Gooding, David: 8 – The Faith of the Children of God

We come to the, uh, final part of the second movement. Just let's begin by reading. The passage will be Epistle of John, chapter four beginning in verse one. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove or test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know you the Spirit of God. Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every, excuse me, every spirit which confesses not Jesus is not of God. And this is the spirit of Antichrist, whereof you have heard that it comes, and now it is in the world already. You are of God, my little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. They are of the world, therefore speak they as of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God. He that knoweth God heareth us. He who is not of God heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. And in this passage particularly, God give us good understanding of his word. Now, as the person who is responsible for planning these studies, I'm tempted in a moment of weakness to apologize that I should have begun your day with a consideration of heresy and shall finish your hours today with another consideration of heresy. That is not good didactic principle, I suppose, but there it is, and there is how things have worked out. And we come to this first paragraph of chapter four, the final one in movement three, and at first sight it would look as though it is simply repeating what was said in chapter two verses eighteen to twenty eight. where also we were warned against antichrists and against those who deny that Jesus is the Christ, those that deny his deity as the Son of God, and in so doing, of course, destroy, uh, the belief in the fatherhood of God, not having the Son, they cannot have the Father either. So our first job is once more to see and emphasize in our thinking that though this paragraph will appear to repeat what was said in chapter two, yet to, uh, notice and impress upon ourselves the differences between the two. They are certainly dealing with a common theme, but our point will be to notice the differences. So I recur to what we've looked at many times now, this time to the end of the three movements. And we are now concerned with the second of the three. So let us notice its explicit terminology. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but test the spirits. And we might make this distinction at once, that here we are dealing with the false spirits as distinct from the true. In the first warning, we were dealing with false Christs as distinct from the true Christs. Next week, God willing, we shall be looking at the warning against trusting false gods as distinct from the true God. So now the emphasis is on the spirits. And whereas in the first warning in chapter two, this morning we were thinking about the false teachers themselves and their behavior, and how that they had gone out from the apostles and now were teaching false doctrine. Here, while we still think of false teachers, we are more concerned with the spirit that is behind those false teachers, that is animating those false teachers. So that we are inquiring now not merely about their doctrine, though we shall still and must be interested in that because it becomes a criterion. We are also interested in testing the spirit that is moving the man, be he prophet or teacher or evangelist, or be he what he will, whatever gift he claims or has. We are now interested in the question, what spirit is it that is moving him? And here do you see the words of Professor Finley come to us still over the years. They are important, are they not? That the, to equate, says Professor Finley, the supernatural with the divine, as though anything that is supernatural is necessarily divine, is of course a folly. It is a grievous error. Because there are supernatural powers that are not divine. We are warned that at the end of this age, when the Antichrist shall be in full flower, that he will come with miraculous signs. Miracles there will be aplenty. And many people, just because they are miraculous, will conclude that this must be of God. The very opposite will be true. They will be lying wonders, lying signs, whose coming is after the working of Satan. Supernatural, yes, but not divine, not of God. So it is important here that we listen to the Apostle John, and we test the spirits that lie behind any particular gift. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, test them. Then we shall notice another thing that makes this paragraph in Movement three run true to type all the way through. When we were considering, uh, earlier on the question of the family and the world, we noticed, did we not? Sorry, I haven't got it with me now, never mind. We noticed, did we not, that in, uh, the second movement, we are thinking of the origin of the children of God and the origin of the world and the man of the world. The child of God is of God. Cain was of that wicked one. The question of origin was very much to the fore. And as it begins, so it ends, does this movement too. Notice with me, as we scan down these brief verses, how many times that little phrase occurs. First sentence of chapter four, verse one: Test the spirits whether they are of God. Verse two: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. Verse four, talking to the believers, you are of God, my little children. And finally, verse six, referring to the apostles themselves, we are of God. The question here, therefore, s- is still what it was before. It is a question of origin. What is the origin, the fount, the source of this particular spirit, whatever it might be, that is impelling this man or the other. So let's begin. These verses are so few that I shall not need to, uh, put out a table of contents for you. But let's begin with the first injunction. Believe not every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God. Verse two, hereby know you the spirit of God. Faith is, we need no telling, one of the cardinal things about Christianity. We are called upon to believe. To be a person of little faith is a serious reproach in the family of God. And yet there is another sense, is there not, as John Stott points out in his delightful commentary upon these verses, there is another sense in which the child of God will be marked by very wariness. He will not too soon believe. Believe not, says John. Believe not every spirit. Just to be credulous and to believe everything that is told you, simply because it is accompanied by some miracle, that is not a mark of script- uh, s- spiritual maturity or even wisdom. The gracious Holy Spirit himself calls upon us to test the spirits if they are of God or not. And with tremendous and remarkable condescension, he invites us to test him himself. By this we know the Spirit of God. He doesn't mind being tested, does the gracious Holy Spirit? If he has, in fact, eh, moved somebody to say this, to preach that, to announce the other, and it is genuinely the Holy Spirit behind this gift, then the Holy Spirit himself will be delighted if you, in all due humility, of course, test him to see if it is indeed the Holy Spirit. He has nothing to fear, if I may put it that way. He'll pass all his examinations with flying colors. And this is the test you apply, so that you may know that it is the Holy Spirit himself. And what a lovely person he is, isn't he? Because it's he that's inspiring John to say this. Sometimes you'll see people have wrongly used authority, and they have said even to question somebody that claims to be speaking in the name of the Holy Spirit, even to question them is to be in danger of committing the sin against the Holy Spirit, which is the impardonable sin. You better believe at once, therefore. No, says the Holy Spirit, you better not. Better had you to test the Spirit. And if it is indeed the Holy Spirit that is speaking through this gift, then this is the test, says he, that you should apply. The nature of the test then. Once more we see in verse three that the test is a doctrinal test, because here we are testing a message that a preacher or other has, uh, preached. Every spirit which confesseth not. And here at this late hour, I must give you a little lesson in the Greek tongue. You could, alas, Dr. Chapman, i- i- i- you know, doesn't approve of me here, but he's a good Christian man, and he'll get over it. Ah, he loves me. You could translate this, this Greek sentence as every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come, has come in the flesh. Or you could translate it every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus is the Christ coming flesh. Is the Christ coming flesh. In other words, the answer to the question, who is Jesus? The true answer to that question is Jesus is the Christ come in flesh. He is the incarnate Christ. He is not a man that has lent himself to the Christ, the great world spirit. No, Jesus is the Christ. And what is more, he's not only the Christ, but he is truly human at the same time. He is the Christ incarnate. He is the Christ come in flesh. It is a mark of seriously false doctrine that it will deny one or other of those two things. Jesus then, his true humanity, come in the flesh. The Christ, his true deity. Now let's put alongside of that, while we have the opportunity, a remark that John makes in his second epistle and verse seven. m For many deceivers, says he, are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. Now here I have to remind you that learned experts in the Greek tongue disagree, or at least the learned commentators agree. All admit, of course, that there is an interesting difference in the tense in chapter four and verse, uh, uh, two, it is a past tense, has come. In second John verse seven, it is a present tense, cometh. For my part, I believe that verse seven is talking of our Lord's future coming. Chapter four of First Epistle of our Lord's historical coming. He has come in the flesh. I think that John seven, two John seven, is possibly talking of his second coming, that when he comes again, it will be this same Jesus that shall come. As he went, you remember how careful he was to demonstrate to his apostles that he was not just some disembodied spirit. When he came through the doors, they thought they saw a spirit, and they were afraid. And he says, but handle me and see that it is I myself. A spirit hath not flesh and bone, as you see me having. He proceeded to eat a piece of fish and a broiled fish and honeycomb to demonstrate the fact that he was truly human. He had flesh and bone. As that blessed Lord ascended, raising his hands in blessing, the angel came and told the apostle, this same Jesus shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go. Why this double emphasis? One on his eternal deity, the other on the fact that being the eternal Christ, he is and has come in the flesh, truly human, and will come in the flesh. Well, let me tell you two stories. Years and years ago, friends of mine and myself, we had some public lectures on Christianity in the town of Newmarket in England, which is, though you won't know it, of course, the very horsey town where great famous races, horse races, are held. After one of the lectures, a gentleman came up to me and began to talk. His story was that he had been in India in the RAF during the war and had stayed on, and in his time in India had read deeply in all kinds of Indian philosophy with the practical yoga that goes up as the beginning courses towards the, uh, Hindu religions. For ladies, you won't forget that, will you? Yoga is the physical preparation for receiving spirits according to Hindu belief. But that by the by. He'd gone through all those trainings, the manipulations of his body, the manipulations of his subconscious, and had read deeply in Hindu philosophy. Being demobbed, he'd come home to England and was working at an airfield, and there in City Street was a man who was obvious, obviously a believer, and began to talk to him. And in the end, the man, the man who had been in India, felt a longing in his heart to trust the Savior, didn't know how to do it. He said, I got down and I recited the Lord's Prayer. That's the best I knew how. My mother, who was an exceedingly religious person, he told me, said it was all a lot of nonsense, this being born again anyway, and let me drop it completely. But he said, you know, I would like peace. Where do I get peace of mind? So I invited him to my room. I cannot tell you the long detailed story of the tremendous convulsions, psychological and physical, through which that man went, as from time to time he would come to consider the word of God with me. He came telling me one night that on his road up he had had overwhelming power within him not to come. When he came, he was convulsed and looking like a ghost. As we got to know each other and read the word of God together, I found prayer was useless. He only went off into his yoga stuff. It was the word of God that calmed him down physically. As we got to know him, he eventually expressed faith in the Lord. He's gone on for years as a believer, but, uh, he told me that he had borrowed some books from the theosophists in town and had lent him some of, uh, lent them some of his books. He would like to go and take the books back. He's afraid to go back. He said, you know, they don't know really very much, the theosophists here in town, not like we did in India. He said, I don't want to go back among them. So I said to him, my man, tell me something, as a matter of interest, because he knew, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, that much about the Bible as a, as an infant child of three. I said, my good man, tell me, what did they teach you in those theosophical circles about Jesus? Did they teach you that Jesus is the Christ? Oh no, he said, no, no, no, no, Jesus isn't the Christ. The Christ is the great world spirit. Jesus lent himself to the Christ, and the Christ used him, and now Jesus is in the seventh heaven somewhere, but of course the great Christ is the infinite world spirit. You couldn't get the infinite world spirit into the limited body and personality of the man Jesus. I said, my friend, let me read you what God's word says. Not who is a liar, but who is the liar, save he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ. So we went together, and I cannot tell you the whole story. Some friends of mine and myself and the good gentleman went to the Theosophists, and the leaders among them were a man and his wife who had been brought up and once had been members of the Salvation Army. Oh, my dear friends, how dreadfully possible for folks to get deceived. They gave me some of their theosophical literature, and when I read it, this I found. Said the theosophy literature, you see all the holy books, Christian and Jewish and Hindu and what have you, all the holy books tell us that the Christ is coming. Oh yes, of course they do. The Christ is coming. We must expect the coming of Christ. Then they add, but Jesus isn't the Christ. And you can see the way the thing is being prepared, can't you, in the minds of people for the coming of the Christ, but it won't be Jesus. It will, of course, be him whose coming is after the working of Satan. As you might understand, I never forgot that experience. Coming to Belfast, good holy Belfast, you see, I lodged with a lovely landlady, delightful soul. At that time, she was a member of the Christian Science belief, and naturally we got to talking, and in the end that led to my being asked to visit and have w- uh, have conversation with some of the leaders of that particular religion here in town. They had told me that all their doctrines were based on the Bible. So I said, I have a question, could you tell me? Because my friend, she can't tell me this detailed theological thing. I say, your book says that the blood of Christ is no more value when it w- when it was spilt than when it was coursing in his veins. They said, you're not of those, are you, that believe all this nonsense. People go singing around the street about the blood of Christ. That's useless, that's valueless. I said, I thought you said your thing was founded on the scripture. Oh, oh, your narrow-minded interpretation of the Bible, that's what wrong with you. Oh, I said, I see. I said, could I ask you one more question before I go? I said, do you believe the Christ is coming? Of course he is. I said, when he comes, will Jesus Christ come in the flesh? Oh, don't be so ridiculous, they said. Why on earth would the Christ come in the flesh for? These are very solemn matters, aren't they? And the fact that that particular set of doctrines urges people to love one another and be kindly, and therefore by its techniques cure some illnesses, is not enough to say yes, this is of God. When, when you apply this very test that John is using, they are shown to be completely on the other side. They deny that Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh, and of course deny the value and importance of his blood. We have thought, therefore, of the, uh, false teachers and the spirits behind them. Now John goes on to talk about, first of all, the audience that listens to these things, and then of himself and his apostles. Verse four makes a distinction between you that are of God, and verse five, they that are of the world. A mark by which, a test by which you can test the spirits and those whom they use to spread, uh, doctrine is the kind of people that listen to them. You are of God, my little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Whereas they are of the world, therefore they speak as of the world, and the world heareth them. Now we are to notice an ominous thing. False doctrine seems right, very often to the worldly and unregenerate man. Hence many an unregenerate theologian. To him, the doctrines of modernism seem right. And they who stand fundamentally by the inspi- inspired record of Holy Scripture seem to them genuinely to be perverse and wrong-headed. Ah, but Mark, now John is giving us an explanation of the affair. The false teachers are of the world. They speak from the world, and the world hears them. That in itself is ominous. The contrary is true of the true believer, because the Holy Spirit is within him, and doctrinally and intellectually he overcomes the world. You must think that the part of the world I come from has not had enough missionaries, and that could be true. In my hometown, there was a delightful believer, very elderly, somewhat eccentric, but a gracious gentleman he was, who, according to his lights, tried to serve the Lord and was often to be heard preaching in the open air. There came at one stage some preachers to our town who took public buildings and held forth their particular brand of heresy, and it was a lurid brand of heresy. At their final meeting, the leader of that particular group got up and said, ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your response. We've had a marvelous response here in the town of Ipswich, and it is our intention to set up a church. And quick as lightning, this elderly gentleman got up on his feet and said, sir, and I may add, the devil won't hinder you. He may have spoken crudely. He spoke the truth. Hence the apparent frustration that we all feel sometimes, isn't it? When, uh, people resist the truth so much and fall so easily to what to us are so such obvious perversions of Christianity. Preaching our gospel is a battle. It is a war in which you can you win a battle here and win a battle there, but every generation will find it'll have to fight the battles over and over and over again. And finally, how you can test the spirits, says John of himself, we are of God, of himself and his fellow apostles. He that knoweth God heareth us, he who is not of God does not hear us. I ask you to notice how preposterous that must sound to some people. It is, I remind you, being said by a holy apostle. If those of us who commonly meet here in fellowship in Apsley Hall were to stand up on our hind legs and say, he that is of God hears us, anybody that doesn't agree with us is not of God, that would be arrogance beyond description, wouldn't it? But what we can't say as individual believers, that the apostles have every right and authority to say. It is a mark of true teachers. He that is of God heareth us. He that, uh, doesn't hear us is, is, is not of God. In this, of course, they resemble our Lord. Our Lord, when he was here on earth, said, everyone that is taught of the Father comes to me. It was then that commissioned the apostles, he that receiveth you receiveth me, he that rejecteth you rejecteth me. We do well in our, our days to emphasize the importance of these historic apostles, on the foundation of whom the church is built. He, we are of God. He that is of God heareth us. And with that, now I cease. I've improved by about four minutes and, uh, give you time in abundance for your question session.