Learn to Discern
Learn to Discern from Essentials Church on Vimeo.
We examine the issue of testing false teachers and it can be tricky.
Why? because they can be like quicksand. On the surface, they look pretty harmless. But one false step in the wrong place and you have been sucked in. Once someone has been trapped by quicksand, the worst thing she can do is struggle to get out. If she does struggle, she sinks even deeper. The only hope of getting out is a timely and often laborious rescue by another person. It is obvious that it is much simpler to stay out of the quicksand than it is to be pulled out by someone else.
False teachers are like quicksand. On the surface, they look non-threatening and innocent. But the false teacher lies in wait as the person comes near—waiting to suck him or her in. If you love God, stay clear of false teachers; stay clear of quicksand!
In the technological world in which we live, we see and hear many people who proclaim what the Bible says; what God says and what it all means. We see them on the internet; we hear them on the radio; and we read articles by them in the paper.
How do we know what is right and what is wrong when it comes to someone teaching the Bible and interpreting it?
In 1 John chapter 4, the author John contrasts the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
He explains that beyond the world in which we use our senses to distinguish things, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch there is an unseen world. There is a spiritual world. You can’t see it. You can’t hear it. You can’t touch it, but in the spirit world, a titanic struggle goes on between the forces of good and evil. There is a spirit of truth which is God, and there is a spirit of evil which is the devil.
John says that we are not to believe every spirit, but try the spirits to discover whether they are of God or not.
How do we know if bible teachers are telling the truth? How do we discover if what they say is of God or not?
Four questions you can ask yourself to test the Bible teachers you listen to:
Test number One,
1. Do They Agree With the Bible? 1 John 4:1-2
False teachers make one fatal mistake. They deny the deity of Christ, deity meaning “that Jesus is God”. Their teachings are like a house of cards which collapse around their false teaching that Jesus is not Co-equal with God the Father and The Holy Spirit.
2. What Is Their Content? 1 John 4:3
In the first part of verse 3, John says and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.
How true that is in our day.
The false spirit denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. He denies the incarnation that Jesus was God in human form. He does not believe that God took on human flesh and became a man.
3. Are They Above the Basics? 1 John 4:4
Are they above the basics, that is, are they above the routines of daily life?
4. What Do Their Converts Look Like? 1 John 4:5
In Matthew 7:15-16 the Bible says, “You shall know them by their fruits.”
One way to check the validity of someone’s message is to examine the kind of converts that their message produces.
Tags: 1 John, Bible, Carl Poole, Christian, Church Plant, Discern, Essentials Church, False Teachers, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, message, Missional, Praise & worship, Salvation, sermon, Southeastern Baptist Seminary, Southern Baptist, Wake Forest