What keeps you up at night? Pause to think about that for a moment. Are there things in your past? Things in your future? Questions that are left unanswered? Perhaps, with Halloween almost upon us it’s good to reflect on those things which scare us. As children, of course, the ghouls and the goblins, witches and vampires, all were meant to frighten us but in a fun way. As we grow older, the things which frighten us are no longer fun, in fact we may relish the days when all we had to worry about were whether or not there really was a boogey man hanging out in the closet, or under the bed.
I remember when I was a kid; I had this nagging, persistent fear, not of the boogey man, but about someone breaking into the house. I don’t know why, our house was never actually broken into. There was one time we found a window frame that looked like someone had tried to pry it open with a crowbar, so I guess we were lucky that the only time someone actually did try to break in they were too dumb to figure out how to do it.
But that was long after the fear began. Maybe I’d watched too many movies, or maybe of all my fears that seemed to be the most likely one to happen, thus the most scary. Either way, I’d often not be able to get to sleep because of it. And, given that my room was in the converted attic of our house, heaven help my parents anytime a raccoon crawled onto the roof; because then it wasn’t just a fear, I knew I heard footsteps, and where there are footsteps, there must be feet, and where there are feet, there must be a person, and why would there be a person on our roof in the middle of the night unless they were trying to break in (I guess with it not being Christmas I didn’t figure it would be Santa Claus, and I certainly didn’t stop to consider why on earth someone would try to break in from the roof instead of from the ground floor or even one of the basement windows).
And, like any scared child, whenever I thought there was a man on the roof, where did I go? To Mom and Dad’s room of course. Back then, there was no question, if something scary was going on, Dad was going to take care of it. Dad was my hero. Even if some evil villain sent an entire army to my house, if Dad was home, that army was in for a hurting and we were going to be okay.
In looking at our passage today, you recognize that it was written in a time period when spiritual activity was common and accepted. They didn’t look at the world with our eyes; they didn’t discount the fact that there might be more to the world than what could be seen. Unlike many of our time, they did not believe that the scientific method was the be all and end all of understanding the world. They knew there were spirits, and they knew that some spirits were good, that is, of God, and some were evil, that is, of the other guy.
Now, I don’t know about you, but that whole concept scares me a little bit. I like the idea of my nice quiet world where most things can be explained rationally, and the only people who could potentially be out to hurt me, mislead me, or get me in any other way, are flesh and bones. Maybe part of that is derived from a childhood love for Star Wars. If you’ve ever seen Star Wars, you may remember the scene when Darth Vader and Obi Wan are facing down each other for epic “student has become the master” light-saber battle. And, at the end, when Obi-Wan is fixing to let Darth Vader win, because he’s just that hardcore, he tells Vader “if you kill me you will make me more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” That stuck with me, I think, this idea that a rational being which you can’t see is scarier than one you can.
Instead, I’d like to stick with my nice little rational world, where the spirits are only marginally active, and certainly not a threat. But, just like with the raccoons on the roof, the only way to deal with the fear of the burglar on the roof is to learn what a raccoon sounds like; in the same way, the only way to deal with the truly dangerous malevolent spirits is to recognize the “sounds of their footsteps,” and ultimately, as we used to say on the playground, you have to know that “your daddy can whip their daddy any day.”
When John says “do not believe every spirit” and “every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not from God,” you might want to break in and say, “well, what is a spirit anyway?” And I think that’s an important question. In the strictest sense, a spirit is a “creature without flesh and bones.” We’d probably be safe to assume that these are rational beings, beings that think, and act based upon their thoughts.
But, if you’ll allow me to read more into the passage than just what’s there, that word, spirit, “pneuma” in the Greek, can mean several different things. In fact, it has a pretty broad sense of usage. Strong’s gives this list as it’s possible meanings whenever used: a current of air, that is, breath (blast) or a breeze; by analogy or figuratively a spirit, that is, (human) the rational soul, (by implication) vital principle, mental disposition, etc., or (superhuman) an angel, daemon, or (divine) God, Christ’s spirit, the Holy spirit: - ghost, life, spirit (-ual, -ually), mind.
I want to suggest to you that a spirit need not be either rational, nor without flesh and bones, but could have or lack either of the above. A spirit could be a person, as, in a sense, it most certainly was amongst the church whom John was writing to, thus he mentions the “many false prophets” who “have gone out into the world.” In that sense, a spirit could have flesh and bones.
In another way, a spirit could be a feeling. Because, to be honest, most of us judge where we are spiritually based upon our feelings above most else. If we feel good, we assume we’re spiritually good, if we feel bad, we assume we’re spiritually bad. In that sense, a spirit could lack both flesh and bones and a rationality. Or, perhaps, those feelings may be the “product” of a spirit.
What’s important, however, is not so much “what it is,” but “what it does.” A spirit is something which is, essentially, trying to influence you in one direction or another.
Thus, when John says that there are spirits which are not of God, more importantly than identifying what they are, he is identifying what they are about. “This is the spirit of the anti-christ,” he says. They are spirits which deny Christ and His work. But what does that mean, what would that look like?
In the time in which it was written, and to some extent today, a spirit of the anti-christ would, perhaps, represent a denial of a particular doctrine of Christ. In John’s time it was a denial that He had “come in the flesh.” But what might be some examples from modern day? What would constitute a denial of Christ?
When we talked about “fake Christianity,” earlier in John, we discussed those who “truncate” Christianity; who reduce it only the principles they like and agree with. Usually these people tend to deny the supernatural element of Christianity in favor of its more “down to earth” implications. An example might be those who take the social gospel element of the faith, the idea that Jesus is about helping the poor and downtrodden, who see the cross as only the result of political processes at work at the time, and who treat the resurrection as a “resurrection in the hearts of his followers.”
Another example might be those who take only the moralistic aspects of Christianity, the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself, but who fail to recognize the depth of sin and the necessity of salvation. We certainly see enough of that floating around in the Church these days. But what about in our day to day lives? Are there any “spirits” which we might deal with that need to be tested?
Well, let me give you an example of one. When I first started as chaplain at Gibault, I was excited. A ministry position, for me, had been a long time coming. I’d gone back and forth so many times over the years about whether this was what I wanted to do or not, it was nice to finally be doing something, to be using my education for someone’s benefit. And it was amongst people I already knew and cared about to boot.
Those first few weeks were great, there were a couple times where I stepped up to that pulpit and just knew what I was saying was hitting home. But as time went on, the passion started to fade. I’d find myself sitting in the parking lot at work, waiting for the second service to start, watching the kids file into dining hall to eat dinner before the service. And as I watched them come in I’d think to myself “you’re not making any difference in their lives; their hearts aren’t going to change.”
And, like any good lie, there was an element of truth in there. There wasn’t and isn’t anything I was or am going to do that can change the lives of those kids. If it’s just me, if all I’m doing is standing up in front of them week after week and giving them my opinions on life and theology, they’re not going to change. But what those thoughts, what that spirit, left out of the equation, was Christ. It was a denial of His involvement in the situation. In my head, I was saying “God isn’t going to use me,” and that spirit was not of God.
I think that the temptation which such spirits might use is the same temptation which worked so surprisingly well amongst our first parents, they might pose the question to us “did God really say…” And rather than remove wholesale the foundation of our faith, replacing a God-come-in-the-flesh with a spirit-which-looked-like-flesh, they might chip away at it slowly, replacing a bit here and a bit there with something less stable or nothing at all, until the foundation is so weakened that the slightest wind might knock it over.
Maybe you’ve faced similar doubts. Maybe there is a spirit in your life that’s asking you “did God really say…” Maybe there is a guilt hanging over your head, and that spirit is asking “did God really say YOU were forgiven?” Or maybe there’s a sin, or an addiction, that you just can’t quite get over. It seems like a hurdle that is impossibly high. Maybe that spirit is saying to you “did God really say that he would transform YOU into the image of Christ?” That spirit is not of God.
Instead, John tells us that any spirit which is of God “confesses Christ.” It points away from us and toward Jesus. Instead of looking at us and what we can’t do, it looks to Christ and what He has done. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again, it is more important to know what God has done in Christ than to know what He is doing now. His already accomplished work in Christ on the Cross is the foundation of what He is doing in our lives now.
When I was a kid, like most young boys, one of my favorite pastimes, and if I’m honest I still love it, was to build things then knock them over. The daycare that I went to as a child, called “Short Stop,” was over at First United Methodist in Terre Haute, now the Fourteenth and Chestnut Center. And if you’ve never been there, First Church had this huge gym for a basement. And Short Stop, like any good daycare, also had on hand a large supply of those little cardboard fake bricks. Now, combine these two facts with one day in which I was allowed to bring my tricycle to daycare, and I was in Heaven. I must have spent half the day building walls, then plowing that Knight Rider official Big-Wheeler through them.
And, of course, in the process of building walls to be smashed through, you inevitably learn a little bit about how to make a solid structure, something that won’t fall over before you even get up enough momentum for the death-defying tail-whip. You learn that two blocks supporting two blocks works ok, but three blocks supporting two blocks works better.
Another thing I loved as a kid, in keeping with this idea of building things up and then knocking them over, was the game of Jenga. If you’ve never played Jenga, that’s the game where you have a stack of little wooden blocks, three per level, and you and however many other players, try to take out the blocks from the bottom, one by one, and put them on top. The first person to cause the whole thing to topple loses. Of course, in Jenga, you learn that you can take either the middle block, or the two side-blocks, from any level, but it’s best to take the middle, and eventually, one missing block is going to make the whole thing fall. In both cases, with both the bricks and with Jenga, you learn that a solid structure on top doesn’t matter if your foundation is weak.
For us, if our foundation is not laid in the already finished work of Christ, then the rest isn’t going to stand.
John says these other spirits are “of the world.” They are of that system of hate, greed, envy, and pride. They are of the system of guilt, fear, punishment, and death. They are of everything which opposes God. They speak the world’s language, and so those who are also from the world listen to them and don’t think twice. They have no other alternative.
But John tells us:
4Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for(J) he who is in you is greater than(K) he who is in the world.
Like children who are scared of someone up on the roof, we too can run to our Dad. Because, unlike our earthly fathers, wonderful as they may be, God really is big enough to take on anything that is sent His way. Again, as I’ve referenced before, I am reminded of the words of Christ in the Gospel, who, after being asked “who then can be saved,” replied “with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Likewise Paul tells us in Romans 8:31 “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
So, if you’re facing that guilt that just won’t let go, greater is He that is in you, than he who is in the world.
If you’re facing that addiction that you just can’t seem to get over, greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
If you’re facing anything that lifestyle change, those lingering relationships and attachments, that world that seems inescapable, greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
If you’re facing anything which causes you to doubt the love of God towards you, your salvation, your justification, the finished work of Christ on the cross, the fact that Christ is going to take you beyond where you are into a closer walk with Him, or anything else which might try to separate you from Him, greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
So, let us go forward, trusting in Christ alone, confessing Christ alone, and holding to Christ alone as the basis of our relationship with God and our salvation.
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