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March 28, 2010 |
Cleveland, Ohio | MetroAlliance Church
The Bible's
SAT: 1 John 4:1-6
INTRODUCTION
Happy
Palm Sunday!
Okay, I know the photo doesn’t really have
anything to do with Palm Sunday, but it is a nice, happy, warm and fuzzy photo.
Kind of like what the beach at Edgewater Park looks like in the summer. Right?
Oh, we can wish!
I’m sure they have palm trees in the parks in,
say, Sacramento.
ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD
Speaking of Sacramento…there was a story reported
from there just this week, that, as soon as I start telling you about it,
because you all are pretty street smart, you’re probably going to see what’s
coming fairly quickly.
Anyway, a woman, we’ll call Vicky Victim, while
shopping in Sacramento, was approached by another woman, we’ll call Sally
Scammer.
Sally told Vicky that she was from Mexico and that
a relative was sick and needed money for hospital bills. While the two women
were chatting a man approached, who we’ll call Sam Scammer, and asked Vicky if
she'd like to help out by buying a bar of gold at a reduced price.
Vicky agreed and then withdrew money from her
bank.
Later, after giving Sam and Sally the money, Vicky
went to a jewelry store. You know the end of this, story, right?
Vicky Victim discovered that the item was not
gold.
Ouch! Didn’t see that coming!
I’m sure none of us would ever fall victim to such
an obvious scam.
Or would we?
ALL WE NEED IS LOVE
There’s a popular song that, in a nice warm and
fuzzy way, glorifies an adulterous relationship and declares, “If loving you is
wrong, I don’t want to be right.”
Another well known warm and fuzzy “love” song
states, “Me and Mrs. Jones, We got a thing going on, We both know that it's
wrong, But it's much too strong to let it go now.”
Both of these songs express worldviews that place
emotions and feelings above rational thought and choice. They definitely are
counter to Scripture. Essentially they express the common view that we hear all
the time: Being happy is the most important thing in life.
How many times have you heard a parent express
about a child who is exploring a “non-traditional lifestyle” or some
questionable behavior, say, “I just want them to be happy.”
How many times have you said or thought about your
own behavior or choices, “This is what makes me happy, and that’s all that
matters.”
Basically what you’re saying is, “This makes me
feel good.” Feeling good is the goal, the aspiration, the idol, if you will.
When we get caught up in this way of thinking,
which is really just all about feeling, we are, for all intents and purposes,
hedonists. Hedonism is a way of life that believes that pleasure is the only
thing that has intrinsic value.
However, we know that seeking one’s happiness
above all else is very selfish, and sinful.
When Vicky Victim happily forked over her cash for
what she thought were gold bars, her motivation wasn’t altruism: it was greed.
She probably thought she was going to make out big time in the deal.
Many people who have chosen their own happiness
over responsibility, morality, ethics, or integrity, have left behind them a
huge wake of pain, suffering, and damage inflicted on others around them who
have to live with the consequences of adultery, divorce, addiction, lying,
deceit, theft, murder, rape, seduction, pedophilia, drunken driving, cheating,
and on and on. Things that made someone feel good.
FEELING GOOD IS ALL THAT MATTERS
An article in a recent issue of Christianity
Today states, “Our culture does this with all religions…It boils them down
to one basic principle: Do what makes you feel good about yourself, and
preferably in 10 minutes or less. As religious consumers, we warp every
tradition by subjecting it to our needs….In the final analysis, core Christian
beliefs, even those about Jesus, have to feel authentic or they are discarded.”
Love and happiness, that’s all you need, so we
often think. And believe. Wrong!
TRUE FAITH KNOWS SUFFERING
True faith knows suffering. What we need, as
Christians is discernment, wisdom, sound biblical doctrine! Even Jesus said in
John 16:33, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on
earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have
overcome the world.” (NLT)
Note that Jesus wasn’t saying that we are
to be the cause of many trials and sorrows from pursuing happiness at all costs.
Rather, He’s saying, as His follower, there will be unhappy times and this is
okay. Happiness is not a good measure of faithfulness, spiritual maturity, or
whether or not you are in God’s will.
Yet, the world cries out loudly, “Just be happy!”
Over the past several weeks, as we’ve looked at 1
John, we’ve heard a lot of nice warm and fuzzy stuff about love and loving,
forgiveness of sins, eternal life, the joy of fellowship, and a lot of really
“feel good” topics. But we’ve also heard some tough stuff on the consequences of
pursuing sin, the discipline of being obedient to the Word, avoiding the world
and its charms, and to being on guard against antichrists.
So, how can we test ideas and philosophies and
truisms, and all of the myriad messages we are bombarded with daily to determine
if they are in tune with biblical truth? Or if they’re spiritual scams?
We need to look at the source, past the person or
group delivering the message, and determine the spirit behind the message.
SPIRIT AUTHENTICITY TEST
Today we’re going to learn how to do this by
looking at 1 John 4:1-6 which covers the Bible’s version of the SAT, or the
“Spirit Authenticity Test.” Take a second to enjoy that graphic; I put a bit of
time into that.
REVIEW & CONTEXT
But first, a little review and some context.
Some of the general themes of 1 John already
touched on in the preceding chapters and messages include these:
-
Walk together in the fellowship of the light
-
Avoid sin at all costs, but know that there is
forgiveness for sin
-
God’s love is made complete in those who love
him
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Do not love the world which is under the
control of Satan
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Beware of antichrists; those who have left the
fellowship
-
The anointing you received is real, not
counterfeit
-
God’s love is lavish and hope in him purifies
us
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Love fellow Christians sacrificially in both
word and deed
-
We are to take care of each other
So, why did John write this book and to whom? What
is it really about? Let’s let John answer that question.
REVIEW & CONTEXT (2)
In several verses, John tells us his motivation
for writing the book, the intended audiences, as well as indicating some of the
desired outcomes he’s hoping for after the book has been read:
-
1:4 “We write this to make our joy complete.”
-
2:1 “I write this to you so that you will not sin.”
-
2:7 “I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had
since the beginning. 2:8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen
in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already
shining.”
-
2:12 “I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on
account of his name.”
REVIEW & CONTEXT (3)
-
2:13 “I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the
beginning.”
-
“I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.”
-
“I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father.”
-
2:14 Again, “I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from
the beginning.”
-
“I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives
in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”
REVIEW & CONTEXT (4)
He sums it all up finally in 5:13
REVIEW & CONTEXT (5)
In verse 2:21 he gives his readers a high compliment by letting them know he’s
not writing to them because he thinks they are ignorant, and reassures them that
they do, indeed, know truth, and reminds them that lies and truth don’t go
together:
THE ABOUT
Then in verse 2:26, John gives the “about” of the book:
The overarching central theme of the entire book is Christ: who he is, what he
has done, what he is doing, how he relates to us. John assures his readers that
Christ was fully God and fully man, came in the flesh to earth, died on the
cross, and rose again. Because of these absolute truths, we can be assured of
our salvation through Christ. And therefore, discern those who are trying to
lead us astray.
GETTING DOWN TO MOTIVE
And then at the end of Chapter 3, in verse 24, that sets up the passage we’re
going to look at more closely, John writes: “And this is how we know that he
lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he [God] gave us.” Note the capital S in
Spirit.
Hmmm. Spirit.
John is now entering that spooky part of faith that can stir up a whole lot of
stuff, namely confusion: the realm of the spiritual.
I mean, all that other stuff about avoiding sin and loving each other is just a
tad more tangible in that we can easily measure how well we’re doing by, well,
looking at what we’re doing.
We are either avoiding or not avoiding sin. Or we’re either loving or not loving
each other. It’s not computational semiotics!
Sorry, I just wanted to avoid saying it’s not rocket science. I’m not even sure
what computational semiotics is; it just sounded cool.
But this stuff about spirits and being spiritual; well, this takes us into
another dimension. To paraphrase Rod Serling, “It is a dimension as vast as
space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and
shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's
fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of the spiritual,
an area, that for many, is not altogether unlike the Twilight Zone.”
… OKAY, NOT REALLY
Maybe that’s a little over the top because the topic as John addresses it is not
really that weird.
But this is what this book is about as John stated in verse 2: 26, “I am writing
these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.” With the
implication that they are trying to lead astray in the spiritual realm of truth.
Okay, you’re probably thinking to yourself something like, “Wait a minute. We’ve
already been told in previous sermons that the trouble makers were those naughty
Gnostics. I don’t remember what a Gnostic is, but I do know they were people,
not spirits.”
THE GNOSTIC PNEUMA
You would be more or less right. Let’s look at Gnosticism a bit and see how they
hold up to the Spirit Authenticity Test.
BTW: In the Greek, the word for spirit is pneuma, which means, literally,
breath, which is essential to life.
Gnosticism, in a nutshell, said that matter is bad and the non-material (spirit)
is good. This led to a few errors in thinking such as the physical body is
entirely evil, salvation requires an escape from the body, the body needs to be
treated harshly, anything done by the body has no impact on the spiritual
condition of the person, and so on.
These errors in thinking led to wrong conclusions about who Christ was: Gnostics
did not believe that he was fully God and fully man since an entirely good
spirit could not inhabit an entirely evil body. Essentially, they denied the
humanity of Christ which, basically, invalidates Christ’s redemptive work on the
cross and pretty much all of the Bible.
These errors in thinking also led to wrong, screwy behavior: They believed that
it was necessary to literally beat their bodies into submission; kind of like
that albino guy in “The Da Vinci Code.”
But also, oddly, the flip side of this was believing that whatever was done in
the evil body broke no moral law and therefore they could indulge in all manner
of misbehaving without suffering spiritual or moral consequences. Happiness
above all else.
That’s the short form on Gnosticism. There are a lot more twists and turns we
could examine, but you get the basic idea.
Gnosticism presented an interesting intellectual argument that had some
nice-sounding, warm and fuzzy, seemingly happy elements to it, but that was, at
its core, entirely ungodly. It was anti-Christ. Similar in some ways to
hedonism.
1 JOHN 4:1-6
Hold those thoughts and let’s look at the entire passage describing this Spirit
Authenticity Test; it’s on page 1209 in the NIV pew Bibles:
1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether
they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2
This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that
does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the
antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who
is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world
and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to
them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not
from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and
the spirit of falsehood.
GETTING INSPIRED (AKA IN-SPIRITED)
John R. W. Stott writes in a commentary on 1 John 4:1-6, “The background of
these verses, as of 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, is a situation in which
supernatural phenomena such as ‘prophecy’ and ‘tongues’ were prevalent. Simple
souls were (and still are) so impressed by such manifestations as to be dazzled
by them. The present tense of ‘believe not every spirit’ indicates that John’s
readers were tending to accept uncritically all teaching that seemed to be given
under inspiration.”
Today, when an “inspirational” message is delivered with excitement and
enthusiasm, especially by some well known or charismatic personality, even if
the content is a blatant lie, many will take it in as absolute truth. It’s
especially effective when what’s being imparted is claimed to be “secret” or
“ancient” or “special” knowledge – available for a limited time only to
“insiders” – who are willing to pay $29.95 plus shipping and handling. Or
something along those lines.
So, based on the context of the entire book of 1 John, we can form a picture of
what was going on. People who had been part of the church got sucked into this
“special truth” of Gnosticism. They left the church, but were still trying to
“lead astray” those they left behind.
We all have known or know people like this. They’ve stumbled upon some feel-good
“real truth,” or some super-energizing “secret” fruit drink, and just have to
convince you to follow them in their new found “secret” knowledge that is, for
the moment, filling their lives with happiness.
Maybe these people in John’s day who had left the church were having Amway-like
Gnostic parties. You know, they invited their old friends over for “coffee,” and
then started trying to sell them. They brought out the DVDs and books and glossy
brochures. They were excited and enthusiastic. They told how inspiring their
Gnostic rallies in the big stadium were, and how magnetic and inspiring the
speakers were.
It all sounded so good and fun and happy, the old friends decided, “What could
it hurt to go to one of these rallies and see for ourselves?” And it was
exciting and sounded reasonable, felt really good, and everyone seemed to be
normal and living their best life now; maybe this was a better truth than what
they had heard. They just wanted to be happy.
That was Gnosticism then, today we are surrounded with the same kind of false
teachings. They exist in other religions as Juri has pointed out in an earlier
message.
But false prophets also abound in popular culture, evidenced in such things as
The Secret, the books of Eckhart Tolle, the twisted spirituality of Oprah
Winfrey, the power of positive thinking, channeling, the Law of Attraction,
Wicca, and on and on. There are also false prophets claiming to be Christian who
are very popular speakers and writers.
Oh, if there were only some way to test every teaching to see if it were really
true or not! A test that would yield a result we could all agree with! A test
that didn’t focus on the person or group, but rather, zeroed in on the spirit
behind who they are and what they are saying.
Oh, wait, that’s what John is giving us!
Let’s break this Spirit Authenticity Test down.
WE HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO TEST
John makes it clear that we, as Christians, have a right and responsibility to
test among the various spirits behind the messages of both true and false
prophets. It’s practically a command to apply the Spirit Authenticity Test:
1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether
they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
MANY VOICES, MANY SPIRITS
Stott says, “Still today there are many voices clamoring for our attention, and
many cults gaining widespread popular support. Some of them claim special
revelation or inspiration to authenticate their particular doctrine. There is an
urgent need for discernment among Christians.”
Note: John, Stott or the apostle, is not telling us to “confront” these spirits,
but to test or discern. This test is not about the person presenting the
teaching, or even assessing their character; it’s about determining the source
of/or spirit behind their message. It’s a test that seeks to confirm or deny the
validity of the content of the message.
We are to strip away the personality, the hoopla, and all the feel-good
trappings, and test to see if the message is true or false.
AVOID GULLIBILITY
I like how Stott puts it: “Neither Christian faith nor Christian love is
indiscriminate. In particular, Christian faith is not to be mistaken for
credulity.” What does this mean? Simply put, it means we aren’t supposed to be
gullible; that as Christians we are not to tolerate untruth, but to discriminate
against it.
These two words, tolerance and discrimination, are loaded terms because how some
have worked at skewing and narrowing their meanings for their political
purposes. But we all practice intolerance and discrimination every day, and this
is not a bad thing, depending upon the context.
How many of you will not tolerate buying cleaning products that are not green?
How many of you will discriminate against a certain brand of coffee if it is not
clearly free trade? I know some of you are totally intolerant of and very
discriminatory against high fructose corn syrup.
Some go even further by looking at the ethical behaviors exhibited by the
companies behind the products and services they buy.
You probably are passionate in your choices. That’s cool. These are acceptable
forms of intolerance and discrimination, and you are making your choices based
on the truth you know and testing the products you buy against this knowledge.
If we are so willing to test the “spirits” behind the products and services we
pay for, we should be even more diligent when it comes to testing the spirits
behind the “truth” we take into our heads and hearts, and that animates our
behaviors. The consequences of not are far more damaging than buying a non-green
product, or wearing fur.
By the way, behind every movie, movement, TV show, book, organization, newspaper
article, cartoon, and song is a worldview energized by a spirit that needs to be
tested.
So, applying the Spirit Authenticity Test to discern the spirits behind the
messages we hear, in church or out of church, is not optional. And we have a
method for testing.
WE HAVE A METHOD FOR TESTING
John explains what this Spirit Authenticity Test is in very simple terms:
2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that
acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every
spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of
the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the
world.
What did the Gnostics do?
Again, it’s not computational semiotics.
FYI: ACKNOWLEDGING CHRIST
In other translations, instead of acknowledge, the word used is confess, which
means “to acknowledge belief or faith in,” and is closer to the original
meaning. It carries the implication of not merely saying intellectually, as do
the demons, “Oh, yeah, that’s Jesus.”
But rather confessing faith in by saying, “That’s the Jesus in whom I believe
and know that He is from God and came as His Son in the flesh.”
In other words, it places Christ (the fully biblical Christ) at the center of
the message. Anyone who teaches anything that moves Christ away from the center
of their message, and moves their message away from being fully biblical, is
suspect.
THE CIRCLE OF TRUTH
It can be illustrated like this. Imagine the content of the message you are
testing is inside what is called, The Circle of Truth.
You can even think of the circle as a target with a bull’s-eye in the middle.
Or, as depicted here, a heart, as in “the heart of the matter.” Use whatever
image or metaphor works best for you.
The point is that as long as Christ remains at the center of the Circle of Truth
and anything that is not Christ (antichrist) remains entirely outside the
circle, the message (or spirit) should be good.
If something else moves into the circle and/or Christ moves away from the
center, then it’s, “Danger, Will Robinson!” The message is moving away from
truth into error.
If something else has supplanted Christ within the circle, the truth being
taught is actually a lie, and the spirit behind it is the spirit of the
antichrist.
Note: Green is good. Yellow is danger. Red is bad. This yellow isn’t meant to be
“blown through” like a yellow light. It means you need to stop and evaluate
what’s going on. We want to avoid being in either the yellow or red zones!
I’ve included the Bible as part of the test formula because the best way to
determine if a spirit is truly professing the true Christ is to measure the
message against Scripture. Unlike with the Gnostics, often you will encounter
messages where there is no mention made of Christ. Or, there may even be some
positive sounding affirmation that, “Jesus is just alright with me.”
But if you dig deeply enough, and apply a little biblical logic, you will get to
a point where it becomes clear that the true, biblical Jesus is either pointedly
not affirmed or is ultimately denied.
OPRAH: JUST DON’T SAY JESUS
A former pastor had some Christian friends who, several years ago, experienced
an event in their life that they truly deemed a miracle from the Lord. It was
such a notable event, they were invited to share about it on the Oprah Winfrey
Show. They shared with my pastor that, when they arrived for their appearance,
they were instructed in no uncertain terms to not mention Jesus or Christ. They
could, however, say God.
In every other venue where they had shared about this event, they had freely
acknowledged and confessed Jesus as the source of the miracle and the One in
Whom they put their hope. But not on Oprah.
They were told that if they mentioned Jesus or Christ or the Lord, even once,
the show would never air. Period.
While this was not a case of Christ being denied, it is clearly a case of Christ
not being affirmed, and, given all we know about Oprah, it’s safe to state that
the spirit behind what Oprah allows to be communicated on her show is not from
God. It is a spirit of antichrist.
Anything that contradicts any part of Scripture is not about the true Christ,
even if the name of Jesus, or any other god-words, is being used. And anything
that cannot be supported by Scripture, and especially if it depends on any kind
of “special” prophecy, “secret” knowledge, or “new” revelation, is suspect and
should be rejected.
SPEAK PLAINLY
In 2 Corinthians 4:2, Paul states: “Rather, we have renounced secret and
shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On
the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God.”
Keeping Christ central to any message is the easiest way to set “forth the truth
plainly.” Any message that doesn’t keep Christ central is suspect.
So, testing is not optional, we have a method for testing, and we also have a
reason to test.
WE HAVE A REASON TO TEST
John now explains why it’s important to test the spirits:
4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who
is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world
and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to
them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not
from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and
the spirit of falsehood.
DARKNESS & LIGHT DON’T MIX
To better understand what John is getting at we need to go back to the beginning
of the book.
1:5-7: This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is
light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with
him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we
walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
Darkness and light cannot mix.
ALL GOOD OR NOT GOOD
Either we are all in with Christ or we are not. Or as Stott says, “So behind
every prophet is a spirit, and behind each spirit is either God or the devil.”
The spirit behind a message is either all good or not good.
NO YOKING AROUND
There’s no yoking around, either! 1 Corinthians 6:14 states, “Do not be yoked
together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in
common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?”
In chapter 2 of 2nd Peter, the whole chapter is about false prophets and you
really should take a look at it later today. Other passages to look at related
to false prophets include 1 Thessalonians 5, Matthew 7, and Timothy 4. (These
are all listed on the back of your insert.)
Again, John is not saying to confront these people, but to discern the message
so that we are not taken in by it. We are not to get into confrontational
skirmishes with people who believe wrongly. John warns us that they won’t listen
to us: “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us but whoever is not
from God does not listen to us.”
ARE YOU LISTENING?
By the way, verse 6 also points out how to tell if what we are sharing is
Christ-centered and biblically sound: We’re good if fellow believers listen to
us; we’re off-center if they don’t.
PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER
So what are we supposed to do? Here are four steps:
-
First, apply the Spirit Authenticity Test to discern the spirit behind the
message and determine if it is grounded in Christ and Scripture.
-
Second, if the spirit is anti-Christ, reject and expose the message. Ephesians
5:17 states, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but
rather expose them.” Paul says “expose” but not “confront.”
-
Third, show respect to the person sharing the message, and if you’re in a
position to do so, gently share with them the Gospel as the Holy Spirit leads,
pointing out what you see are errors in what they’re sharing based on your
understanding of Scripture, but don’t get into an argument.
-
Fourth, pay attention to how fellow believers react to you when you share
truth to determine if they are listening to you or not. This is to ensure you
are not being contaminated by the messages of the false prophets and antichrists
all around you.
PRACTICING THE TRUTH…
Relativism is a prevalent worldview that denies absolute truth. Truth and
morality become a matter of perspective or personal opinion and varies from
individual to individual. Mark Chan, writing in Christianity Today, points out a
possible way to open a door to sharing with someone who holds to a relativist
point of view by sharing this observation:
“By insisting that there is no such thing as universal truth, except the
universal truth that there is no such thing as universal truth, relativism is as
absolutist as the claim that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the
Life….Relativists may insist on the absence of universal truth, but they
instinctively assume the reality of it.”
Knowing this can provide an entry point for a friendly, non-confrontational
discussion.
… IN LOVE
So how do we deal with a relativist? In love. We recognize the liar behind the
lie they are believing, and then, Chan writes, “We cannot provide warmth to a
cold relativism, but we can wrap a blanket around a shivering
relativist….Christians are called to love rather than tolerate people, and in so
doing to mirror God’s love for all people.”
We can apply this model to all of our dealings with those who are caught up in
wrong thinking, misguided beliefs, and sinful lifestyles. We can love the person
without tolerating the lie.
CENTERED IN CHRIST
John Stott sums up 1 John 4:1-6 very well by stating, “The Person of Christ is
central. No system can be tolerated, however loud its claims or learned its
adherents, if it denies [or refuses to affirm] that Jesus is the Christ come in
the flesh, that is, if it denies either His eternal deity or His historical
humanity. Its teachers are false prophets and its origin is the spirit of the
antichrist.”
CMA MISSION
By the way, the Christian & Missionary Alliance checks out okay using the Spirit
Authenticity Test, as seen in the mission statement:
"We desire to know Jesus Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King
and to complete His Great Commission. The Alliance will fulfill His Commission
through
As you go out this week, apply God’s SAT – Spirit Authenticity Testing – to all
of the messages you encounter, rejecting the false prophets. But exhibit the
love and grace of Jesus Christ to those who are voicing those messages, even
when they are being sourced by the spirit of antichrist.
If you’re here today and don’t know the joy of being in Christ and would like to
become better acquainted with the Way, the Truth, and the Life, on the back of
your bulletin, there’s a little write-up titled, “How do I unite with God?” It
will give you some guidance on how to go about making a commitment to Jesus.
Or, perhaps the Holy Spirit is nudging you in regards to some of the messages
you’ve taken into your life that may have cluttered your head and heart,
clouding your faith in Christ.
In either case, if you’d like prayer or just to talk with someone, Juri, the
elders, and other members here will be happy to spend some time with you. Just
make your need known; don’t be shy.
Also, in September, the Truth Jam will be coming around, where you can explore
in more detail the lies people believe, the power of Truth, and how you can
begin to live truly free. I highly recommend that you participate in this and
other Jams.
CLOSE
In the meantime, if you are in Christ,
this week, go, test and be blessed,
in Him who is in you,
Who is greater than he who is in the world,
and Who has overcome the world!
He is risen! | 
