Introduction to Discernment — Mose Stoltzfus

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Amen. Well, it's worth coming here to hear that, hear the singing. I greet you all in the name of Jesus. I, as you may notice or hear, I'm struggling a bit with difficulties and colds and what have you.

So, I thought this would be a good opportunity for God to make Himself strong in weakness. And I praise Him for the opportunity to be here and for all of you to be here. Some of you are new, never been here before I'm sure.

And many of you are familiar and I bless God for you. I think of you often as I scan in my mind over the remnant of God's people that I believe are faithful and that are endeavouring to keep the faith as Brother Denny spoke to us already so well this morning.

The Need for Discernment in a Confused Age

And I look forward to interacting with you this week. Well, this morning the introduction to my series, as you may have noticed on your programs, is Tools for Discernment. You will notice my introduction to be a little bit repetitive perhaps in spirit or in content with Brother Denny's.

But, at least here in the beginning, even though as the week progresses we will probably go a different direction. But, it is of course, as you know, the burden of my heart and more specifically so in the last couple of years here.

On this matter of discernment, the lack, I would say that I sense in this land of prophets, the voice of prophecy where leaders like yourselves, God is calling to stand up and to give utterances that are clear out of His Word.

No new word, no new revelation necessary at all, but just for someone to rise up and to say what needs to be said concerning all the vast confusion that continues to bombard our ears from day to day. That is the burden of my heart in this session.

And I trust that God will give us the ability to stimulate those things here this week in your heart and in your soul. Shall we bow our heads for prayer? Father in heaven, we come before you in Jesus' name, that great name, that great name.

There is no name greater than that name in all of heaven and all of earth. Because at that name, at the utterance of that name someday, every knee shall bow. And every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

That name and the personality behind that name will stand to judge all of us in all the earth. We cannot run away. We cannot hide. We cannot pour a slab of concrete over our dead body to keep it from rising when that name will call our name to come forth.

And God, I thank you. I thank you for the Bible, the Word of God. And I pray that you would help us, Father, in this matter of discernment. That we would be able to gather these tools together and put them in our box, so to speak.

And not only put them in our box, but open that box and use them as we run into all the situations that come upon us in our time and in our day. I thank you, God, for this opportunity. And I pray that it could be used to thy honor and thy glory to build thy kingdom.

Spiritual Maturity and Discernment Through Scripture

I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Let us turn our Bibles for an introductory scripture on Hebrews chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5, verse 12 through 14. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat.

For everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he or she is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

We'll come back to that later. I Peter chapter 4, verse 17. For the time is come that judgment, and that word is used interchangeably all through the Bible in the New Testament, or discernment, must begin.

The time is come that judgment must, must begin at the house of God. And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel? Obey not the gospel? Yes, on them that obey not the gospel.

And then let us turn to Haggai chapter 1, verse 4 to 6. Is it time for you, O ye to dwell in your sealed houses? And this house lie waste. Now therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways.

Ye have so much, bring in little. Ye eat, but ye have not enough. Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink. Ye clothe you, but there is none warm. And he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it in a bag with holes.

And maybe I'll read verse 9 yet there. Ye looked for much, and lo, it came to little. And when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why, saith the Lord of hosts? Because of my house that is waste, is waste.

And ye run every man unto his own house. Now let us turn yet to Matthew chapter 16. Matthew 16, 1 through 4. The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came and tempting desired him that he would show them a sign from heaven.

He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning it will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky, but can ye not discern the signs of the times, the signs, can ye not discern or judge the signs of the times?

A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, but there shall no sign be given unto it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. When he was walking through Nineveh. The sign of the prophet Jonas.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple and Defends Its Holiness

And he left them and departed. And I believe that sign was repent, or God is going to destroy this city. That is what I think the sign is. Now, furthermore, in light of the connection I would like to make with Habakkuk chapter 1, verse 4 through 6.

We have the scene given to us twice in the Gospels, at least three of the Gospels, of the Lord Jesus coming into the temple. And when He came into the temple, He noticed that these bank branches had put their branches into the temple.

And they had their tables there and they were exchanging money. And because people were coming from all kinds of nations in there to worship, that was true every time there was a Passover. They would come, and as you notice in Acts chapter 2, they were there from 17 nations that are mentioned there from all over the country.

The Jews that were scattered abroad would make this trek year by year to come to Jerusalem to worship, as the Ethiopian eunuch had done some years later. And then Philip preached the Gospel to him on his way home.

But that is what Jews did in those days. And these hucksters and these money changers would set up inside the temple. Years before, they were outside the gate, and they sold oxen and sheep and goats and doves in order that, according to what men could afford.

And then they would buy them and go in and give them to the priests and have them slaughtered there and give an offering for their sins and for the various offerings that were taking place. But all at once, these guys had moved into the temple.

They had moved into the temple. And now get the picture. Get the picture. You walk into the house of God. Jesus Christ Himself walked into the house of God. And there are piles and pancakes of manure all over the place.

And the cows are mooing. And the sheep are baying. And the doves are cooing. And the money changers are hawking their exchange rates and bartering with the people to get the best rate. And picture it.

Jesus stands there. Unbelievable. My house shall be called a house of prayer. And ye have made it a den of thieves. Your soul will come with righteous indignation and righteous anger, which I believe in, at the right place and the right time and the right spirit.

He fashioned the court of whips. And He got somebody to open the doors. And He drove the whole yards out of there, the whole stockyards. And He went over to the tables of the money changers and upset them and scattered their money over the floor.

And He drove them all out. And He did that twice in His earthly ministry in those three and a half years. He says there, remembering again the words in Haggai, I'm sorry, not Habakkuk, but Haggai, the zeal of my house has eaten me.

The great question that comes upon us at the beginning of this seminar would be whether His sons might have the same problem today. Is there a man who has enough of zeal, a house of God? I'm not talking about the church houses only here.

Is there a man who has enough of zeal for the body of Christ that the money changers and the hucksters and the manure and the cattle and all the stuff that's going on can be driven out of the place and we can return again for what God has intended the church of Jesus Christ and His children to be?

Rather interesting, isn't it? Rather interesting, isn't it? That one hears the barking of dogs and the cackling of a rooster and the mooing of a cow in the religious assembly, isn't it? Don't you suppose that if Jesus Christ would show up and walk in the back of a Toronto Vineyard Church that He might do the same thing that He did 2 ,000 years ago?

I think so. But the big question is, where are His sons? Where are His daughters? Where are His people? Where are His prophets? Where are His teachers? Thousands will be the path to see that. And the police aren't called to stop the disturbance of a man of God in the back of the church house.

Testing Revival Claims Against Prophetic Scripture

Is anyone noticing anything? Anyone have any serious vibrations today? We hear that there's a great revival coming at the end times. Does that trouble you? Does that concern you when you hear about this great revival that is coming in the end times when literally millions of people will come to the faith?

Does that conflict with anything you've ever read? Or are you thinking that God has come? This is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel, that in the last days I will pour out My Spirit from on high and your young men shall see visions, your old men dream dreams, and your sons and daughters prophesy when I will pour out My Spirit from on high.

Can you walk into those places today and believe that this is that, like Peter said, which was spoken of by the prophet Joel? Or are you getting another vibration? Are you seeing another prophecy? Are you considering another word of God concerning these last days?

That is a question that I believe must be answered. That is a question that I believe is the reason for this message and these five messages this week, and why we'd better open up that toolbox and get out some tools of discernment in order to be able to discern, as Malachi 3 says, I didn't quote that scripture, verse 18, then shall you return, then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked and between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.

Yes, that would be my heart, that that could be done somehow, some way. Like I say, tens of thousands of people walked into that airport vineyard church in the last 10 years, 12 years or whatever, I don't know.

It's pretty well all died out now, but those are the kind of... I'm just giving it for the concept. It could have been Pensacola, Florida since then, or probably a thousand other churches of similar things, and they walked in there and thought God was there.

And you know, when Rodney Howard Brown, who was the perpetrator of that whole thing from the beginning, his daughter got cerebral palsy some time ago and was on her deathbed. And it looked like he strapped the bottle of...

Yeah, it looked like she wasn't going to live long, and he strapped the bottle of oxygen on her and took her skiing and tried to get her to enjoy life. And when it came out close to the end and all his prayers for healing weren't answered, that he sat her down and said, I forget what her name was, and said, now Jesus is going to take you home and give you a new set of lungs.

And then you're going to come back and everything's going to be all right. And shortly thereafter she died and they didn't know what to do, and so he finally told the undertaker to bring the body up to his office.

And he had the body laid on his couch in his office and he got his friends together and they carried on from 8 o 'clock in the morning until 4 or 5 at night to raise her from the dead like he had promised her.

But she wouldn't rise. And the next day he finally gave up and left them buried her. And then in a dream or a vision, he told the people that Jesus came to her up there and gave her the option as to whether she wanted to come back or whether she wanted to stay.

False Teachers and the Judgment of God

And she decided she liked it so good she decided to stay. And that's why she didn't come back. And the people probably believed it. 2 Peter 2 I think Brother Denny had quoted some of these Scriptures.

Verse 1. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

Many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the word of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness Do you know what that word means? Through covetousness shall they with faint words make merchandise of you whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

And then he basically says that if God didn't spare the angels at sin, and if He didn't spare the old world, and if He didn't spare Sodom and Gomorrah, and if He didn't spare many others like that, then He's not going to spare you either.

That's his message there. The question we have asked today, the need to answer, in spite of ourselves, we can shut ourselves up and decide, no, we don't want to decide. We don't want to discern. We don't want to know.

And try to keep ourselves ignorant. But God says that we, and commands us in His Word, that we are to discern between the godly and the wicked. That we are to discern what is right and what is wrong, what is just and what is ungodly and unholy.

Sighing and Crying Over Abominations

And we'll go into some more details about that. But here are some questions that I just want to ask. And these are just an overview of some things that I know that you've thought about. And sat down, and I trust, like in Ezekiel chapter 9, that have caused you to go, no.

Sigh and cry for the abominations that are happening before our very eyes. The abominations. And God, in Ezekiel, asks Ezekiel to mark them. That sigh and cry for these abominations that are coming in, into Israel.

And I just wonder whether we have some in the crowd here today that can still do that. If not, I trust you can begin today. Is there physical healing in the atonement and the persecuted church? For 1 ,900 years, wist it not, why can an American Indian come into any school he wants to, practically in America, and put on his powwow show and do his rain dance half naked with his feathers on, and you cannot open God's precious Word and read one verse out of it?

Why can the Koran be read and witch doctors or witches teach their craft and tell the students how they do it all, but God's Word cannot be opened without a storm, an outcry, and the call for the police?

Why would the President of the United States on February 18, 2002, in his trip to Japan, walk into a Shinto shrine, bow down himself, and clap his hands to the rousing of a demon, a Shinto demon and not to wake up the demon in the Shinto shrine?

How can these things be? And not mention the name of Jesus anymore in public. And a mandate come forth just in the last week, not necessarily from him, not sure where it comes from, that all preachers in public should not close their prayers in the name of Jesus.

Is anyone awake? Is anyone hearing? Is there any discernment? Rick Warren's book on the purpose-driven church and now the purpose-driven life, both have become bestsellers. And seminars such as this are taking place in the Saddleback Church in California.

And 300 ,000 pastors have been through those seminars to learn the secret of the purpose-driven church, how to go home. And as the one book describes it, this little church went to market. Learn how to take your little church to market and market its benefits for the world and adapt it so everybody will want it.

How can that be? How can... Released here about two weeks ago, this is new and fresh, Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, has been issued federal funds, our taxpayer's money, to launch a one million dollar program to ease strained relations with the Muslims with an interfaith code of ethics.

For Theological Seminary's proposed code would ask members of the interfaith to refrain from making offensive statements about the other, affirm a mutual belief in one God, and prohibit proselytizing over a two year span of the project.

Well, some Muslim leaders who have already begun participating in the initiative said they were delighted by the four program. We are changing the course away from accusation and poisoning the well of relations to what can develop into a project in the service of God.

Exercising Discernment Through Spiritual Maturity

Now, let us go back to our scriptures. If we go back to Hebrews chapter five, we want to emphasize a few things in the word of God there today. Everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.

But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised. Now, that simply means, as I understand it, that you cannot say I'm not going to go into it.

I don't want to get into all that doctrinal stuff. I don't want to decide. It's probably just going to cause a lot of strife and trouble in my fellowship, in my family, in my relatives, in my friends.

And I don't want to go into it. I don't want to decide. So Lord, I'm going to let you judge. But the Bible says here that what will bring spiritual maturity into your heart and life is if you have your senses exercised to discern.

And that simply means you're going to have to go into it and make a decision. Or you will stay ignorant and you will stay undiscerning and you will stay unknowing and you will not be able to discern when things get much worse.

And so, what this Scripture is telling us is that you're going to have to get into it. You're going to have to get involved. And it would be my plea in this Leadership Seminar that you get involved. It's not learned overnight.

And I recognize there is such a thing as a gift of discernment in the church. And God bless that one. You know, may their number increase. And there are others that God has gifted to be an evangelist and to be other things and have another gift.

And God bless you, not everyone has to be put into one category and one gift and one expression of a gift. But my burden is that when I look at the leaders of the churches and leaders of homes and interested Christians in the defending of the faith, somehow, that somebody has to discern these things.

Discerning Good as Well as Evil

Somebody has to judge. Somebody has to get involved here. Or else, we will not exercise this gift and therefore lose it. And that's what I take the Hebrew writer to be saying here. Now, I was a bit on the negative at the beginning.

But it does say to discern both good and evil. And that's an important point that I didn't do well on on my opening perhaps, but we do not, cannot only allow ourselves to discern what is evil, but we must also discern the good and discern the right and discern the blessed and bring men and women to it.

It's not enough to curse the darkness. We also have to bless the light. And lift it up. And praise God in it. All those things that are exceedingly necessary likewise in the day, in our day. And I'm sure that, as you well know, it's an easy rut to fall into because of all the things that are happening in our day, you know.

And we can't keep up. We can't even keep up to try to warn and discern about some of these things that take place under our noses. We see what's happening. We see what's going on, you know. And so it kind of draws you to continue to do that concerning the negative.

But I'd like to say and encourage various ones of us and I think Brother Denny is going to do that. I think that's where his and mine are going to offset each other a little bit this week. I think he's going to start talking about the faith and he's going to discern what is good and what is right and what is just and what is lovely and begin to lift up those doctrines and those teachings and those practices that are real.

He introduced it already this morning and what true holiness is and what righteousness is and those types of things that fit into that part of the message. So hopefully we'll balance each other on that.

But I would also just like to put a plug in for that. There is a possibility and a great danger, brethren, that we can fall into a slump here of a critical spirit. And we don't have anything to offer.

We don't have a church. We don't have a family of God. We don't have a body of believers or brotherhood or anything. And we're out there just picking everything apart that comes down the pike, you know.

And that's not good either. If we're going to condemn what's going on, and it has to be done, it has to be exposed, it has to be revealed, I believe. But then also we're going to have to give a picture of the way it ought to be.

And we're going to have to have some examples of bodies of believers that can get along with one another and that can sustain the onslaught of the world and that can have purity and holiness and godly young people and beautiful marriages and the joy of the Lord being the strength of the congregation and the service on Sunday morning.

And there's one beautiful thing, believers, baptism and shouts of joy and all those things that permeate the church of Jesus Christ. Those pictures also have got to be shown or we'll dry ourselves up and fall into a cynical, critical spirit which God warns us against.

Likewise. So let us balance all these things and be careful because I really, I enjoy that. Wonderful. You know, we just had a baptism here last Sunday of, I forget, about 13 or so. And what a joy that is.

In the middle of the winter, to be able to see those souls take their stand and come out of the water and their faces are all aglow and everybody's over there hugging them and blessing them and all those things.

And I tell you, I'll take that any day alongside of all these other things. But we've got to have those things happening and we have to have the church of Jesus Christ being triumphant. Now there won't be many, but there's going to be some.

And I want to be a part of them. I want to cast my lot in with those. I want to visit them. If I don't have them where I am, then I'm going to go visit them somewhere and I'm going to enjoy them because I want them to stimulate me and to bless me and to keep me on the right track.

Judgment Beginning at the House of God

Lest I become one who just curses the darkness or becomes cynical and sad. All right. So that's the Scripture here. Now let me just go back and comment a little bit on some of the others if I could just reflect back on 1 Peter chapter 4 while we're back here at this part of the New Testament.

1 Peter chapter 4 that the time has come that judgment or discernment must begin at the house of God. And this is a word that Peter gave by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. And he lays that upon us.

And I believe that that is ever, ever so necessary today that the time has... High time has come that judgment and discernment and wisdom must begin at the house of God. We must be able to discern these things.

And if it first begin at us... And I think this is also talking about chastisement and correction by God and getting us back on the right track. And he's just saying if you have that kind of a judgment in the church, in the house of God, where is going to be the end of those?

What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And I emphasize that word because I recognize that that's hardly in the theology of many people today that judgment will come and severe judgment will come upon those who obey not the gospel.

Discerning the Signs of the Times

He doesn't say just those who never believed it, but also those who don't obey it. And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Now if we go back to Matthew chapter 16 and look at look at the discerning the signs of the times.

And this is a very interesting portion of Scripture. It's also in Mark, also in Luke where Jesus rebuked them for the fact that they can understand morning red. They can understand or as we did, evening red.

When I grew up, my father, he was very good at that. He was a farmer. And I grew up on a farm and I learned those things right alongside of him. By the time I was 15 years of age, I remember so clearly, I was able to discern the weather almost as good as he was.

And they worked. You can understand those things. You understand the sun dog. And we'd see the ring around the moon at night, you know, in the winter time and count the stars if there was one or two inside and figure out about how many days until it's going to snow.

And those things, a lot of times they hit right on. And you can discern those things. And Jesus did not rebuke that, did not refute that. That isn't true. He's saying you're able to do this. But he's saying how is it that you don't discern the signs of the times?

Don't you know where you're living? Don't you know what's happening? Don't you know what's going on? And believe me, they had the shepherds that appeared on the hillside about 30 years before and had said, peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

And they never discerned what all was going on. And they had John the Baptist just a short time before baptizing the wilderness. A prophet, I tell you, if there ever was a prophet, he was a prophet. There was no man ever born greater than John the Baptist.

And that man got up and he prophesied and he said God's going to thoroughly purge his floor. And he's going to gather the wheat into the barn and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. And many other things he said when he prophesied.

And yet here he was. And they weren't hearing. And they weren't believing. And they weren't changing their ways. And that was the burden of that. That you can discern the signs of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.

The Eye, the Lord's Table, and Self-Judgment

You cannot discern the signs of the times. Well, just a few other scriptures that I would like to bring in here at the beginning. Luke chapter 11 has some foundations for discernment. And then we'll go in through the week and look at some of the individual tools and identify them and try to encourage them.

But here in Luke chapter 11 verse 34 the Bible says, the light of the body is the eye. Therefore, when the eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light. And when the eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.

It's amazing to me how much a man can learn about a Ford car or a Chevy car or a pickup truck. If they have their interest and they're focused in that and they want to buy one and they're looking at all the models and they're studying the magazines and all the descriptions of it and they're looking at them in the lots and they're watching everyone that goes by them on the road and how much they can learn about those things.

I mean, they know the rear end ratio and they know exactly how these things work and exactly what their weak points are and their strong points and all this thing and they can learn all that stuff. They can discern that just as easy as can be, it seems like that.

But because their eye is on that model and it's a foolishness many times, really, just stop and think. The old Ford Chevy thing has been going on and the arguments as to which is better as long as I live and it probably will continue.

But you know, it matters so much more, probably as when the day that the thing was put together, if a guy left the bearing fall or bumped the crankshaft or somehow put a dint in it or something like that and then the thing is a lemon for you and then you blame the whole caboodle about it.

You know, and then if you happen to get a good one and everything runs good and you'll buy nothing but that the rest of your life. You know, that's the way we are. But the Bible says here, if the light of the body is the eye and the idea is there, if your eye is single and you look at that thing and you focus on that thing, your whole body shall be full of light.

And that's the way it is with truth. That's the way it is with God. That's the way it is with Christ. That's the way it is with righteousness. But if your eye is evil, if your eye happens to be looking for the evil, then your whole body will be full of darkness.

The same principle will stand for that. And so if you want to be discerning, again, you don't have to study all the counterfeits. Study the real one. Know what it is. And then when these counterfeits show up, you'll say, I don't know.

I haven't checked it all out. But something don't smell right. Something don't seem right here. This don't seem like what I have known all my years that I've studied Christianity. And you could walk into a vineyard Toronto church and you'd barf.

You ought to. There are many other things similar to it. Not just that singling out that one. You understand there. 1 Corinthians 11 tells us, verse 29, He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.

For this cause, uh oh, here we have an answer. Here we have a discernment. Take notice. For this cause, many are weak and sickly among you. And many have fallen asleep in their Christian life. Their discernment.

Their judgment. Their understanding. For if we would judge ourselves, we wouldn't have to be judged. Oh my. What a mouthful. If we would just judge ourselves, we wouldn't have to be judged. You want to escape the judgment of God when you will stand before Him and be judged for your works, whether they be good or whether they be bad?

You can have that now if you allow it to happen. But so many times, you know, our walls go up. Our touch-me-not attitudes go up. And we don't want that. That hurts. And we don't want to do it. But God be merciful to us if we will only judge ourselves by the same judgment that will be given in that day is already here.

Jesus said, My words shall judge Him at the last day. My words shall judge Him. And we already have them. You don't have to wonder what's going to come at the end. Did you know that? You ex-Amishmen along with myself and Hutterites and what have you who are always told, well, it's just like you never can tell to the end and you're not sure whether God's going to accept you or reject you, and you always tremble about standing before God as to whether you would be accepted or rejected.

Distinguishing, Testing, and Proving What Is True

And here we understand that we can know now whether we are accepted or rejected of God because we already have the words of Jesus in His written word, in His book. Alright, maybe we have time yet to look at the word discern.