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March 02, 2007
FROM THE COUCH
From the Couch
Testing The Spirits
If you have been keeping up with the news, then I’m sure that you’ve heard about the reports of the tomb that supposedly holds the bones of Jesus, his wife, and his children. Or maybe you’ve heard about the DVD that is being pushed on TV shows like Oprah, Larry King, and Ellen called “The Secret”. Surely you remember the hype about “The Davinci Code”, a fictitious story about a man who uncovers the “truth” that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and was most certainly not the Savior of the world. What do each of these messages have in common? They suppose that the biblical message of Jesus is a hoax, and that certain ancient heretical documents that were rejected by the Church from the earliest times are truth. I’m talking about a group of documents called the “gnostic gospels” that portray Jesus as an ordinary guy and new age philosopher.
I’m not surprised by the popularity of this kind of attack on the nature and person of Jesus. What does surprise me sometimes is how coordinated these attacks seem to be. But I shouldn’t be surprised, because this is nothing new. The Apostles warned the early church against these teachings, and their warnings still resonate today. The book of 1 John was written to a group of Christians who had been abused by false teachers who claimed that Jesus was somehow less than God who came in the flesh to atone for the sins of mankind. Here is how John responded to them. He said, “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. 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, 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” (1John 4:1-3). What John is saying is that there is a spirit behind every teacher. If the teacher acknowledges that Jesus is the Christ who came in the flesh, then his message is from the Spirit of God. If the teacher does not acknowledge this, his message is from the spirit of the antichrist. Which spirit is controlling the teachings of “The Secret” or “The Davinci Code”? Which spirit is controlling media reports bent on “exposing” Jesus as a fraud? Which Spirit controlled the writers of the Bible as they revealed the message of salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ? Apply John’s test, and the answers are clear.
My prayer for each of us this week is that God would give us wisdom in discerning the spirits behind the messages that we are hearing from the world around us. And remember – “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them (the spirits of deception), because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
Pastor Steve
Posted by Jennifer Herrmann at March 2, 2007 11:59 AM