Test Them All

“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.” (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22)

When people speak to us about God, God wants us to listen. He doesn’t want us to ignore them. He doesn’t want us to pretend to be listening while we daydream about other things. Our faith matters. This is serious business. Since the Holy Spirit speaks to us through God’s Word, “do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt.” When people speak to us about God, God wants us to listen.

But when people speak to us about God, God doesn’t want us to listen to everything. Does that sound like a contradiction? It isn’t. God knows that there are many false teachers who draw people away from Christ. As we listen when people speak to us about God, what do we need to do? “Test them all.”

Every time you hear a message about God, from a short devotion to a Sunday sermon to spiritual advice from a coworker, God wants you to test that message. How? Compare it with what the Bible says. “Hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.”

If someone claims to be from God but says that Jesus isn’t really God, reject him! The Bible says that Jesus is God. If someone claims to be from God and says that he knows when Judgment Day will be, reject him! Jesus says that no one knows when Judgment Day will be. If someone claims to be from God but says that salvation depends on the good things you do, reject her! The Bible says that we’re saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus. Test them all! Can you see why this is necessary?

This is one of the most important aspects of being a Christian. God wants us to know his Word so well that we can compare every message we hear with what the Bible says. If that message is from God, we better not quench it. We better not treat it with contempt. We better hold on to it! But if that message is contrary to God’s Word, we better not listen. We better reject it!

When people speak to you about God, “test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.”

Dear Holy Spirit, we need your guidance every time someone claims to speak to us from God. As we test what we hear, please give us wisdom to reject what is evil and hold on to what is good. Amen.

Pastor Nathan