GREATER IS HE THAT IS IN YOU
1 John 4:1-6
TEST THE SPIRITS
It is popular today to say things like “Look what God is doing” or “God told me…” or “God is leading me…” How are we supposed to know if these things are so? Test the spirits!
All Spiritual Wisdom and Understanding
1. Satan’s goal is to darken your understanding (Ephesians 4:18)
2. “Filled with the knowledge of His will” (Colossians 1:9-12)
3. “Full assurance of understanding” (Colossians 2:1-3)
4. “Eyes of your understanding (KJV) may be enlightened” (Ephesians 1:18)
Because many false prophets have gone out
1. False teachers bring destruction (2 Peter 2:1-3)
2. Not innocent ignorance but an attack of Satan (1 Timothy 4:1)
3. Love of the truth will save us even from false signs and wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12)
4. Satan himself has blinded the unbelieving mind from truth (2 Corinthians 4:4)
Use the word
1. Consult your God (Isaiah 8:19-20)
2. Be a Berean (Acts 17:11)
3. The Word of God is living, active, sharp and able (Hebrews 4:12)
4. It is God-breathed and profitable for equipping (2 Timothy 3:15-4:5)
Discernment is a sign of maturity
1. “Discernment of spirits” was a gift to the church (1 Corinthians 12:10)
2. Israel was rebuked for not discerning “the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3)
3. Immaturity is not the norm in the Kingdom (Hebrews 5:12-14)
4. Christ’s gifts serve to bring us to maturity (Ephesians 4:11-16)
ANTICHRIST
Is the antichrist an extremely charismatic political figure coming in the future, perhaps after the rapture? Is he going to lead people astray during the tribulation period? What does the Bible say?
The five times this word is used
1. There are “many” and they have come “from us” in the “last hour” (1 John 2:18-19)
2. He is a liar who denies that Jesus is the Christ and denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22)
3. Antichrist is a “spirit” and does not confess Jesus (1 John 4:3)
4. Antichrist is a deceiver saying Jesus did not come in the flesh (2 John 1:7)
A perilous time is not the focus but rather that we overcome
1. “But you have an anointing from God” and “know the truth” (1 John 2:18-19)
2. We abide in the Son and in the Father (1 John 2:24)
3. “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4)
4. “Watch yourselves…that you may receive a full reward” (2 John 1:8)
There is a better day coming
1. Jesus, archangel, trumpet, dead in Christ, always with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)
2. Relief to afflicted, pay back to persecutors, glory, marveling (2 Thessalonians 1:5-10)
3. Resurrection, glorified bodies, death swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15)
4. We are looking for the new heavens and a new earth (2 Peter 3:10-13)
WE HAVE OVERCOME BECAUSE GOD IS IN US
We overcome because God makes us overcome. “Every good thing and every perfect gift if from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Man was impotent by himself and in grave danger until God intervened.
Not that we are great “But God” is great
1. We were sinners, “but God demonstrates His own love for us” (Romans 5:7-8)
2. “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23)
3. We were not might or noble “but by His doing” we are in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)
4. We were unrighteous, “but” we were “washed” “sanctified” “justified” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
5. The sting of death in sin, “but thanks be to God” who gives us victory (1 Corinthians 15:56-57)
6. We were dead in our sins “but God” made us alive together with Him (Ephesians 2:1-5)
7. We were far off “but in Christ Jesus” we have been brought near (Ephesians 2:12-13)
8. We were wicked people “but when the kindness of God” appeared, He saved us (Titus 3:3-5)
John is not telling us that we SHOULD overcome but that we HAVE overcome
1. Young men have overcome the evil one (1 John 2:13, 14)
2. Little children of God have overcome (1 John 4:4)
3. Those born of God and live by faith overcome the world (1 John 5:4)
4. Those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God overcome the world (1 John 5:5)
We have overcome because of what God has done and is doing (Ezekiel 36)
1. “I am about to act” (v. 22)
2. “I will vindicate the holiness of My great name” (v. 23)
3. “I will take you…gather you…and bring you” (v. 24)
4. “I will sprinkle clean water on you” (v. 25)
5. “I will cleanse you from all your filthiness” (v. 25)
6. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (v. 26)
7. “I will put My spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes” (v. 27)
8. “I will save you from all your uncleanness” (v. 29)
God in us, making us overcomers
1. God the Son has overcome the world and is in us (John 16:33; Romans 8:10; Colossians 1:27)
2. If God the Father is for us (and in us), who can be against us? (Romans 8:31; Ephesians 4:6)
3. God the Spirit is in us (Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 3:16; Galatians 4:6)
THEY ARE FROM THE WORLD
Many think they are doing us a service when they use worldly illustrations, jokes, and dramatic stories to teach us about God when really they are just appealing to part of us which is dead. In an attempt to “win the world” they gear their assemblies to be like the world but all they end up getting is the world. Heaven must not come down, we must come up (Philippians 3:14).
Men are either from God or from the world
1. Living according to this world or the world to come (Galatians 1:4; Hebrews 2:5; Mark 10:30)
2. Living according to flesh or spirit (Galatians 5:17)
3. Living in darkness or light (Ephesians 5:8; 2 Corinthians 6:14)
Men speak as where they are from
1. Jesus was this way (John 3:12-13, 31-32)
2. Speech of those from the world is earthly, natural, demonic (James 3:15)
3. Paul spoke not with in man’s wisdom (1 Corinthians 2:4)
4. Enemies of the cross set their minds on earthly things (Philippians 3:19)
5. Saints set their minds on things above (Colossians 3:2)
6. We speak of the world to come (Hebrews 2:5)
WE ARE FROM GOD
He who knows God listens to us
1. Those not of God are of the devil and “cannot hear” the word of God (John 8:43-47)
2. Jesus spoke in parables because they would not hear (Matthew 13:10-17)
3. Paul to quoted Isaiah concerning those who “would not hear” (Acts 28:26-31)
4. The sheep hear the voice of the Shepherd (John 10:1-6, 26-27)
By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error
1. What or who do they preach? Jesus or not (v. 2-3)
2. Who listens to them? Those of the world or those of God (v. 5-6)
3. We are either with Jesus or against Him (Matthew 12:30)
4. If we are with Him, the world will not know us but may hate us (John 15:58, 1 John 3:1)