when Christ came, he was the light that entered into the darkness
and exposed the dark kingdom for appearing to be Christian,
but in fact it was not because it was rooted in this world system. Are you guys hearing me? So you
and I, if you are actually authentically born again, if you're a real
Christian, there are some dynamics that go on in you that create
the necessary conflict by which when you come into a pseudo or
a false Christian environment, you are exceedingly troubled.
If you are a real Christian, There are some dynamics that
take place on the inside of you because of an operation of faith. This is what Paul is, or John
is going to tell us over in verse four, that once you are in a
realm where the kingdom of God does not have its residence,
does not have its establishment, it is not the foundation of that
institution. You're going to be in some real
conflict, just like Jesus was. just like the apostles were,
and just like all New Testament believers have been wherever
they have been in the world. John is going to teach us this
a little down the line. But the pseudo-antichrist system,
this false system, is rooted in worldly politics. It is rooted
in a carnal predisposition, and it's rooted in selfishness. In
1 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 11 through 14, you remember this
and so you can go there. This is what the apostle said
as he treated the subject of the sphere and rim of this, of
what we call the kingdom of God versus the earthly kingdom. In
1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse To he made it very plain his
objective and motive for preaching This is going to serve as a good
model for us Listen to what he says for I am determined not
to know anything among you what except Jesus Christ and him crucified
you guys see that I Am determined to know nothing among you except
Jesus Christ and him crucified first Corinthians 2 verse 2.
You know what that means. I Paul basically established
the whole of his biblical theology around the person and work of
Jesus Christ. And he saw to it that he didn't
fall prey to all the other philosophies that were not only available
to him, but he was very knowledgeable in as well as tools and mechanisms
by which to draw men to himself. He made sure that he didn't fall
prey, ladies and gentlemen, to earthly carnal philosophies. He made sure that he did not
fall prey to the wisdom of men. He made sure that he did not
fall prey to the wisdom of words. We're gonna lay this out a little
bit in time here because you and I are susceptible to those
things. Prior to coming to a discerning
knowledge of the gospel, when you went to church, you were
mesmerized by emotionalism. Prior to discerning the truth
of the gospel, when you went to church, you were mesmerized
by the structure and order of that church in terms of its sort
of legalistic protocols. Because you were impressed by
the order and the conduct and maybe the do's and don'ts and
the rules and regulations that that church operated out of.
But you hadn't yet gotten behind the motive for why they acted
this way. to see whether the underpinnings of their actions
were rooted in biblical truth. Prior to a discerning knowledge
of the gospel, you were caught up in men's words. You were caught
up in men's doctrines. You were caught up in the way
they expressed themselves. Much of Christianity, particularly
in America today, is really rooted in showmanship. that most of
the preachers are really rhetoricians who labor to exercise rhetorical
techniques by which they mesmerize the people, but the contents
of their words are diametrically opposed to biblical truth. So,
so long as you are not capable of discerning truth from error,
you are impressed because your fallen nature, like mine, can
actually be impressed by the carnal things of this world.
Am I making some sense? So, Until the Spirit of God begins
to work in you those necessary what we call counterintuitive
gifts Get past how you feel Get past the tugging of affirmation
that comes when you are in those environments because the devil
knows how to lure you in as he did in Eve, get past those tuggings
of this affirms who I am. This is the most dangerous part
about false religion. It is really designed and structured
and aimed at affirming who you are. Did you guys get that? And
it's critical for you to understand that you're not pursuing truth
to have an affirmation of who you are. You are pursuing truth
to have an affirmation of who he is. To obtain a knowledge
of who God is, is to obtain a right knowledge of who you are. So
long as you and I fail to know who God is, we are completely
susceptible to our own true identity. Our identity then can be molded
and shaped into the image of any system. You can become part
of a church that does not have as its ultimate DNA, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And the next thing you know,
you're operating out of that same system. But because it is
not authentically God, you have put on a form of godliness while
way down inside, you know, that's not the truth because it's not
authentic. It's not authentic. Only the
authentic gospel can penetrate your soul and take a hold of
your nature and bring you into harmony with God. Only the true
gospel can do that. False religion can only give
you a facade. Am I making some sense? And so what I'm getting
at is the necessity, as John is laying down this language,
to be able to pick up on those different methods by which false
religion, pseudo Christianity operates today. It operates out
of a carnality. John Paul says this over in verse
11 of second Corinthians chapter two, he says these words for
what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man,
which is in him. Even so the things of God, no
man knows, but what the spirit of God. So what Paul is saying
in verse 11 is you and I cannot penetrate into the reality of
the things of God. Are you hearing me? by our human
nature, by our human intellect, by our reasoning, by our own
discernment skills. You and I can't know who God
is. We can't penetrate into God and
analyze God and deconstruct God and determine who God is by our
own apparatus. We don't have the necessary analytical
skills to penetrate into his being. And if we were operating
in a realm of light and honesty, We would know that that's the
case, that somehow we are still barred and exiled and set apart
from God. The problem is it's not as simple
as God in us. We have this third entity called
deception that will give you a false dimension, a false realm,
a false reality of which once you enter into it, you can deceive
yourself into thinking you have the truth because it will affirm
you. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Although if you're one of God's elect even in your unregenerate
state in your unsafe state he maintains enough of the light
Down in your soul to keep you from selling yourself Wholesale
stock lock and barrel to a lie. That's the goodness of God. Isn't
that true? Now now now here is what Paul goes on to say He says
no man knows the things of God except the Spirit of God now
we have received not the Spirit of the what? See now, there it
is. There's that antithetical construct
again. We have not received the spirit
of the world. We have not received the spirit of the world. For
had we received the spirit of the world, we could not talk
to you about God. You got that? He says, we have
not received the spirit of the world. In the historical context,
the we are the apostles. In the larger construct, the
we is the early Christian church. It is that body of believers
who have been delivered out of darkness into his marvelous light,
having received the spirit of God, by which they can understand
true propositions concerning who God is in Christ. And their
life now being radically different, not in terms of their conduct
and behavior, but in terms of their worldview and their understanding.
Now they stand over against the culture as a thorn in the flesh.
Am I making some sense? And do you know why they stand
over against the culture as a thorn in the flesh? John is gonna tell
you that in 1 John 4, the latter part of the verse, for as he
was in the world, so are we. So are we you want to find out
whether or not you and Christ live a consistently congruent
relationship? Go examine how Christ was when
he was in this world and then look and see if you're going
through the same things He's going through and that'll be
a good measure as to whether or not you have fellowship with
him Are you hearing what I'm saying that becomes very critical
to the test. I How did they treat Christ?
Did they love him? Did they receive him? Did the
world laud him? Did they lift him up? Did they
put him on banners all over the place? Did they flock auditoriums
to the tombs of hundreds of thousands? Did all men speak well of him?
Am I making some sense? Very important. So therefore,
if I am the kind of person who is operating out of a political
construct, out of a carnal framework, ultimately my goals are selfish
All of my gratification and all my pleasure and all my desires
terminate in me Right, you know what that means. I really want
the world to love me Are you hearing me and I may
not even be detecting that There are a lot of people who come
to God to get God on their side To get God to help them be lovable. So the world can love them Did
you get that? There are a lot of people who
come to God and say, God, help me to be lovable so that the
world can love me. See, and that that tells us that
we are not clear on the mission of the gospel, that we're not
clear on what it means to be in Christ and we're not clear
on what it means to be of another kingdom. My kingdom is not of
this world. And so here's what he goes on
to say before we look at a few more verses. Now, we've received
not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God.
Watch this, that we might know the things that are freely given
to us of God. That particular last line, that last clause in
verse 12 is the privilege of God's people. Watch this now.
God gives us His Spirit in order that we might know Him. That
should be the objective of the Christian. Do you remember what
I just said a little earlier? That if you and I don't know
God, we can't truly know ourselves. that to have ourselves affirmed
in our true identity, we've got to know the one who created us.
This means that the primary motive of the Christian is to pursue
a knowledge of God, because in pursuing a knowledge of God,
Jesus said in John 17, verse 3, this constitutes eternal life.
That the highest objective of the believer is to know God.
Now, if you are in that process and you are experiencing a revelation
of God's glory and are coming to know God, it can only be on
one premise that you have received the Spirit of God. For the text
says, by the Spirit of God, we can know the things of God. That
becomes a primary objective. My primary objective is not for
some entity, some spirit, some divine being to give me a full
makeover so people can love me. That's a schema. Romans chapter
12 that's being conformed in such a way that now I become
an entity by which I can draw people to me like a magnet But
that was contrary to the nature of Christ when he came and it's
contrary to all God's people as well Am I making a little
sense so then what Paul is saying is The the believer who is in
this realm of the kingdom of God is so for two reasons Because
God would have them to know him This is eternal life and therefore
God gives his spirit by which this may be done And then he
says which things also we speak not in the words which man's
wisdom teaches see that But which the Holy Spirit teaches comparing
spiritual things with spiritual I don't want to do exegesis on
this text. It simply means this that The Bible is the word of
God. It is a spiritual book. It can
only be rightly interpreted by the spirit of God. So when the
spirit of God is working in my life, the spirit of God is going
to take the word of God, which he inspired men to write down.
And the spirit of God is going to properly interpret that word
in my life. The spirit of God will communicate
to me biblical truth, which is spiritual, because I am spiritual. Am I making some sense? Communicating
spiritual things with spiritual people the compatibility principle
is this I've been born again Therefore I have the Spirit of
God if I'm gonna know God I've got to know him through the Spirit
if I'm gonna know God by the Spirit I've got to know him through
his word, which is spirit This is why Jesus said in John chapter
6 around verse 63. My word is spirit and they are
life Are you guys following in other words? You really aren't
gonna know God apart from God's Word. I And you're not going
to know God in the truth, even through his word, unless the
spirit rightly divides the word to show you who God is. So this
is what Paul is saying is the privilege of the Christian versus
the person who is not. Now, here's what he says in verse
14. Here it is. But the natural man, see that
that's the carnal man, Sarkicos, the natural man does not receive
the things of the what? Now I want you to hear this now.
It doesn't mean that the natural man is not exposed to the things
of the spirit. And Paul has already identified
the things of the spirit. That's the word of God. The natural
man is exposed to the things of the spirit. And in fact, to
be honest with you, there are lots of natural men in the church.
And in fact, there are lots of churches that are nothing but
natural men. So there are many institutions that appear to be
the kingdom of God, but they are operating on a carnal, political,
fleshly principle because they have not received the things
of God. What that means is because they
are still in their fallen nature, can I tell you what they do?
They reject the truth claims of scripture because by nature
they are at enmity with God. You know what that means? When
they peruse through the book to try to find them an occupation,
and use scripture to get a job. They run across those texts that
basically exposes them for being crooks and cons and criminals,
and they avoid those texts. They pick and choose Bible verses
and build a construct by which now they can continue to promote,
watch this, political, carnal, and fleshly agendas. And undiscerning
Christians will say, well, he's in the Bible. But what we say
is, but he's not in the truth of the Bible. because he's not
rightly dividing God's Word. The man that is rightly dividing
God's Word is the man who is appropriately related to God
by birth, by regeneration, and by virtue of the Spirit of God
operating to bring him into biblical truth. And when he comes into
biblical truth, now hear me now, when he comes into biblical truth
and has to work through that spiritual process of self-mortification
so that he can tell the truth as it is in Christ, then he is
made capable of being God's spokesman to a world that by nature does
not like truth, just like his own carnal nature. Let me say
that again. In order to be a consistent proponent
of biblical truth, you also have to die in the process so that
truth can be proclaimed consistently and honestly and without insincerity
in your life. There's a price to pay in your
own life in order to be a servant of the true and the living God.
Are you hearing what I'm saying? Now, if you don't know that, um, you
know, it's probably cause you haven't ventured into this process
deeply enough, but this ought to be something you can identify
with as every Christian. Let's just say you are a, a single
person and you're new Christian and you've read enough of your
Bible to know that fornication is wrong, right? You know that. So you out with your girls and
y'all clubbing you've been born again And they get to looking
at the cats And you know, they're not born again You're in a struggle,
aren't you? Are you in a struggle? You're
in a real struggle because on the one hand your flesh likes
the attention paid to you But on the other hand your spirit
says you've been taught betters And your mind is now negotiating
the proposition of a cross-centered theology That god attaches to
you to make you his witness And he tells you to die to self is
to open you up to be a witness to my truth to these people in
this situation. Am I making some sense? So I
can take that same scenario and apply it to children. I can apply
it to men. I can apply it to marriages.
I can apply it to people on the job. This is what it means to
be a Christian. This is what it means to be a
Christian. To be a Christian is to be a person operating out
of another realm, out of another dimension, over against the realm
and dimension that this world is presently operating out of,
and the two are mutually exclusive. So listen to it again. The natural
man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness unto him. See that? Moronic is the idea. Nonsensical. They don't make
sense. Now, the reason they don't make
sense, hear me now, Biblical truth does not make sense to
the unregenerate person, because biblical truth does not preoccupy
itself with catering to our felt needs. Biblical truth does not
make sense to the carnal man, because biblical truth doesn't
spend a lot of time stroking your flesh and saying, there,
there, I'm here for you. My job is to make your life better.
Biblical truth is primarily designed to cut the lights on, to show
the sinner his real condition, and shut him up to his need for
Christ, which is a painful reality until they come to bow the knee
to that Christ of which they are exposed to by biblical truth.
Am I making some sense? So the natural man does not want
to stay susceptible to biblical truth. That's why some days you
see whole flocks of people get up in the middle of sermon, peel
it out. Why? Because they cannot endure sound
doctrine. Are you hearing me? They cannot
endure sound doctrine. Because sound doctrine is not
catering to their flesh sound doctrine is not saying you're
okay. Just like you are there's a lot of christianity that says
that You're okay, just like you are But that's to lie against
god is to lie against his word and it's also to lie against
you This is what john is going to teach us in the in verses
7 and following he said listen when you have come to understand
Who christ is and what the father has done in the love of christ
towards you and? Propitiating your sin and bringing
you into fellowship with god. You're going to walk in love
You're not going to lie to people anymore. You're going to tell
them the truth. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
So what John's what Paul says is the natural man cannot receive
these things. Neither can he know them because
they are what spiritually discerned. spiritually discerned. And we
can say this with regards to spiritual discernment. It is
that work of God by which he opens up our mind and opens up
our will to be predisposed to that revelation that he brings
to us in scripture so that our heart says yes to it. It is that
work of God by which he opens our understanding and he inclines
our will to that true so that when we are exposed to it, our
volition and our understanding agrees with it and gravitates
towards it. This is what Jesus meant when
he says, those that are of God, hear me. When you are of God is because
he has illuminated your mind, qualified you to hear biblical
truth, and positioned your will, your volition. See, that is really
the helm of your ship. Your will is the helm of your
ship. You can tell which direction you're going in not by the way
you think, but by the way you act. You can be very much a split
personality. You can cogitate truth in your
mind, but when the will is bent on its own selfish agenda, it
will never agree with God. It always keep God in suspense.
It'll keep those propositions kind of hanging up there kind
of as a, you know, a game that you play from time to time, mental
gymnastics, mental exercises, kind of like monopoly or, you
know, sorry, or some game. but for biblical true to actually
take a hold of your wheel and bring you into conformity to
Christ, that's a work of grace. Are you hearing me? That's a
work of grace. This is what distinguishes you between the believer and
the non-believer, but between the regenerate and non-regenerate
person, between the person that says I'll go and actually goes
versus the person that says I'll go, but won't. Are you hearing
me? Very important to know that.
Very important to know that. These are identifying markers
that distinguish the kingdom of God and those that are in
it from the false and pseudo kingdom that operates out of
other principles. And so now what I want you to
do is go in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 2 verses 8 through 10.
I want to read this. You see this in your outline, the worldly
prophets. The political constructs of this world, which are rooted
in carnal principles, Selfish ambitions, that's Romans 8, 6,
and 7. That the carnal mind is enmity against God. It cannot
be subject to God's law, neither indeed will it be. And then Paul
talks about carnal and worldly philosophies. And here's what
he says, and it's important for you to hear this before we go
back to John and wrap it up. Here's what he says. Now, you
may not think that this is something that you have struggled with,
but in reality, you have. Every system in this world is
rooted in a philosophy. Every system. There's nothing
about a complete system of belief or a complete system of practice
that doesn't have what is called a premise or an underlying philosophical
construct. All things do. All things have
a basic philosophical construct, a presupposition, a premise of
existence, a goal and motive, an agenda underneath that system. Every company you work for, the
school system has a philosophical construct. It is evolution. It is empiricism. It is relativism. It is evidentialism. Even in
our theological schools, they operate out of natural theology.
They operate out of speculations. They operate out of the idea
of the possibility of a pluralistic construct. They do not operate
today, most of them, out of what we call presuppositionalism. They don't operate out of the
premise that the Word of God is the foundation for all truth.
They operate out of the possibility of truths and other specters
and realms. And so different premises are
available as a foundation for building your worldview, even
in seminaries and theological schools, so that you can take
the Bible and run it through the prism of, as it were, empiricism
or natural theology or relativism. Liberal progressive theology
is filled with it. by which you can deconstruct
the Bible and make it say whatever you want to say, and the parts
you can't make it say, throw it out and build yourself a religion. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And so I'm just letting you know, even when we read Colossians
chapter two, verse eight through 10, that it may not seem as if
it's relative to you, but it really is. Verse eight, beware
lest any men spoil you, plunder you, trap you, bring you into
captivity. through philosophy. Do you see
that? That's love of words, the wisdom of words. Do you know
the devil is a wordsmith? Do you know the devil loves to
operate in the realm of proposition and ideas and concepts and arguments
and debates and philosophical theories? Do you understand how
intelligent he is? This is how he came to our first
parents. taking a simple command and turn it into a complex set
of questions so as to run her down a course that set her up
to deny the clear and explicit commands that God had given her.
You have to be careful to know that you don't have the intellectual
prowess to deal with the devil's wordiness. Intellectualism will send you
to hell. Did you get that? I'm not saying
that we don't use our intellect. I'm not also saying that we don't
have what is called a biblical philosophical view. We do. I'm
saying that when you deal with the enemy on his grounds, you're
going to lose. Do you remember what I told you last week about
the logos himself, which is the logic of God? He is the very
word of God. He is infinite wisdom in his
own person, right? And in his human nature, he did
not fall prey to arguing and debating. in terms of logical
syllogisms and propositions with the devil. He simply said, the
scripture says this, the scripture says that, this is what the scripture
said. Do you remember that? This is
infinite wisdom himself who could have turned the devil into knots
philosophically. He said, the scripture say this,
the scripture say that, the scripture say that. So as an aside note,
Your strength is coming to a place where not only that you know
scripture, but you have absolute confidence in its capacity to
cut the lights on when error comes. Are you hearing me? It's so very important. So Paul
says this in Colossians chapter two, verse eight, beware lest
any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. vain deceit
after the traditions of men. This is what he's talking about.
The wordiness and philosophies of the traditions of men and
their vain deceit that they could somehow, somehow they can figure
out the universe through their intellect, going all the way
back, way back before Plato and Socrates and Aristotle, way back
to the Eastern philosophers and Middle Eastern philosophers and
Asian philosophers as they thought to contemplate the universe.
give you an interpretation as to how things really are. He says be very careful because
they wrote a lot of books and the preacher said in Ecclesiastes
12, in the making of many books there is no end and much study
does what? Weary the flesh. So if you are
the kind of person that is prone to intellectual prowess you have
to be careful because that very strength can be your weakness.
Are you hearing me? You don't ever want to get trapped
into an argument with the devil on the rim of words. It'll get
you. Unless your words are scripture
words, rightly interpreted. We're almost done. Listen to
this. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain
deceit. After the traditions of men, after the rudiments of
the world. Now, word rudiments is our Greek term, strikos, and
it means the basic elements of this world. And again, what that's
talking about, ladies and gentlemen, are the impressionable scholars
that govern our universities, that teach you the disciplines
of science that has to do with how this world operates. You
come into the philosophy class, or you come into the social studies
class, or you come into the class of psychology, or you come into
the class of literature and history, you come into the class of politics,
and these professors, They can impress you with their knowledge
and especially if their knowledge is rooted in a philosophical
construct. And if you are not aware of how
far you are off of the foundation of biblical truth, they will
send you on a ride of which if it's not by the grace of God,
you won't even make it back to biblical truth. Many people have
started off in the Bible, going to college and throwing their
Bibles away because they have been wrapped up, captivated,
plundered, spoiled by philosophy. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
So it's very important for you to determine whether or not there's
a heart allegiance to biblical truth and that biblical truth
is what you're going to live and stand by and die by. Or you
will be susceptible to deception. Here's what he says, and this
is what Paul says to you and I, verses 9 and 10. We'll go
back after this. For in him, that is Christ, in him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Verse 10. Now watch this.
And you are what? Complete in him. That's the line
you need to get. You are complete in Christ. Now,
if you can buy that proposition, what that means is everything
that's lacking in your life, that sense of inadequacy, that
sense of weakness, that sense of vulnerability, that sense
of inconsistency, that sense of you not quite being sure,
all of that can be resolved by your sustained commitment to
Jesus Christ. What the scriptures teach the
believer is all that you need to be all that you are in Christ
is in Christ. That if you would pursue Christ
with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and ask him
to grant you wisdom and discernment and understanding, you will be
able to overcome the wicked one. Here's what I'm saying. Let's
go back to our text. Show you what I'm talking about. First John chapter four. Here's
what John says. We'll close it right here. I
got five minutes, I'll shut it down. So when John says, hereby
I know you, verse two, that those who are of the spirit of God,
every spirit that is confessing, teaching the word confess literally
means to be wide open, to say everything you know about that
subject. That's what it means to confess. Confession is not
being narrow. It's not being shard. It's not
being terse. You are not confessing something if you know a whole
lot about it, but you only say a little bit about it. Did you
hear what I just said? You're being manipulative. See,
confession is a courtroom scenario. In the court, you confess what
you know because there's an indictment or an affirmation of truth claims
that's on the line, right? Confession assumes being a witness
to something. And the witness now is ready
to bear record to the truth claims of that subject. And he is ready
to tell all that he knows about that subject. Christians are
called upon to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth concerning God. You are not a witness when you
narrow the truth down to a certain aspect that fits your agenda.
You're lying on God. Did you get that? So if I am
going to confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, I am going
to be confessing who he is as God, who he is as man, who he
is as the God-man mediator between God and man. what that means
for him to be the God-man mediator between God and man, and the
exclusivity factors that come with him being the only mediator
between God and man. Did you guys hear what I just
said? In other words, if I understand that Jesus Christ has fully come
in the flesh, I understand that he came from eternity, entered
into time, assumed the human nature, accomplished his father's
will, died on Calvary's tree for the redemption of his people,
rose again, went to glory, is seated in heavenly places right
now, us with him, and he'll come back to judge this world because
God made him, made him, made him to be the judge and Lord
of every living soul. See, that is a confession of
who Christ is. And in fact, those things were
wrapped up, ladies and gentlemen, in the early church creeds that's
how the early church established biblical orthodoxy in terse statements
creeds creeds for which they died are you hearing what i'm
saying today churches don't even know creeds the early church
lived on creeds because i said as i've said to you before everybody
didn't run around with bibles and lexicons and interlinears
and all kind of study helps and different translations and we
have a plethora of information The average person in the early
church for the first thousand years didn't even have a Bible.
All they had was faith in the son of God and those confessions
that were worked out by the fathers of which they held to. That means
that the work of the spirit of God and planting a knowledge
of Christ in your heart by which you cleave to him was effectual
enough to keep the believer even in the midst of being tempted.
Isn't that powerful? You know what that means when
you lose your Bible because you left it somewhere because you
ain't been reading it for three weeks Don't get all shaken up
That book should have been in your heart Thy word have I hid
in my heart that I might not sin against you with my whole
heart. Have I sought you? Oh, let me
not wonder from y'all your commandments See what I'm getting at because
that's how they did it That's how they did it. But when we
presume that, Hey, I've got a bunch of Bibles. I can read my Bible
anytime. Next thing, you know, no Bible. Now you shake it because
the word should be on the inside of us. So here's what John says.
Here's what he says. And every spirit does not, that
does not confess that Jesus is coming. The flesh is not of God.
And this is that spirit of antichrist. Wherever you've heard that it,
that it should come even now already is in the world. And
that's what we've been talking about for the whole hour. You
can tell false prophets and false teachers because the foundation
of their teaching is worldly, it's carnal, and it's selfish. Long ago, the prophets of the
early Reformation period, when we broke away from Catholicism,
we're going back to Catholicism as fast as you can shake a stick
at a snake. I'm here to tell you, most people
are Catholic and they don't even know it. I'm talking about running
right back to Catholicism. because they are so ignorant
of biblical truth and so ignorant of history and so ignorant of
the gospel. Now I'm just saying that might
trouble you, might startle you, but when you don't have a clear
understanding of sound biblical doctrine, then you don't really
understand what you are advocating. And over time you can advocate
so much stuff that you are actually inside of a camp that you haven't
yet identified with. This is why there's so much merging. We call it syncretism between
Catholic practices and Protestant practices today. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? And so what happens is a lot
of Catholic stuff creeps into the evangelical church and the
evangelical church is doing a lot of Catholic Catholicism without
naming it what it is. And the reason why they are doing
it is because they're not solid on the word of God. Now the clear
and delineated distinctives between Catholicism and what we call
Protestant Christianity is this, the gospel based upon the word
of God alone as the grounds of our sole authority for life and
practice, not the councils of the church, not the dogmas of
the Pope, not the traditions of men. As a consequence, listen
carefully to me and I'll stop it here. When a man or a woman
is very clearly rooted in biblical truth, they know that they don't
have to engage in or resolve to engage in mystical, practical
practices that are ceremonial in nature and religious in nature
in order to get close to God. One of my dear sisters innocently
was asking about Lent. If you were to ask the brothers
in the Reformation about practicing Lent, they would have told you,
you don't understand repentance and faith. That you haven't grasped
the finality of the doctrine of justification by faith apart
from words. That you are slipping back into
a legalism of works that is seeking to merit favor and approval with
God. by a false biblical concept of repentance that's external
in nature and legalistic in its outcome. That ash windy Wednesday
in the seven days prior to Palm Sunday and Resurrection Sunday,
that time where you're giving up food and giving up this and
giving up that is not repentance. It's just the works of the listen,
eat your hamburgers, eat your fried fish. Eat your tacos when
the famine comes that stuff is going away. Anyway, do you understand
what Christ said? It's not what enters into you
Paul made it very clear. It's not about meat and drink
The kingdom of God is righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost
and that if I'm going to be right with God I must be right with
God through his son Jesus Christ and And that repentance is repentance
from my ignorance of biblical truth is repentance from my assumption
that I can get right with God on the basis of what I do. It's
my repentance of thinking that I got to add to Christ's work
to get right with God. It's repentance over against
when I fail to do the right thing rather than confessing my sin
and forsaking it and walking in the grace that Christ has
given me. I am now trying to bring God my poultry works. In order for him to accept me,
that's to bring Christ down. That's to diminish his atonement.
That's to do despite to the spirit of grace. That's to trod underfoot
the precious blood of the lamb. That's to change the whole premise
of my fellowship with God. And truly, our fellowship is
with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ, and the blood
of Christ cleanses us from all sin. Are you hearing what I'm
saying? But because people don't have
a sure footing on the gospel, they can't enjoy God. On the
grounds of the objective work of Christ. Where they can say
he is mine and I am his. Forever. And as close as the
son is to the father, so am I in him and I can get no closer.
And to the extent that the father loves the son, he loves me. And
I can't be loved anymore. See, we talk, but are you hearing
what I'm saying? And the travesty of all this,
ladies and gentlemen, is because the gospel is not preached. Do
you understand that? The gospel is not preached. Let's
pray. Father, thank you for your time. Thank you for your word.
Thank you for your people. Thank you for the truth. in a free
land that we can have it to penetrate our heart and mind, get a hold
of us, shake us off of these false notions and flawed premises
and contrary ways that do not exalt you, do not establish the
Word in our life. Help us to see Christ as all
in all. Help us to see you, Heavenly Father, as an exalted God Almighty
who does everything well. Help us to see the finality of
the cross Help us to see the power of your spirit. Help us
to see the efficiency of your word. And then help us to be
living epistles written and known on the hearts of all men. That's
what we want to be, but we can only do it by your grace. Thank
you for Jesus. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
In Jesus name. Amen. God bless you.