The Testimony of God
Victory by Faith: Part 3
1 John 5:6b-10      1-18-2009

Summary: The testimony of the Holy Spirit is to illumine the rest of the testimony (enable you to understand, appreciate, and accept it).  We believe almost everything we believe by the testimony of men, not science; how much more should we believe God, since His testimony is greater in reliability, scope, importance, authority, quality, and subject matter?
  
Introduction: The voice of God
Review
The Illumination of the Testimony
Example of illumination
The Spirit does not speak through obscurity
Three witnesses
Corroboration
The Superiority of the Testimony
Testimony vs. Science
We accept man’s testimony
Divine testimony is greater
Greater in reliability
Greater in scope
Greater in importance
Greater in authority
Greater in quality
Greater in subject matter
Therefore – believe it!
Conclusion: Listen to the voice of God
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Greater in reliability
Greater in scope
Greater in importance
Greater in authority
Greater in quality
Greater in subject matter
Day 5

1 John 5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. 6 This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 
11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 

Introduction: The voice of God
When is the last time God spoke to you?  How long has it been since the last time you received a clear, direct, unmistakable, verifiable communication directly from God?   Some might answer, “That’s easy – 2000 years.  God spoke in the Bible, and that’s His last Word – I don’t look for anything else.  He has spoken to all people in exactly the same way – there are no unique messages for any individual people.  We all have the same Bible, and that is God’s Word.”
Others might say, “No, the last time God spoke to me was just a couple minutes ago when we were reading the Scripture passage for this morning.  He speaks to me every time I read His Word.”
And still others might say, “His voice isn’t limited to the Bible.”  People like William Young, who wrote The Shack, and John Eldridge, who wrote Wild at Heart, say that to confine God’s voice to the Bible is to put God in a box.  God speaks to them mainly through movies and relationships and music and cultural diversity, etc. 
And then, of course, you have a whole lot of people who say that God speaks to them through impulses and promptings and nudges and various other subjective feelings.  If they have a gut feeling, they take that to be the voice of God speaking to them.  In The Shack the main character asks the Holy Spirit how the Spirit will talk to him after he leaves the shack, and the Spirit says, “You will hear my thoughts in yours.”  So you think what you think, and if you have gut feeling that some of those thoughts are from God, then they are from God. 
So which is it?  How does God speak to us, and what does He say when He does speak?  And how do we know when it is Him speaking?

Review
In chapter we find ourselves in courtroom scene, where you are sitting as the judge, listening to testimony.  The trial is about whether or not the claims about Jesus Christ being the only source of life are true.  If your heart becomes fully convinced that they are true, you will be victorious in the war against Satan and the world.  So John is seeking to strengthen our faith by means of compelling testimony.  The first witness John called to the stand was what he called “the water,” which is most likely a reference to the baptism of Jesus Christ.  The events surrounding His baptism are undeniable proof that His claims are true.  The second witness was the blood – the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  And you would think those two witnesses would be all that is needed, but John has one more witness to call.  And this is his star witness.  Without this witness, the case falls apart.

6 This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 

The third witness is the Holy Spirit.  Jesus promised this before He died.

John.15:26 When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.

The Illumination of the Testimony 
So in what way does the Holy Spirit testify?  The testimony of this witness is unique.  The primary role of the Spirit is to turn on the lights and open your eyes to the truth.  That is why He is called the Spirit of truth.

John 14:16-17 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--17 the Spirit of truth.

John 16:13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.

John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

The Holy Spirit is an interesting witness.  He does not offer any new testimony.  All He does is get up from the witness stand, walk over to the light switch, and turn on the lights in the courtroom so you can see the other witnesses’ testimony.
The reason this witness is so important is because truth is not something the sinful human heart naturally accepts, because sin has a blinding, darkening effect on the human heart.

Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, and their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Fail to glorify God, and you lose the light – you lose the ability to see the truth.

Ephesians 4:18  They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

If your heart is hard, the result is a darkening of your understanding.  Do not think of knowledge only as a matter of the intellect.  Whether or not you believe something is not determined primarily by your mind.  It is determined primarily by your heart and attitudes and affections.  You think you decide things just by your brain processing data.  But the way your brain processes data is determined by some factors way down deep inside your soul.  It is determined by what your soul craves and longs for and delights in and loves and hates.  And when our hearts become dark, so that those desires and affections deep within us are messed up and inclined in the wrong direction, which fouls up the whole process of how your brain analyses data, and the result is you misunderstand, misinterpret, draw wrong conclusions, and end up believing what is not truth.  And every time we prefer sin over God’s grace we turn down the lights that much more.
Not only that, but Satan is also working to blind your heart to truth.

2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ

So not only does sin have a darkening effect on your heart, so does Satan.
And the only remedy for all this darkness and blindness is the enlightening, illuminating work of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 1:17-18 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you

The Holy Spirit – the Spirit of wisdom and revelation – enlightens your heart so you can see the truth clearly and know God.
We call this the doctrine of illumination.  “Illumination” means “to light up.”  And it is a doctrine that is very often misunderstood.  Many people think illumination is simply a matter of the Holy Spirit enabling you to understand what the Bible says.  That comes from 1 Corinthians 2.

1 Corinthians 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Usually when people refer to that passage they focus on the intellect.  They say, “The unbeliever cannot understand the Bible, but the believer can.”  Understanding is part of it, but not all of it.  Many times non-Christians can understand what the Bible means just fine.  In fact, sometimes they understand the meaning of a particular verse better than many Christians.  The focus of the passage is not on understanding what the Bible means.  The focus is on understanding it and accepting what it means.

14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him
Example of illumination 
Illumination is when the Holy Spirit turns on the lights so that you can not only understand what the principle is, but you can also see how wonderful and delightful it is, so that your heart will embrace it.  Suppose you struggle with the sin of pride so you do a Bible study about humility, and you look up the words and do research and discover all kinds of information about the definition of humility.  But still, your old ways seem better to you.  The idea of being a humble person does not appeal to you as much as the way you are used to living.
But then, illumination happens.  The Holy Spirit opens your eyes.  He brings some truly humble person across your path, so you can see what a wonderful thing humility really is.  And He moves in your heart so that when you see that person you really like what you see.  And then you want humility.  Now humility really does look more attractive to you than your old prideful way of living.  So you do the Bible study again.  But this time there is an eagerness in your heart to become humble.  And the Holy Spirit turns on the lights in Scripture and shows you from His Word the pathway toward gaining this humility that you desire so much.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to turn on the lights.  He turns on the lights to show you how glorious Christ is, and how rewarding Christ’s way is, and how delightful Christ’s rewards are.  He turns on the lights so you can see how true the testimony that has been given really is.
The Spirit does not speak through obscurity 
That is why, back at the beginning of chapter 4, John said you test every spirit according to the Scriptures.  Does the Holy Spirit speak to you today on an individual, private basis?  Absolutely, positively, yes!  He does, and that is one of the most wonderful, precious experiences of the Christian life.  But how does He speak?  By floating a thought into your head and then giving you a gut feeling that it is from Him, and hoping you can tell the difference between that and last night’s spicy burrito?  No – it is not a gut feeling.  Does He speak to you by throwing some crazy coincidences into your path and then expecting you to interpret the meaning of those coincidences?  No.  He does not speak to you through obscurity and vague, ambiguous, things that could be easily misinterpreted.  The Holy Spirit is not unclear when He speaks.  He does not communicate by means of vagueness and darkness.  He communicates by turning on the lights, so whenever the Spirit speaks to you it is unmistakable and crystal clear.  When it is not crystal clear that is a sure sign He is not speaking to you.  He speaks to you by opening your eyes to wisdom and to Scripture – so you can see what is there and what it means and what the significance of it is and how wonderful it is and how it applies to your specific situation at the moment.
So one of the best tests of whether the voice you heard was the Holy Spirit is whether you can show someone else what He showed you.  If you pray and ask God, “Dear Lord, show me whether I should take this job or that job.  Show me which one is the wisest path.”  And the Holy Spirit answers your prayer and shows you, He does it by turning on the lights and making it evident.  And so you should be able to show others.  You should be able to come to me and say, “See, Darrell, why this job is the wisest course rather than that job?  See how this biblical principle of wisdom applies in this situation?”
If I pray and ask God to help me understand a passage of Scripture and He does, I should be able to come to you on Sunday morning and say, “See.  Can you see how this is the correct interpretation?”  I do not come here on Sunday mornings and say, “I have a gut feeling this is right, so just trust me.”  When the Holy Spirit speaks to you, you do not have to rely on gut feelings because He makes the truth plain to see.  And if it is really that plain, you should be able to show it to others.
That is why when someone comes to me and says, “God spoke to me in my devotions!..,” and then they tell me something God supposedly said to them through some passage of Scripture, and it is not even the correct interpretation of that passage, then I know it was not the Holy Spirit who spoke to them because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and He speaks not by communicating error, or by showing you something that is not even there, but by turning on the lights so you can plainly see what is there.  How do you know that it was the voice of God that spoke to you?  The proof that the lights are on is…you can see what is there!
And that is why the Spirit is John’s star witness.  Without the Holy Spirit, you read about the baptism of Christ and the miracles, and the crucifixion and resurrection…, and it is all just a lot of words – it does not penetrate your heart and generate greater faith or you misinterpret it and misunderstand it. 
But once John’s star witness takes the stand, the rest of the testimony becomes clear.  He does not add any new testimony; He just turns on the lights in the courtroom so you can see the significance and truth of the testimony that has already been offered.
If you were here last Sunday, and you heard the testimony of the water and blood, you heard what God had to say at Jesus’ baptism and crucifixion and resurrection, and your soul was delighted by what you heard, and you drank it in and loved it and accepted it and were moved by it and found it persuasive and good; that response in your heart IS the testimony of the Holy Spirit.  But if all that testimony last week just rebounded off your heart and left you unmoved, unchanged, uninterested, then you didn’t receive the testimony of the Holy Spirit, which means you did not receive anything.
So the Spirit’s role is the illumination of the testimony.  He lights it up so you can see it, and he lights up your heart so you like what you see.  And if you want that in simple terms, it is like - God the Father testifies, and our dull, dead, sinful, twisted hearts hear it and say, “Huh? What?” and the Holy Spirit says, “Here – let me show you,” and then we say, “Ah ha! I see! That is sweet!” – that is how the testimony of the Holy Spirit works.
Can you see why it is such a serious sin to reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit?  If you reject the truth before the Spirit has turned on the lights, that is bad.  But if you reject the truth after the Spirit as turned on the lights, that is blasphemy against the Spirit.
Three witnesses 

7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 

Corroboration 
One of the main ways you determine whether to believe a witness is by whether there is corroborating testimony.  If someone tells you something that is hard to believe, you might remain skeptical until that information is verified by some other sources.  So the more the sources the more you tend to be convinced when they all agree.  So John gives us three witnesses that all corroborate each other.
He gives us three in this context – in his gospel he gives several more.  
In John 1 John the Baptist is a witness.
In John 3:33 Jesus testifies.
The woman at the well testifies as a witness in John 4:39.
The work of Jesus’ earthly ministry testifies in John 5:36.
The Father testified in John 5:37.
And the Scriptures testify in John 5:39.
In John 10:25 Jesus’ miracles testify.
The Holy Spirit in John 15:26, and the Apostles in John 15:27 (and again in 21:24).
God has given abundant proof.  He does not require blind faith.  Blindness does not even lead to faith – it leads to unbelief.  God solves the problem of blind unbelief by turning on the lights and giving sight to our blind eyes so we can see the truth and believe it.

The Superiority of the Testimony 
So that is the illumination of the testimony.  Now in verse 9 John speaks of the superiority of the testimony. 

9 We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.
Testimony vs. Science 
Last week we addressed the question of whether testimony is even a valid way of discerning truth.  The Emergent Church folks argue against the idea of propositional truth, but we found that is a self-refuting argument.  (They have to use propositions to argue against propositional truth.)  The fact that God expects His testimony to build our faith shows that propositional truth is valid.
But there is another category of people who sometimes argue against using testimony as a means of discerning truth.  We live in a culture that worships science and there are many who say they will  not believe anything unless it is proven scientifically.  They say that science is the only valid way to know for sure if something is true.  You come to them with the claims of Christianity and they say, “I can’t observe that in a test tube, I can’t see that in a lab, therefore it is not in the realm of true or false.”  They say, “We are not like primitive cultures that believed things based on non-scientific evidence.  We are advanced and educated and, above all, scientific.  So we cannot buy into creationism or Christianity, because it is not reproducible in a lab.”
We accept man’s testimony
But look at the first statement in verse 9.

9 We accept man's testimony…

Is that true as a general statement?  People claim they will not believe anything based on testimony alone.  They will not believe it unless they see it in a lab.  They will not take anyone’s word for anything.  But John says, “No – you believe all kinds of things based on testimony alone.”
In fact, almost everything you believe you believe based on testimony alone.  And that is true of everyone.  Even the most scientific scientist on the planet believes more than 99% of what he believes because of testimony, not science.  I have known a number of scientists over the years, and every one of them believes that light travels at about 186,000 miles per second.  But how many of them do you suppose actually, personally, measured the speed of light in a lab?  They do not believe light travels at that speed because they performed scientific experiments and observed the results.  They believe it because of reliable testimony from the people who did measure it.
Most scientists have not personally observed the structure of DNA, or verified the efficacy of the flu vaccine in a lab, or even verified the claims on the packaging of a hot dog about how many grams of protein it contains.  They accept it all on testimony.  And when they go home at night and their wife mentions that she enjoyed an egg salad sandwich for lunch, they don’t require video tape or have her stomach pumped before they believe that it is true.  And if the weather man says the record high for this date was 85, they believe it.  If the tag on their shirt says it is made of cotton, they regard it as a cotton shirt.  99.99% of everything we believe we believe because of testimony.  John is exactly right – we believe man’s testimony.  We all do – it is how we live our lives.
Science is not a superior means of discerning truth over testimony.  It has its place to be sure, but it is very limited.  The primary way all human beings determine what is true and not true is through testimony.  Somebody tells you something, you discern how reliable the source of that testimony is, and you believe it or doubt it based on your judgment of how reliable they are.
Testimony is a valid way to discern what is true, testimony is the primary way we all discern truth, and, I would even go so far as to say that testimony is the most reliable way to discern what is true – even more reliable than the scientific method.  Even for the scientist, reliable testimony trumps personal observation.  If a reliable enough source tells you that things are different from what you think you see with your own eyes, you will believe that testimony even over your own senses.  If I open a book of optical illusions and it tells me that the lines that look curved are actually straight, I believe the testimony of the book even over what I see with my own eyes.  If I see something levitate in thin air before my very eyes, and the magician assures me that it was just a trick and that it did not really float, I will accept his testimony over my own observation.
The primary way human beings determine what reality is, is testimony.  So when people want to reject the truth of Christianity with the excuse that it is not scientific, that is irrational.
Divine testimony is greater
So John reminds us that we believe human testimony all the time.  Every day, all day long you receive human testimony and instantly believe it and make decisions based on it.  That is how you live your life – you could not even function without doing that.  And John is saying, “If you live your whole life and base almost all your decisions on human testimony, how should you respond to divine testimony?”  Divine testimony is greater.

9 We accept man's testimony but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 

The testimony of all three witnesses is the testimony of God.  It was God who testified at Jesus’ baptism, when He spoke audibly from heaven.  It was God who testified at the crucifixion, when He turned the sky dark and ripped the veil in the Temple, and sent the earthquake and raised all those people from the dead, and then raised Jesus from the dead.  And of course the Holy Spirit is God.  So the testimony from all three witnesses is the testimony of God, which is why, in verse 9, John refers to all of it as “the testimony of God.”
And testimony from God is greater than testimony from men.  When you first read that verse you might think, “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”  What could be more obvious than the fact that God’s testimony is greater than man’s?  But one of the things you notice when you read John is that he is Captain Obvious sometimes, but the obvious things he points out are always things that, even though they should be obvious, we struggle to believe them!  How many times every day do you do things based on your confidence in human testimony – from getting off on an exit to putting things in your mouth that are said to be edible; and yet how many times do we fail to act in accordance with the things God has testified to?  The weatherman says there is an 80% chance of snow tonight and they are expecting four feet, and you make decisions accordingly.  God says there is a 100% chance that the pleasure of a sin will not be worth it, and we behave as though it were not true.  Maybe John would not have to state the obvious so much if we were a little more prone to believe the obvious.  So John has to tell us – the testimony of God is greater than that testimony of man, which you accept and base your decisions upon every day.  And it is greater in several ways.

Greater in reliability
First, it is greater in reliability.  Look back at the end of verse 6.

6 …And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

The Holy Spirit is the standard of truth.  He is the definition of what is true and what is not true.  There is zero falsehood in Him.
God is omniscient – he knows absolutely everything.  On top of that He is perfectly honest.  And on top of that He is a perfect communicator.  He never misstates anything.
In contrast to that, man has limited knowledge, is deceitful, and often miscommunicates.  So if we accept the testimony of man, how much more impact should God’s testimony have on us, since He is infinitely more reliable and trustworthy?

Greater in scope
Secondly, God’s testimony is greater in scope.  That is, it covers everything that is important.  The thing about testimony is, it can be 100% true but still be misleading if some important factor is left out.  If the witness in court says, “That man right there took all the money out of the cash register during the robbery,” but he leaves out that fact that the guy was an innocent bystander who was forced to take the money out at gunpoint – you leave that part out and you have a completely incorrect understanding of what happened.  Even true testimony is unhelpful if it is incomplete. 
God never leaves out anything that is important.  Everything you need to know about God and spiritual things is in the Bible.  Everything!
You can research an investment opportunity and learn 10,000 facts about it, but if you are missing one key fact it can change everything.  If your car is broken and you know everything there is to know about cars except one thing, you may still not be able to fix it.  The Library of Congress has 532 miles worth of shelves full of books.  If you read and memorized every word in every one of those books, minus the Bible, you would be missing key information.  The Bible is missing nothing about God or about spiritual things that you need to know.  God’s testimony is the only testimony that is perfectly comprehensive in scope.

Greater in importance
We operate our lives every day based on human testimony, we accept human testimony, and yet God’s testimony is greater in reliability, greater in scope, and also – greater in importance.  Not only does man’s testimony tend to leave out important things, it also tends to add unimportant things.  If man says something it may or may not be significant.  Just because they report something on the news does not mean you actually need to know that thing, right?  Students in school will ask the instructor – “Is this going to be on the test?”  And we are always sort of asking that question in life – every piece of information we receive we ask, “Am I going to need this?  Or is it worthless information that I can afford to just ignore or forget?”  And the vast majority of the information we receive is in that category – we do not need to know it.
Have you ever had someone tell you something and include so much extraneous detail that the point they are making is lost altogether?  There are people who think that every single thing they can remember about the story might as well be thrown in when they tell it.  And when they finally get done talking you ask them what their original point is and they don’t even remember.
One of the great things about God is He never gives TMI – too much information.  He never allows what is important to be obscured by detail.  His testimony about reality is so much greater than man’s, because not only is man’s testimony not perfectly reliable, but even what is reliable is so voluminous that the important things get lost in a vast ocean of worthless facts.
People always ask, “Why didn’t God tell us this or that?”  He did not tell us because it was not important for us to know.  And if He told us something important, and then included a whole lot of other things that were not important but that satisfied someone’s curiosity, how would we ever know which things were important and which were not?  Praise God that we do not have to read the Bible and then figure out whether what we just read was important!  You have to do that with every other thing you read – but not the Bible.  We do not have to sort out the wheat from the chaff – it is all wheat!  That is why when I preach I do not hopscotch through the Bible skipping over passages that do not seem relevant or important.  If a passage does not seem relevant or important that is all the more reason why I need to study it, because it is both relevant and important, and if it does not seem that way to me then I don’t understand it and so I need to study it all the more.  Everything that is important for you to know about God and spiritual things is in the Bible, and there is nothing in there that is not important for you to know.

Greater in authority
We live our lives based on the testimony of man.  And yet God’s testimony is greater in reliability, greater in scope, greater in importance, and, also, greater in authority.  One thing a lot of folks in our culture do not realize is that of all the facts in the universe, many of them are “should” statements.  The sky is blue – that is a statement of fact.  Blue is prettier than green – that is a statement of opinion, not fact.  The sun is hot – that is a matter of fact.  New Mexico is a better place to live than Florida – that is a matter of opinion.
Some statements are fact and some are opinion.  And in our world most people think any time you have the word “should” in a statement, it is automatically a matter of opinion.  People should bake more chocolate chip cookies – that is a matter of opinion.  However, not all “should” statements are opinion.  People should love God – that is fact, not opinion.  People should not murder or commit adultery or steal or covet – fact.
What makes something a matter of opinion is if it comes from someone who has no authority over that area.  I am not the boss of desserts (sadly), and so my preferences about cookies are nothing more than opinion.  But God is the authority over everything and everyone, so when He has a preference, that preference comes to us as an obligation.  If God prefers kindness over rudeness, then the statement “Kindness is better than rudeness” is a fact, not an opinion.  Whatever God likes is in point of fact better than what He does not like.
That is one thing the antinomians do not understand (antinomians are people who say we are not obligated to obey God’s law.)  They say if you try to obey God’s law, that is legalism, and so you should not do it. 
What those people do not understand is if God has an opinion about whether something is good or bad, that makes it a fact.  So under law or under grace – either way, the fact that rudeness is bad is still a fact, which means I should not be rude.  And God’s grace does not alter that fact.
Our culture hates should and shouldn’t statements, because the natural condition of the fallen human heart is one of rebellion against God’s authority.  But one of the ways God’s testimony is greater than man’s is in the fact that it is greater in authority.  God is the supreme authority and so His testimony does not just inform us; it obligates us.

Greater in quality
When a human being tells you something, that may or may not be beneficial to you.  Believing that person may result in good and it may result in harm.  But God’s testimony always results in your good when you believe it.

Psalm 19:7 The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.

Psalm 119:2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies

Psalm 119:111 Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.

If Peter Jennings comes on TV and tells me that something is true – that does not feed my soul.  It does not edify me or sanctify me or make me more like Christ.  It does not do anything to transform my heart or change my messed-up affections or increase my love or build my faith.  But the testimony of God does all those things (if I accept it).  When God says something is true, and you believe Him, that has a life-giving effect on your soul.  It has an effect on your heart that is like the effect of nutrition to your body or exercise to your muscles or oxygen to your blood.  Divine testimony is spiritual food – it is greater in quality than human testimony.

Greater in subject matter
And one more – the testimony of God is greater in subject matter.

10 …Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.

God’s testimony is about His Son.   When God talks, that is pretty much all He talks about.  When has God ever said anything that was not ultimately about His Son?

Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

It is all about the Son – the whole Bible.

John 5:39 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me

Hebrews 2:3-4 This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

When God testifies He testifies about the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Think of the effort we put into hearing about lesser topics.  There are Christians who will spend their time learning what outfit some celebrity is wearing, or whether she dumped her latest boyfriend.  We go to college and pay them tens of thousands of dollars to give us information about business, or engineering, or biology.  If information about those topics is worth tens of thousands, how much is information about the Son of God worth?  If there is some interesting documentary on TV, we will give that two hours of our time.  If there is an interesting news article or a good book – we will sink hours into taking in that testimony from man.  But whether it is celebrity gossip or cutting-edge investment information or fascinating scientific research, compared to the gospel of Jesus Christ it is all trivia.  If someone testifies about some other subject, fine.  But may my interest in that never approach the level of my interest in listening to God the Father testify about His own Son.
We all have an interest in hearing the top expert in our field speak on his area of expertise.  A lot of kids would love to hear Kobe Bryant speak on basketball.  The Wall Street types would show up in large numbers to hear Warren Buffett on investments.  I would pay money to hear Daniel Wallace speak on New Testament Greek, or John MacArthur on discernment, or Piper on joy.  But the best of all is the Father on the Son.  When the greatest Teacher speaks on the greatest topic, it calls for our greatest interest – and our wholehearted faith.

Therefore – believe it!
If we believe human testimony, and God’s testimony is this much greater, -  what insanity it is not to believe it.  So ask – what is more compelling in your heart – God’s testimony or man’s?  One way you can tell is by which way you go when God’s and man’s testimony conflict.  When there is a conflict, which way do you lean?  If God gives His description of when and how this world was created, and man gives his ideas, and there is a conflict between the two, which one has to adjust to fit the other one?  Are you the type that says, “Well, the great majority of scientists agree that the earth is billions of years old, so we know for sure that’s true.  That is the starting point.  Now – how can we interpret the Bible to be compatible with that?”
Do you take that approach, or do you take the Bible at face value and say, “The plain meaning of the text according to the ordinary rules of language give us this meaning.  So that is my starting point – now, how can I interpret what we see in the rocks and everything else in a way that is compatible with that?”  Which side is the immovable baseline and which side has to adjust?  Would you ever go against the consensus of secular scientists because of something in the Bible?  Whose testimony are you going to accept?  (I am always amazed at people who trust scientists more than God on the question of what happened at the creation.  God’s testimony is eye-witness testimony.)
How about in matters of the soul?  If the experts in the world say you have to learn to love yourself in order to love others properly, but God says self-love is a wicked evil, which testimony are you going to accept?  If God says the Bible is sufficient and the world says, “No, you need psychology,” whose testimony is more compelling in your heart?
What about when God’s testimony conflicts with the testimony of your own ideas?  God says, “Church discipline is loving” and your heart says, “To me it feels unloving” – which testimony are you going to accept?  Your heart says, “This thing I am doing feels right” and God’s Word says, “No, it is wrong,” who are you going to believe?
The question of whether God’s testimony is greater than man’s seems obvious, but we struggle with that big time.  It is a constant war to keep our hearts convinced that God’s testimony is more reliable than man’s.
Probably this whole first paragraph should be removed or reworded
Conclusion: Listen to the voice of God
There are three parts to this section – the illumination of the testimony of God in verses 6-8, the superiority of the testimony of God in verse 9, and then the results of the testimony of God in verses 10-12.  We are out of time for this morning, so we will have to wait for next week for that third point.  But I hope you can all be here next week, because that is where the rubber hits the road on all of this – in the outcome and result of God’s testimony in your heart.
But for now let’s close our time by just reminding ourselves of the overall context of this chapter.  Don’t forget that all of this is springing out of verse 5.

1 John 5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

We are still talking about how to overcome the world and have victory in your Christian life.  Victory comes only through faith in the Son. 
The solution to all your problems is faith in the Son of God.  Do you know someone with a drug or alcohol problem?  What they need to have victory over that is faith in the Son of God – and to have faith in the Son of God they need to hear what the Father’s testimony about the Son.  It is only when they receive the truth about the Son from the Father, and the Holy Spirit turns on the lights so they can accept it and embrace it, that they will have victory.
If you know someone whose marriage is falling apart (or if yours is falling apart), what is needed is faith in the Son of God.  If you are in financial trouble the solution is in the Son of God.  If you are depressed, afraid, apathetic, bored, in trouble, in bondage, defeated, confused, lost, wayward, prideful, lethargic, whatever the enemy is coming after you with – victory will come through faith in the Son of God.  So listen when God speaks.
Listen to what the Father says about the Son, and do not resist or ignore the testimony of the Spirit.  And if God is not speaking to you right now – if the lights have been turned off, none of it makes sense to you, none of it has any appeal, it is not delightful to your soul, it leaves you unchanged and just as weak as ever, then cry out to God with everything that is in you and beseech Him to send His Spirit to turn on the lights.
And if the lights are on, and you understand, and you love what you hear – rejoice!  Every time you ever understand something in the Bible, every time you can see the wise course, every time you can perceive how a biblical principle applies to your situation, every time something that is preached strikes a chord in your heart or convicts you, do you realize that is the voice of almighty God speaking directly to you – personally, individually, clearly, at that moment?  Listen to Him!

Devotionals
Day 1
In this chapter we find ourselves in courtroom scene, where you are sitting as the judge, listening to testimony.  The trial is about whether or not the claims about Jesus Christ being the only source of life are true.  If your heart becomes fully convinced that they are true, you will be victorious in the war against Satan and the world.  So John is seeking to strengthen our faith by means of compelling testimony.  The first witness John called to the stand was what he called “the water,” which is most likely a reference to the baptism of Jesus Christ.  The events surrounding His baptism are undeniable proof that His claims are true.  The second witness was the blood – the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  And you would think those two witnesses would be all that is needed, but John has one more witness to call.  And this is his star witness.  Without this witness, the case falls apart.

6 This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 

The third witness is the Holy Spirit.  Jesus promised this before He died.

John 15:26 When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.

So in what way does the Holy Spirit testify?  The testimony of this witness is unique.  The primary role of the Spirit is to turn on the lights and open your eyes to the truth.  That is why He is called the Spirit of truth.

John 14:16-17 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--17 the Spirit of truth.

John 16:13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.

John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

The Holy Spirit is an interesting witness.  He does not offer any new testimony.  All He does is get up from the witness stand, walk over to the light switch, and turn on the lights in the courtroom so you can see the other witnesses’ testimony.
The reason this witness is so important is because truth is not something the sinful human heart naturally accepts, because sin has a blinding, darkening effect on the human heart.

Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, and their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Fail to glorify God, and you lose the light – you lose the ability to see the truth.

Ephesians 4:18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

If your heart is hard, the result is a darkening of your understanding.  Do not think of knowledge only as a matter of the intellect.  Whether or not you believe something is not determined primarily by your mind.  It is determined primarily by your heart and attitudes and affections.  You think you decide things just by your brain processing data.  But the way your brain processes data is determined by some factors way down deep inside your soul.  It is determined by what your soul craves and longs for and delights in and loves and hates.  And when our hearts become dark, so that those desires and affections deep within us are messed up and inclined in the wrong direction, which fouls up the whole process of how your brain analyses data, and the result is you misunderstand, misinterpret, draw wrong conclusions, and end up believing what is not truth.  And every time we prefer sin over God’s grace we turn down the lights that much more.
Not only that, but Satan is also working to blind your heart to truth.

2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ

So not only does sin have a darkening effect on your heart, so does Satan.
And the only remedy for all this darkness and blindness is the enlightening, illuminating work of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 1:17-18 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you

The Holy Spirit – the Spirit of wisdom and revelation – enlightens your heart so you can see the truth clearly and know God.
We call this the doctrine of illumination.  “Illumination” means “to light up.”  And it is a doctrine that is very often misunderstood.  Many people think illumination is simply a matter of the Holy Spirit enabling you to understand what the Bible says.  That comes from 1 Corinthians 2.

1 Corinthians 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Usually when people refer to that passage they focus on the intellect.  They say, “The unbeliever cannot understand the Bible, but the believer can.”  Understanding is part of it, but not all of it.  Many times non-Christians can understand what the Bible means just fine.  In fact, sometimes they understand the meaning of a particular verse better than many Christians.  The focus of the passage is not on understanding what the Bible means.  The focus is on understanding it and accepting what it means.

14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him

Day 2

Illumination is when the Holy Spirit turns on the lights so that you can not only understand what the principle is, but you can also see how wonderful and delightful it is, so that your heart will embrace it.  Suppose you struggle with the sin of pride so you do a Bible study about humility, and you look up the words and do research and discover all kinds of information about the definition of humility.  But still, your old ways seem better to you.  The idea of being a humble person does not appeal to you as much as the way you are used to living.
But then, illumination happens.  The Holy Spirit opens your eyes.  He brings some truly humble person across your path, so you can see what a wonderful thing humility really is.  And He moves in your heart so that when you see that person you really like what you see.  And then you want humility.  Now humility really does look more attractive to you than your old prideful way of living.  So you do the Bible study again.  But this time there is an eagerness in your heart to become humble.  And the Holy Spirit turns on the lights in Scripture and shows you from His Word the pathway toward gaining this humility that you desire so much.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to turn on the lights.  He turns on the lights to show you how glorious Christ is, and how rewarding Christ’s way is, and how delightful Christ’s rewards are.  He turns on the lights so you can see how true the testimony that has been given really is.
That is why, back at the beginning of chapter 4, John said you test every spirit according to the Scriptures.  Does the Holy Spirit speak to you today on an individual, private basis?  Absolutely, positively, yes!  He does, and that is one of the most wonderful, precious experiences of the Christian life.  But how does He speak?  By floating a thought into your head and then giving you a gut feeling that it is from Him, and hoping you can tell the difference between that and last night’s spicy burrito?  No – it is not a gut feeling.  Does He speak to you by throwing some crazy coincidences into your path and then expecting you to interpret the meaning of those coincidences?  No.  He does not speak to you through obscurity and vague, ambiguous, things that could be easily misinterpreted.  The Holy Spirit is not unclear when He speaks.  He does not communicate by means of vagueness and darkness.  He communicates by turning on the lights, so whenever the Spirit speaks to you it is unmistakable and crystal clear.  When it is not crystal clear that is a sure sign He is not speaking to you.  He speaks to you by opening your eyes to wisdom and to Scripture – so you can see what is there and what it means and what the significance of it is and how wonderful it is and how it applies to your specific situation at the moment.
So one of the best tests of whether the voice you heard was the Holy Spirit is whether you can show someone else what He showed you.  If you pray and ask God, “Dear Lord, show me whether I should take this job or that job.  Show me which one is the wisest path.”  And the Holy Spirit answers your prayer and shows you, He does it by turning on the lights and making it evident.  And so you should be able to show others.  You should be able to come to me and say, “See, Darrell, why this job is the wisest course rather than that job?  See how this biblical principle of wisdom applies in this situation?”
If I pray and ask God to help me understand a passage of Scripture and He does, I should be able to come to you on Sunday morning and say, “See.  Can you see how this is the correct interpretation?”  I do not come here on Sunday mornings and say, “I have a gut feeling this is right, so just trust me.”  When the Holy Spirit speaks to you, you do not have to rely on gut feelings because He makes the truth plain to see.  And if it is really that plain, you should be able to show it to others.
That is why when someone comes to me and says, “God spoke to me in my devotions!..,” and then they tell me something God supposedly said to them through some passage of Scripture, and it is not even the correct interpretation of that passage, then I know it was not the Holy Spirit who spoke to them because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and He speaks not by communicating error, or by showing you something that is not even there, but by turning on the lights so you can plainly see what is there.  How do you know that it was the voice of God that spoke to you?  The proof that the lights are on is…you can see what is there!
And that is why the Spirit is John’s star witness.  Without the Holy Spirit, you read about the baptism of Christ and the miracles, and the crucifixion and resurrection, and it is all just a lot of words – it does not penetrate your heart and generate greater faith.  Or you misinterpret it and misunderstand it. 
But once John’s star witness takes the stand, the rest of the testimony becomes clear.  He does not add any new testimony; He just turns on the lights in the courtroom so you can see the significance and truth of the testimony that has already been offered.
If you were here last Sunday, and you heard the testimony of the water and blood, you heard what God had to say at Jesus’ baptism and crucifixion and resurrection, and your soul was delighted by what you heard, and you drank it in and loved it and accepted it and were moved by it and found it persuasive and good; that response in your heart IS the testimony of the Holy Spirit.
But if all that testimony last week just rebounded off your heart and left you unmoved, unchanged, uninterested, then you did not receive the testimony of the Holy Spirit, which means you did not receive anything.
So the Spirit’s role is the illumination of the testimony.  He lights it up so you can see it, and he lights up your heart so you like what you see.  And if you want that in simple terms, it is like - God the Father testifies, and our dull, dead, sinful, twisted hearts hear it and say, “Huh? What” and the Holy Spirit says, “Here – let me show you,” and then we say, “Ah ha! I see! That is sweet!” – that is how the testimony of the Holy Spirit works.
Can you see why it is such a serious sin to reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit?  If you reject the truth before the Spirit has turned on the lights, that is bad.  But if you reject the truth after the Spirit as turned on the lights, that is blasphemy against the Spirit.

Day 3

9 We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.

Last week we addressed the question of whether testimony is even a valid way of discerning truth.  The Emergent Church folks argue against the idea of propositional truth, but we found that is a self-refuting argument.  (They have to use propositions to argue against propositional truth.)  The fact that God expects His testimony to build our faith shows that propositional truth is valid.
But there is another category of people who sometimes argue against using testimony as a means of discerning truth.  We live in a culture that worships science.  And so there are many who say they will not believe anything unless it is proven scientifically.  They say that science is the only valid way to know for sure if something is true.  You come to them with the claims of Christianity and they say, “I can’t observe that in a test tube, I can’t see that in a lab, therefore it is not in the realm of true or false.”  They say, “We are not like primitive cultures that believed things based on non-scientific evidence.  We are advanced and educated and, above all, scientific.  So we cannot buy into creationism or Christianity, because it is not reproducible in a lab.”
But look at the first statement in verse 9.

9 We accept man's testimony…

Is that true as a general statement?  People claim they will not believe anything based on testimony alone.  They will not believe it unless they see it in a lab.  They will not take anyone’s word for anything.  But John says, “No – you believe all kinds of things based on testimony alone.”
In fact, almost everything you believe you believe based on testimony alone.  And that is true of everyone.  Even the most scientific scientist on the planet believes more than 99% of what he believes because of testimony, not science.  I have known a number of scientists over the years, and every one of them believes that light travels at about 186,000 miles per second.  But how many of them do you suppose actually, personally measured the speed of light in a lab?  They do not believe light travels at that speed because they performed scientific experiments and observed the results.  They believe it because of reliable testimony from the people who did measure it.
Most scientists have not personally observed the structure of DNA, or verified the efficacy of the flu vaccine in a lab, or even verified the claims on the packaging of a hot dog about how many grams of protein it contains.  They accept it all on testimony.  And when they go home at night and their wife mentions that she enjoyed an egg salad sandwich for lunch, they don’t require video tape or have her stomach pumped before they believe that it is true.  And if the weather man says the record high for this date was 85, they believe it.  If the tag on their shirt says it is made of cotton, they regard it as a cotton shirt.  99.99% of everything we believe we believe because of testimony.  John is exactly right – we believe man’s testimony.  We all do – it is how we live our lives.
Science is not a superior means of discerning truth over testimony.  It has its place to be sure, but it is very limited.  The primary way all human beings determine what is true and not true is through testimony.  Somebody tells you something, you discern how reliable the source of that testimony is, and you believe it or doubt it based on your judgment of how reliable they are.
Testimony is a valid way to discern what is true, testimony is the primary way we all discern truth, and I would even go so far as to say that testimony is the most reliable way to discern what is true – even more reliable than the scientific method.  Even for the scientist, reliable testimony trumps personal observation.  If a reliable enough source tells you that things are different from what you think you see with your own eyes, you will believe that testimony even over your own senses.  If I open a book of optical illusions and it tells me that the lines that look curved are actually straight, I believe the testimony of the book even over what I see with my own eyes.  If I see something levitate in thin air before my very eyes, and the magician assures me that it was just a trick and that it didn’t really float, I will accept his testimony over my own observation.
The primary way human beings determine what reality is, is testimony.  So when people want to reject the truth of Christianity with the excuse that it is not scientific, that is irrational.
So John reminds us that we believe human testimony all the time.  Every day, all day long you receive human testimony and instantly believe it and make decisions based on it.  That is how you live your life – you could not even function without doing that.  And John is saying, “If you live your whole life and base almost all your decisions on human testimony, how should you respond to divine testimony?”  Divine testimony is greater.

9 We accept man's testimony but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 

The testimony of all three witnesses is the testimony of God.  It was God who testified at Jesus’ baptism, when He spoke audibly from heaven.  It was God who testified at the crucifixion, when He turned the sky dark and ripped the veil in the Temple, and sent the earthquake and raised all those people from the dead, and then raised Jesus from the dead.  And of course the Holy Spirit is God.  So the testimony from all three witnesses is the testimony of God, which is why in verse 9 John refers to all of it as “the testimony of God.”
And testimony from God is greater than testimony from men.  When you first read that verse you might think, “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”  What could be more obvious than the fact that God’s testimony is greater than man’s?  But one of the things you notice when you read John is that he is Captain Obvious sometimes, but the obvious things he points out are always things that, even though they should be obvious, we struggle to believe them!  How many times every day do you do things based on your confidence in human testimony – from getting off on an exit to putting things in your mouth that are said to be edible; and yet how many times do we fail to act in accordance with the things God has testified to?  The weatherman says there is an 80% chance of snow tonight and they are expecting four feet, and you make decisions accordingly.  God says there is a 100% chance that the pleasure of a sin won’t be worth it, and we behave as though it weren’t true.  Maybe John would not have to state the obvious so much if we were a little more prone to believe the obvious.

Day 4

So John has to tell us – the testimony of God is greater than that testimony of man, which you accept and base your decisions upon every day.  And it is greater in several ways.

Greater in reliability
First, it is greater in reliability.  Look back at the end of verse 6.

6 …And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

The Holy Spirit is the standard of truth.  He is the definition of what is true and what is not.  There is zero falsehood in Him.
God is omniscient – he knows absolutely everything.  On top of that He is perfectly honest.  And on top of that He is a perfect communicator.  He never misstates anything.
In contrast to that man has limited knowledge, is deceitful, and often miscommunicates.  So if we accept the testimony of man, how much more impact should God’s testimony have on us, since He is infinitely more reliable and trustworthy?

Greater in scope
Secondly, God’s testimony is greater in scope.  That is, it covers everything that is important.  The thing about testimony is, it can be 100% true but still be misleading if some important factor is left out.  If the witness in court says, “That man right there took all the money out of the cash register during the robbery,” but he leaves out that fact that the guy was an innocent bystander who was forced to take the money out at gunpoint – you leave that part out and you have a completely incorrect understanding of what happened.  Even true testimony is unhelpful if it is incomplete. 
God never leaves out anything that’s important.  Everything you need to know about God and spiritual things is in the Bible.  Everything!
You can research an investment opportunity and learn 10,000 facts about it, but if you are missing one key fact it can change everything.  If your car is broken and you know everything there is to know about cars except one thing, you may still not be able to fix it.  The Library of Congress has 532 miles worth of shelves full of books.  If you read and memorized every word in every one of those books, minus the Bible, you would be missing key information.  The Bible is missing nothing about God or about spiritual things that you need to know.  God’s testimony is the only testimony that is perfectly comprehensive in scope.

Greater in importance
We operate our lives every day based on human testimony, we accept human testimony, and yet, God’s testimony is greater in reliability, greater in scope, and also – greater in importance.  Not only does man’s testimony tend to leave out important things, it also tends to add unimportant things.  If man says something it may or may not be significant.  Just because they report something on the news does not mean you actually need to know that thing, right?  Students in school will ask the instructor – “Is this going to be on the test?”  And we are always sort of asking that question in life – every piece of information we receive we ask, “Am I going to need this?  Or is it worthless information that I can afford to just ignore or forget?”  And the vast majority of the information we receive is in that category – we do not need to know it.
Have you ever had someone tell you something and include so much extraneous detail that the point they are making is lost altogether?  There are people who think that every single thing they can remember about the story might as well be thrown in when they tell it.  And when they finally get done talking you ask them what their original point is and they don’t even remember.
One of the great things about God is He never gives TMI – too much information.  He never allows what is important to be obscured by detail.  His testimony about reality is so much greater than man’s, because not only is man’s testimony not perfectly reliable, but even what is reliable is so voluminous that the important things get lost in a vast ocean of worthless facts.
People always ask, “Why didn’t God tell us this or that?”  He did not tell us because it was not important for us to know.  And if He told us something important, and then included a whole lot of other things that were not important but that satisfied someone’s curiosity, how would we ever know which things were important and which were not?  Praise God that we do not have to read the Bible and then figure out whether what we just read was important!  You have to do that with every other thing you read – but not the Bible.  We do not have to sort out the wheat from the chaff – it is all wheat!  That is why when I preach I do not hopscotch through the Bible skipping over passages that do not seem relevant or important.  If a passage does not seem relevant or important that is all the more reason why I need to study it, because it is both relevant and important, and if it does not seem that way to me then I don’t understand it and so I need to study it all the more.  Everything that is important for you to know about God and spiritual things is in the Bible, and there is nothing in there that is not important for you to know.

Greater in authority
We live our lives based on the testimony of man.  And yet God’s testimony is greater in reliability, greater in scope, greater in importance, and, also, greater in authority.  One thing a lot of folks in our culture do not realize is that of all the facts in the universe, many of them are “should” statements.  The sky is blue – that is a statement of fact.  Blue is prettier than green – that is a statement of opinion, not fact.  The sun is hot – that is a matter of fact.  New Mexico is a better place to live than Florida – that is a matter of opinion.
Some statements are fact and some are opinion.  And in our world most people think any time you have the word “should” in a statement, it is automatically a matter of opinion.  People should bake more chocolate chip cookies – that is a matter of opinion.  However, not all “should” statements are opinion.  People should love God – that is fact, not opinion.  People should not murder or commit adultery or steal or covet – fact.
What makes something a matter of opinion is if it comes from someone who has no authority over that area.  I am not the boss of desserts (sadly), and so my preferences about cookies are nothing more than opinion.  But God is the authority over everything and everyone, and so when He has a preference, that preference comes to us as an obligation.  If God prefers kindness over rudeness, then the statement “Kindness is better than rudeness” is a fact, not an opinion.  Whatever God likes is in point of fact better than what He does not like.
That is one thing the antinomians do not understand (antinomians are people who say we are not obligated to obey God’s law.)  They say if you try to obey God’s law, that is legalism so you should not do it. 
What those people do not understand is if God has an opinion about whether something is good or bad, that makes it a fact.  So under law or under grace – either way, the fact that rudeness is bad is still a fact, which means I should not be rude.  And God’s grace does not alter that fact.
Our culture hates should and should not statements, because the natural condition of the fallen human heart is one of rebellion against God’s authority.  But one of the ways God’s testimony is greater than man’s is in the fact that it is greater in authority.  God is the supreme authority and so His testimony does not just inform us; it obligates us.

Greater in quality
When a human being tells you something, that may or may not be beneficial to you.  Believing that person may result in good and it may result in harm.  But God’s testimony always results in your good when you believe it.

Psalm 19:7 The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.

Psalm 119:2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies

Psalm 119:111 Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.

If Peter Jennings comes on TV and tells me that something is true – that does not feed my soul.  It does not edify me or sanctify me or make me more like Christ.  It does not do anything to transform my heart or change my messed-up affections or increase my love or build my faith.  But the testimony of God does all those things (if I accept it).  When God says something is true, and you believe Him, that has a life-giving effect on your soul.  It has an effect on your heart that is like the effect of nutrition to your body or exercise to your muscles or oxygen to your blood.  Divine testimony is spiritual food – it is greater in quality than human testimony.

Greater in subject matter
And one more – the testimony of God is greater in subject matter.

10 …Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.

God’s testimony is about His Son.  When God talks, that is pretty much all He talks about.  When has God ever said anything that was not ultimately about His Son?

Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

It is all about the Son – the whole Bible.

John 5:39 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me

Hebrews 2:3-4 This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

When God testifies He testifies about the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Think of the effort we put into hearing about lesser topics.  There are Christians who will spend their time learning what outfit some celebrity is wearing, or whether she dumped her latest boyfriend.  We go to college and pay them tens of thousands of dollars to give us information about business, or engineering, or biology.  If information about those topics is worth tens of thousands, how much is information about the Son of God worth?  If there is some interesting documentary on TV, we will give that two hours of our time.  If there is an interesting news article or a good book – we will sink hours into taking in that testimony from man.  But whether it is celebrity gossip or cutting-edge investment information or fascinating scientific research, compared to the gospel of Jesus Christ it is all trivia.  If someone testifies about some other subject, fine.  But may my interest in that never approach the level of my interest in listening to God the Father testify about His own Son.
We all have an interest in hearing the top expert in our field speak on his area of expertise.  A lot of kids would love to hear Kobe Bryant speak on basketball.  The Wall Street types would show up in large numbers to hear Warren Buffett on investments.  I would pay money to hear Daniel Wallace speak on New Testament Greek, or John MacArthur on discernment, or Piper on joy.  But the best of all is the Father on the Son.  When the greatest Teacher speaks on the greatest topic, it calls for our greatest interest – and our wholehearted faith.  Therefore – believe it!  If we believe human testimony, and God’s testimony is this much greater, what insanity it is not to believe it.  So ask – what is more compelling in your heart – God’s testimony or man’s?  One way you can tell is by which way you go when God’s and man’s testimony conflict.  When there is a conflict, which way do you lean?  If God gives His description of when and how this world was created, and man gives his ideas, and there is a conflict between the two, which one has to adjust to fit the other one?  Are you the type that says, “Well, the great majority of scientists agree that the earth is billions of years old, so we know for sure that’s true.  That is the starting point.  Now – how can we interpret the Bible to be compatible with that?”
Do you take that approach, or do you take the Bible at face value and say, “The plain meaning of the text according to the ordinary rules of language give us this meaning.  So that is my starting point – now, how can I interpret what we see in the rocks and everything else in a way that is compatible with that?”  Which side is the immovable baseline and which side has to adjust?  Would you ever go against the consensus of secular scientists because of something in the Bible?  Whose testimony are you going to accept?  (I am always amazed at people who trust scientist more than God on the question of what happened at the creation.  God’s testimony is eye-witness testimony.)
How about in matters of the soul?  If the experts in the world say you have to learn to love yourself in order to love others properly, but God says self-love is a wicked evil, which testimony are you going to accept?  If God says the Bible is sufficient and the world says, “No, you need psychology,” whose testimony is more compelling in your heart?
What about when God’s testimony conflicts with the testimony of your own ideas?  God says, “Church discipline is loving” and your heart says, “To me it feels unloving” – which testimony are you going to accept?  Your heart says, “This thing I am doing feels right” and God’s Word says, “No, it is wrong,” who are you going to believe?
The question of whether God’s testimony is greater than man’s seems obvious, but we struggle with that big time.  It is a constant war to keep our hearts convinced that God’s testimony is more reliable than man’s.

Day 5

Don’t forget that all of this is springing out of verse 5.

1 John 5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

We are still talking about how to overcome the world and have victory in your Christian life.  Victory comes only through faith in the Son. 
The solution to all your problems is faith in the Son of God.  Do you know someone with a drug or alcohol problem?  What they need to have victory over that is faith in the Son of God.  And to have faith in the Son of God they need to hear what the Father’s testimony about the Son.  It is only when they receive the truth about the Son from the Father, and the Holy Spirit turns on the lights so they can accept it and embrace it, that they will have victory.
If you know someone whose marriage is falling apart (or if yours is falling apart), what is needed is faith in the Son of God.  If you are in financial trouble the solution is in the Son of God.  If you are depressed, afraid, apathetic, bored, in trouble, in bondage, defeated, confused, lost, wayward, prideful, lethargic, whatever the enemy is coming after you with – victory will come through faith in the Son of God.  So listen when God speaks.
Listen to what the Father says about the Son, and do not resist or ignore the testimony of the Spirit.  And if God is not speaking to you right now – if the lights have been turned off, none of it makes sense to you, none of it has any appeal, it is not delightful to your soul, it leaves you unchanged and just as weak as ever, then cry out to God with everything that is in you and beseech Him to send His Spirit to turn on the lights.
And if the lights are on, and you understand, and you love what you hear – rejoice!  Every time you ever understand something in the Bible, every time you can see the wise course, every time you can perceive how a biblical principle applies to your situation, every time something that is preached strikes a chord in your heart or convicts you, do you realize that is the voice of almighty God speaking directly to you – personally, individually, clearly, at that moment?  Listen to Him!