"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1).

In the last several weeks I have been contacted by several collection agencies demanding payment of supposed debts. When my house was burglarized, the thief got one of my check books and wrote some checks that were surprisingly honored. It was especially strange since one of those that the thief tried to pass a check off to knew immediately that it didn’t belong to the perpetrator and called me to tell about it. I asked him what was wrong with the check, why he didn’t honor it. He said that the ID he asked to see didn’t match the check. It was obviously not his customers check.

So why did the other merchants honor the checks? One gave me a driver’s license number. I asked for the name on the driver’s license and he couldn’t tell me if it was the same or not. All he did was just write the number down on the check. I wondered how often clerks do such a thing without looking to see that the name on the ID is the same on the check. Apparently this sort of thing happens all the time. The result is that people accept checks from strangers for no apparent good reason and with no proper assurance that the check will be good. Then they squawk because the bank will not honor it. All I can say in the case of my checks is, "Too bad."

Laziness on the part of sales clerks is not much different from the lazy nature of people and religion. How many times do people just get up one Sunday morning, decide they need to go to church, get dressed and head down to the closest one that they can find? All the time it happens. How many people put their trust in some man because he wears a religious title with the most precious thing that they have, their immortal soul, without ever testing the man to see if he is correctly representing the faith that is in Jesus? Most of the time this is the way that it happens.

Throughout the Scriptures we are warned to put our teachers to the test. It is said of the synagogue in Berea, "Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of the mind, examining the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11). Their nobility lay in the fact that they tested the things that Paul and Silas had to say. They didn’t just take their word for everything. What a foolish thing that would be. Paul tells us, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (1 Thess. 5:21). And John said, as we have noted at the beginning, "believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits."

Proving the spirits, testing the prophet or the teacher is not always an easy task. But we have been equipped to do so by God. He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, according to 2 Peter 1:3, so we have faith that we can sort out, with God’s help, the false teacher and his error from the true servant of God and the truth. To what test shall we put the man who says he is speaking for God?

The Jews of the Berean synagogue searched the Scriptures daily, putting the teaching of the apostles to the test. John tells us, "We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he who is not of God heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error" (1 John 4:6).

The ones that we are to hear are the apostles. Jesus has vested his word in them. It was the apostles that were to teach the world. Jesus said to them, "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matt 28:19-20). To reject the apostle is to reject God himself. He told the twelve, "He that heareth you heareth me; and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me; and he that rejecteth me rejecteth him that sent me" (Luke 10:16).

The apostles are the spokesmen of God. What they say is from God, therefore it has the authority of God behind it. This is why John’s test is conclusive. Those who do not hear the apostles are not of God. That is just what Jesus said. It is obvious that the only true test of whether a thing is correct or not from a doctrinal standpoint is a comparison between it and the teachings of the New Testament.

The apostles themselves welcomed such examination. First, as Paul was mentioned before, the nobility of the Bereans rested in their comparing what Paul said to the Scriptures. Now, what Scripture did they have? They had the Old Testament, the law and the prophets. What Paul said must be what the prophets prophesied about and what was prefigured in the law. He himself said of the Old Testament, "But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no distinction" (Rom. 3:21-22). The teaching must conform to the witness.

Second, there was a demonstration of God’s work in them by the things that they did. They performed miracles to prove they represented God. "And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed" (Mark 16:20). "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation? which having at the first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard;

God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will" (Heb. 2:3-4).

Third, they gave their lives to establish the truth of their testimony of what Jesus taught. We have confidence in what they said and wrote because they offered up their lives for us to know what God had revealed to them. But once they had delivered God’s message, even they could not preach something different. Paul said, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so say I now again, if any man preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema" (Gal 1:8-9). Not Paul, no other man, not even an angel could change what God had delivered in the New Testament.

If it is not in the Book, it is not true. How can we determine if someone’s teaching is true? Check it out. The only acceptable ID is conformity to what to Bible says. If a teaching does not pass that test, it should be rejected outright.

Will we be foolish with the most important thing we have, our souls? Will we demand positive ID or not. If our salvation is genuine, it will have proper ID.