Listening to the Voice of Truth | 1 John 4:1-6 | Walking in the Light
Think about the difference between being acquainted with someone and truly knowing them well enough to recognize their voice anywhere, even in a crowded room or over a bad connection. That kind of recognition doesn't come from information. It comes from familiarity.
In 1 John 4:1-6, the apostle John says something similar is true of the church. Voices are speaking, spirits are teaching, but not all of them are telling the truth. John gives us a simple test to tell them apart: does the message confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? And he reminds us that if we belong to God, we've already overcome, because the one who lives in us is greater than the one who is in the world.
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Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon from First Reformed Church in Edgerton, Minnesota. Each week we dig into God's Word trusting that the Holy Spirit will continue the good work of sanctification in us.
You're going to have to dig back into your memory bank, some of you, all the way to the Dark Ages. But I think, someone other than me here can remember when you used to have to answer the phone without knowing who was on the other end. I'm sure that, like me, you can recall walking up to a box on the wall, picking it up and saying, "Hello," and having no idea who was going to be there, no idea who was calling you. Now, in most cases, the person on the other end would identify themselves, and you would be fully aware of who was talking to you on the other end of the line. Now, sometimes a person would start talking without letting you know who they were. Now, there would be times where you knew who they were, you recognized their voice, and other times where you had no idea. But like I said, many times you knew the person's voice very well on the other end. You knew it was someone that you loved, that you cared for, that was on the other side because you knew their voice. Now, there were also times where the person on the other end would misidentify you and they would just start talking to you like you were someone else, and it was very awkward, right?
So when we were first married, I think the second and third years we were married, we lived in the Des Moines metro. We must have gotten the phone number, or our phone number was just off of someone named Laura, because on multiple occasions the phone would ring, and when Kristin would answer it, on the other end we'd hear, "Laura, this is Bernie." She thought my wife was Laura, or he thought my wife was Laura. That's the way his voice sounded. Yes, it's comedic, but that's the way it sounded. You would think by the way he was talking he really knew Laura, right? But on multiple occasions— I mean, we lived there for 2 years and Bernie called a lot. You would think he wouldn't make the mistake of not knowing Laura's voice. When you really know someone, You know the sound of their voice. Now, as we arrive in the 4th chapter of John's 1st epistle, we find him describing those who can identify the voice of truth. When we know God, when we know His nature, we are able to identify truth and distinguish from error. Bernie called our phone multiple times and misidentified the voice on the other end.
You think he would have learned, but he kept making the same mistake. He thought he knew Laura's voice, but did he really know her at all? Well, John says that something similar happens in the church, that voices are speaking, spirits are teaching, but they're not all telling the truth. How do we know the voice of God? How do I identify His truth? So as we come to verse 1 of chapter 4 this morning, we find John giving us a command that will help us to discern truth from error. So he tells us not to believe every spirit. Instead, we need to test them to see whether they are from God or whether they are from false prophets. Now, this is an interesting statement by John. He is not telling them to examine what immaterial beings that are in opposition to God are teaching. He's not telling them to round up a bunch of demons, put them in a room, and put them to the test and see what they are whispering in the ears of false teachers is incorrect. We're not testing these immaterial beings on matters of doctrine. What he's saying here is that there are many influences upon people in the church, and they are not all from God.
So these spirits of teaching need to be tested. This is an important call to discernment. For the early church. The word of the Gospel was going out into the world. Many people were coming to faith, and it would have been easy for these spirits of error to infiltrate the churches. You could step into a gathering and claim that you had secret knowledge of some kind, and people would probably follow along assuming that what they were hearing was true. And it wasn't that they were particularly gullible or anything like that. And it wasn't that many of them were illiterate. In fact, the literacy rate in the time of the early church was surprisingly high. The greater issue would have been that they didn't have the benefits that we have. There was no printing press to get the teaching around to all these house churches that are meeting. In the first century. When you think about it, the advancement of the gospel in the first century is absolutely astounding. There's evidence that the gospel reached modern-day Great Britain before the close of the first century. In fact, probably before the temple was destroyed in the year 70.
No internet. No airplanes. No trains. No cars. From the Middle East to modern-day Great Britain within a generation. It was through these missionary efforts. And when you think about those circumstances, it's a miracle. It's clearly a work of the Holy Spirit that early Christians were able to remain faithful to the apostolic witness at all the way the Gospel had spread. They didn't have Bibles. They couldn't go on the internet and go to Bible.com check if what they were saying, what was being told them was true. What a miracle of the work of the Holy Spirit in the church that faithfulness was even a thing at all. But at the same time, think about what the early church went through. A significant portion of the New Testament is setting the record straight on doctrinal issues regarding the identity of Christ and how we're saved. In most of Paul's letter, there's something he's having to correct, right? We also need to factor in that so many coming to the faith are Gentiles. They didn't know the Hebrew Scriptures. They wouldn't have known the promises of the One who was going to come and crush the head of the serpent.
They were most likely expecting something different in religious teaching. They were expecting religious teaching, most likely, to be similar to pagan teaching, where it's very subjective, where it's also very secretive. They wouldn't have had anything in their ancient pagan religions like the Old Testament that was an authority of what God had spoken through his prophets. They would have been looking for sages and mystics with secret knowledge They didn't expect an authoritative word from eyewitnesses and established Scriptures. So this is why this warning here from John is so important. Those secret knowledge cults have started to influence some early Christian groups. These false prophets have gone out into the world, and so they need to test the spirits and make sure that they are not falling for a lie, that what they believe is the truth. And I pointed out that this was hard because they weren't going to sit down with their Bibles as these false prophets came. They weren't sitting in pews with their Bibles open going through verse by verse, able to evaluate what they were saying. And so John helps them out. He gives them a specific test that they can use that was against the specific false teaching that was coming their way.
So they can know the Spirit of God by doing this: If what they're being taught confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh, then the teachers are from God. Now I haven't mentioned this in a few weeks, but remember that the false teaching that was starting to appear in the churches was a Gnostic or a knowledge cult. These groups taught that the physical and material world was evil. And so, the God who would have created that material world must be evil as well. And so, these mystical religions taught that salvation came through ascending spiritually and leaving the material world, which was evil, behind. Well, as Christianity started to spread, it became an opportunity for these parasitic groups to attach themselves to this growing religious movement, to come in and start teaching their own thing. Well, this is a movement that is against Christ. It is anti-Christ. And John says, "You've heard about it." And he says it's in the world as he's writing this. So, this simple test is unbelievably valuable to them. Are these people coming to them with lofty words and ideas of spiritual ascent? Teaching against what John said at the beginning of the letter?
Remember how the letter of 1 John starts out. That they are eyewitnesses to what they have touched, seen, and heard. They're saying that Jesus was real, had a physical body. Are these people who are coming to teach these false teachings suggesting that Jesus just appeared to be real? That He was just really an ethereal body? He wasn't actually human? Well, if they deny that Jesus had a real physical body, John tells us that they are against Christ, that this spirit, this teaching is not from God. So this was the crisis for the churches that John is writing to in the first century. And then this was amplified into the second century, and in many ways, This same error does continue into our day. And it's important that we remember that if the Gospel is true—
and it is—
it requires us to be discerning. And I'm not suggesting that every one of us needs to be a scholar and ready to debate at any moment. But looking at this simple test of discernment that John gives, We need to remember that there's certain things that we can know that can help us avoid this error. A simple test. And it's not just in this area that John is addressing here. Through the ages, the church has done this over and over. You know one of them by heart. The Apostles' Creed. Was put together for this reason: to be a simple way to be able to discern truth from error. We do this with confessions as well. While the doctrine of the Trinity can be complex, the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are enough to help you check whether someone believes what the church has taught throughout the ages. You can know if someone believes the basics of the Christian faith through these creeds. And then our catechisms break down important concepts into simpler answers so that we can discern truth from error because it matters. These things keep us from having to be suspicious of everyone, but they also keep us from being gullible as well.
That's the value of a simple test. And if confusion remains when someone makes a spiritual claim, we can go to our Bibles. If there's confusion or we think they're twisting God's Word, we can go to these creeds and these confessions to help do what John was doing for the church here so that we can know whether or not we're being approached with false teaching. So here's a simple and a practical example. You've heard me say that the crisis that the church faces in our age is in the area of anthropology. What does it mean to be human? What is our purpose? And so this is why, as I've told you before, I'm deliberate about continually reminding our catechism students Westminster Catechism question and answer 1: What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That's a terse and simple reminder of our being created for a purpose. Now, does it completely answer all the questions surrounding the issues that we face regarding what it means to be human and what our purpose is? No, absolutely not. But does it give us a baseline test to discern an answer about our purpose?
Absolutely. It reminds us of who we are and what God has done. So I'm not suggesting now that you need to leave from here and memorize the entire Bible and then all the catechisms that there are out there. Because we need to avoid Grievous Error. That's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm driving at is that we need discernment. We need a place to go for answers instead of naively assuming everyone who claims to speak for God is proclaiming the truth. This is how we listen to the voice of truth. This is how we make sure that we do not fall victim to the false prophets that go out into the world. And it's clear that being able to test these things matters. But testing isn't the last word. John isn't leaving us with the idea of anxiously checking every voice we hear and being concerned about whether we can identify every false claim people are making about God. He has given us a simple test, but the test is the ends to the ultimate goal. He wants us to know the truth. He wants us to have confidence that we are God's children.
He says that if you're in Christ, you are from God. Notice John uses this phrase again, little children. Not a statement accusing them of spiritual infancy or immaturity. That's not what he's saying. It's a term of endearment, a term of love. He wants them to be confident in the truth and in the salvation that they have received in the Lord Jesus. John doesn't sugarcoat the fact that opposition to the Gospel is coming. In fact, he says it's already here. But he wants them to understand that they have already overcome these things. Not because they know the discerning question that he just gave them and they can discern truth from error. No, they have overcome because they are in Christ. And the one who is in them is greater than he who is in the world. They have been united to Christ by faith. That is their victory over the world. Not being able to identify those who are against Christ. No, their victory is Christ. He is their reward. He is their victory. He has overcome. John wants us to know that our being from God does something amazing in us. It shapes what we're able to hear.
So those who are antichrist are from the world, and they speak from the world, and the world is going to listen to them. This is painfully obvious in the world around us. Reason and logic are often thrown completely out the window simply because the message aligns with the things of the world. We all are prone to only hearing what we want to hear. But when it comes to the things of God, John shows us that the Spirit works in us And the Spirit gives us ears to hear. And apart from God giving us the gift of faith, we will not hear. Without the Spirit working in us, we are not able to discern truth from error. And we also would only listen to the world and to the false prophets that have gone out. But John speaks to those who are receiving his letter and to us and reminds us that God has given us ears to hear and hearts to believe. Whoever knows God, he says, is going to listen to the words of the apostles. This is the message that God has brought to His people. There are competing ideas out there, and they are trying to come in here into the church.
But the message that is from God aligns with the apostles' message that they heard from Jesus and the Holy Spirit has sent out into the world. If anyone denies that message, they are not from God. John says this is the means by which we know the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error. Now, throughout the ages, there have been people who have come and try to bring a new message about the nature of God and how we're saved. In John's day, the Gnostics were beginning to spread their venom in the churches, and they had to look to the teaching of the apostles in order to confront it. They had to be reminded of what the apostles had touched and heard and seen. That was important. That the apostles had heard an actual, real, physical Jesus both before and after His resurrection. Well, later on in the history of the church, in the 4th century, the divinity of Jesus was brought into question. And those who listened to Scripture and the witness of the apostles in it were able to faithfully discern the doctrine of the Trinity. And over time, people lost sight of the Gospel of God's grace and they mixed grace with works, and people believed that they were saved by God after all that they had done to try and save themselves.
Everything that they could do. Well, the Reformers returned to Scripture and the witness of the apostles and the Gospel of salvation by grace alone, by faith alone, on account of Christ alone was restored. And as we sit here today in the 21st century, there is more noise than there has ever been. The voice of the world is loud. It is chaotic. Television, blogs, podcasts, YouTube, and who knows what else has every message that you can possibly think of. Everything under the sun. How can you, 21st century Christian, discern the Spirit of truth from the spirit of error? How can you have your ear trained to the voice of truth instead of hearing the cacophony of lies that attack your ears and threaten your mind and heart? Well, it starts by remembering that you are from God. And the reason you know that is because you have heard the Gospel. And the Holy Spirit quickened faith in your heart to believe. Through this, you became a child of God. You heard the message of the law of God. You understood your failure to keep it, and you turned to Christ in repentance and faith. A real Savior who really lived, really died, really rose again, and really reigns at the right hand of the Father.
This is the witness of Scripture and the apostles. When the message departs from Scripture and God's salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone, we can then know that it's the spirit of error. So to hear the voice of truth, we need to rest on that grace that came to us in the Gospel. And we need to know God's Word. What a blessing it is that we have this gift. We have not been left to ourselves. We don't listen to all the voices of the world and we, by on our own, have to try and discern what is true and what is error. We have the Holy Spirit. We have God's Word, and it is authoritative. In times past, we used to answer the phone And we had no idea who was on the other end. We used to get calls from Bernie thinking that my wife was Laura. I can tell you definitively, she's not Laura. Bernie obviously knew, thought he knew Laura, but he didn't know her voice. And that's the difference. We all know There's a difference between being acquainted with someone and knowing them well enough to hear their voice in a crowded room or over a bad connection, or even after having spent years apart, and you still know their voice.
The same is true for the voice of truth. You can be acquainted with God or the idea of God, but not know Him and the voice of truth. But if you've heard the Gospel, if you've believed by faith, if you've turned from your sin and trusted in Jesus who came in a real human body, truly died for your sin, and rose victoriously over the grave for you, then you aren't just someone who has been given information. If you believe by faith, God has blessed you with ears to hear. So as we step out into the noise of the world, we need to be certain that we test what we hear. But it's vital that we don't stop with testing. We need to continually hear the voice of God in His Word so that voice becomes as familiar to us as the voice of the people that we loved. So that voice becomes so familiar that no strange voices can deceive us. Amen. Let us pray. Great and merciful God, we, we praise you for the gift of your word, that in it we have a familiar voice, a voice that we heard when the gospel was proclaimed to us, a voice that your Holy Spirit used to convict us of sin and unbelief, a voice that spoke salvation to us and we believed.
And we pray, Lord, that you would help us through your Word and Spirit to continually be tuning in to that voice, that we might be able to discern truth from error, that our lives might be lived as a witness to your mercy and your grace, and that we might be built up in holiness, that our lives as well might be honoring to You. It's in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that we pray. Amen.
Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon. For more information about First Reformed Church, head to our Facebook page or website, edgertonfrc.org.
“Listening to the Voice of Truth” is part of our ongoing series through 1 John, Walking in the Light. Explore the full series or browse our complete sermon archive to keep digging into God's Word.
