All right, good morning, everybody. It's good to see you this morning. A couple weeks ago, Brother Mitch asked me to teach devotion. So I was very grateful for that. And the Lord gave me the opportunity to speak. So I have something I'd like to share with you that's very important. And I have a burden for it. And I hope it's a blessing to all of you. And we'll be talking about knowing Jesus Christ. That is the title to the message. And knowing Jesus Christ is a very important part of our life, very important part of our Christian life. And 1 John 4, verse 15, chapter 4, verse 15 says that, Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. 1 John 5, 12 says, He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. You know, Jesus Christ is a crucial part of our salvation, and if you have Jesus Christ, you have life. And today I would like to talk about knowing Jesus Christ, and by knowing Jesus Christ, we're going to know three very important things. Knowing Jesus Christ is the key to salvation, It is the key to knowing with confidence that we are a member of God's church. And by knowing Jesus Christ, we are able to witness to every religion in the world, of which there are many. We're going to talk about that. And so I see the puzzled look on Brother Briny's face over there. How can we witness to every religion on Earth just from a short 20-minute devotion? Well, let's find out. So we're going to start. in 1 John 4, verse 1. And here we'll get the answer to our question. 1 John 4, verse 1, it says, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. And let's open with prayer real quick. Dear Lord, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for this opportunity to speak, Lord. And please help us to hear from your word and to learn, Lord, and to get to know you better. And please give me the words to speak. Give me clarity of mind. And help me to pass on your message this morning, Lord. And thank you for everything that you've done, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. All right, so this first verse we see Beloved. Believe not every spirit. So this command that John's telling us right here is, do not believe every spirit, but try the spirits. You need to test the spirits. You need to prove the spirits, whether they are of God. It says, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. So these spirits come to us in the form of false prophets. These false prophets are carrying that evil spirit, and we need to make sure, again, that we are listening to the spirits of God and not some false spirit. So why should we test whether the spirits are of God? Let's go to 2 Chronicles 11, verse 14. Second Corinthians 11 verse 14. It says Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. So these spirits can take on the form of a good spirit, of a spirit of God. And Satan does this himself. If Satan can transform himself into a spirit of God or an angel of light, all his demons and minions can do the same thing and they can confuse us and lead us astray. Peter himself was tricked by Satan. In Matthew 16, verse 23, Jesus rebukes Peter and says, Peter, get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savorest not the things that are of God, but those that be of men. So God's saying that he's going to go to Jerusalem and he's going to die. And Peter's telling him, stop. No, you can't do that. And God's telling him, get behind me, Satan. He's being influenced by an evil spirit and is getting in the way and hindering the work of God. And so if Peter can fall victim to this influence, we all can fall victim to the influence of the devil. And we need to be able to know, is this spirit of God or is this not of God? And we need to be able to test it. And so, again, there are many evil spirits out in the world. Google says that there are around 4,000 religions in the world. There are many spirits. There are many gospels. There are many false prophets out there, out in the world, trying to convince you that Jesus Christ is not God. We need to be able to identify them, and we need to be able to avoid them and to follow Christ. So how do we understand this? This is verse two. This is the test. It says, whereby know ye the Spirit of God. So here's how you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. So every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of Antichrist. Wherefore ye have heard that it should come, and even already is in the world." So this is the test. If the spirit believes that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, it is of God, and if not, it is the spirit of Antichrist. This is how we identify this spirit. So what does this show us? Number one, it shows us that we need to know Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the key to this test. So by knowing Jesus Christ, we can be able to test the spirits. So this whole lesson is about knowing Jesus Christ. So let's start off to get to know Jesus Christ. So who is Jesus? And the first thing I want to look at, there's two parts we want to look at. And the first one is we want to look at Jesus Christ in the flesh. So why does Jesus have to be in the flesh? Let's start at the beginning of Romans chapter six, verse 23. This is a familiar verse that you guys know. Romans 6, 23, it says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So that payment for the sin is death, that wages of sin is death. And so us as human beings in the flesh, we are sinful and our payment is death, right? And so God does not want us to stay in that condition. He does not want us to live in eternal death. So he needs to be able to pay that price for sin. So how does he do that? Let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. This helps us to understand. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. And this is God talking about Jesus Christ here. It says, for he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. God made Jesus Christ sin for us. Well, how did he do that? He did that by making him come in the flesh, by being a man and experiencing life and experiencing that body of sin just like we experience every day. And Jesus Christ had to have that experience, had to be a part of it. And then Hebrews 10 verse 5 goes on to say, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not. So God didn't want sacrifices and offering, but a body has to have prepared for me. He wanted to prepare a body for Christ, that fleshly body for Christ, so that he could pay that price for our sins and die on the cross. and make away a salvation for us. God made Jesus Christ a body in the flesh to pay for our sins. Without Jesus Christ in the flesh, there would be no Redeemer, there would be no Mediator, there would be no remission of sins. Christ had to be in the flesh. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15. Let's turn there, if you would. Hebrews 4, 15. It says, for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. So basically that's saying we don't have a high priest that can't relate to us, that can't understand us. But was in all points tempted like as we, yet without sin. So again, Christ took on that flesh and experienced life just how we experience it. He was under the influence of temptation and sin just like we are, yet he did it without sin. And it says, verse 16, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So again, God had to take on that flesh to pay for our sins and be the redeemer and the mediator for us. And then the second most important part about knowing Jesus Christ, we have to know that Jesus Christ is God as well. And so for that, let's go to Isaiah chapter 44. Isaiah 44 and verse 6. I love this verse in showing the God the Father and the God the Son. This is great. Isaiah 44 verse 6, and pay attention to the words here. It says, Thus saith the Lord. The Lord is capital L-O-R-D, so we know that means Jehovah. So this is God the Father. So thus saith Jehovah, God the Father, Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. So these are two people talking here. This is God the Father, and this is our Redeemer. And we know our Redeemer is Jesus Christ. These are two people talking. What does this, what do they say? He says, I am the first. Now wait a second. When two people talk, we need to be using we or us. He says, I am the first and I am the last. And besides me, there is no God. Jesus Christ is God. God the Father is God. They are one in the same. And He addresses us as one person, as God the Father and God the Son. He addresses us as one person. And so I love this verse to see that. There's also 1 John 5, verse 7. It says, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, these three are one. These three people are one, as one person. So God the Father, and then the Word, it was explained in John 1, the Word is Jesus Christ. So you can go look in John chapter one and read about that. But the Father and the Word, the Father and Jesus Christ, they are one person. So Jesus Christ has to be God. Isaiah 49, verse 26, it says, and all flesh shall know that I, the Lord, again, capital L-O-R-D, am the Savior and thy Redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. So again, Jesus Christ is God. So by knowing that Jesus Christ is God and knowing that he has come in the flesh here on earth and experienced everything that we have experienced, we can put this test, we can put the spirits to the test. We know that the spirits come in the form of false prophets, these false teachers, these false religions, and we know who Christ is. And so because of this, We know how to test the spirits, and we know how to apply this knowledge. So I don't want to just fill us full of a bunch of knowledge today. I want to actually apply it. And the application to this is really profound. Again, like I said, it covers salvation, being able to witness to the whole world, and knowing that you're in God's church. So earlier, I mentioned that there were around 4,000 religious groups on Earth. So let's test some of those to see whether they are of God or whether they have the Spirit of God. So the first one I would like to test is the Jehovah's Witnesses. So the Jehovah's Witnesses, we need to ask them, do you believe that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? And forgive me for being on my phone. I didn't get this printed off. So this is a statement from JehovahsWitness.org. Before I read it, one thing to note is when the devil attacks us, he comes in the sheep's clothing. He comes as a wolf in sheep's clothing. So when you read these things, you're going to go, that's right. That's right. Amen. Amen. We believe that. And then all of a sudden, there's going to be one little thing that's like, oh, that's not right. You know, it's going to look like a sheep, might smell like a sheep, but once you take off that veil, it's definitely a wolf. So you have to dig through and get past that sheep's clothing to be able to discover it's a wolf. So listen to this Jehovah's Witness statement. In Jesus Christ, yes, we believe in Jesus, who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. We believe that. No one comes to the Father except through me, John 14 6. We have faith that Jesus came to earth from heaven and gave his perfect human life as a ransom sacrifice. Again, his death and resurrection make it possible for those exercising faith in him to gain eternal life. We also believe that Jesus is now ruling as king of God's heavenly kingdom, which will soon bring peace to the entire earth. However, however, we take Jesus at his word when he saith, the father is greater than I am. So we do not worship Jesus, Whoa, we do not worship Jesus as we do not believe that he is the almighty God. Whoa, that is a huge statement. And again, sounds good all the way up until they say, hey, we don't believe Jesus is God. And of course, we know Jesus has to be God. If he's not God, he cannot pay for our sins. He's not authorized to be able to take on our sin and be able to pay for our sins and to be able to give us his righteousness. He has to be God. So does the Jehovah's Witness, does this prophet, does this teacher, this spirit pass the test? Absolutely not. So the next one I want to go over are the Mormons. The Mormons, again, we're asking the question, do you believe that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? And again, this is a statement from the Mormons online directly from their site. This is what they are proclaiming to the world. Latter-day Saints most commonly use the term Godhead to refer to the Trinity. The first article of faith for the Latter-day Saints reads, we believe in God, the Eternal Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. Latter-day Saints believe God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Again, there's nothing wrong there. But they believe that The Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are separate personages, so they're separate peoples, separate beings, separate entities, but one in will and purpose, not literally the same being or substance or conceptions of the Trinity commonly implied. So they do not believe that they are literally the same person, they are separate beings. And if you talk to them, they will say that that Jesus Christ had a beginning and that he was created. Jesus Christ cannot be separate from God. He cannot have a beginning. He has to be God. God has no beginning. And so again, this fails that test. We know this is a false spirit. We know this is a false prophet coming to us and teaching us. So do we need to be Masters of every doctrine of Catholicism, of Mormonism, of, you know, Jehovah's Witness, Buddhist, all this stuff. Do we need to be experts in all these fields? Absolutely not. Who has the time to be able to even know what, they don't even know what, Google doesn't even know how many they are. They say there's around 4,000. They don't even know. So how are we supposed to be experts on every single one? Well, we don't. God says in 1 John chapter four, verse two, Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. This is how you know the Spirit of God. And that's capital S Spirit, and this is the Holy Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. He wants you to know Jesus Christ. He doesn't want you to know every religion. He doesn't want you to be an expert in all these fields. He wants you to get to know Him. He wants you to get to know Jesus Christ. If you know Jesus Christ, then you will know what is false and what these false prophets are teaching and what these evil spirits are trying to pass on as truth. That is the test, and that is the way to understand. And this gives us great clarity in life. Again, how are we saved? Well, he that hath the Son hath life. We just talked about that. If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you know Him on a personal level. You have Jesus Christ, and you are saved. You have eternal life, because He is eternal life. He is the Redeemer of our life. He is the mediator. He is the man that's paid for our sins. And by knowing Him, we know that we are saved. And not only that, I just showed you a couple of the churches that are around us and come and knock on our door all the time. These are false religions. These are false prophets. These are false spirits. And we know that we do not need to be in those churches because they do not believe that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. They do not believe that He is God. This church, MBBC, does believe in those things. We teach those things. We stand for those things. And we're teaching them from the pulpit right now. You guys are shaking my head. Nobody's coming up here and grabbing me and pulling me back, saying, we don't believe those things. This is what we teach. This is a true church of God. This is why we are here. This is how that we know we are in God's church. We have put it to the test. It is past the test. And we are here. And we can stand with confidence knowing that we are in God's church doing God's will. And they always want to ask the question, why are we Baptists? Well, this is why we are Baptists. We believe Jesus Christ is God, come in the flesh to pay for our sins, to be the mediator, to experience sin just like we are, yet without sin, to be able to pay the price on Calvary. This is the test. This is the answer. This is what we have gone through as a church, and we've passed the test. This is the true church of God. And so again, if we know that we are saved and we know that we are in the right church, what are we supposed to do next? Well, let's go to the end of Matthew. Let's look at the Great Commission. Sorry, I don't know the verse right off the top of my head. Should be the last chapter. Matthew 28, verse 18. And Jesus came unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Again, this is Jesus Christ saying this. It's the authority comes from him. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. How can we go and teach to all nations? How can we teach to all religions? By knowing that Jesus Christ, by knowing Jesus Christ, we know that he is the one that we teach him. He is the gospel that we need to teach out. By knowing Him, we can go into the world and we can teach to any religion. It doesn't matter which one comes to us. which one we go to, we're meeting on the way, we can have confidence knowing that we have the gospel, we have the truth, and we can teach it clearly to them. And we have a starting point. You know, half the battle is just getting started. And we can start immediately when we meet someone, you know, do you believe Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? You know, the actual, literal Son of God, the divine part of the Trinity has come to the flesh and died on the cross to save your sins. And if not, then we have a lot to talk about. So hopefully with these verses I can get you a starting point and you can go off from there and let the Lord lead and we can talk to anybody in any religion about Jesus Christ and be effective. So that's the devotion for today.