The True Jesus: Unveiling False Teachings

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in First John, Chapter 4.

You can open up with us there to First John, Chapter 4.

And we've been looking at First John here for a little while.

We've gone through chapters one, two, and three, and what we've been looking at so far has been the idea of fellowship with God.

And really that's what the book of First John's all about.

It speaks of having fellowship with God, and then from there it talks about how as we as believers are having fellowship with God, what that looks like with fellowship with others.

And so we started with in First John, him talking about what salvation is, how we can have that relationship and that fellowship with Him.

And then what do we do when we stumble in that relationship with Him?

That means we come to a place in our life where we've made mistakes through sin and we've allowed that divide to come between the Lord and the believer in our hearts.

And then what do we do?

First John 1:9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So it talks about things that will hinder our fellowship.

And chapters one, two, and even into three talks a little bit about things that would hinder our fellowship.

And then obviously on the other side of that, things that help our fellowship with God and strengthen our fellowship.

And just as even in a relationship that we have, maybe with a spouse or a friend or a family member, there's things that we can do to harm our relationship, and there's things that we can do to strengthen our relationship.

And I, I many times when we're dealing with people that have struggles with fellowship with each other, one of the biggest things is communication, right?

You, you've heard that communication is key in all relationships, and that's same thing for our relationship with God.

Now, how does God communicate to us?

Well, we're going to look a little bit more about that here this evening.

But God communicates to us through His Word and through the speaking and guidance and conviction and comfort of the Holy Spirit.

And how do we communicate with Him?

Well, we communicate to him through the way that we pray to him, we call out to him, we praise him, we worship him, we follow his word in obedience.

These are all ways in which we can have that fellowship with God.

And so if you can learn anything through this study, I think a meaningful understanding of that word fellowship.

And we've used the Greek word koinonia.

And if there's one thing I will drill into you, in my tenure as a pastor here, probably if I'm here for 50, 60 years, one of the words I'll say the most is that Greek word koinonia.

What does that mean?

It means not just being with each other physically.

I mean, that's one aspect of fellowship.

But it's.

It's deeper than that.

It's a spiritual connection.

It's.

It's connecting with a common bond.

And obviously we know that we as Christians can connect with the common bond of our salvation and the Spirit that indwells us.

But obviously we have that bond with the Lord now that he is our Father and we are his children.

And that's why we see in 1st John 11 lot of references to believers being called little children because we are in the family of God.

If you go back to chapter three one John three one, behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we believers should be called sons of God or children of God.

And so there's this beautiful picture that John lays out here in this book.

And he says, basically, when we are in fellowship with God, it's like walking with him as his children.

But with that comes things that hinder our fellowship.

We talked about unrepentant sin hinders our fellowship.

Bitterness, anger, all these things that we talked about in chapters one and two, this idea of a false religion, fake love, empty faith.

And we saw that throughout.

And they basically says, you got to abide in me.

If you're not abiding in me, you're not walking in fellowship with me.

Because you can say you're walking with me, you can tell other people that you're walking with me.

But really what makes the truth is that you're actually walking with me.

So that you don't just love in word, but also indeed, you're not just loving with what we would call maybe a disrespectful or dishonest spirit.

But we're loving God with truth, and we're loving others with truth.

But we get here to chapter four and we're going to see that there's another aspect of our life that can cause a division not in our salvation but in our relationship with God, when it comes to fellowship.

And that's what we would see as false teaching.

Some people call it heresy.

But we would see here that he's going to warn believers, he's going to warn his children not to believe and trust in and live in false teaching.

And so verse number one speaks to a really interesting truth.

It speaks to this truth that not every spiritual experience comes from God and not every encounter that we have with our emotions or we have in church or we have when someone's teaching us something is from God.

And we're going to see that here in verse one, he says, beloved.

Again, a reference to believers believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God.

So if he says, try the spirits, whether they are of God, that means that some spirits, some teaching, some lessons, some experiences can come from another place other than God.

And he's already spoken here in this book about the spirit of Antichrist, which essentially is this.

The, the enemy is against God.

And so therefore anything the enemy pushes forward, any teaching that the enemy pushes forward, any, any action that the enemy is presenting to us that is against God is from this spirit of Antichrist.

It's against God.

And so he says, try these spirits, try these teachings, whether they are of God, because if they're not of God, they're from another place, another source.

And then he gives his reasoning why he says, because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

So we understand through way of context that the way that these spirits are spread amongst the brethren is through what we see here is false prophets, people that are proclaiming the truth, seemingly proclaiming the truth, but yet at the same time they're proclaiming lies.

Because that's what that word prophet means.

By the way, prophet just means someone who's proclaiming the truth.

They're, they're, they're at least their truth.

The, the truth that they believe or maybe a lie that they want to have people believe that is true.

And so he says there's going to be false teachers, false prophets that are in the world.

And those false prophets are going to try to get believers to believe something contrary to what God would have us believe.

And so John is warning believers to not just believe anything they hear, to not just see an amazing feat and go, wow, that must be from God.

Don't just go with what people say when they say, oh, this is from God now, trust me.

And there's no source to their teaching.

Their teaching is their feelings.

Their teaching is their experience.

Their teaching is Their emotion.

I've heard people say this.

They said, you know, God has given me a word today.

And then they proclaim something that is contrary to Scripture.

What God says in this passage is that that is a false teaching, that is a false prophet, because God is never going to speak to an individual and contradict himself in accordance to his word.

And so that's what this warning is all about.

He says, don't assume that every spiritual experience, every spiritual teaching, every demonstration of spiritual power is from God.

And I think that's sometimes what we automatically think.

Well, if the person's using the name of Jesus or they have a miraculous thing happen in their life, something that we can't explain, that that must be from God.

Now, I don't want to get too far down this rabbit trail here this evening, but what I will tell you is that there are spiritual things going on behind the scenes that we don't visibly see.

And not all those spiritual things that are going on behind the scenes are good.

We know that there's darkness in this world.

Ephesians says that we're dealing with principalities and powers and workers of darkness.

There's evil in this world.

I think all of us would understand that.

All of us would agree that there are spiritual things that are going on that are not from God.

Now, they're not going to conquer God.

We're going to talk about that here in a few moments.

Even the Bible is going to say that even we as believers can overcome them in the power of God.

But he says here, be cautious about this.

We must test the spiritual experiences, the spiritual teachings and spiritual phenomenon that we see in our life, and to see if they are really from God.

So he says here, why should we test these things?

Well, because there's false teachers out there.

And so many people think that when they encounter something, maybe with an emotional thing or a spiritual thing, there's an impression there.

There's.

There's an amazement.

And ultimately there can be some people that believe in lies and overlook things that they should see because of all this power that's happening before them.

And it's important to realize that there are false prophets in this world.

I think a lot of times we can recognize that, but maybe we can't discern it when it's in front of us.

And so even though the.

The.

As we see here in First John, even though the early church had a really a direct connection to the original church, what we would call church leaders like John and others, there was still at that time false teachers and if there was false teachers at that time, all the more reason to believe that there's a lot more false teachers even today.

And so he says, test the spirits.

Now, we're going to talk here in a few moments of how we test the spirit, because this isn't going to happen like this.

You hear a voice and you go, hey, where are you from?

That's not how it always goes.

Sometimes it might be happening from behind a pulpit or it might be happening from a screen.

We might be hearing a person who has the title pastor before his name or whatever, some credentials, and we must say, well, you know what?

If he has those credentials, he must be trustworthy.

He must be speaking the truth.

But that's not what the Bible says.

The Bible says that we have to be careful not about the person who's preaching, but we have to be careful about the message that's coming out.

And so what we see here is that there's a responsibility, not just for pastors, not just for leaders, but there's a responsibility of every Christian, specifically, I would say leaders, but every Christian, to test whether the teachings are coming in accordance to the Word of God or those teachings are coming from a different place.

And so this would come through the gift of discernment that the Holy Spirit brings us to teach us unto all truth.

And so all of these things need to be judged by what we would say is God's standard.

Now, what's God's standard Scripture?

We have to judge every experience, every teaching, every display of power by the Word of God, because if it does not match up with the Word of God, it's coming from a different source.

That's what the Bible is telling us right here.

And we know that in second Peter, chapter one, verse 20 and 21, that true prophecy does not come from private interpretation.

Okay?

It doesn't come from a person.

It comes from true prophecy comes from the Word of God.

And the preacher or the teacher is just a vessel of the truth that's coming from the Word.

So if there is a person that's proclaiming a truth that is contrary to Scripture, that is, that constitutes a false teaching.

Now, I'm not talking about someone misspeaking from the pulpit.

I'm talking about someone willingly or even some ways, unwillingly, not even knowing what they're doing, misleading people away from the Word of God.

And so this means that there will be agreement with the Word of God to the message.

And so how do we know whether or not a message or a person is coming from God or coming from evil coming from, as it says here, this false place, these.

These evil spirits.

Well, verse two, hereby know ye the spirit of God.

So this is how you know that this message, this experience, this feeling is coming from God and not from another place.

Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in, come in the flesh is of God.

So he says here, the very first test that we test this message from or this teaching from, or this experience from is whether what they teach about Jesus, whether they teach Jesus properly or they teach Jesus contrary to the word of God.

And so true prophecy or true teaching will always present the true Jesus.

I want you to hear this tonight because if you could take any practical thing with you here this evening that you could take with you as fuel or as a tool for your spiritual life is to test it first and foremost with what they teach about Jesus.

What is the message about?

Is it about the true Jesus?

So.

So the way that you could phrase it is this true teaching, the true message, will always present the true biblical Jesus.

So.

So let's say someone comes knocking at your door.

Some, probably most of you have had that experience.

Someone comes knocking at their door and they say, hey, we want to tell you something.

We want to tell you what we believe.

And they come across and they sound good, they sound spiritual.

They might even bring out a Bible and start quoting the Bible.

The very first thing that I would advise you to do is ask them what they believe about Jesus.

Completely ask them, do they believe Jesus is God?

Do they believe that Jesus came to this earth and lived a perfect life and died on the cross for our sins and he's the only way, and that he conquered death through the resurrection.

Ask those questions and ask pointed questions, specific questions, because the Bible does say that there will be people who preach Jesus, but it's not the Jesus that we see in Scripture.

And I want you to see that passage of Scripture, because I think a lot of times people will say, well, they're saying Jesus and they're saying Bible, and they're saying all these different things.

So doesn't that mean they're good?

Doesn't that mean that they are someone that we can trust?

We'll go to Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 4 with me, because I want you to see this here this evening.

One of the cautions that I would have for all believers is to be aware that just because someone says Jesus or church or heaven or the kingdom or whatever, it doesn't matter what they say.

It matters what they're preaching about.

Jesus completely.

Completely.

And so if you go to Second Corinthians, chapter 11, and you look at verse number four, you're going to see that even the apostle Paul warned us against people preaching a different Jesus, a different Gospel, a different spirit.

And I'm not going to sit here this evening and list out all the false religions and all the false teachers, because that would.

Would take all of our time.

So when I want to teach about the true Jesus and the true gospel and the true word of God, the best thing to do is expose you to the one and only truth.

And then anything else that doesn't match up with that is counterfeit.

You don't need to know all the false religions out there.

You just need to know the one true faith in Jesus Christ.

If you know the true Jesus, anything else that doesn't line up with him will be a red flag.

And you'll say, nope, warning sign.

That's not true Jesus.

And so I want you to see what Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 4, says.

It says, for if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, here's another reference to the spiritual realm.

He says, if you receive another spirit which ye have not received, or another gospel which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

And so the idea here is to be aware and recognize that people will come with fancy religious language, but it will not be the true Jesus necessarily.

So we need to test that.

And so we go to back to First John, and we see, okay, he says, test it.

So it's not the only test, by the way.

I need to be clear about that.

It's not the only test because someone might have Jesus, right?

But they might skew some other aspects of that.

And we need to be careful.

But I would say the first and most important test is testing what they say about Jesus.

So if you go back to First John, chapter four, verse two, he says, okay, test the spirits, test the message, test the spiritual experience.

And then he tells you how to test it.

He says, here's the easy test.

Do they confess or profess or proclaim that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh and is of God?

Now you would say, why do they mention that?

Because at the time here in this case, the major prevailing false teaching out there was something called Gnosticism.

And what Gnosticism was was essentially a belief that Jesus came from God.

But Jesus did not come as a man.

He did not come and.

And come in flesh and bone.

And so what they would say, is this Jesus?

We believe Jesus came, but he's not who you say that he is.

He didn't come as a man.

He didn't come in the flesh.

Well, that would be contradicting what Gospel of John says.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we know that he was born of a woman.

He was 100% God.

Yes, but 100% man.

And so here in this case, John is contextually dealing with one false teaching about Jesus.

That doesn't mean that the only thing that we ask them is, do you believe Jesus came in the flesh and is from God and is God.

But what he's saying here is they need to test completely that Jesus is the true Jesus of the Bible.

In this case with John in the early church, it was dealing with Jesus's humanity.

And so that's why he's talking about that there.

So it's not the only test, but it's the first and most important test.

Verse 3.

And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus has come in the flesh is not of God.

Meaning if there is an inconsistency with their teaching of Jesus, it is not from God.

If they're willingly misleading people in the fact that Jesus is not who he says he is in Scripture, they are not from God.

And so John, in John's day, the issue was about Jesus coming in the body, truly coming in the body, and, and having a bodily resurrection.

And we must believe that to be true.

And by the way, I would stop right now and say that if you do not have a strong grip on what you believe about Jesus and who he is and what he has done, that's a good place to start when it comes to your own personal study.

Discipleship starts with who Jesus is.

And so if you say, well, I'm not really sure about Jesus, or I really, I don't really don't know what I believe about Jesus, I would say that's really where you need to dig your heels in and start to study.

Because really we know that Jesus says in John 14:6, I am the way, I am the truth, and I'm the life.

No man cometh unto the Father but by me.

And so if you don't understand completely who Jesus is according to his word, I would say you shouldn't go anywhere else.

That's the first place to go.

Because there's going to be no way to discern whether something's coming from God or somewhere else if you don't even know what you believe about Jesus.

And so he.

We need to know that in John's case, John is saying, hey, look, you need to have a proper view of who Jesus is.

And in this case, believe that he came in the flesh and that he dwelt among us and that he died on the cross for our sins, and they conquered death through the resurrection with a bodily resurrection.

By the way, there's people today that don't believe even in a bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

They believe that it was some sort of a spiritual resurrection, that his power is amongst us today, but his body is still in the grave.

Folks, if that be the case, the whole Bible is a lie.

Because what, what if Paul.

I mean, if you want to get into a deep study, go to First, First Corinthians, chapter 15.

Basically, Paul says in First Corinthians, chapter 15, if we don't have the resurrection, we don't have anything.

Okay?

Everything that we do is in vain if Jesus didn't conquer death through the resurrection.

So if you're having a conversation with somebody and it goes like this, well, oh, I believe Jesus existed.

I believe he's God.

I, I believe he died on the cross and paid the price for my sins.

But I don't really believe that a bodily resurrection is necessary.

He can just spiritually live with us today, folks, then what Paul says is that you have no hope in your resurrection one day.

Because if Jesus didn't conquer death and bodily resurrect, then.

Then we don't have that same hope that's promised to us throughout the New Testament as well.

So we have to believe Jesus in the word of God and what that says completely.

So I, I won't spend too much time on the Gnosticism and, and that belief system, but go to verse number three with me.

He says, every spirit that confesses not that Jesus has come, come in the flesh, is not of God, and this is that spirit of Antichrist.

So what is he saying here?

He says anyone that doesn't preach Jesus properly, who denies one element of Jesus is, Is against him.

It's, it's the spirit of Antichrist that's already been mentioned before, earlier on in chapter two.

And so the way that we could summarize it is this.

To deny the true Jesus is, is the basis of false teaching.

It's the basis of that spirit of Antichrist.

And essentially what it is, is.

It opposes the truth of God and it offers what we would consider some sort of a substitute or a placeholder for what God has already said.

So it's basically people trying to create their own belief system, their own gospel.

And if we go back to Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 4, he says if someone comes to preaches a different gospel, be aware, be on guard.

I read this quote and I wrote it down.

It says this.

The devil doesn't care at all if you know Jesus or love Jesus or pray to Jesus, as long as it's a false Jesus, a make believe Jesus, a Jesus who is not true, cannot save.

So I want you to be aware of that.

That don't just the way that I would say it is this.

Don't just take for granted that, hey, I believe that there's a big man upstairs.

I believe in religion.

I believe that Jesus was a good man.

So I'm okay.

Satan would love that.

Because Satan loves religious people.

He loves religious people that are against God.

Okay?

Because religion is all about how, in many cases, religion is all about how a man or a person can earn their way to heaven.

We know biblically we cannot earn our way to heaven.

So therefore Satan wants people to flock into that path.

He wants people to think that they can earn their way.

He wants people to believe in idols and false gods.

And so what we need to see here tonight is that it's not just about being religious.

It's not just about having a spiritual experience.

That's not just about going to church.

It's about knowing and believing and trusting in the one and only true Jesus who can save us from our sins.

And so he says, if they are preaching something contrary to that true Jesus, they are the spirit of the Antichrist.

Where if ye have heard that it should come, meaning ultimately it will be fulfilled in this one leader in the end times.

But as it is as a spirit, he says, and even now has already is in the world today.

So what we can see is that he says the spirit of the Antichrist was already there at that time.

The spirit of the Antichrist is here today.

Now, there's a lot of confusion with, with that.

I will say that the ultimate consummation of this spirit of Antichrist will be found in what I believe is an end times political false religion leader of the world in the end times.

But in essence, what John is saying here is that the spirit of the Antichrist is promoted back at this time and it's promoted today.

So you would say, wow, well that sounds pretty scary.

Like how, how do I know how?

How can we overcome evil?

How can we overcome the spirit of the Antichrist?

Well, John mentions here in verse 4 something amazing.

He says you are not of that.

You are not of that evil spirit.

You.

You cannot be controlled by that.

He says, ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them.

So you're.

What is he saying here?

He says you're an overcomer, not in your own strength, but as he says here at the end of verse four.

And this is an amazing verse that we can take as way of testimony in our life if we're believers.

Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

Folks, the Bible is very clear that there is evil in this world.

The Bible is very clear that even the world system is run by evil.

The Bible is very clear that Satan, our greatest adversary, is alive today.

And he's moving about looking for opportunities to seek, kill, destroy, devour.

And that sometimes makes Christians fearful.

But what this verse is telling us is that in the power of God, in the presence of God, with our identity set in Jesus Christ, there is no reason to fear.

Why?

Because he that's living within us is greater than the one that is in the world today, now, in our.

In our own strength, outside of the blood of Jesus Christ, on our account, outside of his grace.

If we're just unsaved people trying to walk about being good people, the Bible does say that the evil one will overcome us.

But ultimately we see that it's not our strength, it's the one who is living within us that gives us the power to overcome the enemy.

And so I would call this the protection of God to his children, the protection of the child of God.

So the child of God does not need to fear evil or the spirit of the Antichrist.

Even though we need to be warned about the dangers of it, we need to be warning about the false teaching that comes along with it.

We need to understand that the Holy Spirit that indwells us as believers is greater than anyone that could come against us with false teaching.

And so there's no reason to fear false teachers.

I mean, sometimes when I teach about false teaching, people are like, well, how can any of us know?

You know, maybe I'm being deceived.

There's no reason to fear.

Go back to Scripture.

Go back to His Word and allow the Holy Spirit to guide you into all truth, as the Bible says.

And so the believer has a resource.

The resource is the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit leads us to the Word of God.

And the Word of God leads us to understanding God more and strengthening our fellowship and our relationship with him.

And so Jesus gives us the victory.

So the everlasting Presence of the spirit gives us the confidence to know that we can overcome evil in this world.

We can overcome the enemy.

And so this means that the Christian has no reason to fear.

Second Timothy, chapter 1, verse 7.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, power, and of love and of a sound mind.

And.

And I think that a lot of times, including my own life, I've seen the spirit of fear grip me to the place where I'm not able to do the things that God has called me to do because I'm so afraid that I'm either going to fail or I'm going to lead someone else astray.

Or.

Or maybe I'm gonna fall for a false teaching or maybe God can't redeem what I've just done.

The Bible says, no, God has not given us that spirit of fear that grips us.

It doesn't mean that we don't have fear.

Like, for example, you know, like, I think it's okay for you still, like, if a snake slithered through the floor here tonight.

I don't think, like, you're not a good Christian if you get upset and scared and, like, move away.

That's not what that's talking about there.

It's talking about that fear, that spirit of fear that grips us and petrifies us to a place where we can't move for him.

So the opposite of that, the thing that God has given us is power.

The Greek word for that word, power is where we get dynamite from.

Power, explosive power.

God has given us not a spirit of fear, but a power and of love and of a sound mind, clear thinking, sober thinking, understanding that, hey, you know what?

What Satan wants to do is he wants to scramble our minds and get us so confused and filled with anxiety and doubt and confusion.

And the Bible says that God is not the author of confusion.

Confusion.

And so if we're defining our place as a believer as we don't know what to do, we don't know where to think, we don't know where to turn, that's the place in our life where we need to go back and say, no, God has not given me the spirit of fear.

He's given me the power of a sound mind.

And I need to start thinking clearly about what God's word says.

And then that I need to go back and claim in my life and believe in.

So it says in verse four that God, the one who lives within you, is greater than the ones who are in the world.

And then it says in verse five, they are of the world.

Those evil things, that, that's of the world system.

Therefore speak day of the world.

That's, that's all about the world.

That's the world's way.

It's the world's thinking, it's the world's actions and it says the world heareth them.

So that, that kind of teaching resonates in this world.

Satan's thinking resonates in this world.

Why?

Because it makes sense to us.

Because if you're of the world, if that's where you live, that's your identity, then Satan's path, Satan's idea, Satan's wisdom is his teachings are going to make a lot of sense to people because they're going to say, well, yeah, that makes sense.

That's what makes me feel good.

That makes sense to me.

Your truth is your truth.

Make it up however you want to be.

That's the world system.

And that sounds good to someone who is not redeemed by the power of God.

So you, you think about like today, like I, I've heard someone recently, they were like, well, that's what you believe and that's great.

This is what I believe and that's great.

And I think we both can be right.

The problem is, is like, what if we both put believe two different things that contradict each other?

How can one be right and one be wrong at the same time, but then be okay?

It's not.

And so what we see here in this case is that he's speaking to this idea that we would expect the world to be evil.

Why?

Because the world is run by an evil, evil spirit.

And the evil spirit that guides them is something that makes sense to them and the world's going to hear it.

But verse six, we are of God, meaning we're not of the world.

We're not in the world.

Even though we're in the world, we're not of the world.

He says we are of God.

He that knoweth God heareth us.

He that is not of God heareth not us.

Hereby know we, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

The way that we can understand the truth of God is understanding, number one, that we are children of God, understanding that when his voice comes, we can discern that and we can know that.

And when it's not the truth, when it's counterfeit, when it's something contrary to the word of God, the spirit of God and the way of God, we can identify that and put up our hands and say, you know what?

That's not something that's going to enter into my mind.

It's certainly not something that's going to enter into my heart and it's not going to enter into my actions.

And so those who are of the world act like the world, speak like the world.

Those that are of God should act.

The ways that God has called us to act, speak the way that God has called us to speak.

I think about Matthew chapter 12, verse 34.

Jesus is speaking and he says, O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?

For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.

So really what we are harboring in our hearts will be manifested by what we say, by what we do, regardless of, of what we want people to think about us.

Because there's a lot of people in this world that are trying to, to falsify their testimony.

They're trying to have people think about good things about them, even though that it's not true about them.

But what Jesus is saying is that evidently eventually what's in our heart will come out of our mouth.

It will, it will be manifested by the way that we live our life.

Our testimony will align with what we are trusting in.

And so the people that are in the world, they're going to reject the truth of God and actually preach against the truth of God.

You see that today with, with things that are what the Bible says is good, people say is bad, what the Bible says is bad, people say is good.

It's a complete opposite of what God has ordained for us in this world.

And so we can see that the world and the people that are defined as the world evil are going to feel comfortable and celebrate evil.

That's what the Bible says.

It's in their character.

But it says those who hear God, those who are of the Lord, are going to enjoy the truth, they're going to enjoy fellowship, they're going to enjoy things that honor the truth of God.

And so what would this look like?

This would look like even though I hear a truth that my flesh does not like, I rejoice in it because it's from God.

I, I don't know about you guys, but there was a time in my life when I would hear preaching that would step on my toes, that I would get really upset.

I would just be like, who does that guy think he is up there preaching?

He doesn't have that right to say that about me.

He doesn't know what I've gone through and I don't like what he's teaching.

Okay, that's flesh speaking.

Because Flesh wants to reject truths of God.

But when we are walking in fellowship with God, as much as we might not necessarily like the feeling that this preaching is bringing to us because it makes us uncomfortable, that should bring us to a place of conviction.

That should bring us to a place of confession, which should bring us back to a place of fellowship.

So the preaching of the word of God is there to help us.

It's there to teach us.

It's there to convict us.

It's there to get us to a place in our life where we can, as First John chapter one says, get back into the right relationship with him to have a spirit of repentance.

You can't have revival without repentance.

You can't be on fire for God unless you recognize the things in your life that are causing you to have your fellowship separated from the Lord.

And so what we need to see here in this case is that when true biblical preaching comes, whether you like it or not, it's there to help you.

And that's what this passage of Scripture is speaking to.

Like, we can discern the spirit of truth.

And so understanding this allows us to get to a place where we can identify the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

And so we want the spirit of truth in our lives.

The way that we can discern the spirit of truth in our lives is to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us and to cling and hold on to the relationship that we have with God.

It goes all the way back to what we see in First John, chapter two, where Jesus is talking about abiding in me.

If you go back to First John chapter 2, verse 24, he says, Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning.

If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, she also shall continue in the Son and in the Father.

And he talks about this idea of abiding in the Lord and he in us.

If you want to know more about that beautiful picture, you can go to John 15 and look at that passage of scripture talking about Jesus being the vine and we the branches.

We have to abide in him, who without him we can do nothing.

And so that's what this passage is all about, about teaching us to be be able to identify false teaching around us.

Because I. I have been around certain situations in my life that, you know, people have said, well, this must be from God, because this was an amazing experience.

Well, not every experience is from God.

That's.

That's what first.

First John 4:1 says, Test the spirits, whether they are of God.

Not every person who stands behind a pulpit or a podium or is on a video is from God.

And we have to be careful about that.

And, and so what happens is the temptation is to look at the way the preacher is preaching.

So a lot of times put.

People put a huge premium on confidence.

If someone gets up and they're just super confident, they have all the, they have statistics to throw out at you.

They, they have stories to tell, they have experiences in their own life.

They go, by the way, I have this degree and this degree and this degree.

And this is what you should believe immediately in our human nature.

Sometimes it's like, well, maybe they're right.

Like, okay, they're confident.

But, but I want you to understand that confidence does not always equal competence in the teaching of the word of God.

Now, should a person be confident in preaching the word of God?

Of course.

But at the same time, just because someone is confident in what they're teaching, it doesn't mean that it's the truth.

They could just be confident in their lie.

They could be confident in their delusion.

And so what I would encourage you to do is not just look at someone who's a powerful preacher and go, they must be speaking truth.

I mean, I grew up with, with different types of preachers coming into our Christian school, okay?

So we would have chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week.

I did that from kindergarten to 12th grade.

So you can imagine how many preachers that I've heard in my life preach.

All different types of preachers.

We had preachers that would stand behind the pulpit and just read, never look up, keep monotone voice.

We had preachers that would get up and yell and scream and spit and run up and down the aisles, get in the pew, jump over the pew, all that kind of stuff.

We had guys who literally told jokes the whole sermon.

Like it was just a whole joke.

So it was like a 30 minute set of Christian comedy.

And you know, through that you, if you ask the kids, like, who's your favorite preacher?

It was always the guy who was yelling and screaming and the guy who told jokes.

Why?

Because it kept their attention.

They were like, oh man, that was so great.

He was the best preacher.

He had all these awesome stories and it's like, what did he, what did he preach?

I, I couldn't tell you what he preached.

And so the idea is we have to be very cautious with equating entertainment with true teaching.

Like, I'm not saying a preacher should get up or a Teacher should get up and be monotone and not tell stories.

Jesus told stories and Jesus connected and gave symbols and analogies and parables.

Like, so I'm not saying a bad teacher, like a bad skilled teacher is a good preacher.

Preacher.

But what I'm saying is this.

We can't just look at somebody who is a polished public speaker, someone who has a great following, someone who has good videos on YouTube and has clear pictures and has great analogies as saying, okay, everything they say must be true.

So what is the test?

If the test isn't, hey, they sound good.

What is the test?

The test is the word of God.

What did the Book of Acts say?

Be like a berean.

Okay?

Check what's being preached.

Double check it.

Match it up to scripture.

If it doesn't sound right to you, it might not be right.

So double check.

If you have access to talk to the person.

If you have a confusion about what was said, go up and ask them a question.

Any preacher or teacher who is having the right motivations will be willing to say, like, let's talk about that.

Maybe I misspoke.

Maybe I didn't wait.

Maybe I wasn't as clear.

Trust me, that's happened a ton of times with me.

I said something and someone came up later and goes, did you mean this?

I'm like, no, I did not mean that.

Let me clarify.

But, but at the end of the day, what we need to see is that the true test is not the skill of the orator.

The true test is the message.

And, and so I've been really thinking about these three words here recently.

All right, so, so, so you have, you have the idea of motive.

What's the person's motive in bringing forth a lesson or a teaching or a video or, or whatever.

What is their motive?

If at the end of all of their sessions they say, okay, now just for the simple price of xyz, you can buy my Prague program and now you can have more information.

I'm not saying it's wrong for people to sell content, but what I am saying is that their highest motivation is trying to make the dollar.

That might be a caution to be careful about what they are preaching.

But then you go to, okay, what's their method?

What's their method of preaching and teaching?

Well, if it's a method of, well, speaking of knowing a lot of preachers, they would read one verse, they say, close your Bibles and look up here at me and you're going to hear that.

It's like, well, that method might not be the best method.

Or, or let me just be honest with you.

The method I have heard one time was someone quoted a verse and it wasn't anything about what that verse was talking about, but they took one word out of that verse and preached a whole sermon around that one word.

I'm like, that's not what that verse is saying.

So, so I'm not saying that certain types of preaching are right and wrong.

What I'm saying is, is if their method is not the biblical method of looking at it from a contextual picture and saying this is what God wants us to know and live by in this, it's probably the wrong method.

If the method is me getting up and telling you jokes for 30 minutes and at the last five minutes, I tell you, okay, and just love God, that's probably not the best method to bring forth the Word of God.

That's not the way Paul preached.

It's not the way anyone preached back in the word of God.

Okay?

I'm not saying a pastor that tells jokes is wrong.

I'm just saying if that's his focus, okay, then we get lastly the message itself.

And I think this is the core of all of this.

If the message that is being conveyed either through a 30 to 40 minute sermon or a five minute devotional, if the message does not align with the word, reject it.

You know, you don't have to say, well, it's coming from a good publisher, it must be good.

No, if it's something that throws up those, those radar, the, the red flag and say, no, that doesn't sound right.

Look it up, test it.

And then I would say cast it out.

Don't, don't believe it.

And, and so it's so important to believe the right things because we go back to what we believe is where we'll trust.

And where we trust is ultimately what we're staking everything on.

And if I'm putting my trust in something that is not part of scripture, that is not where I want to be, because that's, that's not surefooting.

The sure footing is found in the Word of God.

So wanted to stop there.

We could talk a lot more about that.

If you have any questions.

I, I have a lot of people telling me this.

Okay.

Do you think that so, and so is a good preacher?

And I'm, I, I love to you come to me.

I would love to give you my $0.02 about the preachers.

I might not know that person, but what I will say is that you have been given every tool every, as a believer, to discern whether or not someone's from God or someone is not from God.

Okay, God has given you the same spirit, the same spirit that lives within me.

It's the same spirit lives within you.

You got the opportunity, you've got the guidance of the spirit to lead you to a place.

If you have doubts, I would say trust that the Holy Spirit's giving you that conviction.

Just say, no, that's not a person that I want to listen to.

But what I would say is this.

If you do want to talk about that you want to talk more about, hey, what.

What is this?

I heard a preacher say this.

I would love to talk to you.

I know many other people would love to talk to you, but don't get the fleece pulled over your eyes, because the Bible does say that there are what we would call wolves in sheep's clothing.

They will look good on the outside, but you got to test them.

Test those spirits, whether they be of God or somewhere else.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast.

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.