Hello, this is Brother Denny.
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Amen.
Greetings to all of you in Jesus' name.
Precious to use that word, isn't it?
Amen.
When we know Him and believe in Him.
Well, I'd like to say an amen to
what was said concerning the Sermon on the
Mount.
In the prior message, that definitely is a
key to many things in the understanding of
the Scriptures or the heart of God and
taking it to ourselves.
This morning I would like to look at,
as we continue to look at our tools
for discernment, I would like to speak somewhat
on the Word of God.
Even though that is a broad term, as
you understand, but if you ever want to
discern anything today in light of truth, in
light of reality, the Word of God is
in that sense the answer to the whole
thing.
And I feel so inadequate to be able
to treat it here in one or two
messages that I'll be talking about this and
some of the concepts of how to arrive
at, as I have on the board here,
the central truth of a given text.
But I'm going to try to give you
at least a few thoughts that may help
you along the way.
Shall we just bow our heads for prayer?
Father in Heaven, take this feeble effort and
this feeble person, God, and use us to
thy glory and praise as we stand here
before these men to try to open their
eyes and help them to see the reality
of truth.
Thank you for the Word of God.
Thank you, God, for the English language.
And thank you for my education that my
parents sent me to school that I could
learn to read and comprehend and understand this
language.
And thank you for other languages that you
give us, too, alongside of the English one.
Thank you for Spanish and for German and
Russian and whatever else may be represented here
today that even we can have a broader
sense sometimes of the text that is given
to us in the Scripture by multiple languages.
I pray, God, that you would give us
an understanding today as we attempt to open
this subject.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
When I was converted at the age of
15, I was virtually biblically illiterate.
The Bible, to me, the only one I
had was the New Testament.
Until I was maybe 15 or 16 years
of age, I got a Bible.
The only reading that I ever did that
I can remember was forced reading.
When my father sat us down occasionally, like
every two weeks, and had us read a
portion of Scripture in German in order to
learn a bit of German, we never explained
the Scriptures.
And he was only beginning to come to
light through those years, my father, which then
did become a Christian.
But the faint memory I have was so
different than that, and that is the years
in his searchings that I saw him and
heard him read the Scriptures out loud and
stop for long periods of time in between
to meditate upon it.
That I don't forget.
But I didn't even know where the Old
Testament books were, many of them.
When I got converted, I did not get
converted by the Word of God.
I got converted by the Spirit of God
and by conviction because of my sin.
I recognize that we can get converted by
the Word of God or by the Spirit
of God or sometimes by the life of
a Christian who lives out the Word of
God.
But I do believe the Word of God
ultimately and finally is the powerful tool, the
most powerful tool in the world, to discern
good and evil.
It is impossible, it is impossible to go
through the maze of the confusion of religion
without the Word of God, without the Word
of God.
When we started our mission in Haiti some
years ago, we got upon the problem that
85% of the people were illiterate.
They could not read or write.
And of course, we soon excused ourselves for
the support of a school that could teach
these people to read and write because we
said, where do we begin if they cannot
read the Word of God?
And those are some of the things you
run into in some of those poor, poverty
-stricken third-world countries, which we ran into
there.
The Word of God.
Now, let me tell you from the beginning
that you cannot separate the Word of God
from the Spirit of God.
Dangerous, dangerous business.
People try to do that and have tried
a lot in the last years.
God told me.
God told you.
If it doesn't agree with the written Word
of God, God didn't tell you.
And that's the only hope we have out
of this confusion.
And God has laid it in the conviction
upon my heart, even though I'm a Christian
over 40 years.
In the last two, I have a renewed
zeal in my heart to stay as scriptural
as I possibly can.
I have had to, as an elder, go
through a lot of confusion and maze of
doctrine and teachings and literature that come my
way.
I have always had a bit of leaning
in that way.
I love doctrine.
I love truth.
I love teaching.
And I do as the Scripture says.
I scrutinize it, and I analyze it, and
I try to find out what truth is.
I'm a curious type of fellow, and I
want to know who's right and what's right,
you know.
And when I hear some of these things,
I have to figure out what's going on.
I can't just take it.
I can't just let it many times either.
Sometimes it's a benefit to do that, but
it's just part of my makeup that I
spend much time in trying to find out
whether something is right or not.
And that has brought me to the reevaluating
of some things that I had accepted as
normal and as okay in my Christian life
and some of the influences that I had
in prior years.
And that has been, I believe and I
trust, a good thing.
That would be my testimony.
Now, the first thing I would like to
give you is the simple, the simple form.
Not the one I have on the board
behind me, which is a bit more of
the complex form.
I don't have the name of it up
there.
It's called a syllogism.
Syllogism.
But the simple form, because I know many
of you are simple folks, and you don't
know what syllogism is, probably like I didn't.
And that, when I started out my Christian
life, I started out in the simple form.
And you know what?
It worked.
And that was simply that I did have
a good grip on the English language.
God had blessed me with a love of
reading in school years and vocabulary.
And I don't have all those words right
yet, Brother Manny, either.
But I did have a love for reading
and a love for understanding.
And when I quit school at the age
of 13, 14 years of age, I didn't
quit school.
And I began to go for that dictionary
and find out what words mean when I
come across them.
And that's been a great benefit.
I recommend that to anyone that you never
quit school.
Never quit school.
But the simple form to me was to
pray when I came upon a portion of
Scripture and ask God, Lord, what does that
mean?
And stop and think.
It's amazing, totally amazing, the amount of times
that somehow God showed me.
I'm touched by that today yet, the simple
form of learning to know what the Scriptures
mean.
I wasn't smart enough and knowledgeable enough at
that time to compare Scripture with Scripture because
maybe I didn't know what was in the
other parts, the other books.
I had not seen this and this and
saw that they fit together, which is a
very important, very important part of Scriptural interpretation
and Scriptural discernment.
But even in spite of that, somehow I
had a sense of what it meant.
I remember one of my favorite chapters as
a young Christian was Romans 6.
And I wrestled over this thing of being
buried with Him in baptism.
And I asked people, what does this mean?
Well, they'd say that means spiritual baptism, where
you got born again.
And then the emergentists, you know, they had
their absolutes that it meant you have to
go under the water and all that.
Well, I do agree that the picture there
of being buried with Him in baptism, that
like Christ died and was raised so we
can die and to sin and be raised
again and walk in newness of life, that
I would understand more than ever today that
that being buried in baptism, its best literal
picture is to have water baptism in immersion.
I think that's the best picture of it.
But I can't write it all off and
say it's all spiritual.
You know, it was my new birth.
But I also don't believe that baptism washes
away sin and converts you.
And so you have to come to those
balances over the years.
But that's how I wrestled through some of
those things in my early years.
But what I would like to suggest to
you, and I need this as I go
through more complex discernments this week, is how
to approach the biblical text.
Now, my first premise to you would be
to interpret the text in context.
What the false prophets are doing is grabbing
at verses and taking them out of context,
out of their surrounding use and Scripture and
building an absolute mountain out of them.
And then teaching it and trying to stand
on it and trying to name it and
claim it and heal it and believe it
and just take a couple of words or
one verse and run all the way to
town with it.
And that is what has done so much
damage to the whole biblical concept of preaching
and teaching in these last 50 years, especially.
Although it's been excellent all through the years,
this has been a problem.
So I have a diagram on the board
here which I mentioned is called a syllogism.
And I want to illustrate that a little
bit this morning.
We used this in Manitoba in our Bible
school there this winter and got to appreciate
this.
Although many times I was doing this, again,
just by my understanding of how maybe through
the Spirit of God or that when you
look at a Scripture, it is good to
read enough of Scripture surrounding it that you
have a subject or a text within the
context of which it is found.
And that's what I have here on the
board.
Here at the top would be the interpretation,
taking the various verses of the Word of
God and bringing them into a major premise
or a central truth to find out what
is a central truth of the written Word
of God that you happen to be reading
or studying.
That is what is called the interpreting of
the Scripture.
What does this mean?
What is it telling me?
What is the major premise here?
And then there are minor premises also of
that truth that are found within that text
and many, many lessons to be learned out
of it by the words that are used
and studying the words and other things that
Jesus says alongside.
And then there is a conclusion.
Then we make a conclusion of that central
truth.
And may I just say, then after we
conclude what that Scripture, what the central truth
is, then we apply it to all of
our life.
It goes back out again.
It comes in.
It comes into our mind.
It comes into our heart.
It comes into our soul.
And we draw a conclusion of what that
means.
And you take the Sermon on the Mount,
my, the mileage that you get out of
a portion of Scripture like that when you
do that and then you go home.
You haven't just read the Scripture.
You haven't just heard a message.
And you apply that to all of your
life.
That is what should happen in this matter
called syllogism.
Now, I have to give you an interesting
story that I heard where this was used.
But Brother Denny yesterday was talking about this
revival fellowship.
And a few of us had attended that
that he was talking about yesterday where this
panel was sitting with these old men who
were up front there, 70, 80 years old
and were doing this panel.
One of them was a man by the
name of Richard Owen Roberts.
Some of you know him.
He's a revival preacher, famous for revival preaching
for probably 50 years or more across the
United States.
And I would have to say by my
observation, a very godly man from what little
I know of him.
But that dear brother was preaching one day
on the suffering of the Christian.
He was talking about, because he's one of
the old school, you know, he believes that
we should suffer, that we should prepare to
suffer.
And he was preaching on the text, all
that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer
persecution.
And if you ever heard him preach, the
man preaches with great passion.
And after he was done, a fellow came
up to him and walked up to him
and said, Sir, I want you to know
that I'm the city attorney.
And I want you to know that nobody
persecutes the city attorney.
Well, all the wisdom of that 75 years
or 80 years went into action.
And he said, let me give you a
syllogism, major premise.
All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall
suffer persecution.
Minor premise, the city attorney does not suffer
persecution.
Conclusion, the city attorney does not live godly.
Now, you know, I appreciate this diagram.
I can't get over that.
I tell you, that spoke volumes to me.
Fellows can come up and say what they
want to.
When the truth is established through eternity, then
that is the way it shall be.
And the city attorney and the rest of
us have to somehow fit into it.
It is not bendable, not disputable, not twistable.
And yet, sadly, sadly, that is what so
many are doing.
Well, let me give you another experience that
I had in my life.
I went to church as a young Christian
where there was a man who was a
repetitive preacher.
He got up to preach, especially in the
opening meditations for about 25, 30 minutes.
And I would believe that some of you
fellows know men like that, that half of
his words were the same words every Sunday
morning.
But anyway, one of them was 2 Corinthians
2, as I remember the case.
But I don't know how many times, for
how many years I've heard this, 2 Corinthians
2, verse 9.
But as it is written, I have not
seen, nor ear heard, nor have it entered
into the heart of man, the things the
Lord has promised to them that love Him.
End of quote.
And that was used over and over again.
And the concept that was given is that,
oh, and it's a true concept, we have
no idea what is going to be in
heaven and what God is preparing for those
that love Him over there in heaven.
And as I began to study the Scripture,
I dawned on me one day in the
next verse, it says something totally different.
But the Spirit of the Lord has revealed
it unto them.
And I thought, something is so desperately wrong
here.
Something is so wrong.
And if I could just read down through
that passage, just to show you now, what
the text will do in context.
Let's look at it.
Verse 8, which none of the princes of
this world knew.
Excuse me, I have to start earlier.
Verse 6, howbeit we speak wisdom among them
that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of
this world, nor of the princes of this
world, that come do not.
But we speak the wisdom of God in
a mystery, even God, which God ordained before
the world unto our glory, which none of
the princes of this world knew.
For had they known it, they would not
have crucified the Lord of glory.
But as it is written, I have not
seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered
into the heart of men, the things that
God has prepared for them that love Him.
But God hath revealed them unto us by
His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things,
yea, the deep things of God.
For what man knoweth the things of a
man, sayeth the Spirit of man which is
in him.
Even so the things of God knoweth no
man but the Spirit of God.
Now, we have received, not the Spirit of
the world, but the Spirit which is of
God, that we might know the things that
are freely given to us of God.
Which things also we speak, not in words
which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy
Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness unto him, neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned.
Verse 15, yet, he that is spiritual judgeth
all things, or discerneth all things, yet he
himself is judge of no man.
For who had known the mind of the
Lord, that he may instruct him, but we
have the mind of Christ.
Well, when you take that text in context,
you get a totally different picture, don't you?
And that is how I want to show
you.
When you take all of those verses brought
together, you have a central truth.
What is it?
That giving you the Holy Spirit reveals many
things to people.
It reveals, yea, even the deep things of
God.
And the princes of the world had no
idea what they were doing.
Herod didn't know, and Pilate didn't know, and
the soldiers that drove the nails didn't know.
If any of them had any idea what
they were doing, they wouldn't have done it.
Now the Jews knew it.
They knew it.
Because you remember Nicodemus said, we know that
thou, we elders, we Pharisees, we know that
thou art a teacher come from God, and
no man can do the things that thou
doest, except God be with him.
But the elders, or the rulers and the
princes of the world, they didn't know.
If Pilate would have known, and Herod and
some of them would have known exactly who
they were dealing with there, they wouldn't have
done it.
But Pilate didn't know.
He hadn't followed him around apparently, and hadn't
investigated enough about who this man is.
And he, wanting to show the Jews a
pleasure, you know, gave Jesus into the hands
of the Jews to have him crucified.
But he had to send his soldiers to
do it, to do the job.
But what he's also saying is, I haven't
seen all through the Old Testament.
They don't understand its mystery.
It's only been revealed now by the Holy
Spirit, which is dwelling in the heart of
man, that reveals these things unto him.
And now we have a light, and we
have an understanding we have never had before.
And that's the truth of this.
Not talking about heaven, not talking about the
city and the place that God is preparing
for them that love him, not at all.
And so you can see how we can
just get off by just taking a verse
and quoting it, because it sounds so nice,
and we're thinking about heaven, and we're taking
a verse totally out of context.
Now, let us look at another one.
And by the way, I wanted to give
a correction, if I could, on my speech
yesterday or my topic yesterday.
I was somewhere else, I'm sure, in my
thinking when I made the statement that the
sign of the prophet Jonas, or the message
of the sign of the prophet Jonas was
the preaching of repentance.
That was a minor premise.
The major premise was that he spent three
days in the whale's belly, and that was
the type of Christ being three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth.
And somebody gave me the third premise, which
is also good one, that Jonah also preached
to the Gentiles for three days' journey going
through the city, which was also a type
of what Christ, the gospel, would open up
to the Gentiles.
So those are minor premises.
But I apologize there.
I had missed the major premise and dwelt
on a minor then when I made that
statement.
Just not thinking it through.
I knew the Bible said that, but in
my haste when I was studying, or in
my thought, it just didn't come to me
at that time.
So that is where we meet each other
on that.
Now, let us turn to Matthew 7 in
the Sermon on the Mount.
And I just want to give you, use
this one again for an illustration here and
speak on this subject of discernment out of
Matthew 7 here.
Judge not, verse 1, that ye be not
judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall
be judged.
And with what measure ye meet, it shall
be measured unto you again.
For why beholdest thou the mote that is
in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the
beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother,
Let me pull out the mote out of
thine eye?
And behold, the beam is in thine own
eye.
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out
of thine own eye, and then shalt thou
see clearly to cast out the mote out
of thy brother's eye.
End of subject, end of text, in context.
And then he changes the subject there somewhat,
I think.
Now, what often happens in this situation, and
I hope you can relate to this, probably
has happened, you have seen it happen, and
I will give it the way I have
seen it happen already.
But, a group of men on a Sunday
afternoon are sitting in a circle in a
living room.
And you know how it is, we talk
about anything and everything, and these subjects come
up.
And of course, there is a discerning brother
in the midst, maybe two out of the
three, others are probably not so much discerning,
and that's normally a bit of the average.
And so, these things are discussed, and this
matter of discernment or judgment comes to the
surface, and we are beginning to try to
draw a few conclusions on a given subject,
a given text, or a given happening, and
discern what it is.
And about the middle of that, a young
sister, or a wife of somewhere, pipes up
in the middle of the conversation and said,
Now, don't judge.
And everyone has got handcuffs on.
The subject dries up.
We don't know how to proceed.
And I tell you, brethren, that has happened
so many times.
Yes, and those, you know, we, and maybe
it is a little hard, but men need
to handle hard things, you know.
And maybe it's a little critical, and that
needs to be mellowed out too, and isn't
quite right, and all that can take place,
and we need to check and examine our
hearts.
But the last thing that is supposed to
happen is that the men all get handcuffs
on and can't say anymore because some lady
said, Now, don't judge.
Now, let's look at it in our syllogism.
Major premise, thou shalt not judge.
No.
What's the major premise?
We exercise ourselves a little bit here.
What's the major premise in the text?
Don't you judge if you're guilty of the
same thing.
The major premise is not to not pull
beans out of people's eyes.
No way.
The major premise is not let them in.
The truth of the Scripture is not saying
don't pull them out.
It just says you remember that don't you
pull them out if you have one in
yourself.
First, take the one out of your eye,
and then you may do it.
Right?
Totally misunderstood by the lady who said, Do
not judge.
God says don't judge and stop everybody from
the process.
You see.
And I see that happening in churches, Bible
schools, seminaries, living rooms, brothers meetings, and on
and on it goes, which ends up sometimes
because someone's a little hard, a little critical.
We don't want to excuse that.
We need to soften, we need to mellow,
and we need to balance ourselves and all
of that.
Tone down a bit in the tone of
voice.
That's one of the problems that I have
is more of a prophetic voice like that.
I have to be careful.
I don't give it too strong or too
hard, but it has to be given.
Or we are in trouble.
We are in deep trouble.
So, if I might ask a question here
just to begin this portion, this subject on
this is, Is it right to judge?
Is it right to discern biblical judgment or
to practice biblical judgment?
Is it right to name names?
Is it right to discern concepts and doctrines
and teachings, men and meetings that are being
held, tapes and seminars even.
They must be judged.
Were the Bereans not more noble than the
Thessalonians?
Because when they heard things they examined by
the Scripture, they judged to discern whether these
things are so.
Does this line up with the Word of
God?
And they got the highest honor in the
epistles of a group of people who were
able to do it.
And too many others weren't doing it.
And when you go back in the Revelation
to the letters of the seven churches, strong
rebuke was given and a threat that the
candlestick would be removed because they had them
there that allowed Jezebel to have her way
and teach and to seduce my servants to
commit fornication.
They had the doctrine of Nicolaitans.
They had lost their first love and all
these things had come in.
And nobody was judging.
Nobody was taking the beams out of people's
eyes.
And it was a sad situation.
It has been known as one of the
most misused verses in the Bible.
Judge not that ye be not judged.
Every Scripture verse should be read in its
context if we are to properly understand the
true meaning.
In verse 2 to 5 of this same
chapter, it is evident that verse 1 is
referring to hypocritical judgment.
A brother who has a beam in his
own eye should not be judging the brother
who may have a moon in his eye.
The lesson is plain.
You cannot judge another for his sin if
you are guilty of the same sin.
Those who claim to judge not that ye
be not judged, to condemn those who expose
error, should read the entire chapter.
Because in that chapter, Jesus says, Beware of
false prophets which come to you in sheep's
clothing.
How can we ever know who the false
prophets are if we fail to examine the
sheep as to whether there are wolves about
them or whether there are such a thing
as ravening wolves as they are given by
the Word of God.
All through the Bible we find proof that
they must be identified and exposed.
And you notice the Apostle Paul.
He has broadcasted it for 2,000 years
in Holy Writ.
The names of the men like Demas, Hymenaeus,
Philetus, Alexander the Coppersmith, and the two that
fell over dead, Ananias and Sapphira.
We know those names.
Balaam, the doctrine of Balaam.
What is the doctrine of Balaam?
That poor man had such a reputation smeared
over his name for 2,000 years.
He did wrong.
And his name is an example of that.
And so is it with Ananias and Sapphira
and Alexander the Coppersmith and all those people.
And if my name is ever named there,
or your name, and is rightly so, then
it has to be so.
You can't just say, Oh, we can't do
that.
And therefore, we tie our hands.
The Bible talks about, You shall know them
by their fruits.
And I'll probably want to handle this more
specifically.
Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs
of thistles?
Even so a good tree bringeth forth good
fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil
fruit.
Did the Lord mean that we could not
judge the tree or the person by the
fruit of their life, and doctrine?
Certainly not.
For you cannot know without judging.
All judgment should be in the basis of
clear biblical teaching, though.
Not on, I don't feel good about it,
or on, well, I'm just not sure, and
I'm suspicious of something that you don't know,
and you're skeptical, and you're cynical, and all
that.
That doesn't work.
That won't stand before God.
We cannot give ourselves to those spirits and
those ways of doing things.
But when we have a clear Word of
God, a principle of the Word of God,
and don't let anybody hamstring you either on
the fact that where's the verse, if the
verse doesn't say a television is wrong, and
you can't say anything on it, you can't
let them do that either.
Because there are principles where we gather together
from the written Word of God across the
span of Scripture that build a premise of
which we must conclude that this thing is
evil.
It has an adverse effect upon us in
our lives.
We must do that.
If we can't do that, and I tell
you, I know this comes close home.
Some of you are wrestling with that.
You have bought into that perhaps, and somebody
in the church has said, well, if the
Bible doesn't say anything about it, you can't
say anything about it.
Meaning, mentioning the thing.
Boy!
With all the inventions that the devil has
brought together in these last years, we are
done if we can't apply the given principles
of the Word of God, of life and
godliness to what the devil has come up
with.
And I know people take it to extremes.
And they put their little things in there,
and we have come out of systems, many
of us like that.
And you know, but we can't let the
pendulum swing to the other side and now
say we have our hands tied.
If the Bible doesn't mention a video, or
it doesn't mention rock music, or it doesn't
mention this, or it doesn't mention that, then
we can't say anything about it.
God has called us to judge righteous judgment
and to pull the grand theme and the
general premise of the written Word of God
together and to address the issues of life.
We must do it, or we perish.
Our churches will fall apart.
They will be filled with worldliness and ungodliness.
The young people will go after all kinds
of fleshly things if we allow ourselves to
do that.
But we must be men.
We must be fathers.
We must be ministers of the Gospel.
We must be preachers, teachers and prophets.
And we must rise up and identify that
devil when he comes around in his subtle
ways and simply expose him and say, that
is not of God.
We have to do it.
And just because some do it wrong, doesn't
say we should not do it.
The Bible says in John 7, 24, judge
not according to appearance.
An interesting verse to put that check in
us.
But judge righteous judgment.
Our Lord commends that we are to judge
righteous judgment, which is a judgment based not
on our opinion, but on the written Word
of God, the central truth for time and
eternity.
The fornicator.
In 1 Corinthians 5, verses 1-13, what
did Paul say?
Well, hold the whole thing until I get
over there and talk to him.
Is that what he said?
These guys are shaking their heads no.
What do you think over there?
They're negative on it.
Paul said, I'm not coming.
I've judged him already.
If that's what he did, then this is
what you do to him.
And that's it.
But you didn't go talk to him first,
Paul.
You've got to go over there and sit
down with him and talk this thing over
first.
You didn't use Matthew 18, Paul.
You've got to be wrong.
Oh, how many times have ministers been shut
up and put back in a corner.
And I see that all the time because
they didn't exercise Matthew 18 in a given
thing.
Let me tell you something.
It is my persuasion that in false prophecy
or in open sin like this, no Matthew
18 needs to be handled.
Not in a process like that.
Paul said, what?
A man had his father's wife.
He's a sinner.
Excommunicate him.
Turn him over to the devil that he
may learn the consequences of his sin that
the Spirit might be saved in the day
of the Lord Jesus.
Paraphrasing it a bit there in my own
words.
But that's what he's saying.
And the Greek word for judge is the
same here as in Matthew 7.
Verse 1.
Look at that.
Amazing.
And Paul did not violate the judgment that
you be not judged.
In judging the man, he simply discerned this
is sin that will contaminate, as he says,
a little leaven, leaven is the whole lump.
This is leaven that will permeate the body.
Get it out.
And do so quickly.
A person who is able to discern between
good and evil has at least one of
the major marks of spiritual maturity.
As I quoted yesterday in Hebrews 5.14,
strong meat belongeth to them who are of
full age.
Mature men need to do it, not fellows
that have just been born again a half
a year ago.
That's not going to come out right.
Even those who by reason of use have
their senses exercised to discern both good and
evil.
Vine says, the meaning of discern is the
distinguishing, clear discrimination, discerning, judging.
It's translated discerning in various different portions of
the Scripture, like in 1 Corinthians 12, verse
10, of discerning spirits, judging by evidence whether
they are evil or of God.
And Strong's agrees with the same thing.
Now, those who are unwilling and incapable of
discerning or judging between good and evil in
this manner, simply reveal their disobedience to the
Scripture or their immaturity.
If they're immature, God bless you, you can't
handle that.
And even in our own situation, I tell
you, we come across things that you have
to put on the shelf and give it
more time to discern it at times.
I don't have it.
There are times when I say, this is
too big for me.
Somehow, I have to put it on the
shelf and observe it for a while longer
until I see more fruit coming out of
it and the result of it until I
can judge and discern the matter.
There are times we just don't know what
to do.
We pray, ask God for wisdom, still unsure.
Sometimes, that's how difficult it is to judge
all things and discern them that come our
way.
John the Baptist, our example, greatest prophet that
ever lived among men.
He called the religious leaders of his day.
He discerned them to the core.
Herod, oh, that name.
He exposed him for having his brother Philip's
wife.
It got him so mad, got her so
mad, that it cost him his head because
he discerned.
She don't belong to you, Herod.
And it was his wife, his brother Philip's
wife.
Still, even though she was living with Herod,
isn't that interesting?
That's right.
She was his brother Philip's wife.
It's not right for you to have her.
Give her back.
He might as well would have said, I
think, then that's the only thing to do
with her if you have something that doesn't
belong to you, go back and give it
back to where you got it from.
Jesus said to the religious Pharisees, oh generation
of vipers, how can you being evil speak
good things?
For out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaketh.
And to many evangelicals, fundamentalists even today, that
would be unacceptable language.
That would not be politically or even religiously
correct to say anything like that today.
But it's the biblical language that comes from
the mouth of the Son of God.
Standing face to face with false teachers, Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, called them hypocrites,
blind guides, blind, whited sepulchers, serpents, generation of
vipers.
Yet we are told today that we are
to fellowship with men whose doctrines are just
as unscriptural as those of the Pharisees.
Some who would say that they are biblical
believing Christians insist on working with Roman Catholics
and Word of Faith people.
Don't say a thing.
I mean, there's Christians in there.
We're not saying there's not.
On their way out, someone became a believer.
But we know that the premise is wrong.
The interpretation, the doctrine, the teaching is false.
If somebody's waking up in the middle of
it, praise God!
That don't make us say good things about
the Catholic Church.
His words are sharp.
Lord Jesus, when He spoke to some of
those situations, Matthew 23 is a hard chapter,
but it's one of those that are contained
in all the kind and loving ones that
are also there and we cannot put away.
Now, just in looking at how the Bible
admonishes us to expose error, and I may
speak more specifically of this, but in 1
John 4, verse 1, let us look at
that verse.
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the
spirits, whether they be of God, because many
false prophets are going out into the world.
And as I mentioned yesterday, that word try
there could also be read test.
Test them.
All doctrines and teachers are to be tested
or tried according to the written Word of
God.
That is our criteria.
That is our standard.
That is our judgment.
It cannot come to well, I think, and
it is my judgment.
That is very, very dangerous.
It sets you up as some kind of
an authority on the issue that is outside
of God's authority at times, if you are
not careful with that.
We must judge upon that which is already
judged.
And when God has already judged it, then
all we are saying is, here, there is
a connection.
This is speaking to this issue.
That is all we are doing.
We are not making the judgment up ourselves,
but simply making the connection.
We have the church at Ephesus was commended
because they had tried them or tested them,
which say they were apostles and were not,
and has found them liars.
In Revelation 2.2, the church of Pergamos
was rebuked because they tolerated those that held
the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of
the Nicolaitans, which things I hate.
You tolerated them and didn't judge them.
And therefore, that was written off against them
there at Pergamos, or was read off, and
they were judged for not judging.
You see that?
And I tell you, fathers, ministers, deagons, we
will be likewise.
We will be judged for not judging.
There is an accountability of what goes on
in our homes that lies upon us men.
There is an accountability for what is tolerated
in our churches.
Ministers, we are responsible and we will have
to give an account before God.
If we let sin, just let it go.
Let it, as some would say, well, I
don't want to be the Holy Spirit.
I'll let the Holy Spirit do that.
It is not the Holy Spirit's job for
all of that.
Some of that is the Holy Spirit's job
to bring conviction, and some, if a hardened
heart exists, falls back upon the men that
God has set in charge of the church.
And that's not very popular teaching either today,
but it's clearly the Word of God.
When diatrophies went off in 3 John, wanting
to have the preeminence, John did not teach
us to say, let the Holy Spirit deal
with him.
He went and dealt with him.
And you have that 1 Corinthians 5, the
same way, many, many other times in the
Scriptures.
The Bible says even that we are to
mark them and avoid them.
Now, I beseech you, brethren, Romans 16 and
17, mark them which cause divisions and offenses
contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned,
and avoid them.
Now, I know this is all done wrong.
At times, but I'm simply saying, the Bible
does not say, let the Holy Spirit deal
with them.
The Bible says you, brethren, are to put
a mark on them.
You are to expose them to the congregation
and say, don't go over there for a
doggy roast or to have supper with a
man.
Stay away from him.
He's got dangerous doctrine.
He subverts his hearers.
He's deceptive.
He teaches deceiving doctrines and perhaps even has
a deceiving spirit.
And people just think, that's impossible to do
that.
But it's in the Word of God.
And we are not right if we don't
do it.
Hopefully, we don't have to do it often.
But just so we equip ourselves that when
the need comes, it has to be done.
Ecumenists, new evangelicals, compromising fundamentalists, they resist all
effort to obey this Scripture.
They don't want to be marked.
Nobody wants to be avoided.
It's a time of ecumenism.
Accept everybody.
And where that has gone in the last
20 years is just unbelievable.
Unbelievable was some of the facts that I
gave you yesterday to where an agreement is
made for the next two years by a
theological cemetery not to proselytize Muslims, not to
tell them about Jesus, not to witness to
Him.
Imagine.
And given a million dollars to help do
it.
We are to rebuke them.
The Bible says, "...Wherefore, rebuke them sharply, that
they may be sound in the faith."
This was written to Titus because there were
those going from house to house and subverting
whole houses with false doctrine.
And there are those going from house to
house today with their multimedia programs and doing
exactly the same thing.
Some time ago, I heard of one of
those fellows that was preaching that said, the
time is coming when you can bring your
dead bodies up to the television and put
your hand up against the screen and they'll
raise from the dead.
Imagine the subversion, the such teaching.
And somebody who has a loved one, imagine
the embarrassment of the whole thing.
Dragging that dead body in its coffin over
to the television set and putting its hand
on the program while the program is being
played by one of those false prophets and
expecting that the individual might rise from the
dead.
And no one does.
The Bible says we're not to have fellowship
with them.
"...Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, but rather reprove them."
Ephesians 5.11 Reprove means to censor, condemn,
find fault, rebuke and refute.
How can we obey this Scripture unless we
try them or test them by the Word
of God?
And then we are told to withdraw from
them.
Everyone, every brother that walketh disorderly, not after
the tradition which ye receive of us.
We are to withdraw from those who teach
false doctrine and conduct that does not conform
to the Word of God.
And that is even true with religion.
That is even true with religion.
"...From such withdraw thyself."
The Bible teaches about those who are teaching
religion, having a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof.
Are there any of those around having a
form of godliness, but no power?
And the Bible says "...From such withdraw thyself
from them."
And that is because...
Why?
It kills your own spirit, doesn't it?
Have you ever been in a funeral like
that or in a wedding and those kind
of things go on and whoo, that thing
is heavy and everybody is dressed in black
and I am not talking about a funeral.
That is kind of a natural custom by
many people.
But, you know, there are those who are
all dressed in black clothing and dark clothing
and they have dark spirits and dark faces.
You come out of there and you feel
a little dark yourself.
Don't we?
But if we act like it doesn't affect
us, that's fine.
And I believe there are times when we
go in those places with a purpose to
witness for Jesus, we are fine when we
have that mindset.
But I tell you, when we don't, we
kind of want to see all the uncles
and all the aunts and all the cousins,
who are all locked up in those kind
of things and everybody looks at us and
they don't have anything.
They don't have a fraction of what we
are talking about of having a personal relationship
with the Lord Jesus.
And the next thing we know, it crawls
on us and we are dark for three
days because of it.
It can happen to us and our wives
and our families.
So, be careful with that.
You need a lot of discernment there.
And lastly, we are not to receive them
into our house.
If they are coming into you and bring
not this doctrine, in 2 John 10, receive
him not into your house, neither bid him
Godspeed, for he that biddeth him Godspeed is
partaker of his evil deeds.
No doubt, John is speaking about those who
transgress and abide not in the doctrine of
Christ.
Now, I may just mention, going back into
trying them, let's go to John in closing
1 John 4.
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the
spirits, or test them, whether they are of
God, because many false prophets are going out
in the world.
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God, every
spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh, and every spirit that confesses
not that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh is not of God.
This is the Spirit of Antichrist which ye
have heard that it should come, and even
now already is into the world.
In the world.
Now, there's been a lot of confusion about
this, and I don't know if I have
a final in my own heart on exactly
how this is to be exercised, but let
me give you, and I'll probably talk a
little bit more about this tomorrow, that it's
so important to know the historical setting sometimes
of a verse like this that's hard to
understand.
Now, the historical and actual setting of which
this was given had to do with Gnosticism.
While Peter and John, those men, especially John,
who was alive until he was in his
90's, the only apostle that died a natural
death, Gnosticism had already come into the churches.
Paul had already said, you know, that after
my departure grievous wolves are going to go
in and not spare the flock.
And that was already happening while John was
alive, because when John read, got the vision,
on the Isle of Patmos, to the seven
churches, look at what was already happening in
the churches.
So, things were happening.
But this Gnosticism was going, and that was
that there is not a relationship between the
spirit and the body.
My body is sinful and carnal.
It'll fornicate.
It'll commit adultery.
It'll lie.
It'll steal.
But my spirit is safe.
You see, they were saying that.
And then they were also saying at this
time, that Jesus didn't really come in the
flesh.
We had His spirit, and there was a
human body, but that was something different from
His spirit.
They did not believe, and not confess, and
not teach, that Jesus Christ was a man.
Literally had come in the flesh.
And so in light of that teaching, here
comes this teaching from 1 John.
It says, Beloved, now you try these spirits,
and any spirit, or any person, who will
not confess that Jesus Christ actually did come
in the flesh, He was flesh, and He
was spirit, in a body, is the spirit
of Antichrist.
It's not of God.
It has nothing to do with Him.
You know, it's false spirit.
Anybody who says that.
So that, I believe, is the truest sense.
But then how to test it today is
different people have thought, you know, at times
that when there are strange things going on,
and possibly demonic influence, or false spirits, that
one of the things to ask is, did
Jesus Christ come in the flesh?
I have done that numerous times.
It's amazing some of the results that are
given.
But I'm not saying it's 100% because
I have the deep sense that people have
mechanically been able to squeeze out those words
and say them, and I still had no
witness that they were true.
And that's why I do not give that
as 100% proof.
But many times I have found out they
would actually say, I can't say those words!
I can't say that!
And I know just some time ago I
heard of somebody, one of our churches dealing
with somebody, they worked for hours with an
individual trying to get them to confess that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh and
they couldn't open their mouth to say those
words.
So I think that also applies.
Here's another one I'd like to give you.
Whosoever doesn't confess with their life.
And I like that one too.
There are people who might be able to
squeeze the words out and say, yeah, I
believe Jesus Christ came in the flesh.
But their life doesn't measure up.
And they do not confess it by their
works or by their life.
And that is also a correlation in the
scripture that needs to be united with his
whole matter-of-mouth profession.
Because Jesus did say, as Denny said, many
shall say, Lord, Lord, haven't we done all
these things?
And he said, I never knew you.
So we also have to look at those
things.
Alright.
May God add His blessing as we come
back tomorrow to look at more of the
tools that are specifically given to us now
in the Word of God and other methods
that we have to be able to give
right discernment and right judgment to the things
that we face.
Shall we just bow our heads in prayer?
Father in Heaven, I thank you for your
Word and I just pray, God, that you
would sanctify us, body, soul, and spirit, that
we may be holy, may be right.
Give us discernment, I pray.
God, give us discernment in these last days.
We pray, bless these brothers in Jesus' name.
Amen.