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1 John 4:1
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John chapter 4, beginning of verse one.
He loved it.
Believe not every spirit, but try the Spirit, whether whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.
And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
Is not of God, and this is the spirit of Antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world. We are of God, 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 of the world.
And the world heareth them. We are of God. He that knoweth God heareth us. He that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the Spirit of truth, and the Spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God.
For God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him here in His love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we are also to love one another.
No man had seen God at any time if we loved one another.
God dwelleth in US, and his love is perfected in US. Hereby no way that we dwell in Him and He in US, because he had given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testified that the Father send the Son to be the Savior of the world, where whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God.
God dwelleth in him, and he in God, and we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect that we may have.
Boldness in the Day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world.
There is No Fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath full names. He that fearest is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us.
If a man say, I love God and Jesus his brother, he is a liar, for he that loveth not his brother whom he had seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment kept free from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.
Two voices speaking.
Those two boys, one of us in this room constantly, one is the voice of God, the other is the voice of the world. And we're all listening in one way or another to one of the two voices in our lives. And if we're not hearing the voice of God, then it's because we're not part of his family. We're not a child of God.
On the other hand.
Listening and it's listening to a voice which is not of God, it's really of Satan, and it listens to that voice and because the Lord Jesus Christ is the word of God.
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Come into this world the foundation on which our souls and our salvation rest. We either have that.
Why the world is presenting to us a false foundation.
And it says, rest your life, rest your soul on me.
God says, Master life, rest your soul on my Son. And each one of us either listens to the voice of God and the Spirit in that voice, or if you don't know God, you may be listening to the voice of the deceiver of our souls that will ultimately take us to an eternity.
And separation from God 4-5 and six and four, you have the children of God, you're of God's children and have overcome them because greater you see that is in you than he that is in the world, but characterizes the child of God as he's in wealth of the Holy Spirit. Then we have in verse 5.
Those that are of the world, they are of the world. Therefore speak they of the world and the world, and the world heareth them. And then in verse 6 we have the we of the apostles.
We were talking about earlier in this conference, We are of God.
He that knoweth God heareth us.
He that is not of God heareth not us hereby know we the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So you have the ye, the children of God, the are of God's little children. You have the enemy, those of the world. They are of the world, and therefore they, the world speaketh and they hear that. And then you have the the absolute authority of truth. We are of God.
He didn't know it. God heareth us, and so we have.
The the three that are mentioned here, the children of God, either they listen to the world, or they listen to those who are the apostles of the truth that we have before us.
The way we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error is by listening to the word that comes from the apostles and prophets.
That God has sent the word of God. In other words, that's our authority. That's that's what gives us stability and the ability to divide between truth and error.
So far distinguish that in the book of Corinthians. In fact, we begin that book by explaining the different kind of wisdom. He started off by explaining to them the wisdom of this world, because the assembly there were quite greatly influenced by the wisdom of this world. And just like we have today, we too, even among us, we're influenced by the wisdom of this world. And sometimes we applied a lot of the worldly principles inside.
But then we found the apostle said, by the wisdom of this world, what did they do? They crucified our Lord Jesus Christ, didn't they? So that's what the wisdom of the world is. But then there's another kind of wisdom. That's the carnal wisdom just from within our heart, from within our flesh, that we think things ought to be right from out by our own standard. That wisdom is no good, Neither is it. And we need to listen and see the wisdom from above.
Through the Spirit of God.
Spirit of sleep here it's small. S John 14.
Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of trees. There is what is called the Spirit of error.
You're the very definite working in this world of the spirit of Earth. It's amazing to think of the force that is behind false religion.
There's a definite spirit there that.
Work. May the Lord help us to discern by His precious word there is no other way to be kept but having the truth before us. How important it is to be reading restrictions, to have the testimony of the apostles before us, so that we will.
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Be able to try the Spirit, whether they are God or whether they are of this world.
Many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Today.
Many false prophets many of you got say they are under the banner of what is Christian but really are completely off the tree foundation.
Warming Jehovah's Witness do not hold the truth as to who Jesus is.
They're completely off the foundation, even though they use those names that we hold here, completely off the foundation.
So there is a definite spirit. We are given the Holy Spirit so that we can discern this.
Privacy in chapter 2 of this potential notice and it's so beautiful because he's writing to the children, the little children in the family of God, those that are least in their growth and their spiritual growth. And he says in verse.
20 But he has.
And from the Holy One, and you know all things. Look at those children, know all things because of the Assumption. The Holy Spirit is anointing, not written unto you because you know not the truth, but because you know it. You got no liars of the truth.
It's knowing the true things don't have to study all the intricacies of counterfeit skills.
That they have to do is know the true things and then the counterfeit will stand out. So it is with us.
All the preciousness of the simplicity of truth not.
Second John verse 9, very important verse. Whosoever transgresseth, or the new translation more correctly gives it goes forward. Goes forward beyond what is written, and bringing in the opinions of men. Whosoever goes forward and abides not.
In the doctrine of Christ, the teaching of Christ, He is the foundation truth of all Scripture.
Hath not God? If one comes to you and you want to get, they want to get you into a into a discussion of your opinion and their opinion.
The foundation is as one solid on the truth of the Person of Christ, the doctrine of Christ.
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father.
And the sub if any man anyone come to you and bring not this doctrine, if they're a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon or any of these false religions, they do not hold to and bring the doctrine of Christ, who Christ is. I remember.
I I took the elevated and I had to change, change change trains that that kept in the L and the others that went.
Underground and right there there was a theological seminary that used to be sound, but they, they, they had made progression under the power of Satan and they weren't sound anymore. And I was talking to this man, he was evidently one of the instructors there. He got on the train with me and.
He asked me, well, what do you believe? And I gave him all these foundation truths that that we believe that. He smiled.
And he said that's nice, but now you have to go forward into the deeper things and those going forward and those deeper things are nothing but damnable error. And that's what John is warning against he that he did not hold two of all the knowledge that he had. He did not hold to the truth as to who the Lord Jesus.
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Very is He is very God and very man, and if we don't, we don't ever want to get into a religious discussion.
With anyone if they're not found on the person of Christ that's the foundation truth that we begin with that's the doctrine of Christ that's what John is talking about when he says in verse six of our chapter we are of God. We apostles and prophets out of God. He that knoweth God heareth us he that is not of God heareth not us that is those that have given us the word of God. So if you.
Discussion with someone like that you the authority is the word of God. That's where the doctrine of Christ is. That's where the we comes from in that verse the ye is us Christians, but they are those of the world and believe are of God. That's what we we we test everything by the word of God, not by our thinking, not by any of that, but by the word of God.
I think you're here to see true and verse 2IN connection with testing every spirit that can pass it that Jesus Christ is some in the flesh is of God and every fear of the confessors not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not a God.
What he's saying is that he says he says he is from.
That Jesus was and his the eternal Son of God. Then when he said man, he became flesh. He was.
He, he changed flesh, He was a Virgin Mary, but he is the eternal Son of God. God in every sense of the word.
Came a man goes to you, cardinal truths about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Very fundamental.
Every reason was a teacher among brethren in the 1890s, and he originally taught that Jesus was the eternal Son of God, but he gave that up, and he no longer taught that that he was the eternal.
Son of God, and that's fundamental error and there is sad to say.
Many that were teaching good sound teachers too, but they don't hold for that. That's not the doctrine of Christ. As you say, He, he never, he never became the Son of God. He was always the Son of God, but he became the Son of man, a true man, very God and very man.
And if you don't hold back, you're not.
Sound in the face.
You don't care.
Anything at work here we talk about the love of God. We know that the Son came because of love. To exhibit God is love. And then we find that just before the Lord Jesus as the Son of God leave this world. He promised that a comforter would come. Perhaps he was purchased. Some of these verses she is John chapter 14.
John, Chapter 14.
In verse 16, he said.
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you an utter comforter, that he may abide with you forever. When the Lord Jesus says that at that time the Comforter of the Spirit has become because until the Lord Jesus gone back up to the Father's throne, the Spirit couldn't come. So after that, we know on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended.
Upon the believers.
Robin, let's turn to 1St Corinthians chapter 3. We find that in first Corinthians chapter 3, he says in verse 16, the apostle raised a question to them and he says, know ye not? And I think that's important for us too. Do we not know this is a snowy nod that we are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God?
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Dwelleth in you.
Well, how do we know about the spirit of all Well, because we have the spirit duality in that. Let's go to chapter 6 and 1St Corinthians and we'll find out if also go even a little bit stronger in verse 16 he said what know ye not that I'm sorry.
Verse 15.
I lost the software verse 19. What tell you not Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not of your own. We find in the 3rd chapter it referred to the assembly that the Holy Ghost dwell now in the 6th chapter, individual as we are.
We are being injured well by the Holy Ghost, but how do we then? How does the Holy Ghost function and help us?
We have to spend another minute or so. Let's check if Ephesians chapter 1.
We find that as a believer we are given something even more. Ephesians chapter one, verse 13.
In whom ye also trusted. After that he heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also after that he believed, he were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. So how precious do you know that he a brother already explaining Scripture, when you see he does us Gentiles believe?
After we believe the Word of God, we were sealed with the Holy Ghost. We have that stamp of approval as everywhere that belongs to Him we are hit by the Holy Ghost. And then the next verse tells us even more, verse 14, which is the earnest of our inheritance into the redemption of the purchased procession.
Unto the praise of His flows. Well, here it tells us that we're going to be unto the praise of His glory. But what about for now?
But for now, he said, the Holy Spirit is proof of that earnest, earnest. It's like perhaps some of the younger, younger young men here, or perhaps older ones familiar with, say, buying a house. You know, you go buy a house. Often you do not move into the house right away. You go in and you say, I like your house. You make an arrangement for the price, and then you give them some earnest money.
Don't you give them some deposit and that comes from major transaction where you don't have to house yet for a little while until the transaction is completed. So at the meantime, you can go tell your friends that that is your house. You will be moving into it here. The spirit, that's a bit where I have put down that deposit. That's earnest to let us know that we are going to be afraid of the Lord. How?
We've been sealed and we have that earnest so that we know our home is no longer here. Our home is heavenly in the Father's house. But is that enough? No, it's just more than that for us that help us to go to Romans chapter 8.
Romans chapter 8 is true for the law of the spirit of life.
Here for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that namely free from the lost, sin and death.
Says that Jesus Christ is coming to flesh he existed before he came in flesh as very God the some of the eternal God, the eternal Son. He came in flesh so he is God and man in one person and that is the the doctrine of Christ. That's the basic truth of it doesn't make any sense that verse if you don't see that every spirit that confesses not that.
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Christ has come in the flesh. Here is a person who always existed in deity has come in the flesh, tremendous truth, and this is that Antichrist where he is going to deny that is Antichrist. How important to hold fast to start there and don't ever get engaged in a discussion with some other religious.
That won't come forward and say Amen to that, that He came in flesh. That means He existed before he came in flesh. God and man in one person. That is the mystery. God and man in one person. There is no other person in the universe that is God and man in one person, but Jesus Christ.
That's the only way we come to know God is what has been revealed to us through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so how every doctrine he treats him is the perfect litmus test. Or whether it's right or wrong.
And if it's not straight concerning him, then it's it's a wrong source because God never gives anything in Christ that's wrong.
Roberta 4 Wonderful word, Year of God, children.
We could not be of God.
If we had not first accepted that Jesus is the Christ come into the world.
The sun coming to the world and savior, but now.
God as a result of His work for us and in US.
Has brought us into his family. We're children, and John's epistle is about the family as children of God.
If I could use this, if I'm not going too far, God makes us part of the foundation.
In that way, God is the ultimate source of all good.
And all that is, and he says I want you to be part with me.
As my children, we are of God.
His children. What more could a creature ever desire?
What more of a foundation for eternity could be ours than to be children?
God, who is life and who is love?
And as we see later in this chapter, in the practical application of it, if I am a child of God, it will be seen.
Because I manifest the light that belongs to the family of God, I manifest in my life life.
And love.
As a child of God, and consequently when he addresses us here, he says you hear, you listen, You understand because you know that if a voice speaks to you as a member or not even a member because it's not the church here, but you listen as a child.
Doesn't the child know its voice of his father, of his mother or something that isn't that? So it is for us.
Our hearts who have embraced the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have come into an enjoyment of something that when we hear something that puts him down, something that makes little of him or denies the truth of his person, if there's a response in our heart, there's a pain in our heart.
This few days ago in the Bible truth publishers there came a woman and.
And after a conversation that we have had with her at different times while she was in the building, she walked out the door and for every one of us there was a severe pain.
In our soul for that woman.
That woman was so under the power of darkness, she'd come in to buy Bibles. Why?
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Since she said she didn't believe in God and through the Internet, she had made an agreement with somebody else to buy Bibles to burn them.
Sad, but the greatest sadness is in the heart of a believer.
That yearn for a soul like that.
That has a pain.
Was there a difference in the voice that he brought? Brought the voices, Satan?
It wasn't the voice of God.
Because she knew not, and it's a terrible, sad thing.
The world that is in opposition to God and for us, don't listen to his voice in anything. We're in the family of God. We are of God children.
We are the 1St chapter of John's Gospel. Let's look at that for a few minutes because it brings out the same blessed truth. John one verse one in the beginning.
Was the Word the word? Who is that? Well, he tells us who it who that is in the beginning. Was the Word the beginning of anything that had a beginning? The word was he was not brought into existence in the beginning, but he was there and the Word was with God, God the Father, and the Word was God.
All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. He is the Creator.
And that wonderful 14th verse, who is this Word? The Word was made flesh. That's exactly what John is bringing before them. That is the doctrine of Christ. He is the Word. That always was the Word, but then he became flesh. He became a man. And that has to be held or you don't know who Jesus really is.
The world in the United States in an increasing way.
Has formed what it would think of as a charitable tolerance.
That every man seeks God, and every man can have his own version of God, and is it's all one God, and so on and so forth.
It's the lie of faith.
There is no God.
Except the one true God who has manifested himself in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And any religious belief in the world that does not recognize that truth is false.
And if we come up with have interaction with a person at school or elsewhere and they say I believe in whatever.
Allah or whomever.
It is not of God, and the soul that is under its power is the power of the world that is pulling that person into eternal darkness.
Is such an tremendous thing for us to know the true God.
And to have the responsibility of life to our fellow man, and if he has any other route in his mind to God, but through the Lord Jesus, it is false and that person.
Knows not God.
Is not a child of God, and the only voice that he's listening to is the voice of the world behind which Satan is.
It's a beautiful thing that you read the Bible to see the Trinity.
Over and over and over again in the New Testament, he's there, sometimes in one single verse. The whole Trinity, the Spirit of God, is as much God as the Lord Jesus is, or the Father. But the Spirit never became a man, and the Father never became a man. This is the mystery of godliness.
He became flesh.
And he never ceased to be God forever. That's the doctrine of Christ. And if you don't hold that, you're not a real Christian.
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Jesus said I am the way, the truth, the most exclusive thing possible. It excludes all other options and the light. No man cometh unto the fathers of them. I'd just like to say to the young people in the day when we which we live, when there's so much work, we encounter so much.
The Internet and so many ways. The newspaper, everything.
Cultivate a love that's true. It's so important. There's so many options, and sometimes our curious minds want to investigate this line of error, this other line.
Occupy your minds with the truth, any measure. You occupy your minds with that which doesn't relate to the truth.
It will have a negative effect. Look at a verse in Philippians chapter 4 that we know quite well, I believe. But just to read it, brethren, it's so important in connection with what we occupy our minds with. Philippians 4, verse 8.
Finally, Reverend, whatsoever things are true.
What we're talking about, what sort of things are honest? What sort of things are? Yeah. What sort of things are pure?
Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are a good report if there be any virtue.
And if there be any phrase, think on these things. So if there's something that fits into the other.
Category.
Don't occupy your mind with it.
It will have a negative effect. Occupy your mind with that which is good for.
There's one little ladder plummeted that take each one of those things and go into the Word of God and enjoy them in the person of the Lord Jesus. Every one of those virtues is seen in its perfect expression of it in the Lord Jesus, and so to be occupied with him as just as pure.
As lovely is the most wonderful Occupy.
The Spirit of God who dwells in US, who is greater than the world around us, delights to put his Son, God's Son, before our soul and his loveliness these things.
Sometimes.
Part of it is that.
These things, these false, erroneous doctrines which attack the blessed Person of our Lord.
Were not introduced into heathen. They were introduced. They were introduced into Christendom.
You take First Corinthians chapter.
Three that we are familiar with.
Three types of workmen brought before us there, but I was thinking of verse 7.
17 First Corinthians 3 If any man defile the temple of God.
Well, those are the.
False workers, the emissaries of Satan who defiled the temple of God. They bring these doctrines, calling in question the deity of the Lord Jesus, among other other blasphemous teachings. They call in question those.
Those fundamental truths.
They defile the temple of God. They bring them right into Christendom.
And insidiously.
And Satan doesn't always.
Come as a lion sometimes comes as an Angel of light and they're introduced into Christendom in show God destroy from the temple of God is holy which temple we are so we have to be on our guard because.
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These false prophets are all around and deceiving many who make a profession even of Christianity.
To ask the question, the question is how do you deal with people who come with these kind of doctrines? What do you say to them? What do you do with them? And I believe the word of God that gave us answer very plainly in this, because these are the things that we face. They could come to you. They could come to you at school, at work. What do we do? How can we prepare ourselves for this? Let's turn to.
The second John that we had already.
Look at the verse that give us a very simple answer when we are faced with people who bring out the doctrine. Second John verse 10, If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, that's what it is, isn't it? They come and they tell you that they deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well here we don't bring this doctrine, he says.
Receive him not into your house.
Neither did him gossip.
Put here, isn't it? We're not the debated, we're not trying to convince them on that we have to leave that with the Lord. Don't bring them into your house. You see this Jehovah Witnesses and other groups come knocking on your doors. Please do not let them into your house. It tells us so here. Don't even say goodbye to them. That's how strong the language is. And sometimes we'll say, well, we feel bad for them coming. No, they bring in wicked doctors. Read verse 11.
Verse 11 For he that bid him God's speed is partaker of his evil being.
You can't compromise on that issue. You can't compromise for a moment.
You can't compromise on that issue, you have to be.
Absolutely firm.
I.
There's different ways the Trinity can be denied. The one is to deny the deity of Christ, the other is to deny the deity of the Holy Spirit.
Any one of those, now that the Jew denies the Trinity, the evil his Bible teaches it, they deny it because they deny that Jesus is the eternal Son of God, and Jehovah's Witness denied that, and they also deny the person of the Holy Spirit.
All three persons are God.
And if you don't hold that, you're not really a Christian.
Difficulties is really in the great house and that's why we have to be careful to walk this path of separation. When we get associated with other Christians, we can get get defiled because often we all walk different paths. I know how time is almost done. I like to turn to 1St Corinthians chapter 3 just very, very briefly because the apostle Paul talked about the foundation that was laid.
First Corinthians, chapter 3.
Very 11 it says for other foundation can no man lay then that is late, which is Jesus Christ. So we know that the Lord Jesus himself is the foundation, but now he talked about the work of the believer and talked about this great house, how there are various kind of work and verse 12. Now if any man build upon this foundation. Notice the group things here some we read already.
Gold, Silver, Precious stones, Wood, Haze Double S.
Well, these are the things that are in the great house, isn't it? Gold, silver, precious stone for a look at this for three first, I'm not sure exactly what it's talking about, but I can think of it this way as an application. Gold often speaks of the righteousness of God. Well, can we build on and dwell on the righteousness of God and the glory of God?
Silver, can we in this house dwell on the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ?
The stones well but the stone speaks off one another isn't it? Precious stone is funny too because what what I understand when they 1St come out from the ground. Precious stones are not very pretty and you need to Polish it I believe it's like a lot of us we're pretty rough when we.
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The way we come out and we need to Polish one another with the word of God, but then the next group thinks I'm terrible. He's a bad material instead of being billed upon this foundation.
We have wood, wood, hay and stubble and I believe wood wood speaks of natural things. It speaks of the the human side of things. I believe how much of us, how much of self are we building on? And then AI believe it's something that really have no substance. It looks big. It's all popped up. It's all fries that we have that we build on that or what's worse is double. We'll find that.
Turn to Malachi, it tells you about double. It keeps on wickedness and I believe that's what we have before the wickedness. We build on that, but rather dwell and be occupied without blessed Lord Jesus Christ.
So he's saying #16 in the appendix.
Oh Jesus, friend and failing, how dear art thou to me our cares, our fears of sailing. I find my strength in thee. Why should my feet grow weary of this, my Pilgrim Wang?
Through the past and rearing it ends in perfect game verses 123 and 6:00.