Will It Blend?

Thesis: It is essential for the Christian to test every idea they encounter against the truth of Scripture.

Objective: Call listeners to recognize that not every idea they hear meshes with the Christian faith and provide tools to recognize and address modern Gnosticism.

1. We must test everything (1).
   1. Don't believe everything you hear (“do not believe every spirit;” We can't just embrace every idea that is ever presented to us. Some ideas are diametrically opposed to the Christian faith. QUOTE: “Christian faith is not spiritual gullibility” (ESV Study Bible).).
   2. We must test everything (“test the spirits to see whether they are from God;” We must test the ideas that we hear – and the sources we hear them from – to find out if they are from God. ILLUSTRATION: Classroom tests check to make sure that answers are correct compared to absolute standards.).
   3. There is much wrong out there (“because many false prophets have gone out into the world;” The reason we must test everything is because there are a lot of people out there that say a lot of different stuff. EXAMPLE: “What the Bible Really Says About Sex” (Newsweek).).
2. We must test ideas against Christ (2-3).
   1. Gnosticism
      • Many, many variations
      • Key belief #1: Salvation hinges on knowledge rather than faith.
      • Key belief #2: There is a stark contrast between spirit (holy) and matter (vulgar)
      • Key problem: Because holy and vulgar cannot truly co-exist, Christ was either a phantom of some sort (maybe hologram), or the spirit of Christ merely rested on the man Jesus for a time, leaving at the crucifixion. This effectively guts Christ by saying that God couldn't really experience and/or appreciate the human element and/or lacks the power to truly, fully save.
      • Practical differences vary depending on the variety of gnosticism, but often end up with either asceticism, where people resort to self-mutilation to overcome the deficiencies of the material body, or hedonism, where people completely reason that because the body is inherently sinful anyway, they'll just go ahead and do whatever it wants because the spirit will be okay.
      • Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV): “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
      • Modern examples include Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Harold Camping, New Age, Scientology
   2. Ideas must confess Jesus the Christ (“every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ” (2); The first test that a spirit must pass is to acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God sent by God to save us from sin. Be careful! Because there is a lot of stuff wrapped up in this! He is deity. He is co-equal with God the Father. There is such a thing as sin. We need saving from sin. KEY: confession is more than just knowing in your head. It's owning and thus applying.).
   3. Ideas must confess Jesus in flesh (“every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (2); The second test that a spirit must pass is that it acknowledges that Jesus came in human form, the Son of God become Son of Man. Again, there is a lot here! He was actually human. He was susceptible to temptation but lived without sin. He actually died on the cross.).
   4. Ideas that don't are anti-christ (“every spirit that does not acknowledge...” (3); Those ideas which fail to pass these two primary tests are diametrically opposed to Christ and Christianity. And make no mistake: there are plenty of antichrists out there!).
3. We can succeed (4-6).
   1. We have already overcome (4; It's easy to obsess over ideas and antichrists, etc., worrying about them coming to get us, but we must remember two things: As long as we cling to the truth of Jesus Christ, we win. And hearing these ideas – and even contemplating their merit – does not negate that.).
   2. They're confused (5; Those who profess these ideas are nothing short of confused because their perspective is that of the world. They try to make everything line up with their understanding of things and their desires, etc. i.e., they don't see the big picture yet.).
   3. We're not (6; Those who are from God strive to adopt His perspective on things and apply His Truth to things.).
   4. The key is listening to the right people (6; The key to success is listening – that is, to take notice of and act on what someone says – to people and ideas which come from God. That means discerning what's from God. And it means applying God's ideas to our lives. While throwing out the rest.).