THE CRITICAL NEED FOR SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT (HGM 28 JAN 25)

Home Group Meeting: 28 January 2025 The Critical Need for Spiritual Discernment “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why behold the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider 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 your eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5) A. Spiritual discernment is the result of knowing Jesus Christ. If you know the Truth Himself, you are going to, well, know the Truth that pertains to Him – you are going to know what is of Him. This is, of course, a progressive revelation into which we have come. B. We really must understand that discernment is the result of knowing Christ. Too often we make discernment a THING or a GIFT – and think of it as something we are able to do as a thing unto itself. No. For a Christian, EVERYTHING is connected to life in Christ, and NOTHING operates independent of our relationship with Him – nothing that is of God, that is. Thus, discernment does not operate independent of Christ, but rather, is a product of our relationship with Him, and knowledge OF Him. C. This tells us how to know error. Error is not simply bad theology, although there is plenty of that out there. Rather, error is a misrepresentation of Christ Himself. One way or another it is that. Thus, I cannot know error unless I know the Truth. D. I do realize that it is possible for discernment to operate purely on a theological or intellectual level. People DO have brains, and even an atheist can spot hypocrisy and some error. But the discernment of the Holy Spirit is much more than simply being able to compare notes and come to conclusions. The discernment by the Holy Spirit means that I am able to sense whether something belongs to Christ or does not. It is all based on HIM – whether it fits into HIM. F. Unless we know Christ, and therefore have HIM as our basis of discernment, we are going to use something else. Usually, we will use our understanding, how we feel about something, or whether something appeals to us. Sometimes Christians just don’t think. They simply resign and let others think for them. G. If there is one thing the church needs today it is the discernment that comes from knowing the Person of Jesus Christ. The fact that there seems to be so little discernment out there today is simply evidence that many, including leaders, DO NOT know Him. H. The consequences are everywhere. The growing trend in churches today is the compromise of Truth for the sake of unity. Churches compromise to keep members and get them. This compromise is not merely seen in WRONG things being preached. It is seen in RIGHT things being eliminated. Preachers like Joel Osteen openly brag about the fact that they never preach that we are sinners, must repent, or that there is a Cross that each of us have to meet. This, we are told by people like Osteen, is not necessary. We need a positive gospel, they say. And the fact that millions follow them in their error simply gives them all the more boldness to continue preaching it. I. would seem that today more than ever, whatever will get the people in the pew is what is accepted as Truth. Or people just don’t care about Truth at all. Either way, the trend of the last 10-15 years is one of, "anything goes in the name of love." People like Osteen, Rick Warren, and Bill Hybels – all of whom have ties to, or are echoing heretic Robert Schuller – concentrate on YOU, and on making YOU the center of God’s universe. And since we all care about ourselves, we eat this stuff up. And yet this kind of message is actually THE message of antichrist. J. Antichrist is basically Christ without the Cross. In other words, antichrist is man IN ADAM affirmed – religiously, just as he is, and without the need to meet the Cross. The modern gospel of self-esteem is the fullness of the gospel of Satan. That is not an extreme statement. It is the Truth – and it is HERE, right now, in the churches. It is one of the most subtle, yet damaging, deceptions ever perpetrated on the Body of Christ. Draw your own conclusions about what that means as to the times in which we live. All of this comes back to a lack of discernment, and the usual result: Trying to do for God, on the wrong basis, what only God can do on the right basis. God wants His church unified IN CHRIST, and in the Truth. Today we are trying to unify the church by compromising with both.