From the pen of Woodrow Kroll and BACK TO THE BIBLE

We must deny man as a standard to love and to tell us what to love. We must chose God's standard to invest our emotional, mental and behavioral actions in, even if does come from a TV or radio preacher- paraphrase critique of A.W. Tozer and Kroll A. Peters MD

Tami Weissert: And I'm Tami Weissert. And today we look at the words of the disciple John as he shows us how to love like God loves.
Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, John surely would know that because John experienced the love of the Lord God through his salvation through the Lord Jesus. But he also became a very close friend of the Lord Jesus. John also knew, though, that there were false teachers abounding in his day and he had to write a little letter to combat those false teachers.
Tami Weissert: He kind of issued a warning that was "Don't believe everything you hear." Now, Dr. Kroll, I thought my parents came up with that phrase, but apparently not.
Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, any good parent would say that to a child, but when John says it here, he's saying, "There are people abounding today who are teaching you things using the right language, but with the wrong meaning," and he had to combat that.
Tami Weissert: OK, so how long after Jesus did this happen? Were there a lot of false teachers then in the church?
Woodrow Kroll: They came almost immediately. We're talking about a letter here toward the end of the first century, so maybe forty or fifty years after the life of the Lord Jesus. But obviously false teachers come as soon as truth is there. You know, when you turn the light on the bugs are going to come. And that happened in John's day.
We're going to find out what those false teachers taught, and what John did to combat them here on Back to the Bible today.
Woodrow Kroll: Well, we're coming again to that little letter of John near the end of the New Testament, 1 John. We're all the way to chapter 4 in our study having looked at the first three chapters last week, we now pick up the study at chapter 4:1. You know John has spoken a lot about loving like God loves. That's our theme in looking at this little epistle.
But that doesn't mean we love everything, because God doesn't love everything. We have to get out of our minds that to be a Christian means you have to tolerate everything because God is love. That's just not true. God does not love the sinner's sin. God does not love the scoffer's ridicule. God does not love the criticisms of the critics of the Bible. God does not love the luster's lust. God does not love the terrorist's tactics. There are things in this world that come as a result of sin and God does not love sin.
We have to always be mindful of the fact that we must love the things God loves, but we must hate the things God hates. Not a very popular concept today, because we've bought into the world's philosophy we ought to love everything and hate is out. But hate is not out in the mind of God. Let me show you why. Deuteronomy 12 speaks how much God hates false gods, and how much he hates false worship. Listen to this.
"You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire of their gods."

That's Deuteronomy 12:31. There are things God hates. Psalm 11:4-5 says it this way:
Now these tiny, little epistles are just filled with admonitions to love. But it has to be discerning love, and here as he did back in chapter 2 of this epistle, 1 John, he says love not the world neither the things that are in the world. So he's already building a case that love is both positive and negative. There are things to love and there are things not to love. Now what he says here is that we're not to love this world system, and he also says we're not to love the false teaching of false teachers.
You know, A.W. Tozer, whom you know is one of my favorite authors; A.W. Tozer in his book The Pursuit of God says this. He says, "We get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin with God. We are right when and only when we stand in a right position relative to God. And we're wrong so far as long as we stand in any other position."
So love comes by loving the standards that God sets up, and hating the standards which break the standards of God. Now he talks here in verse 1 about beloved. That's his endearing term for the people he's writing to. And then he goes on and he talks about the spirits of truth and the spirits of error. You know, both the spirit of truth and the spirit of error come from the lips of human beings. Someone can teach you error in the name of truth. I think it's incumbent upon every Christian, not just scholars, but every Christian to be mature enough to be able to discern truth from error.
Now the only way we can do that is every time we flip on that TV and some TV preacher comes by, or every time you turn on the radio and some preacher's on the radio, you need to know the Word of God well enough to be able to say that's not right, that's not what God's Word teaches. That's what John is asking for. He is asking for us to test the teachings that we hear, so that we know we're not following false prophets. Look at verses 2 and 3.
"By this you know the spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, the spirit of antichrist is that spirit." (1 John 4:2-3)
So, here's the test. You can know that you're following truth if truth says about Jesus what the Bible says about Jesus. You know you're listening to error if the person who is teaching you does not say about Jesus what the Bible says about Jesus. Now look there're lots of ways the Bible tells us lots of ways that we test false teachers. In other places the Bible says that.
For example the Bible says we can test their message. We can see if their message squares with God's Word. We can also check to see if their message is a message that matches the Word of God. We can check out the teacher's commitment to other believers. We know pretty well we're following a false teacher if they don't have a commitment to the church, or if they don't have a commitment to helping other believers.

"The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven;his eyes see; his eyelids test the children of man.The Lord tests the righteous,but his soul hates the wicked and theone who love violence." (Psalm 11:4-5)



We should examine the life styles of teachers, because the lifestyle tells you a lot about where their heart is. You know if they're getting a lot of money in and building their own mansions and buying their own stuff then the chances are pretty good they're not a true teacher of God's Word.

We can also look to the fruit of the ministries. Are there always just a lot of numbers? Is this a flash in the pan or is there lasting fruit? Are people growing and maturing and moving down the road to spiritual maturity? Those are all tests of true teachers verses false teachers. But the iron clad test, the greatest test of all, is the test that he sets forth for us here and that is do they teach that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? Do they teach that Jesus Christ is God?
If they do not teach that, it doesn't matter what else they teach; you know they're a false teacher. So when someone comes to your door and they have a booklet they want you to read, or a pamphlet they have for you, or they tell you of another testament from they've discovered joy you ask them this question. Tell me what you believe about Jesus? Do you believe He is God? And if they wait an instant to respond to that, you know immediately that's a person you don't want to listen to. That's the iron clad test of false teachers.
Number 3: He says in verse 4, "The One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. The spirit of truth in you comes from the Holy Spirit in you, and the Holy Spirit in you is greater than anything these false teachers have in the world." And his understanding is they have the spirit of antichrist, the spirit of Satan. They are following false teaching. They're saying things about Jesus just are simply not true. So he says the One in you is already greater than the one in them.
And then he goes on and he says, "You have already been victorious because you have not been won over by the false teaching of these false prophets. You already are a victor because you've discerned truth from error, and you stayed with the truth."
And then, number 5, He says this: "Christ's followers have a better chance of standing against false teaching in community than they do if they stand alone." You look at that verse 4 and you say wait a minute, I don't see that. Where did you get that? See where it says greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world? The word you there is the plural pronoun.
So he's not talking about an individual here. He's talking about this corporation, the church. He's talking about the community of people in the church, and he says you have a better chance to withstand false teaching when you are involved in a church where there is real teaching, true teaching. You must never attempt to battle Satan alone, certainly not when you have the help of other believers. We need the prayers others. We need the resources of others. We need the guidance. We need the protection and so much more.

And that's why he says to these people stay in community in the church. When you do that you're going to find the difference between truth and error. Now, their life and their teaching, these false teachers, [were] totally opposed to God's Word. And so many of the false teachers taught something that the world wanted to hear; they lived in a way the world wanted to live.
And so a lot of the people who were in the church who were just spiritually immature went after them because, "Hey, if they can drive a big car like that I ought to be able to drive a big car like that too. If they can have that kind of house, I ought to have that kind of house. After all they told me God wants me to be rich."
And what we see here in this verse is that, because their life style was a life style so many people wanted to have, people automatically thought they must be correct in their understanding of God's Word. So they migrated to these false teachers. I want you to know, though, the Bible says exactly the opposite.
Now I've asked several here in our study group to help me out by reading some verses of Scripture. We're going to start with Ruth. Ruth is going to read for us John 15:18-19. Since the life and the teachings of these false teachers fit right into the evil pattern of the world they became very popular in the world. But you need to know what Jesus has to say about that, and we'll learn that as Ruth reads John 15.
Ruth: "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." (John 15: 18-19)
Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, now, did you catch the fact that you and I should not be surprised if the world is not very happy with the way we live. We ought to also be concerned if the world is happy with the way we live. If the world is not stumbling over the cross in the way we present it, then we're probably not presenting the cross in the way that the Bible intended
I John 4:
He says in verse 4, "The One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. The spirit of truth in you comes from the Holy Spirit in you, and the Holy Spirit in you is greater than anything these false teachers have in the world." And his understanding is they have the spirit of antichrist, the spirit of Satan. They are following false teaching. They're saying things about Jesus just are simply not true. So he says the One in you is already greater than the one in them.
And then he goes on and he says, "You have already been victorious because you have not been won over by the false teaching of these false prophets. You already are a victor because you've discerned truth from error, and you stayed with the truth."
And then, number 5, He says this: "Christ's followers have a better chance of standing against false teaching in community than they do if they stand alone." You look at that verse 4 and you say wait a minute, I don't see that. Where did you get that? See where it says greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world? The word you there is the plural pronoun.
So he's not talking about an individual here. He's talking about this corporation, the church. He's talking about the community of people in the church, and he says you have a better chance to withstand false teaching when you are involved in a church where there is real teaching, true teaching. You must never attempt to battle Satan alone, certainly not when you have the help of other believers. We need the prayers others. We need the resources of others. We need the guidance. We need the protection and so much more.
And that's why he says to these people stay in community in the church. When you do that you're going to find the difference between truth and error. Now, their life and their teaching, these false teachers, [were] totally opposed to God's Word. And so many of the false teachers taught something that the world wanted to hear; they lived in a way the world wanted to live.
And so a lot of the people who were in the church who were just spiritually immature went after them because, "Hey, if they can drive a big car like that I ought to be able to drive a big car like that too. If they can have that kind of house, I ought to have that kind of house. After all they told me God wants me to be rich."
Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, we have a tendency to think that loving others means we love everything others do, everything others are, and everybody else who's a human being. But the Bible says, and John is very clear here, that to love like God loves does not mean you love false teaching. And you don't love false teachers who are doing false teaching because their intent is not to come to you and say, "Show me your love." Their intent is to steal your understanding of God away from you. So what he has to say, and the last to verses are classic in 1 John 4, he says,
"If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he's a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love his brother." (1 John 4: 20-21)
But his brother is not a false teacher, so he makes a clear line of demarcation between loving false teachers who are attempting to rob the faith and loving your brother who may be struggling and may not be the nicest person in the world, but still is your brother and we're to love him.
Tami Weissert: So loving as God loves means that we need to be able to know what to believe, what to love, what to follow. And really the key to that is knowing God.
Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, it's all about discernment. It's not about emotions. It's about knowing the things God says are right, knowing the things God says are not right, and know the difference. And that basically is where a lot of people go haywire with regard to love. They feel in our age of toleration they have to tolerate and love everything, but that's not what the Bible says