1 John 4-5 CSB
You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception. (4:4-6)
In this passage, John talks about the proliferation of deception in this world and how to deal with it. In verse 1 of this chapter, he says, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” It is these deceptive spirits that we are to test, and John says we have conquered them. How do we conquer the spirits of deception? Well, we test them and determine what is true and false, and we know we have conquered those that come from the Evil One because the one who is in us (Jesus) is greater than the one who is in the world (Satan).
The real question, is “how do we test those spirits, those voices, those false prophets to which the world listens?” John makes it clear that we test them by the word of God. For a long time, I misunderstood this verse and thought that I had to somehow have a conversation with false spirits or false prophets and use some magical formula like “say Jesus is Lord!” or something to see which was true and which was false. Yet John makes it clear that “Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us.” When John talks about “us” he doesn’t mean me 😊. He is talking about the apostles, he is talking about those who were eyewitnesses of Christ, those who helped establish the church, and those who were inspired to write the word of God.
As Jude put it, “that faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) is the spiritual measuring stick by which we measure everything in life. If what someone says agrees with the word of God then it is true, if it is in opposition to the word then it is false. It doesn’t matter if it is a prophet, or an angel, or any other voice—the bible is the standard by which everything is measured and there are many false prophets and many lying spirits in this world. What’s worse, the world listens to them wholeheartedly. Social media, Hollywood, the nightly news, political parties, and a variety of religious institutions are constantly spouting false things… and the world listens to them. A wise child of God only trusts one voice and that is the voice of Jesus through His word.
