Little Children, False Teachers, Assured of Love

Teaching

As we look around us today, I don’t believe that any of us doubt that we are in a spiritual battle. Even the secular world is aware of the evil times in which we are living. Before we read John’s warning about testing the spirits, let us remember the words from Peter, Paul and James who give us similar warnings. In 1 Peter 5:8 we are instructed to be alert and sober minded—wake up and get serious! Evil spirits are real and can deceive, tempt, and harm us spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. They are part of a spiritual battle that is not against flesh and blood, but Paul tells un in Ephesians 6:12—a battle against spiritual forces of evil and instructs us to daily put on the full armor of God: truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. (Eph. 6: 10-18) Jesus has disarmed evil powers and triumphed over them through the cross. (Col. 2: 15) If we are in Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells in us, making us stronger than any evil force. Fear is not from God. He gives us power, love, and sound mind. (2 Tim. 1:7)

In the first six verses of 1 John 4, John gives a warning against false teachers and false prophets having just established the fact that we have been given the Spirit of God and that we have been given an anointing to understand the things of God. Read verses 1-3. We must first establish that there are good spirits and evil spirits. God’s word has a lot to say about the spirit world. Hebrews provides a good deal about God’s ministering spirits. Read Hebrews 1: 7, 14. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we each have a guardian angel who ministers to God’s children. But more importantly we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit to minister in our hearts and lives. We have all heard stories especially from children who talk about seeing angels of protection. Not only are there good angels who serve God, but there are also fallen angels who rebelled and had to leave heaven with Satan who are principalities in high places. We also have the spirits of the giants who were slain and seeking a body to occupy. Jesus dwelt with them when He was here called “upclean spirits” or demons. Satan and his minions promote counterfeit gospels, distort doctrines and empower false teachers and fake news. They blend truth with error. They create something spiritually appealing but fundamentally false. So many today are blinded by religious deception. Religious deception is powerful because it often feels righteous—practicing rituals, repeating certain chants and prayers and even supporting certain ministries. It soothes the conscience, but it leads souls “lovingly” to hell. The demonic realm doesn’t need to possess or influence every individual personally. If they can redefine morality, influence thought patterns and infiltrate our cultural influences, they can lead entire generations to destruction. The spirit of the antichrist is prevalent today. Bro. Wayne shared Sunday about a pastor in Texas that had recently been elected to office, but his teachings clearly oppose what God’s Word says. John is the only writer who mentions the Antichrist and he does so only in his epistles. As we saw in chapter 2, “anti” can mean two different things. It can mean either “against” or “instead of,” that is, an imitation. We have that idea presented in Scripture. The Lord Jesus said, “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Mt. 24;5)—in other words, they imitate Him. Antichrist is used, therefore, in the sense of pretending to be Christ. The other meaning is to be against Christ. Again, we return to Bro. Wayne’s sermon Sunday on Revelation 13 that present to us the two beasts of the end time. The first beast is the great political ruler who is coming—Antichrist to rule the world, a world dictator. Then there is the second beast who is a religious ruler who is coming, and he is called the false prophet. He will cause the world to worship the first beast. He will come like a lamb, but underneath he is a wolf—he will imitate Christ. Just as God’s plan of redemption does not change, Satan continues his conspiracy agenda. In Genesis 1:2 the two Hebrew words for “without form and void” are “tohu and bohu.” The word “tohu” is a noun and refers in the Bible to the dragon (Leviathan) causing chaos. The word “bohu” is a noun that refers in the Bible to the beast (Behemoth) that brings destruction. Both of these words refer to the dragon—Satan (Revelation 12) and beasts of—Antichrist and False Prophet of Revelation 13 connecting the conspiracy from the beginning to the end of the Bible. In both accounts God intervenes to bring order out of chaos and establishes His Divine plan—first in the creation account in Genesis and then finally in Revelation in the new heaven and new earth when the dragon Satan, and the two beasts—Antichrist and False Prophet will be in the lake of fire and the children of God will be forever with the Lord!

All our contemporary civilization is building up to the coming of Antichrist. We hear all kinds of speculations about who the Antichrist might be. He will come as a great ruler, and all the nations of the world will join under his leadership along and his religious coalition. May we realize that Satan had been trying to push his agenda for his one world order ahead of God’s timeline. God has stopped his agenda, and we are seeing evil exposed and justice is coming so all the world will know that God’s plan will prevail in His time! John is spending time warning us to beware that false teachers will seek to deceive us. We must remember that the ultimate test of the spirit of antichrist is whether they believe in the Virgin Birth! When you reject the Virgin Birth, you destroy Christ death upon the cross for the sins of the world and His bodily resurrection—in other words, you abolish the Christian faith.

Verse 4 is one of the key weapons of encouragement for us against these false teachers and Satan’s agenda of destruction. Read. There is no excuse for us to be taken in today by a false teacher, a false prophet, or a false teaching. The Holy Spirit will lead and teach us if we are in fellowship with Him, He will direct un into all truth. The Holy Spirit teaches us through the Word. Overcoming Satan is possible through faith in Christ and the application of biblical principles. Jesus has already defeated Satan in His death and resurrection and believers are called to stand firm in that victory. The blood of Christ breaks Satan’s power over sin and death according to our teaching from John in 1 Jn. 1:7. We are to study Scripture daily to recognize Satan’s lies and grow in spiritual discernment. The Word builds faith and exposes deception. Fasting strengthens spiritual focus and breaks strongholds. Prayer connects us to Divine power. Satan is defeated, but he still attacks. We are more than a conqueror through Christ. (Rom. 8: 37) We are to worship God, walk in confidence, obedience and dependence on Him.

Read verses 5-6. Recently, I learned that 40% of professing Christians today say they believe in God but do not believe in Satan or his adversaries. They may recognize “good” and “evil” in the world, but they refuse to acknowledge the truths of God’s Word when we’re warned and taught about the wiles of our enemy. The truth is, from Genesis to Revelation, Scripture reveals a real and active adversary working behind the scenes of human history. His strategy is ancient, and his goal is deadly. (1 Peter 5: 8) There’s a spiritual war raging in the heavenlies and being manifested in the physical realm here on earth—and it’s a war for the very souls of men, women and children. We are called to know God but also recognize the enemy’s lies. It is apparent that they are not receiving truth and are left to Satan’s devises warring against the flesh. In Jeremiah, we read, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” The demonic realm can know it. Satan exploits what is already in the fallen human heart. He doesn’t need to manufacture desire; he redirects it, from God’s natural order and design to something perverted and wicked. James 1: 14 says, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” Satan is not omnipresent, but he has legions of demons that work in the hearts of men, exploiting each one’s greatest weakness to lead them into sin, deception, spiritual oppression. His goal is to blind minds, harden hearts, and lead souls away from the truth of the Gospel. Dr. McGhee said this in 1986: “I think it is tragic to have Christians using fleshly means to draw in a crowd. We need to be very careful of the methods which we use. If they are fleshly methods, God cannot bless them at all. We need to be sure that the Word of God is being given out.” He would roll over in his grave today to see where the church is! John was emphatic about knowing Jesus personally as he saw Him, heard Him and handled Him. John presented evidence that Jesus is who He claimed to be. We need to be sure we know Jesus today! As Christians, our security rests not in personal ability, but in Divine Promise. Jesus declared, “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” (John 10: 28) Last week we discovered the good news in 1 John 3:8, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” In His sacrifice for mankind, Jesus, “…having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” With these assurances, John then addresses God’s love and loving one another.

Read verses 7-9. In these verses we are instructed how to walk in “the way of love.” The way of love begins with God’s love, because His love always comes first. The truth of the Trinity teaches us that love—joyful, self-giving, delightful love—is the very heart of God and the very foundation of creation. God’s love is the gift that created the world, and it’s that same gift that opens our hearts to others. You’ve been loved, so it’s only natural to walk in that same way of love with others. We’re loved deeply and unconditionally. But we’re children who’ve forgotten that we’re loved. Scripture invites us to come together to remember—over and over again—Christ’s gift of love and what it taught us about God. Love is both a gift and a way of living—and it’s a gift and lifestyle we’re meant to journey through together, with a community of those united in their experience of being the Beloved of God!

The love John is talking about is a supernatural love. It is that which the Holy Spirit can put in our hearts, and only the Spirit of God can make it real to us. It is the love of God, and only the Spirit of God can enable us to extend this love to others. When we meet a person who says he is a believer, and we find that he loves us and loves other brethren, we can know that he is a born-again child of God. When our love is founded in God’s love, we can learn to surrender the envy and the anger, the self-seeking and self-protection that naturally drives us. When we’re “rooted and established in love”—when we “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, when we “know this love that surpasses knowledge” and are “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”—then we can finally understand why love is “the most excellent way”—why nothing else matters as much. God’s Spirit of love is our filter! It is to commit to make each and every day count for the love of Jesus Christ instead of merely living for ourselves.

Read verse 10. This verse displays the power of God’s love. Our Father’s care for us is love so strong that He chose to bring us into a right relationship with Himself through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. The word propitiation means “mercy seat;” it is the same as the Old Testament word atonement, meaning “to cover.” My mind immediately went back to Genesis as God killed animals—shed blood for the atonement of the sin of Adam and Eve and covered their nakedness. Likewise, once a year the high priest came into the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle bringing blood to be sprinkled on the mercy seat. That is what made it a mercy seat, because they could meet God only in that way. God loved them but required the high priest to sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat which meant that the nation was accepted by God for another year. When Jesus Christ was crucified and shed His blood upon the Cross, He sprinkled His blood on the mercy seat in heaven. He died for us—“Who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification.” (Rom. 4: 25) His throne is now a throne of grace whereby we can come boldly because of what Christ did and that is the way God demonstrated His love for us. Even though God loves us He does not save us by love. God had to do something about the fact of sin because He is holy and righteous, and what He does is right. So, God gave His Son to die on the cross for you and me, to pay the penalty for our sin so that a holy God can now reach down and save us. It is only on that basis that a holy God can save us. Christ is the mercy seat, and that is where God reveals His love. God loved us “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8) He has made a way for us, if we will accept it.

Read verse 11. God has demonstrated His love for us, therefore, you and I ought to love on that basis. If we love those who love us, or if there is a selfish motive in our loving them, there is no value in that. Jesus said, “For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?” (Mt. 5: 46) This love does not come without honesty. God knows our heart and He alone knows our thoughts and intents. The proof of loving other believers is not how we treat or talk to them in church but how we talk about them outside the church! Are we able to forgive those who have hurt or harmed us? Our prayer must be: “Please guide me to love like You, Jesus.”

Read verse 12. When God appeared to men in the Old Testament, they did not see God, for God is a Spirit and that is the way we worship Him. Those men saw what is known as a theophany—that is, God manifested Himself in some form and is sometimes referred to as the Angel of the Lord which is the preincarnate appearance of Christ. Jesus said to Philip, “he that has seen me hath seen the Father…” (Jn 14:9) Jesus became God in the flesh—Emmanuel—God with us. None of us knew about God’s love until God showed it to us on the cross when Christ died, and He makes it real to us by the Holy Spirit. “And…the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” (Rom. 5:5) This point that John is making is that no man has seen God at any time, but God today can manifest Himself through believers loving each other. His love is developed in us. It is a growth in us. The world is not seeing enough of this love, and yet it has seen it in the lives of many believers.

Read verse 13. Again, we are reminded that God’s Spirit is love. It is not a human love. We cannot work it up. Love is mentioned first in the fruit of the Spirit and later we read that the greatest is love. We are indwelt by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God can produce love in our heart. We cannot produce it. If we are filled by the Spirit of God who indwells us and we are walking in fellowship with Him, we are going to manifest this kind of love to the world.

Read verses 14-15. This is the gospel witness. This is the message which we have to give. Charles Wesley said, “Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art. The Lord is full of mercy and compassion, slow to anger, long-suffering, and of great kindness…God is love; love in Himself; love towards a world of sinners. He wept over the blood city, He lamented and mourned for Scribes and Pharisees, He prayed for His very murderers.”

Read verse 16. This is the second time in this chapter that we have had the definition, “God is love.” John didn’t want us to forget as he repeats it in verse 8 the first time and verse 16 the second time!

Read verse 17. Our love is made “perfect,” and that means complete. If you and I love God, love the Lord Jesus, and love one another as brothers and sisters in the faith, then that will give us boldness, and we will not have any fear of the day of judgment. John again reminds us that spirit-led service will be rewarded but works done from human effort will be burned. Believers may experience shame or regret if they have lived in unfaithfulness, not because of eternal loss, but because of missed opportunities to glorify God. I am giving you a handout that includes crowns for rewards. The judgment is expected to occur in heaven after the Rapture of the Church, and before Christ’s return in glory. (Rev. 19: 11-12) It is a sobering yet encouraging reality meant to motivate believers to live faithfully, wisely, and with eternal perspective.

Read verse 18. The child of God does not need to fear any judgment which is coming. It was all settled when Christ died for us. Fear is from the devil. If we are fearful, we cannot enjoy our salvation. Joy stems from love, and if we have love for the Lord Jesus, for God, and for our brethren, then fear has been cast out.

Read verses 19-20. God loved us when we were unlovely. He is worthy of our love! The Lamb is worthy of all of our love, all of our devotion, all of our service. John says it again: “If you say you love God and hate your brother, you are a liar. There is a great deal of hypocrisy today even in our fundamental churches. God is looking for genuine love—the reflection of the love of Christ in this world.

Read verse 21. God says, “Because I love, you are to love.” We are not dedicated to the Lord unless we demonstrate it in our life and in our service. Psalm 86:11 is a powerful prayer asking God to grant us an undivided heart. “Teach me Your way, O LORD, that I may walk in Your truth. Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name.” This plea reflects a deep desire for complete devotion to God, free from divided loyalties or competing allegiances. An undivided heart means wholehearted commitment—uniting our intellect, emotions, and will under God’s authority. It is not based on emotions but sustained by God’s truth and will. This is not a one-time decision but a daily pursuit. It requires ongoing dependence on the Holy Spirit and a continual cry for grace: “Lord, by Your amazing grace…give us undivided hearts to love You with all our body, soul and spirit. Do not let anything ever enter in between Your heart and mine.”

This is our call to show love to others: Beloved, the Spirit of the Lord is calling His people forward in this hour with unmistakable urgency. The harvest of the nations has already been declared in Matthew 24:14, “The gospel will be preached to the whole world and then the end will come.” God is not asking whether it can happen—He has spoken it. This is not the season to measure new assignments by old comfort zones or past survival mindsets. Faith must now rise and take hold of what God has already prepared. They will know we are Christians by our love!

THE WAY OF LOVE

Old Testament

God revealed Himself as Love as a strong emotional attachment—to objects, man and woman, children, brotherly and friendly love. His Love was in the form of Legal—the state of affairs between men—loyalty. Read 2 Samuel 1: 26; Prov. 10:12, 15:17; Song of Solomon 2:4, 8:6; Hosea 11: 4.

God revealed Himself as Covenant Keeping Love. Read Jeremiah 31:3 and Deu.t 7: 7-9.

New Testament

Love is revealed in Christ—John 3: 16. The Love of Christ and Love for others is taught only by John—the Apostle of Love and Paul. Read John 5: 42, 13:35, 15:13; Romans 13:10; 2 Cor. 5:14, 13:11; Eph. 3: 19; 1 Tim. 6:10; I Jn. 4:7, 8, 10, 16, 18.

Love in believers: Love is an action verb—1 John 4: 15—Abide in Christ, in the Word of God, in Truth, in the Love of God. Self-pleasing is the negative of Love of God. Love seeks the welfare of all; works no ill to any, seeks opportunity to do good to “all men, and especially toward them that are of the household of faith.” I John 4: 8-10 is a declaration of the mode in which God’s love has been manifested. V 16—Statement of the identification of believers with God in character and the issue at the Judgment Seat. V 17: “He is, so are we in this world.”

Paul gives us the perfect picture of Love in 1 Corinthians 13. Read it in the Amplified Version. Verses 10-13 looks forward to the day when we will see Jesus face to face and our sin nature is removed so we can truly be like Him!

Take home reminders:

• Be discerning, not gullible.

• Question claims of divine revelation.

• Seek God’s guidance daily through prayer and Scripture.

• Seek wise counsel from mature believers or pastors.

• Listen to the Holy Spirit, who guides believers into truth (Jn. 16: 13), but always test His prompting against Scripture. Remember the Holy Spirit never leads believers to contradict Scripture or promote falsehood. If a teaching causes confusion, fear, or contradicts the core of the gospel, it is not from God.

• Surrender all areas of life—work, relationships, ambitions—to His Lordship.

• Reject idolatry, whether of success, approval, or self.

• Rely on the Spirit’s power to transform and unify the heart.