HOW TO TEST THE SPIRITS (Test the Spirits 4)
We’ve been looking at the importance of making sure the voices we hear from without and within are from God and not Satan’s counterfeit sent to deceive and destroy us. God tells us how in 1 John 4:2-6 (see below).
- Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God (1 John 4:2). “Acknowledge” means “confess” (1 John 1:9), “admit.” Affirming belief in Jesus as 100% God and 100% man is basic to our Christian belief and repeated often by John (John 1:1-14; 1 John 1:1-2; 2:1-2; 3:22; 2 John 7, 9). Jesus is the only way to God (John 14:6; Acts 5:12). Those who belong to God will be known by what they believe about Jesus’ Person. But it is more than a head knowledge of the facts of the incarnation. Even the demons know that is true (James 2:19).
- If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). “Believe in your heart” is what our response must be to knowing Jesus is God. Then we will “declare with your mouth” what we believe in our heart. When we do this we show we are His children (Luke 10:16; John 8:42). If a person doesn’t believe and declare this, they don’t belong to God (1 John 4:3). In fact, they are opposed to God, they are “anti-Christ” (1 John 2:18-19). These people are liars (1 John 2:22) and we must not trust what they say.
The test of the voices we hear is that the source behind them believes that Jesus is God. He is God incarnate: totally God and totally man. It also means believing that Jesus is Lord of our lives and serving Him alone. Those who come to Him in faith have His Spirit in them. That doesn’t mean everything they say or do is perfect, but it does mean that when God is speaking through them we can trust what they say.
Those who aren’t believers but are pretending to speak for God are false prophets and also to be avoided. That doesn’t mean that unbelievers never know or speak truth. In areas like science, math, medicine, government, etc., they can know and teach truth. After all, all truth is God’s truth. The problem comes when they teach things that contradict, even slightly, God’s Word.
To summarize, remember two words: 1. INCARNATION. Jesus is God Himself come to earth as a human being. And 2. REGENRATION. Putting faith in Jesus and His provision of salvation gives eternal life. Do you believe these things? Do the sources behind the voices you hear believe these things? (March 11, 2024 Doylestown, PA)
1 John 4:2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. 4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
Ask God to make you sensitive to the voices that influence your thoughts and actions.
Make sure that everything that forms your beliefs, your world view, are based on Scripture and nothing else.
cto Rev. Dr. JERRY SCHMOYER
Christian Training Organization
Jerry@ChristianTrainingOrganization.org
(India Outreach, Spiritual Warfare, Family Ministries, Counseling, World View)
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