Testing the True and the False
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
We have in our opening verses some important admonitions, and also some important instructions.
1. Important admonitions.
(1) "Believe not every spirit." Some people seem always ready to take up with anything that comes along. They forget that there are two spirits that work among the children of men. As our verse says, "Many false prophets are gone out into the world." These false prophets and teachers, in as far as they can, imitate the true.
You will remember the words of God through Paul: "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ, And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers be transformed as the ministers of righteousness."
What then shall true Christians do, in the midst of so much that is false? Here is our second admonition:
(2) "Try the spirits whether they are of God." But how may we try the spirits? Well, for one thing, we may try them by their works. One cannot gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles. A bitter fountain cannot bring forth sweet water. Therefore by their works ye shall know them.
There is, however, another way, which is the right way and the best way. Bring your doctrine concerning Christ and lay it down and see if they measure up to its statements.
First, you confess that Jesus Christ is God manifest in flesh. Do they so confess Him? We said one time, "A man who denies the Deity of Christ is yet in sins."
Second, you confess that Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh. "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an. antichrist" (R. V).
2. Important Instructions. These are written for us in the Second Epistle of John. How are we to act toward these false spirits? Shall we fraternize with them? Shall we welcome them to our feasts of love, and fellowship with them in spiritual things? Here is God's Divinely given word: "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not unto your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds."
In Second Thessalonians we have this command: "Now we command you, brethren, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us."
This is an age of denials. Everything vital to the faith is being cast away. Shall we prove traitors to the faith, and to the Lord? God forbid!
The Holy Spirit wrote expressly, "In the latter times some shall depart, from the faith." What then? Let us prove ourselves good ministers of Jesus Christ, "nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine."
I. THE POWER OF THE VICTORIOUS LIFE (1 John 4:4)
1. Overcoming saints. The first two Chapter s of Revelation speak of the seven overcomers. There are seven special crowns to these seven groups who overcome in their conflict against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
We urge every child of God who reads these words to stop and ask himself If he is, in truth, an overcomer.
A certain believer said to me, "I am sometimes up, sometimes down, and mostly down." Is this as it should be? Do we concede that there is no place of victory in the life of the saint? Must we be forever the slaves of sin and Satan? Must we be forever under the power of our sinful self, the old man?
Does the Blood of Christ save us from sin's penalty, only to leave us dupes and slaves to sin's power? Do we cry "O wretched man that I am"? Do we drag around with us a body of death, a body that we cannot shake off?
If the above is the story of our lives, we are living far beneath our privileges, Victory is cars, if we will take it.
2. The key to victory. Here it is: "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." This Scripture grants that Satan is great, but it affirms that Christ is greater. It also states that Satan energizes men. The Christian also has an energizing power which worketh in Him. God did not leave His children alone to fight the battles of life. He plainly teaches that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost who is in us. He also tells us that He will take up His abode in us, and that the Father will also enter in.
With the Triune God within us, there is nothing in the line of overcoming which may not be ours. Power belongeth unto God, and it belongeth unto us when we claim it.
II. A DESCRIPTION OF THE UNREGENERATE (1 John 4:5)
1. There are three things said of the unsaved
(1) They are of the world. We would not need to go far to prove this. The treasures of the wicked are in the world. Their hope is in the world. Their heart is in the world. There is a statement in the Book of Ecclesiastes that describes them perfectly. It is this: "Under the sun." Twenty-nine times the words occur. The man of the world never gets above the sun in his vision.
(2) They speak of the world. Their conversation betrays them as being earth-centered. They talk about mundane things. Where their treasure is, their heart is. Where their heart is, their speech is.
(3) The world heareth them. They use the language of the world. They speak of the things of the world, and the world hears what they say.
2. There are three things said of the saved:
(1) We are of God. Our beginning is of God, because we were born by the Spirit. Our continuance is of God, because we walk in the Spirit. Our aim is of God, because we live for the Spirit and the things of the Spirit. Our power is of God, because the Spirit enables us. Our great consummation of life is of God, because we will dwell with Him eternally.
(2) God heareth us. We know this because our prayers ascend to Him, and His answers are relayed to us. Our conversation is in Heaven, He hears us when we praise Kim and magnify His Name. He hears us when we preach and publish abroad the glad tidings. He hears us when we make our requests known unto Him.
(3) He that is not of God heareth not us. We can easily tell whether a man is of God, and of the truth, for if he is of the truth his ears will be open to our testimony concerning the truth. If he is not of God he will not hear us, but will be ready to follow the spirit of error.
III. WHERE LOVE WAS BORN (1 John 4:7)
We are going to give, you a little poem which we wrote recently on this very line:
True love was bora in Heav'n and came to man,
Hid in the breast of Jesus Christ, the Lord:
It was a love no human e'er could span,
A love by God and angels all-adored;
That love was seen in doing others good.
It carried mercies o'er Judea's hills;
A love that in the God-man only could
Have been expressed to banish human ills;
That love came forth from God for us to be
A sacrifice for sin, to save the soul,
And lift us up to dwell with God on high;
That love loved on, where earthly loves all flee,
It loved the loveless, loved from pole to pole,
It loved in death, though it can never die.
1. Love is of God. The love that dwells in the heart of a believer is not a love that was begotten of the Adamic man. It is the love that came down from Heaven. It is the love which is of God.
It is written, "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts." Remember that it is not a love toward God. but it is the love of God. We are possessors of His love. He puts His joy in us. He gives us His own peace, so we may not marvel that He gives us also His love,
2. Everyone that loveth is born of God. We love others because the love of God Is in us. We love with His love. He loves through us. If we do not know God, we cannot know His love, and if we do not have God, we cannot have His love. Do not ever say you are going to try to love so and so. Stop trying and pray, "O God. put Thy love in me for so and so."
3. Let us love one another. If love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God, then everyone that is born of God will love others. It is by this that all men will know that we are His disciples. He that loveth not knoweth not God.
IV. THE MANIFESTATION OF GOD'S LOVE (1 John 4:9-11)
1. The love of God is distinct from human love. We know that men love their own. They love the things of the world. However, the love of God is a higher, holier love. When we think of love from the Divine viewpoint we think of Ephesians 2:1-22 where it says: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, * * hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved."
Human love centers in those things that are lovely at least in the things which attract and hold us in their power. Divine love loves the unlovely, the things which do not attract or please. Let us study, therefore, the manifestation of the love of God.
2. The love of God is manifested in the gift of His only begotten Son. This gift was given to sinners, to the unlovely, the unrighteous, that we might live through Him, even through the Son of God.
3. The love of God is manifested because He sent His Son to be the Propitiation for our sins. This carries with it all the agonies of the Cross, the bitter cup which He drank for us.
When rivers cease their course to run,
And seas are dry;
When nevermore shall shine the sun
To light the sky;
When mountains all have turned to dust,
And rocks are gone;
When gold and silver turn to rust,
He still loves on.
His love will never let us go,
Though all else fail;
He still loves on with overflow
Love doth prevail;
Nor life, nor death, nor anything
Can sever me:
Thou lovest on; to Thee I cling
Eternally.
V. HOW WE KNOW WE ARE SAVED (1 John 4:12-14)
1. We know we have never seen God at any time. God is a Spirit and they who worship Him, worship Him in spirit and in truth.
2. We know God dwelleth in us. We have never seen Him with the naked eye, but we have felt His presence in us. We have felt His love throbbing within our bosom.
Christians have a love that will not let them go, a love to the fallen, to the lost in sin; a love to the man and woman who lost their virtue; a love to the heathen who dwell in darkness across the seas.
3. We know that we dwell in Him. We know we are in Him for the simple reason that He is in us. and because He hath given unto us of His Spirit. Within our inner being there is something which cries, "Abba, Father."
We know He is in us because, in the night hours, He gives us a song. We often hear Him, as, with a quiet, still voice, He whispers words of love and cheer.
4. We know and have seen and testified that the Father sent the Son. The world may not know this, but we know it. The world may not believe it, but we believe it. We know that Jesus Christ came to be the Saviour of the world, He shed His Blood upon the Cross that we might live, How thankful we. are that the Christian life is not a think-so, or a guess-so life. We speak the things we do know, and testify the things we have seen.
Christianity to us is experimental. It is real. It is genuine. We regret that the old days, when saints told their experiences in the prayer services, are almost past.
VI. THE BELIEVER AND HIS CONFESSION (1 John 4:15-17)
1. The confession of Jesus Christ accompanies real salvation. There was a woman who touched the hem of Christ's garment and sought to slip away. Christ, however, said, "Who touched Me?" And when she saw that she could not be hid, she came and told Him all what had been done unto her.
In Romans 10:9 it is written: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
Then it says: "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
The teaching of the above Scripture to us is that he that loveth the light, will come to the light. When real salvation comes into any heart, the lips are unstopped. The words may not be many, but they will at least proclaim that something new has come to pass. The Lord said: "Go * * tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee." Not all saints are called to preach, but all saints are called upon to confess that Jesus is the Son of God.
2. What the confession reports. It reports, first of all, that Christ is the Son of God. Secondly, it confesses its faith in that Son. 1 John 4:16 says: "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us."
The first chapter of John's Epistle says: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life." You will grant that when something such as that expressed in this Scripture has happened to us, we have something to talk about.
VII. THE MANIFESTATION OF THE LOVE OF SAINTS (1 John 4:18-21)
1. Love is seen in that fear is gone. There is no fear in love, for perfect love casteth out fear. In fear there is torment. Therefore, be that feareth is not made perfect in his love.
The child who dwells in perfect love has no fear of his parents. When, however, he has disobeyed and has done wrong, immediately there is fear. He will hide away.
That is exactly what Adam and Eve did. They hid in the trees of the garden. They ran away from God. Sin always brings separation and fear.
2. Love is seen in our love to God. We love Him because He first loved us. He that loveth God is born of God and knoweth God. Christianity is not a life built around a system of rules. We are not Christians because we go to church, because we have memorized a creed, and we go through a form of service. We are Christians because we have believed with our hearts and because we love our Lord.
3. Love is seen in that we love our brother. 1 John 4:20 says: "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar." If we love not our brother whom we have seen, think you that we can love our God whom we have not seen?
"Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above."
When we have the love of God in our hearts, we cannot hate our brother. The commandment which we have from Him is that he who loveth God love his brother also.
AN ILLUSTRATION
The created always recognizes the touch of the creator. In a certain quaint town, much delight was taken in a set of unusual chiming bells In the cathedra! tower. The music they made was a delight to ail who heard. One day, however, to the sorrow and disappointment of the whole town, the bells refused to respond to the efforts of the sexton to set them ringing. The sexton could not locate the detect. Experts were called; but it seemed no one was able to discover what the trouble was, or where it lay. Time passed, and the sorrow of the people grew keener.
One day an old man appeared. He said he could fix the bells. Doubting his ability, they at first refused to listen; but when he persisted, consent was finally given. Up the tower he went. In a short time the chimes were pealing forth. "Who are you?" was the question they thought pertinent at the time. "I am the maker of the bells," was the calm reply.