Sermon(1 Jn 4:1-6): Test the spirits

The original korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025251509

 

 

 

Scripture reading: 1 Jn 4:1-6

 

>> 1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already. 4 Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are of God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. <<

 

Today, the Internet is similar to the world of the early church age. There are all sorts of ideas there. Among them, there are many heretics who are engaged in propagandism of their thoughts in their own way. Let's exclude them from the discussion for they are very ignorant of the truth of the orthodox church. By the way, someone saying he is an orthodox Christian gives us in our deepest heart an impression that he is not a true Christian, and arouses antipathy. Of course there are unrefined or ungraceful Christians who give us an impression that nevertheless they seem to be Christians. And some Christians give us a strong impression that they are real mature Christians!

 

I am a man who preaches the gospel. And I occasionally see a man who himself says, "I'm a Christian (or a servant of God)," but gives me the assurance that he is not of God but of Devil. First, those who seek to destroy the church and the holy occupation (or the priesthood) definitely belong to the Devil, I think. I saw a man (in the Internet) before. He said he was a servant of God. But he interpreted the Bible strangely, and indiscriminately attacked current churches and pastors on his interpretation of the Bible. He said he did it to reform the church, but, in my opinion, he was not re-establishing the church but was destroying the church and the pastorship by criticizing them and undermining people's trust in them. The evidence that this man belonged to the Devil was that I interpreted the Bible correctly and pointed out his mistake, but he would not listen at all and give up his stubbornness. People may be ignorant and can be ignorant of the gospel. No man in the world can fully understand the Bible, know the doctrine of Christianity completely, and taste all the various mysterious gifts of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, those who belong to God, even in such ignorance, accept the instruction humbly when they learn the word of truth. Even if they still do not understand the truth, they do not rebel against the teachings, submitting themselves to the words of authoritative truth. But men of Devil rebel against the words of authoritative truth. They do not bend their will. Be careful! If you frequently make statements that often destroy churches or unfairly undermine the authority of the clergy, you're a man of Devil, no matter how long you go to church, how high you are in the church, how faithful you are in the church. on the contrary, if you want to establish the authority of the church and the priesthood with all your might, you are a man of God, because the church is the body of Jesus and the clergy are his disciples.

 

There is another man who give me the assurance that 'Oh, this man says he is a Christian, but he belongs to the Devil.' The one who interferes with the preaching of the gospel. Men of this kind are laymen but not common laymen, and sometimes they wrap themselves up with sacred professions. Usually they are incarnation of conceit. These belittle the preached word of God or disesteem preachers of the word. Anyway, they try to damage the proclaimed word of God shrewdly, speaking of the truth, grace and love of Christianity, or presenting his interpretation of the Bible interpreted unilaterally. Sometimes the Devil dispatches his servant with a title >a Christian priest< to a place where servants of God preach, and orders him (Devil's servant) to do such things as defile the priesthood, so that all people come to distrust the priesthood itself. It's a >Let's drown together< strategy! The gospel is the word of truth to be preached to the dying souls, but sometimes the Devil gives his servants wicked wisdom and encourages them to compete with the servants of God with the gospel. In this case, people do not listen to the word of truth that the servants of God preach, but appreciate whose interpretation of the Bible is better, the interpretation of the servant of God or that of the servant of Devil. Beloved brethren, if you are Christians, never make the gospel a means for other purposes. Do not use the priesthood as a means for other purposes. He who preaches the word of God for impure purpose is a grave sinner that defiles the priesthood and makes the people distrustful of Christianity, the church, and the priesthood. Also, in any case, do not try to preach the 'better gospel than the gospel that others are preaching' out of the sense of rivalry to consolidate your position.

 

The preaching of the gospel must be done under Jesus' command. So it needs humility and obedience. Do not feel disturbed when another man preaches in your mission area, and do not interfere with his preaching. You can feel easy when you think that the Lord has sent another man to support the ministry of evangelization there since you are not sufficient for that area. Nor is it lawful for an evangelizer to break into another's vineyard (a ministry area) that he made by hard work, without Jesus' permission, in the assurance of his own knowledge of Bible, beliefs and dogma. Evangelical ministry does not work out only by the knowledge. The ministry needs the men apt for the conditions of those who will receive the gospel. Therefore, you must preach the gospel under the direction of the Holy Spirit. That is why Paul didn't go to Asia but to Europe to preach the gospel. Those who do not preach the gospel under the direction of the Holy Spirit are hindering evangelization and are unwittingly serving the Devil faithfully.

 

Today's Bible text was written by John the author of 1 John who had experienced the profound truth about Jesus. He wrote his experience after he had met some obstructors of gospel. Let us say that it was the apostle John who recorded it for convenience. John has clearly experienced how human Jesus is. He witnessed vividly beside Jesus how gladly he enjoyed the food when he was hungry. John knew that Jesus, like him, relieved nature some time after meals. Above all, John heard the painful screams when Jesus was punished on the cross. But the ignorant tend to make a bigger voice in the world. There were some believers in church, who persist in their thoughts (dogma) by uttering a loud voice because they did not see Jesus directly. It is the representative heresy of the early church. They deliberately deceived people with a plausible reason: how Jesus, the God, could come into the world in a dirty human body? They are not of God but of Devil because they rejected the right teachings of those who belong to the orthodox Christianity, including John. John says, "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. (1 Jn 4:2)" Those who insist that the Son of God became not a real man but a phantom without flesh are of the Devil and have received the spirit of Antichrist, says John.

 

Those who reject the truth are ones who have received the spirit of Antichrist. They reject historical facts. Jesus, having flesh, really suffered death on the cross, but those possessed by the spirit of Antichrist deny the fact. Brethren, those who deny the historical facts of Christianity are really destroyers of the foundation of Christianity! That Jesus went to India to become a disciple of the Buddha, that Jesus married Mary and had children, all these history-destructing-claims are nothing but sophistries of those who have received the spirit of Antichrist. Some people can not confirm their claims, nevertheless say something about Christian history. As a result, they regard Jesus' death on the cross as a trickery, so they are blocking the propagation of the gospel.

 

For John and other Christian leaders, their claims were not worthy of attention, however, they expressed their thoughts about Jesus enthusiastically in their own confidence. The typical targets of their mission were normal Christians of the normal churches. Then as well as now, always the servants of the Devil who are possessed by the spirit of Antichrist strive to seduce male and female jibsas (deacons of church) who go to church without any problems, in order to go to hell with them. The immature believers who are dissatisfied with the church and the clergy easily become the objects of Devil's attack. The servants of the Devil can seduce the immature believers because they persuade them with words and thoughts belonging to the world. Because Christian truth is the truth related to God, we can not express it with words and thoughts belonging to the world. Therefore, Christian truth must first be accepted by faith when God gives it.

 

What Christian truths should be accepted first by faith?

1. God is the Omnipotent who exists by his own power to exist, from eternity to eternity. 2. This one God exists in three Persons, the Son and the Father and the Holy Spirit. ('In three Persons' means that he has three divine Subjects (or Selves) at the same time. It excludes the thought that a divine Subject exists in three divine Bodies. 'In' refers to 'the mode of his being (his existence)' here. So the sentence means 'The God exists as three Persons, the Son and the Father and the Holy Spirit.') 3. Each Person is the perfect God having perfect divinity. 4. The Son, a Person of the Trinity, took a full humanity and appeared to us as a man. 5. Jesus Christ the Son of God is the perfect (true) God and the perfect (true) man. 6. Jesus Christ completed the salvation of all mankind by suffering the crucifixion. 7. Anyone who believes in Jesus as the Savior is forgiven his sins and has eternal life. 8. All human beings are resurrected after death, and are subject to the last judgment, divided into heaven and hell eternally. 9. Before the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, the end of the world has not jet come, nor has the afterlife in heaven begun.

 

Even though those are the truths, the Devil, with the philosophy and thought of mankind and words belonging to the world, seduces men of little faith to discard the truth and lets them get to eternal destruction. The Antichrist refers to all false prophets. It refers to all the obstructors of the gospel. But God is infinitely greater than the Devil and the world. “Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (ver. 4)” We're God's children. Sheep hears the voice of the true shepherd. Jesus, our shepherd, is a good shepherd. He is our shepherd true, meek and loving. We hear his voice. We hear the voice of Jesus through the Bible and his true servants. Even if a man, showing his title in church, says that he is a servant of Jesus, a man of God recognizes immediately if he is a man of God or of Devil.

 

Love counts! Man of God loves. Man of Devil doesn't love. Man of Devil breaks love and peace. The false shepherds who belong to the Devil abandon God, the Church, and the sheep of Jesus, at the crucial moments of their own interests. They do not care how much the sheep of Jesus suffer because of them. He who belongs to God loves Jesus' sheep. John says, "Beloved, ... . (ver. 1)" He who belongs to the Devil uses all ways and means to gratify his desire. But those who belong to God are devoted to the sheep of Jesus and do not seek their own gains. He who belongs to God is careful not to undermine the glory of God, to try to preach the gospel anyway, and to care for the sound growth of Jesus' sheep. Beloved brethren, you do not need to be upset or distressed by those who, occasionally, priests, betray Jesus and the church and defile the priesthood. They were servants of the Devil from the beginning. They have revealed their identity at their time. Do not be sad for them. Instead, be glad for Jesus the true shepherd. Do you need to be so grieved because the Devil's servants revealed their identity? It's a waste of mental energy. Look at Jesus only. Just feel happy thinking of him. All of us Christians are his sheep and clean brides.

 

Beloved, I pray that all go well with you and that you be in health as your soul is well.

 

 

Chong Tack Kim

 

                                - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -