Matthew 16:1-3

Do something a little different.

Gotta shake things up every once in a while, right?

I think.

We're going to start a series of topical expository

topical sermons.

Instead of going, through a

complete book, verse by verse, through a whole book,

as I typically do, we're going to take a little time to

cover some important subjects that

all Christians absolutely must have

a sound knowledge of.

This type of preaching is still expositional,

but instead of me standing before you to unpack

verses in the context of a book will

be unpacking verses related to the context

of our subject matter.

And the first subject that I want to tackle is

going to be a three part series that

all Christians have to understand.

When RC sproll was asked, what

is the biggest problem in the evangelical

church today, he said this,

we don't know who God is.

And then when John MacArthur was

asked the same question.

He said, a lack of discernment.

And those two answers fit perfectly together, do they not?

We don't have a proper understanding of who

God is, because we have such a

lack of discernment in

the professor church of America today.

And before we get started, I want to remind you that here at

our church, we

place a high premium on

biblical and theological knowledge,

and that knowledge, I want you to understand, you've heard me

say it before, I'm say it again, that knowledge is

only valuable.

if it becomes the driving,

compelling force in

the choices that we make in our life.

Otherwise, it's just theological knowledge for knowledge, say.

A proper use, of

biblical knowledge, leads

to possessing biblical wisdom,

and biblical wisdom, should always be

the rudder of the ship that

guides your Christian living, and the

choices that you make,

including the opinion of what happened up here last week.

Now, as I quoted from MacArthur,

earlier, the lack of discernment really is the biggest problem in the church today.

And included in that is what RC said, not having a

proper understanding of who God is, the God of the

Bible, which is at the very top of a long

list of improper understanding of

even the most basic doctrines

of the Christian faith.

So many Christians are prone to

accepting bad theology.

They make terrible choices in who they follow.

and what they listen to, and what they read.

I can't remember who started the slogan online, but it's a good one.

Bad theology hurts people.

There are so many churchgoers in our land who

lack precision in their thinking.

They have no consistency at

all in the content that they engage with.

They just listen to anybody and everybody, with

no judgments given about anything.

It's all just good Jesus stuff.

There's good in all of it.

And how dare you, preacher, with 25 people on

Sunday morning, question anybody's view on anything?

Who are you?

to say that we're in error?

It's really amazing to consider, especially when you think about

the primary role that Christianity played in

the founding of our country.

To hear the truth of what John MacArthur said before he died.

In our nation, he said, Biblical

Christianity is fighting for its life.

There's no question.

That aside from the sovereignty in the

grace of God that the biblical Christianity that

you and I know and worship and practice would go

out of existence if it were solely left up

to the majority report of church leaders in our country.

It would vanish.

But God?

will always be the most important phrase in the Bible.

If there is any problem that outweighs

all other problems that we have in the church and individual

Christians' lives, it's this growing lack of discernment, faulty reasoning.

Superficial understanding, shallow

knowledge, basic biblical

illiteracy, have always contributed more

hurt and anguish to the church than

any persecution of the church ever has.

In fact, in the big picture?

it would really be better for the church in America to

be persecuted right now.

Ask Paul Washer, who goes out all

across the world all the time, and he comes back.

And he's sickened about how lax and

comfortable the church has gotten.

Again, MacArthur writes, I would rather Christians shed their blood

than abandon their theology.

Now that sounds extreme.

But it's really true.

If real actual persecution ramped

up, like we see in Nigeria right now, in our nation,

we would quickly find out who the true church

is in America.

And I can guarantee you, you wouldn't find

it in the health, wealth, and prosperity movement.

I can guarantee you, you wouldn't find it

in the shallow Christianity light, moralistic therapeutic

deism crowd, the seeker friendly churches,

that water down the gospel.

All you have to do, really, is survey church history,

and there's no question that the lack of

discernment and precision regarding the truth has

cost the church far more than all the persecutions

of the church combined.

Show me a persecuted church, and I'll show you

a church that clings with great

tenacity to God's truth, even

under the threat of death.

It's happening right now in Africa, not

just in Nigeria, several countries.

But an affluent, comfortable

church, such as we have

in the majority report in our land today, is

a church that easily abandons the truth and

severely lacks discernment.

Yes, persecution takes lives.

But it also strengthens the church because it

strengthens our grip on the truth all

over the Bible.

There are two major, constant,

continual themes that we run into, two

things available to all of us in this world.

One is the truth of God, and

the other is the lie of the enemy.

We live in a world where truth and lies

are in constant conflict.

And that started at the very beginning.

Satan comes to Eve and says, that God really say this?

He makes her question what God said,

and then he says, You shall not surely die.

Which means, God lied to you.

God said you'd die.

And I'm telling you that you won't die.

And ever since then, all throughout

human history, God says one thing, and

Satan says another.

And that's the two systems that we live

in in this world, the

truth, and the lie.

And it's absolutely critical for us to sort this out.

For our own lives, and for all the people that we influence

with the truth, for the glory of God.

As you know, the Bible is chocked full of

warnings about liars.

God hates liars.

The Bible says, He always speaks the truth.

And he cannot lie.

Jesus himself said, Satan is a liar.

And the father of lies.

What a name.

Just listen.

I'm just going to give you a quick run through some of the things that

the Bible warns us about in this area.

Warns us about ear tickling teachers who give us what we want to hear.

Rather than the absolute truth of what we need to hear.

We're warned about doctrines of demons, destructive

heresies, myths, perverse

teachings, commandments of men, rather than commandments

of God.

We are warned about speculations, and lofty

ideas raised up against the knowledge of God.

We're warned about deceitful spirits.

Worldly fables, traditions of men,

worldly wisdom.

We're warned about wolves in sheep's

clothing, that come to devour the sheep.

We have many warning, all over the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testament.

And our adversary has

been around observing human

nature since the Garden of Eden.

That's a long time.

And he knows our ways.

And as we just learned in Ephesians, he's very powerful.

He's very clever.

He's not equal with God in any way, shape, or form, but he

is superior in all ways in which he acts, and

how he works in this structure, in this system of

evil that is wrapped up in this world system that we live in.

Every minute of every day, his

lies are at odds with the

truth of God and church, we have to

be able to discern the difference.

Every day.

And as Christians, we have absolutely no

excuse not to.

God is truth.

He has revealed his truth to us in his word.

He has given us His Holy Spirit to lead us into

all truth and illumine His word to us.

And that's why it's really, really sad to

see Christians drift off into error.

Drift off and be taken away by lies.

But it happens all the time.

And it's very often the result of

bad theology and weak, unbiblical teaching.

Now, let's get into some scripture, for an illustration

out of Matthew chapter 16, and you

can look on the screen, or you can look in your Bible with me.

Matthew chapter 16.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees, as you know, could

never agree on anything except their mutual

hatred society of Jesus.

They agreed on that.

And they never agreed because the Pharisees were the strict fundamentalists

in Judaism, and the Sadducees were the religious

liberals, and those two kind of groups never agree on anything.

But they did agree to hate Jesus.

and assault Jesus.

So let's read verses 1 to 3 of Matthew

16.

The Pharisees and Sadducees came up in testing Jesus.

They asked him to show them a sign from heaven.

But he replied to them.

When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather,

for the sky is red, and in the morning, there

will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.

Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky?

that cannot discern the signs of the times?

So Jesus?

Again, he's right there in their face.

They're standing around him, and

he's saying, look, you guys are

the religious elite.

In Israel, you are the religious authority

over all of the people in this nation.

And your very simplified way of telling the weather is

better than your spiritual discernment.

Look in verse three again.

Do you know how to discern the

appearance of the sky, but

cannot discern the signs of the times?

And what he means by that is this.

You can't discern spiritual issues.

You don't even realize.

that right now, this very moment,

you are addressing your Messiah, you don't even realize it.

You don't understand that the kingdom

of heaven has come to you and is standing

before you with an overwhelming

amount of evidence, even though

you're simpletons at reading the weather.

You're better at that than you are at theology.

So this is the issue with this subject.

The ability to distinguish between the

true and the false.

And this is absolutely essential and possible for

us as Christians in order that we might make right decisions.

Now, next, I want us to look at 2 Corinthians 11.

starting at verse one.

I love this.

sentence, verse one.

Paul tells these Corinthians, I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness.

But, indeed, you are burying with me.

Paul had a lot of problems with the Corinthian Church, as you know.

Not the least of which was them believing in false teachers.

And next, we see his concern, starting in verse two, look at it, for I

am jealous for you, with a godly jealousy, for I

betrothed you to one husband, so that, to Christ, I might

present you as a pure virgin.

In other words, I have a relationship with you

that's like a marriage, but not between us, but between you and Christ.

That's the picture here.

And I want to present you to Christ someday, when

you enter into his presence, as pure.

And of course, he doesn't mean sinlessly, perfect.

But that's what I tell you I'm doing.

Up here is your pastor all the time.

We're all going to die, and I'm just getting ready to meet Jesus.

And I want you to meet Jesus in the best condition possible when you get there.

So Paul says, I have this godly jealousy.

I've linked you to Christ, and

I want to keep you straight until you go to meet him.

Verse three, but I am afraid, that

as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness.

Your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and

purity of devotion to Christ.

For if one comes and preaches another

Jesus, whom we have not preached.

Or you receive a different spirit, which

you have not received, are a different gospel, which you have not accepted.

You bear this beautifully.

He's saying you tolerate it when they come with the false Jesus.

with a false gospel, another Christ.

You don't have a problem with it.

You don't say anything.

You lack discernment.

My great fear, Paul is saying, is this, that you're going to get led astray.

Let me tell you, that's why I'm preaching this little series to you today,

on discernment, because I don't want you to be led astray either.

Look next at 1 Thessalonians 5.

This passage is going to give us some great bullet

points of basic Christian living.

Notice verse 16.

Paul says, Rejoice sometimes.

Is that what he said?

Rejoice always.

Verse 17, pray without ceasing, we talked about that.

Verse 18.

And everything, get thanks.

Verse 19.

Do not quench.

the spirit.

And then comes verses 20 to 22, and that's what I want to focus on.

Verse 20.

Do not despise prophetic utterance, verse 21.

But examine everything carefully.

Hold fast to that which is good, verse

22, abstain from every form of evil.

Folks, that's a call to discernment.

So let's go back.

Let's break it down, OK?

Verse 20.

Do not despise prophetic utterance.

That phrase, do not despise, in the Greek

means, do not make light up.

Do not belittle.

Do not treat as trivial, or

insignificant, prophetic utterances.

Now, listen to this little bit of nuance.

That phrase can refer, can refer,

back during the time of the apostles, to direct

revelation given by God to people who had

the spiritual gift of prophetic utterance

while the church was being established during

the times of the apostles, but after the apostolic age ended.

That's done?

And now, in our age, it refers to the preaching of the word.

What I'm doing right now.

The gift of interpreting and publicly proclaiming

God's word, prophetic utterance.

And what Paul is saying is, don't despise preaching.

Don't belittle preaching.

If ever, our increasing secular

society has shown

something very clearly is that

preaching is definitely belittled.

Sadly, what happens is sound

preaching gets mixed in with

really bad preaching on TV and

online, and it's the bad preaching that

gets most of the coverage.

But Paul is giving a warning here.

Don't preach, don't treat biblical

preaching lightly.

or in a trivial way.

And when you're hearing biblical preaching, verse

21, but examine

everything carefully, the

Greek word for examine means something that is tested.

Something that is tested very carefully so

as to reveal its genuineness, something

that is subjected to scrutiny, to

analysis, tests everything you hear.

Be like the Bereans.

Search the scriptures to determine if what

you are hearing preached is true.

And then he says next, in verse 21.

Hold fast.

to that which is good.

And what he means there is, with

what you find, as you're searching, is

good, and right, cling to it.

Hold on to it.

But on the other hand, verse 22, abstain

from every form of evil.

The word for abstain means, push it away from you.

Folks, you simply have to make this distinction.

The sermon is everything.

Precision is everything.

When preaching and when sitting under the preaching of the Word of God.

If you go to the doctor, with

a severe headache,

And he looks at you and he says, well, it could be a lot of things.

Kind of like Christie's doctor.

It could be a brain tumor, or it could

be you drinking too much caffeine.

Or it could be, maybe you're out in the sun too much.

Guess what?

You're welcome to believe anything you want to.

Just take your pick.

Now that's not real helpful, is it?

The one thing you want to know about your condition is what?

The truth!

Right?

So, if we demand that

kind of precision in

the physical realm, why would

we not demand that kind of precision in the

spiritual realm?

Precision in understanding the scripture.

That's why Paul is saying, test everything.

You've heard me say it.

I say it again.

Test me.

Examine what I say from this pulpit.

I will never, ever be offended.

If you come to me with questions, or I need more clarity, or I'm

trying to understand what you're saying.

I'll sit down and talk with you.

We'll put on some of Joey Strong coffee, and we'll get at it.

Paul says in verse 21, again, hold fast to that which is good.

Now, here's a little nuance.

Agathos is a Greek word that is translated good,

meaning in the sense of beautiful, something that has the

appearance of great goodness, but that's not the word used for good

here in verse 21.

The word here is kalos, which means inherently good.

Noble, inherently true,

and genuine, and righteous.

So when you're listening to preaching, or reading

a theological book, or whatever it is,

examine it carefully.

Put it to the test.

And the test is always scripture itself.

Scripture interprets scripture.

And when you determine something's good, hold onto it.

Cling to it, hold fast to that, which is good.

And then on the other hand, go back to verse 22.

Abstain from every form of evil.

The word for abstain literally means, shun it.

Hold it far away from you.

Separate yourself completely from it.

Don't sit under it.

Don't expose your mind to it.

Why?

Because it will have a corrupting influence on your mind.

You can't play around with evil.

You can't play around with false doctrine.

It is always presented in scripture as something that

is very harmful to the believer.

Something working disaster.

Corrupting, defiling, and influencing everything it touches.

Evil is like a poison.

It's like an infectious disease.

Stay away from it, like the plague, is what Paul is saying.

That's a clear call for discernment.

The New Testament commentator Linsky wrote this, the worst forms

of wickedness consist of perversions of

the truth, spiritual lies.

Now, there's a lot of wickedness in the world.

I mean, you can think about abortion,

transgenderism, homosexuality,

the murder rate, you can think about all of the heinous crimes, you

can pick your category.

There's plenty to go around.

But all things considered, Linsky is right.

The worst form of wickedness that exists in the world is

the perversion of the truth, because,

consider the offense it is to God.

That's why it's the worst.

You don't ever want to be guilty of that.

You don't ever want to get sucked in by those

who are guilty of the perversion of God's truth.

John MacArthur writes this, Your value to the kingdom of God,

your value as a Christian, as one who serves Christ,

is going to be directly related to your discernment regarding the truth.

Also, the blessedness, the productivity, the

fruitfulness, the joy of your Christian life, is going to be

directly related to your ability to discern, because

that's going to aid you to make good choices.

That's biblical wisdom right there.

When the church loses its ability to discern,

and puts itself in a disastrous situation.

And that's why biblical Christianity is fighting

for its very life in America, because

it's lost its ability to discern.

We can't even keep up with all the false doctrine that exists out

there, especially now in this age of the internet and social media.

Now I want to round all of this out by asking some questions.

Number one, Why?

Is there such a lack of discernment?

What has contributed to this?

The major contributor to this is a weakening

in the church of doctrinal clarity

and conviction.

There have been much better times in the history of

the Church, and in the history of our nation,

as well, when Christians in much larger

numbers were encouraged to think biblically,

to think theologically, to think with precision.

In the majority of evangelical churches in

America, those realities don't exist

anymore, like they did at the founding of our country,

like they did at the very beginning, and

they haven't for quite some time.

In line with that, we have pastors with these big platforms

online who take strong

stands on all kinds of theological

and cultural issues that are right.

and they get roundly criticized by

so many on a regular basis.

The internet and social media have become the town square

in the marketplace of ideas, and in

the marketplace of ideas, now the biblical worldview, takes

a pounding online every single day.

day.

Think back to when I promoted the pastors supporting

the legislators to veto the override

of the gender bills.

I want you to know that I had so many vile,

vulgar, nasty comments that

flooded my Facebook page that Christie

had to turn the comments off, except for

the people that are my friends, because I couldn't have all that on my page.

Then I got Shadow Band.

By Twitter, which inhibits my ability

to gain followers, and it also keeps my post

very limited as to who can see them, and as

far as I know, that's never been undone since that time.

Why?

All because of bringing a biblical worldview into

play with the subject of transgenderism.

And a lot of times, the weakening of

doctrinal clarity and precision does

not come about because of

people who disagree, but

because they are afraid of

not being accepted in the mainstream

of the evangelical world.

Oh, behind closed doors, they will agree with you.

But they don't have the courage to

make a public stand.

None of the pastors, from the Central

Pastors Association, ever even responded

to my email about that legislator meeting,

nor did they attend the meeting, not a one.

The same is true in most of the Southern Baptists that I contacted.

They did not even respond to my email,

or come to the meaning.

That's just what the enemy wants.

Do you know how many local pastors have reached out

to me or Brian, or even to discuss the topic that

we'll be addressing tonight?

Goose egg?

None.

It's just me and him.

And as I said online,

Your silence as a pastor in this situation speaks just

as loudly as any opinion you'll ever give.

The prevailing attitude from many church leaders

is today is this, don't rock the boat.

Just tolerate everything.

Don't say anything one way or another.

Just stay out of it.

That's not your laying.

It's too controversial.

I can't roll that way.

I get one life to be a pastor.

And I have to stand up, and I have to lead.

Now, let's get back a little more to the theological side of this.

There's very little doctrinal clarity and conviction today.

in the mainstream, especially when

you get into conservative politics, there's christless

conservatism, and then there's man centered confervatism.

I want you to think about, for heaven's sakes, the president's top

evangelical advisor.

Paula White.

Now, he might not listen.

Probably won't.

But has anybody gone to him to tell him that this

woman is a clear, blatant, false teacher?

I've seen many well known pastors

gathered around that resolute desk with

Paula White, and not one of them ever

call her out publicly for what she

is, a false teacher.

They just go along to get along.

They value that seat at the table more

than they value the truth.

Clearly demonstrating, with their silence, a

complete lack of doctrinal clarity and conviction,

and I would add, the absence of a spine.

And then there's so much relativism in the professing church of today.

As I said earlier, anybody who

uses the lingo of Christianity, no

matter what the substance is, is tolerated and

considered Christian by so many people,

and it would literally take us months of Sundays

to go through and categorize all the different false

doctrinal movements that we have in America, much less in the world.

So that's the first reason why discernment disappeared.

Because if you don't have sound doctrine, if

you don't hold tightly to the conviction that

those doctrines should bring to you Christian, then guess what?

You have no standard by which to discern

anything, because you have no fixed point by which to measure anything.

For example, I

believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.

When somebody comes along and says, God is not three and one,

I say, That's a lie.

Here's an inconvenient truth.

That's what the preacher down the street believes.

God is not Trinity.

God is not Trinity is a God who does not exist.

If we don't want to talk about that, but I will.

I believe in the doctrine of the deity of Christ that

says, Jesus is the god man.

And so, in modern day, Gnostics come along and say, Oh,

he's a created emanation, descended from God,

and he's an elevated angel, really.

I say, that's a lie.

Because I understand that the Bible teaches that he is God.

I believe in the doctrine of justification by

grace through faith alone, with no mixture of works.

And if somebody comes along and says, You don't have to

believe that doctrine to be saved, I say that is a lie.

I don't care who says it.

I don't care who wrote it.

That's contrary to the gospel truth that's

so clearly established in the scripture.

The point is, you can't even have

discernment unless you have the fixed

standard in place.

That is why you have to know your theology proper.

The truth of biblical Christianity has been assaulted for

the entire life of the New Testament church since the very beginning.

And here we are still today, fighting

for it, no different than at any other time.

That's why Jude appeals to all Christians, for

all time, to contend earnestly,

for the faith, which was once for all handed

down to the saints.

So we are to persevere.

We are to protect the faith, so that we can

pass the torch down to the younger generation,

and they can keep it going, just like we're

striving to keep it going right now, and

that includes calling out all

the weak, need, superficial, false Christianity

that doesn't want to say anything too dogmatic, that

doesn't want to say anything too controversial.

Man, if that were to totally take over, that would be how you'd lose the faith

altogether on the Earth, but God.

In Christ makes the promise

that the church will continue to be built

by him till the end of time,

and hell itself will not stop it.

So if we're going to be discerning,

We have to start with a strong conviction

about sound doctrine, and that's why our

statement of faith is the 1689

London Baptist confession of fate.

Go read it again, if you haven't read it lately.

That is a strong statement of sound doctrine

that covers the basis of all the major doctrines

of the Christian faith.

I'm gonna have more to say about this subject.

But you have to come back next week to hear more about it.

Let's pray together about heaven, we thank you.

for the ability.