“My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth:” We can substitute talk for love – talking about meeting people’s needs instead of actually meeting them.
This type of love brings assurance that you are a child of God!
Let’s check out verse 19 through 21.
Versus 19 through 21: “And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.”
When we see this love at work in our lives, we can know that we are of the truth – and this brings assurance to our hearts before God, that we are standing in Him.
Assurance is essential – who wants to wait until it is too late to know if they are really saved or not?
And shall assure our hearts before Him: Our assurance is two-fold. First, God already knows everything about you and He loves you, He cares for you, He desires you; second, God knows all things, and knows who we truly are in Jesus Christ. If we are born again, then the real self is the one created in the image of Jesus Christ.
Yet, when we are in fellowship with God, and our heart does not condemn us, we know that we can have confidence toward God and our standing with Him.
Let us also remember what Paul spoke about in Romans 8:16 – The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
Verse 22 is a wonderful promise if we have Fellowship in God’s love this means the assurance of answered prayer.
Verse 22: “And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.”
The person who walks in the kind of obedience and love John speaks of will also experience answered prayer. This is not because their love and obedience has earned them what they ask, but their love and obedience comes from fellowship – the key to answered prayer.
John seems to be quoting Jesus’ idea from John 15:7– If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
Keeping God’s commandments is important to answered prayer. But we should make a distinction between the prayer of the man who is saved, and the cry of the heart seeking mercy from God in Jesus. For the sinner who comes to Jesus in prayer, seeking mercy, the only requirement is sincerity of heart. God does not demand our obedience beforeHe saves us.
The key to prayer is being in such close fellowship with God that we ask for the things that are on Hisheart; we take up His agenda with our requests and intercession.
ii. The spirit of true prayer is Thy will be done, not My will be done – we turn to prayer to call into action what God desires; even knowing that some of the things God desires will directly and personally benefit us.
And do those things that are pleasing in His sight: The person who is in fellowship with God will want to do those things that are pleasing in His sight. We should have hearts that just want to please the Lord in everything that we do.
Verses 23-24 informs of The commandment of Jesus.
Verses 23 & 24: “And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment. Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”
a. And this is His commandment: The idea of keeping His commandments in the previous verse led John to speak specifically about what His commandment is. Simply, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another.
Here, John does not refer to these two aspects of obedience as two commandments, but as one commandment. He added another saying: And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”(Matthew 22:37-39). There are two commandments, but they are clearly like one another.
John said the following:
“We should believe on the name of His Son:”Again, John seems to have quoted Jesus’ idea from John 6:29: This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent. The first commandment and the greatest work we can do, is to believe on Jesus.
This is not simply believing that Jesus is, or even believing that He did certain things such as die on a cross. To believe on the name of Jesus means to put your belief on Jesus in the sense of trusting in Him, relying on Him, and clinging to Jesus. It isn’t about intellectual knowledge or understanding, it is about trust.
Abides in Him: Those who abide in Jesus knowthey are abiding in Jesus, because of the presence and assurance of the Holy Spirit. John again is giving the same idea as Romans 8:16 (The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God).
Romans 8:9 tells us that anyone who belongs to Jesus has the Spirit in him; that indwelling Holy Spirit gives us assurance. You can’t be abiding in Jesus and not know it, though you may be attacked with doubt from time to time.
The one who does not keep God’s commandments does not have the ground of confidence that he abides in Jesus. As well, he does not truly have the assurance of the Holy Spirit’s presence in his life.
To know if you really have this assurance can take spiritual discernment, and that is what John deals with in the very next verse. But God has already given us another basis for assurance: seeing if we love one another (1 John 3:19).
In the next chapter we are going to discover our need to test the spirits. This chapter also provides quotes we use in statements all the time.
I John 4:1 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
There were was not a shortage of false prophets during the days of Joseph, and there is sure is not a shortage of false profits today. Especially today we better take the word of a profit with a grain of salt. Meaning we need to be in prayer about it, what he or she is saying, and we need to test their words with what is written in scripture.
By the way, what is a profit. A profit is a person who claims that God has given them a word to speak to someone else. So, a profit Claims to speak as God’s mouthpiece. They would say things like: this say the Lord, or God wants you to know. This is going on a lot today. In fact, in some churches, their profit speaks, but the holy word of God has never never opened. In fact, they don’t even call themselves at church. They called themselves a fellowship or a worship center.
Therefore, it is necessary for you, and I to really test the prophetic word from those spirits. Because John says here that we need to be able to discern or judge from what spirit are they speaking.
Some of you, are afraid to disagree; therefore, you might say: that we are not supposed to test God. However, this is something entirely different. This is not testing God, but it is testing the word that comes through a vessel. We should know that whenever something comes through a human vessel, t we should be testing it. You should be listening to the sermon and then studying on it. You should not just be taking the pastors word.
In this life, we are supposed to test or judge everything and every experience. In fact, scripture tells us to judge a person by their spiritual fruit. We are not to judge a person on the way they look, or the way they dress, but we are to judge them on the way they speak and the way that they treat others.
Remember, Paul told us that we would be able to recognize a Christian from the fruit that they bear. These are the ones that we are supposed to be in fellowship with. So, if we do not test their fruit, then how would you know if they are good or bad. In other words, we judge their actions. And we say, if they walk like a duck, quack like a duck, then they’re a duck. So a Christian should walk like a Christian, act like a Christian, and go where Christians go.
Now some of you are sitting in here and saying oh, but we’re not supposed to judge others, according to the word of God. And I want to say to you that this type of judgment is totally different than what you’re speaking about. We are not to judge, others hypocritically Jesus said. Jesus was saying why do you want to get the spec out of your brothers eye when there’s a board sticking out of yours. Jesus is saying first, take care of the issues in your own life; then, help your brother and sister, not kick them while they’re down. A lot of times this is your pastors job. If I see one of the flock doing something contrary, to the word of God, I am to show them them scripture and in a loving manner help them get back on track. This type of judgment is not judging to look down upon.
Jesus said, for us to judge righteously, and to stop judging from mirror appearances. The fact is, we can’t go through life with without judging something every day. There is nothing wrong with this kind of judgment, because we are judging whether something is true. Whenever a teacher or a preacher stands up, and says they received a word from the Lord, it is our Christian duty to prove it out in scripture. If it is not found in scripture, then they are a frost profit. Therefore, John is saying here in first, John, chapter 4, that we need to ask ourselves, whether it is true. Remember, scripture says to dwell upon what is true, and what is lovely. The holy Bible, and its contents is true and it is worth studying.
Paul tells us in first Thessalonians 5:21 to test everything.
Paul tells us to hold onto what is good. So what are we supposed to do with what is bad? Well we’re supposed to throw it out. We’re supposed to get rid of it. Burn it up.
John goes on to tell us in verse two that by this, we know it is of God and by God.
2. (2-3) How to know when a false prophet speaks.
“By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.”
So we know that there is evil and the spirit of antichrist. There is the spirit of falsity. The truth is God the creator from the beginning, had his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, ready to be born of a virgin, minister, heal, be crucified, to lay down his life, and to take it up again. This is the truth, and everything else is a lie.
So, those who deny the humanity and DT of Christ is teaching a false doctrine. They are spirits from the antichrist. Thus, if it is true the words will always accurately tail of Jesus.
What John was dealing with in his day, was people who were questioning the humanity of Jesus. They had questions about the birth, and who the father of Jesus was. They knew he was born in Nazareth, and thought nothing good can come out of Nazareth, and he was born With Mary and Joseph, the son of a Carpenter. The people at that time believe that flesh was evil. Therefore, they questioned if Jesus was man he was also evil.
Today people are questioning the deity of Christ. They are questioning how he was born of a virgin and is fully man and is fully God at the same time. This is a big deal! Point we are to believe that Jesus is God! Because he could not have done with the Bible says he did, if he were not both. Jesus had to be human to represent us, and he had to be God in order to conquer sin.
I was watching YouTube this week and a person, hopefully a newborn in Christ, ask the question why could Eve not die for the sins of whole world? Why did Jesus have to come?
Well, if Eve is going to pay for any sins; she would have to pay for her own scene. If any of us are going to pay for sin it is going to be the sin on our account. The only way that I could possibly die for you or in your place. Is if I didn’t have a debt of my own. See, this is where we need Jesus. see if I have a debt, and it’s a debt that I created; then I can only pay my debt. God for newsiest, and sent his only begotten son to be a propitiation for our sin. Jesus is the only way and his own is the only sacrificial lamb.
Jesus is the only one that didn’t owe God anyway, shape, or form. Scripture tells us that this wage of scene is death. Jesus is our human representative. So God came to earth in the form of man. A man had to die for man, because it was man that created this mess of sin, in the first place.
Therefore, I wish, that us humans could put to bed this idea that Jesus came any other way. Mankind needs to accept Jesus as the Bible describes him.
It is common knowledge that the Jehovah’s Witness and the Mormons do not believe in Jesus, nor the New Testament. For example, the Mormons believe and teach that God is a created being. Therefore, He existed and rose to the top of the beings.
This is the spirit of the Antichrist: To deny the true Jesus is the basis of the spirit of the Antichrist, which John has already mentioned in 1 John 2:18-23. It is the spirit which both opposes the true Jesus and offers a substitute Jesus.
The final thought of this Is anti-Christ is now already in the world: Though it will have its ultimate consummation in an end-times political and economic ruler, the essence of this antichrist spirit is present with us today. It is found everywhere a false Jesus is promoted in place of the true Jesus of the Bible.
3. (4) The protection of the child of God.
“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
The child of God does not need to fear the spirit of Antichrist, even though they should be warned of it, because they have the indwelling Spirit of God (1 John 3:24). That indwelling Spirit is greater than he who is in the world – Satan and all of his allies.
We have many spiritual enemies, but not one of them is greater than Jesus who lives in us.
Earlier in the letter, John brought up the idea of the world and its threat to the Christian life (1 John 2:15-17). He presented the world not as the global earth or the mass of humanity, which God Himself loves (John 3:16). Instead it is the community of sinful humanity that is united in rebellion against God. Here, John suggests that there are forces of spiritual darkness that guide and influence the world.
4. (5-6) The contrast between those in the world and those who are of God.
“They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
If you attended our church last week, we talked about how God is separating the sheep from the goat. We looked up several scriptures of how this occurs, but here John separates people in two categories, those who have the spirit, and those who do not have the spirit.
Those who are of the world are evident because they speak as of the world; the influence of the world is evident in their speech. As Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34).
Those who are of the world are also evident because the world hears them. They face none of the rejection the child of God will face from the world (1 John 3:1), because they are friends with the world. In other words, they have no concept of sin. They simply feel the lust of their eyes. They do what they think is right.
The world hears them: The Christian always wants to speak to the world, and to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. It is exciting when the world will listen to the gospel, but we must take care that they are not hearing us because we speak as of the world. Just because the world is hearing the message doesn’t prove that the message is God’s message.
He who knows God hears us: Those who are of God enjoy fellowship with other believers; they speak the common language of fellowship with God and with each other, because one flows from the other (1 John 1:3).
This language of fellowship transcends language, culture, class, race, or any other barrier. It is a true gift from God. This type of language glorifies Christ.
Christians contain the spirit of truth. Nonbelievers contain the spirit of error.
For example, John makes it clear that error has a spiritual dynamic to it; it isn’t just about being educated or smart. Some very educated, very smart people can still be influenced mightily by the spirit of error. Since error has a spiritual dynamic to it, keeping in the spirit of truth is a spiritual issue.
We keep in the spirit of truth by clinging to Jesus, the One who said I am the truth (John 14:6).
