Put Your Leaders to the Test

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR 1 John 4:1–3 (HCSB) Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. But every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist; you have heard that he is coming, and he is already in the world now.  CONSIDER If there’s one thing we can say about a false prophet, it’s that he doesn’t wear a T-shirt that says “false prophet.” In other words, false prophets can be difficult to spot. A bogus prophet or a deceptive teacher often presents a slightly gray-shaded version of the truth rather than a glaring error anyone can spot. False prophets often come across with a strong sense of authority. In fact, their teaching can seem so reasonable and even compelling that it seems they carry the anointing of the Holy Spirit. That’s why John warns us to “test the spirits.” Note that he’s not telling us to trust our guts or our instincts or our sense of discernment or what other authorities may or may not say. John gives us a far more objective criterion. This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. But every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God. It all comes back to Jesus. Jesus is the Truth. If we don’t comprehend and confess the truth about the Truth, we are sitting ducks for false teachers. Hear me straight here. This is not about saying the right words or saying the words right. False teachers play fast and loose with the meaning of words. False teaching, or heresy, always comes back to a distortion of the truth about Jesus. Some time ago, I was in a church where a New Testament scholar was invited to teach. She was brilliant and compelling and exceedingly coherent in her teaching. She had given her life to the study of Jesus of Nazareth. I wondered, however, whether she had given her life to him. From her teaching I couldn’t quite tell if she was a Jew or a Christian or some version of both.  After her message, the pastor graciously opened the floor for questions.  The people, generous in their response, marveled at her interpretations of certain passages of Scripture they had never understood before. It amazed me how ready they were to completely buy her version of Jesus based on her academic credentials. I sensed the Holy Spirit moving me to ask a question, and not just any question, but the question. I didn’t want to do it, but I was compelled to raise my hand. When the microphone came my way, I stood and, in as kind and gracious a manner as I could, I posed this question: “Do you believe God raised Jesus Christ from the dead?” She answered, “No.” In my lawyerly mind I thought, No further questions, and I sat down. I respect her for her honesty. I admire her devotion to the study of the New Testament. I am certain I could learn many true things from her about Jesus of Nazareth. But as far as I’m concerned, no matter how much she knows about the New Testament, her inability to confess Jesus Christ as risen from the dead effectively disqualifies her as a teacher of the church. While I’m certain she is not a charlatan or a dishonest person, I believe her teaching was false. John, in essence, tells us that when it comes to false teachers, don’t walk; run! When it comes to Jesus Christ, we can’t have a “think and let think” mentality. When the central truth of the gospel is even a shade off center, the circumference of the message will be cloaked in shadows and the consequences will be catastrophic. It’s why we need to put our would-be leaders on the proverbial witness stand and kindly, graciously, with the love of God, literally ask them what they believe about Jesus. Something like this: Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God . . . God of God, Light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made? Do you believe he was born of the Virgin Mary? Suffered under Pontius Pilate? Was crucified, dead, and buried? Do you believe that on the third day he arose from the dead? Ascended into heaven? And sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty? Do you believe from there he will come to judge the living and the dead? After this, we must press in further and make certain of what they mean when they say he was raised from the dead. Was this a spiritual resurrection or a bodily resurrection? Is this a metaphor or a historical fact? This is how we test the spirits. I don’t want to bully anyone with my own strong-armed sense of certainty, but I make no apology for wanting an overabundance of clarity on these matters. Something tells me John would agree. PRAY Lord Jesus, thank you for the clarity of your life. And thank you for insisting that we be clear about it. Grant us the discernment of the Holy Spirit to “test the spirits” and the courage to run from false teaching and teachers. We pray in your name, Jesus. Amen.