Discernment Part 3

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If you have your Bibles.

Turn with me to 2nd Timothy 215.

That'll be our first verse that we're going to look at.

This is part three, and my

last message on the topic of discernment.

We've been learning about how

absolutely critical, it is, for

all of us to be discerning.

as Christians.

And I want to start off today with this verse that we looked at

this verse last time in 2 Timothy 2:15.

Look what it says.

Be diligent, to

present yourself, approve to God, as

a workman, who does not need to be ashamed,

accurately handling the word of truth.

Now, notice that title at the end, the

word of truth.

That is a title for scripture.

That's what the scripture is.

The truth, the truth of God.

This is the truth that justifies the truth

that sanctifies the truth, that gives

the hope of glory to all who believe it in saving faith.

What could possibly, be

more important in

all of creation, than

the truth of God, who is the creator of all things.

What could be more important?

Consider this.

It is on the basis of the truth of God,

that we know what is

actual true reality

about God, about man,

about the Holy Spirit, about salvation,

and everything else that matters most in the human experience.

And that's why it's critical that

we accurately handle the word of truth,

as 2 Timothy 2:15, says, We

are to be diligent workmen

who are never ashamed of ourselves for an

inaccurate handling of God's truth.

And in light of that, also consider next what 2 Timothy

3 1 says, but

realize this, that in

the last days, difficult times will come.

Now, some translations say,

dangerous seasons will come.

And that phrase really gets better at the

meaning, because the Greek word for times here is not

clock time, Cronos.

It's a word that means epics, or

if you're from jollio, England, you say epochs, but

we say epics.

Here are movements.

And I don't think I have to make the case.

for the reality that right now, we definitely live in

a dangerous season of human history.

We definitely live in difficult times.

right now.

And in these dangerous times that we live in.

It is also critical for us to handle the

word accurately, because the greatest spiritual

danger that the church and

all Christians face today is the danger

of deception.

We are not only approximately

30 years right now into the internet

age being in the general public.

Different articles I've read, I've told you in the past,

generally look at 96, 1996, is kind

of the year.

There's give or take a few here backwards.

96 was the first year I became aware of the internet.

So we're about 30 years or so into the internet age,

but now, moving at a very

rapid pace, we are moving into the AI age.

Artificial intelligence.

And it's increasing in its abilities,

far faster, and far greater than any

technology that we've ever seen in world

history.

If you've not been keeping up with what's happening with AI, you

need to, because things are going to be changing dramatically

in our world, in the not

so far off future.

Think about it this way.

We can logically put together in our thinking.

OK?

On the one hand, if the truth of God

is the most important thing that there

is in human existence, then anything

that assaults the truth of God is therefore

the most severe danger, right?

So Paul is warning young Timothy

about this problem here.

Go a little further down in 2 Timothy 3,

verse 13, where he says,

But evil men, and impostors,

will proceed from bad

to worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

And the idea here is with the evil men and impostors, false teachers.

false prophets who misrepresent the truth.

It says they will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving,

and being deceived.

Now, it's important to understand that phrase there, look

at it, last days.

That phrase right there in verse one is referring

to the days that started when Jesus arrived.

This is not the last of the last days.

This is what we can refer to as the Messianic

era, the last days.

That's been going on for over 2,000 years.

And guess what?

We're still in it right now.

And every day that goes by, takes

us closer one day closer to the

last of the last days, and we have no idea when those are

going to be, and the second coming of Jesus Christ, right?

Could be cranked up today.

Could be 500 years from now.

I don't know.

And no man does know the day or the hour, right?

Isn't that what Jesus said?

But in general, Paul is basically saying,

as these last days of the messianic

era progress, here's what's going to happen.

Deception is going to increase.

And you know what?

History has proven that to be true.

Just think of the

massive false religions, alone

that proclaim the name of Jesus, that

have come, and that have gone, with

billions of people, since the time of the early church.

I want you to just consider, for a second, the

Mormons and the Jehovah Witness alone, just those two groups.

Both groups name the name of Jesus as Savior.

Both groups say that Jesus died on the cross

for the forgiveness of sins, and he rose on the third day.

They have the exact same words as us, but

two totally different dictionaries.

Everything I just said is defined completely different,

including Jesus being a created being.

All right?

Guess what?

I looked it up.

Right now.

Just those two groups have 27

million active members on the Earth, 27 million.

And there's many more groups.

that are false that name the name of Jesus.

There's one, I can't say the name of it, it's in Mexico.

I watched two episodes of cultish, a podcast that

comes out of apology, a church about this huge group in Mexico,

and they think this guy is Jesus, that leads him.

It's hundreds of thousands of people adhere to it.

It's completely false in the name of Jesus.

There's many all over the world like this.

And the primary reason for

the increase in deception in the last days,

and remember, I'm talking about the messianic era, is

because the truth landed fully

and completely in the person and work of Jesus Christ on the earth.

That's when the full truth landed.

Now, understand what I'm saying.

While the Old Testament is absolutely

every word, the Word of God,

just like the new, as you know, the Old Testament

didn't give us the full picture, right?

The Old Testament revelation was

progressive, and it's not that it went from

error to truth, it is that it went from incompleteness

to completeness.

You understand?

We got types and shadows, but not the full

picture, until Jesus came.

For example, if all we had was from Genesis to Malachi, and that

was our Bible, we would have an incomplete revelation, right?

But with the final arrival of the full

truth in Jesus Christ, and then add

to that the completion of the New Testament,

that is what brought about the escalation of

deception to assault the full truth.

And it's been happening, since right at the very start, in

the early church, in this ramped up progressively, to

where we are today.

Those dangerous epochs started

in the last days, beginning with the ministry of Jesus.

And as time marches on,

As I read my Bible here, according to Paul, they

get worse and worse, as the deception continues to increase.

And history has proven that to be true again.

And it only continues to escalate, and let me throw this

in as technology increases.

The truth continues to be under greater

and more sophisticated assault,

as technology increases and more diverse assault.

The number of false religions that have come

and gone and still exist today that, in some way, name the name of

Jesus, both large and small.

Let me tell you, they're more in number than we

have ever seen at any other time since the early church.

And think about this.

With the most people living on the planet ever

in history right now, the

numbers are continuing to grow.

There are some things that you can ask AI that

are general AI can give you some wrong answers.

Have y'all learned that?

But there are some general topics that you know you're going to get a right answer.

I asked Groc, how

many people currently population worldwide now?

We've reached over 8 billion.

8.3 billion humans on Earth is

the approximate number that I got.

Now, you got to understand, I've been talking to

you about false religions that name the name of Jesus

that have millions and millions of people following them.

I haven't even included yet.

False religions like Islam.

You know how many they have?

2 billion.

Two billion people.

Buddhism, somewhere between 350

to 500 million Buddhists on the Earth.

Hinduism, one billion.

We hadn't even got to all the new age and all the other things that are out there.

Let me tell you.

Paul was right.

Religious deception abounds on the Earth.

No question.

Again, 2 Timothy 3:13.

But evil men and impostors will

proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and

being deceived.

Now, as an aside, maybe,

somebody, one day, can

convince me otherwise, but from what

I read in this Bible, it just looks like

to me that the dangerous epics and

religious deceptions of the last days that started with

the ministry of Jesus just keep getting worse and more intense

until Jesus comes back.

That's the way I read the Bible.

Our post millennial friends, see things gradually,

getting better till we get to this golden age of Christianity.

I'll tell you what, it ain't going to happen today, unless

God regenerates about six billion people, right?

So right now, we are in a very dangerous

season in these last days,

and you want to know what the extremely

sad reality is,

at a time in our nation's history,

When deception is so formidable,

and technology right now is advancing

into a reality that we can't even conceive

of right now with the future of AI, at

this very point in history, the

church in the United States of America is

weaker than it's ever been.

The preaching that comes out of the majority of our pulpits is weaker

than it's ever been in our nation's history.

Christian colleges and seminaries are

weaker than they have ever been in our nation's history.

Just go look and read history for yourself.

Ivy League schools, like Princeton and Harvard

and Yale, at their start, they

were rooted and grounded in sound doctrine, and the

sound theology, and now, what are they?

They are bastions of leftist, woke,

cultural, Marxism, and communism.

And that's rife throughout most of our universities in this country.

And I'm not to say that there's not been positive gains for the Church.

Of course we know the church is not going to be defeated.

Jesus said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not

avail against it, but, and there have been positive

things, like the resurgence of the doctrines of grace in the '90s,

that continues to go on today, but let me tell you.

If we add up the negatives and the positive right now, the negatives are winning.

No question about that.

The slaughter of the unborn.

I mean, I can go on and on.

Transgenderism, all the rest, all the false religion.

All that to say is this.

This is not a time for weakness in the church.

And that's why, with the very little small

bit of influence in this society that

God has given me as a pastor and us as a

church, I'm telling you right now, with everything I've got.

Till I can't do this no more, or I'm dead.

I am 100% fully

committed to what it says at the end of Jude, verse 3.

Look what it says.

To contend earnestly for the faith,

which was once, for all, handed down to the saints.

So what I'm doing right here today.

I'm contending earnestly for the faith.

This is going out on the internet every week.

This is what I've given my life to doing.

in service to the king.

And I want to pass the torch down to my kids, my

grandkids, and you should want to do that as well.

So if there was ever a time in

this very dangerous season,

Let's go back to 2 Timothy 2:15.

There was ever a time for all of us as believers to

be diligent to present yourself, approved

to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed,

accurately handling the word of truth, that time

church is right now.

You should well know, by

now, if you've been with us for any period of time, that

I'm not a pragmatist.

I mean, I have no interest

whatsoever in being pragmatic

and trying to figure out what methods

and gimmicks and gadgets, as Ed Lacy used

to say, I have to employ in

order to grow a church.

You ought to know that about me, Mike.

I don't follow that.

plan.

I got one plan.

One plan only.

1 Corinthians 2, 2.

For I determine to know nothing among you

except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And in line with that, the only plan I have is 2

Timothy 4, too.

Preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season, reproved,

rebuke, exhort, with great patience, and instruction.

That's my plan.

The same plan I've had for 25 years.

If you can't handle that, this is not the place for you.

And boy, have we seen many come

and go, who figured it wasn't a place for them?

Think about the visitors that we've had.

You know, last month, maybe three years we've been in this building?

I forgot to mention that last week.

Three years, we've been in this building.

We've seen a lot of people come through the turnstile

and go back out the other way.

You know, we've actually only added two people in three years.

We got Eric and Miss Linda.

That's it, right?

Now, I don't

say that as some kind of, oh, man, we got the truth, and nobody else can handle it.

That's why the church doesn't.

Lord grows churches that have just as sound doctrine as we do.

He's decided to keep us to this group, whatever his

reasons are, I don't know, but I defer to him, and I trust him.

And I believe his plan, right?

But the point is that this is not a time,

no matter how big or how small we are, for

weak Christians, weak

pastors preaching weak, watered down messages,

in this dangerous season that we find ourselves living in.

This is a dangerous time.

And that means for Christians, for the true

church, this is a time for discernment.

Now, let's go back and think about that definition of discernment.

It is the skill in distinguishing

truth from error.

Now, maybe more importantly, in

addition, it is the skill in

distinguishing truth from error and half truth.

That's where we really have to be discerning.

When you put a little truth in there, mixed in with error.

We have to guard the truth.

Look at what Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 114.

Guard, through the Holy Spirit,

who dwells in you, the treasure,

which has been entrusted to you.

The treasure is God's truth.

He makes it clear again.

In 1 Timothy 6:20,

O Timothy, guard, what

has been entrusted to you?

Look at this.

avoiding worldly and

empty chatter, and the opposing arguments

of what is falsely called knowledge.

How many of you know that the internet is full

of worldly and empty chatter

that opposes arguments with what is falsely called knowledge?

And you got to think about this.

starting with me.

We're going to stand before the Lord one day, every Christian.

And we're going to have to get an account of what we did with our time from the moment we

were regenerated to the moment we physically die.

How much time do you spend scrolling on

empty things?

Useless things.

Things will be of no value that will burn up

like wood, hay, and stubble that

you scrolled through when you're standing before your king, and you spent

hours scrolling at empty, useless

things, falsely called knowledge.

You're going to have to stand and give an account.

So am I.

For every moment that you did that, instead of things that are of

eternal value, things that are spiritual.

What I'm telling you is, we have to be thinking, Christians.

And we have to have the ability to separate between

the thoughts and the ways of God,

and the thoughts and the ways of the world.

Spiritual discernment is the ability to distinguish

God's truth from everything else.

And there's everything under the sun on the internet right now.

There's no greater way to honor God

than to make that distinction in your mind.

between God's truth and everything else that's out

there, because God is honored.

When his word is believed rightly,

this is why there is so much instruction in the New Testament about

the mind, the renewing

of your mind, this is a mental process, this is a cognitive process.

If you want to know what God approves, if

you want to know what God wills and what God has said,

you have to have your mind continually renewed.

Otherwise, you're just going to fall victim to

the thinking of that which dominates the

society around you.

All the empty clatter.

that's out there, that is of no use spiritually.

Listen to Philippians 19.

And this I pray.

that your love may abound,

still more and more, look at this, in real knowledge

and all discernment.

That's love and truth, in perfect balance.

Look at Colossians 1, 9 to 10.

For this reason, also, since the day we heard of it, we

have not ceased to pray for you, and to

ask that you may be filled with the knowledge

of his will in all

spiritual wisdom and understanding,

so that you will walk, remember, that's

way of living, in a manner worthy of

the Lord to please him in all respects,

bearing good

fruit in every good work and increasing

in what the knowledge of God.

There you see it.

It's right here.

And that brings us, lastly, for today some things for us to think about.

Number one, how can

I become a discerning person?

Well, let me tell you what the first step is.

You have to want to be.

You have to have the desire in your heart and your

mind to say, I want to be a discerning Christian.

How important is it to you to be that?

Well, this is where the rubber meets the road.

Look at Proverbs 2.

Proverbs 2 is all about wisdom and understanding and discernment.

Verse one, my son, if

you will receive my words, and treasure

my commandments within you, verse two, make

your ear, attentive to

wisdom, and your heart to understanding.

Now, I'm asking you, do you want that?

You got to say to yourself, I really want to know God's truth.

I want to know it so that it

will have an impact on my life.

I want to know it so that I can live a

life that brings him glory.

Verse 2 says, make your ear attentive to

wisdom, incline your heart to understanding.

How do you do that?

Expose yourself to the Word of God.

Read it.

study it.

Listen to it accurately preached.

And how are you going to get to the point of real discernment?

Well, look next in verses 3 to 5 here in Proverbs 2.

For if you cry for discernment,

lip your voice for understanding.

If you seek her as silver, and

search for her as hidden treasures, then you

will discern the fear of the Lord,

and discover the knowledge of God.

There it is.

So it really comes down to this.

How badly do you want it?

It's pretty amazing, the things that people will do to

acquire wealth in their quest to

achieve the man centered American dream with their life.

Their life is all about that.

The commitment that they'll make.

The kind of things that they will go through just

to make more and more money, what

level of commitment, are you

willing to make, towards gaining

discernment.

The same kind of commitment?

Are you after it like money?

Are you after it like silver and treasure?

If you don't run that race, you can't win it.

If you don't pursue that goal, then you'll never achieve it.

If you, in your life, right now, in your Christian life,

if you are content with just a minimal knowledge

of the truth, if you are content to

just stay at the shallow end of the theological

pool, if you are content to

not pursue, with your time, attention,

and energy, the deep things of God, I

can promise you you will never get there.

Never.

As I said many times, it doesn't come through osmosis.

It just doesn't just happen.

You have to first want it, desire it,

and then you have to diligently pursue it.

I have all the books.

In my library here and at the house, that

you could possibly need to

get this started in your life, but guess what?

You have to crack them open and read them alongside your Bible.

It takes time.

It takes time to do this.

And in our day, you know where that starts?

Turn the TV off.

Put the phone down and crack open your Bible.

That's the only way you're going to grow as a Christian.

If you make it a priority in your life, the

pursuit of God's truth and God's wisdom, I promise you,

then you will be discerning.

If you don't, you won't be.

And your discernment, if you gain it, will lead to greater worship.

You know why?

Because you won't be worshiping out of a shallow understanding of

God, you will be worshiping out of a deeper,

puller, richer understanding of God.

And I promise you, it'll make the most profound impact on

your life, because naturally what'll start to happen, when

circumstances and events come into your life, especially adverse

ones, very automatically, you will bring the truth of

God to bear on whatever that thing is, because you're already flowing in it.

You're already in the middle of it.

That way of thinking, we'll start to become your default

go to reaction to things that happen.

What's the word of God say about this?

So first, you have to desire it.

If you don't have it, ask God to grant

you that desire if you don't have that desire.

And that leads me to my next point.

Prayer.

Look at James 1, 5 through 6.

You know, we studied this.

But any of you lacks wisdom.

Involved in wisdom, of course, is discernment.

Let him ask of God, who gives you all generously,

and without reproach, and it will be given to

him, but he must ask in

faith, without any doubting, for

the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven

and tossed by the wind.

So you have to start with full confidence.

that God alone is the source of wisdom, and

with that confidence, you have to pray,

and ask him, ask God.

You know what I like to pray?

Lord, please grant me ever increasing measures of wisdom.

I pray that all the time.

Wisdom, grace, courage, strength,

perseverance, give me ever increasing measures of those things.

When you're reading and studying scripture and

you crack open your Bible, you say, Before you start, Lord,

please help me to understand this correctly.

Please lead me to whatever resources I need to help me understand this correctly.

God, grant me, ever increasing measures

of discernment as I'm growing in grace.

Pray that.

It's a matter of a desire to want to be a discerning Christian.

Secondly, it's a matter of prayer, and thirdly, it's a matter of pattern.

Now what do I mean by that?

Well, hang around people who have discernment.

Listen to preachers who have discernment.

Get everything you can out of them.

Listen to people who particularly engage in

apologetics in ministry, which is

pointing out error, and false religion, people

like Dr. James White, read his books, he's got some great books.

Get connected with people who know how to answer the heresies

in the church, who know how to identify

error from the word of God.

And also, follow the example of mature Christians.

Look at Hebrews 5 14.

But solid food is for the mature.

Who, because of practice, have their, what, senses,

trained, to discern, good and evil?

Again, it goes back right here.

Find, spiritually mature people

who have been walking with the Lord for a good long

while, and learn from them.

Make them your pattern.

Now next, you have to be totally dependent, as

you already know, on the Holy Spirit.

Look at 1 John 2, 21.

Writing to Christians.

But you have an anointing from

the holy one, and you all know, I have not

written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it.

And because no lie, is of the truth,

the reason that we know the truth, and the big meta

picture is because we have an anointing from the holy one.

Look at verse 27.

As for you, the anointing which you received from him,

abides in you.

And you have no need for.

anyone to teach you, but as his anointing teaches you about all things,

and is true, and is not a lie, and just that has taught you,

abide in him.

Now, understand, John is not denying here the importance of

gifted teachers in the church.

We know that to be true from other scriptures, but rather,

what he's teaching is the reality here, that all teachers

of scripture and all believers, for that matter,

are totally dependent upon the Holy Spirit.

He is our resident, truth teacher,

above all.

And he dwells, as it says here, in every believer.

If you're a believer, he's in you, and he is your

resident truth teacher, and he promises.

To disclose the truth of God to you as you

expose yourself to the Word of God.

He will illumine the scripture for you.

And that leads me to our last point.

I think I said last point earlier, but I didn't really mean it.

I wanted to make sure you were paying attention.

Study the Bible.

diligently.

Remember the Bereans from Acts 17.

They studied the scriptures daily to see if the things that Paul said

about the Messiah out of the Old Testament were really so.

Let me tell you.

As you study the Word of God, and

you pray, and you depend on the Holy Spirit

to be your teacher, I promise

you, discernment will begin to develop in

your mind, and in your life,

And in addition, I want to re emphasize what I said earlier.

Then find out those who demonstrate

spiritual maturity, theological

knowledge, years of

exercising, discernment, and make

those people your heroes.

Next year, Mark's 30 years that

I've been living the Christian life, which is wild

for me to even utter those words to you.

But from the start, almost from the start,

I had heroes that I exposed

myself to, and that I learned from,

who modeled discernment, and

spiritual maturity.

I had men like Huey Moat.

And Ed Lacy.

Early on in my Christian life that I learned from personally,

one on one, and then other heroes that

all of you know, who I begin to learn from in

my very earliest years of the Christian life,

heroes to many of you, and many besides me, like

John MacArthur and R.C.

Sproul, who we had this morning in Sunday school, Martin

Lloyd Jones, C.H.

Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, I could just go down the list of

these names that you know,

who have exercised and modeled discernment, and whose writings

are still being published today.

100 years later, 200 years later, and more.

Don't make the fancy people of the

world your heroes.

Make the discerning and spiritually mature

people, your heroes, and learn from them.

Well, let's close this out.

with Philippians 19.

Again, Paul says,

and this, I pray, that your love will

abound still more and more in what?

In real knowledge and all discernment.

So he's saying, I want your love to be

the product of real knowledge and all discernment,

because the more you know of God's truth, the more legitimate your love will be.

Your love for him and your love for others,

because you'll understand it more deeply.

You'll understand it spiritually.

And then Paul says, Next, look in verse 10.

So that you may approve the things that

are excellent in order to be sincere

and blameless until the day of Christ.

This is still Paul's prayer in this section.

He says, so that you may approve the things that are

excellent, so you can make distinctions.

When you can make distinctions, you will be what it says next.

Look, sincere and blameless until the day

of Christ, and for all of us.

Look, that's either the day that Jesus returns,

or, by way of application, the

day you go to be with the Lord, before the second coming.

One way or other, you're going to meet him.

And let me tell you, this prayer that Paul prays

here, this is my prayer for you too.

Like I've said before.

What am I doing here, Christian?

I'm just trying to get us all ready to meet Jesus.

And I know that he's going

to hold you to account for what you

did with your time, your tension, your energy, and your Christian life.

So, I want you to be able to stand there, just

like for myself, saying, man, I gave it my all.

in the Christian life, because I was so thankful that you saved

me from what I deserve, namely, the wrath of God in hell forever.

Well, Paul finishes the prayer.

In verse 11.

Having been filled with the fruit of righteousness

which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory

and praise of God.

Isn't that the goal for all of us?

To live a life that praises God?

To live a life that glorifies God?

That honors Christ?

Being a person who can choose what

is truly excellent because you

have real knowledge,

biblical knowledge, spiritual knowledge, and

all discernment.

So that's my word on discernment.

And three, messages.

My prayer is this.

that what you've heard will motivate you to

strive for discernment, because

we're all going to need it, as

we get ready to go on this journey together, and studying

the book of Hebrews.

Let's pray.

By the way, thank you, Lord.

For all of these scriptures that we've looked at today, that

Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, made it

so clear for all of us about the critical nature

of discernment.

I pray that today, the

word that has been proclaimed would motivate all believers here

to desire first, to be

discerning, and then to act upon that desire.

in a fresh and new way.

We pray we honored you today and brought you glory.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.