Discernment in a World of Deception

James 1:16–17 and the Call to Be Not Deceived

Alright, so we're going to begin this morning back in the book of James. So if you have your Bibles, turn to James chapter 1. And we're going to read verses 16 and 17, and then we're going to pray. James 1.

James 1. We have gone through the first 15 verses. I've been here for several weeks now, and we've been going verse by verse through this. And I've been taking it really slow, and we're going to continue to go really slow, because there's no use in rushing.

We want to stop and mind the text as best we can. Get as much out of it as we can in each time. So today we're going to read verses 16 and 17. Chapter 1. James 1, verse 16. No, you're fine. You're good.

I can write beside you.

Alright.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Alright, we're going to stop there and we'll pray.

Father, I thank You for Your Word. I thank You for the truth of the Word. I pray that this morning as a group of men dive into the Word, I pray that You would first and foremost keep me from error. As Lord, I know that I am a fallible man, capable of preaching error, capable of preaching that which would be unpleasing to You.

So I pray, Lord, that You would keep me back from that. Hold me back. Tie me to the posts of Scripture and do not let me stray. And I pray for the hearts of all the men that are under the sound of my voice this morning.

Lord, that You would open their hearts to understand the truth. Open their ears that they may hear. Open their eyes that they may see. Open their hearts that they may understand the truths of Your Word.

And Father, as the truth goes out this morning, Lord, if there are those among us who are bound in deception, Lord, may they be released from that. May this lesson be something that strikes at their heart.

Lord, that they would not be deceived by the world, the flesh, and the devil. And Father, that this would be a moment of enlightenment for all of us to be drawn closer to You and in closer conformity to Your Son, Jesus Christ.

And it's in His name we pray. Amen. Alright, guys. Well, so far in our study, we have been looking at what James is giving to us. And he's giving us words of wisdom. And he's reminding us to essentially stay steadfast under trials.

Remember how the book begins. This is James to the brothers that are in the dispersion, to the elect in the dispersion. That means those who had been dispersed from their homes, dispersed from their land.

They had been essentially run out of town because of their faith. These are people who are literally living a life of persecution. Something in our land, in our day, we don't know a lot about. The closest thing we get to persecution anymore is people get mad because people don't say Merry Christmas or something like that.

We get all upset because people say Happy Holidays, right? That's persecution. It's not persecution. That's not real persecution. Real persecution is the threat of the sword over in places like Iraq where they spray paint the Arabic letter N on the house of Christians and that means Nazarene.

That represents that you're a Christian and thus you are now marked out as a person in the society that's separated, that's different, that's to be persecuted. That really happens and that's something that happens today.

People are dying for their faith today. Just this last week, a missionary trying to take the gospel into a land that was an unreached tribe. He was shot with an arrow and killed. So it does happen. It's real.

And that's what was happening in the first century. There was real persecution. There was real attempt at life taking. There was real imprisonment going on. The Apostle Paul, what was he doing before he became the Apostle Paul?

He was going around trying to arrest and imprison Christians. He held the jackets of the men who stoned Stephen, the first Christian martyr. So we know there was real persecution that was happening in the first century.

And so James is writing to these people who are persecuted and he's calling for certain things. First he's calling for joy in persecution and trials. Take joy when you have trials of various kinds, knowing that your trials produce patience and patience produces maturity.

He calls them to have wisdom. If you lack wisdom, ask God who gives the wisdom. He tells them to trust God and not blame God. Remember we talked about who do we blame in our trials? People want to say it's God's fault or they want to point to God.

And what does James tell us? That when you're tempted, do not say, I've been tempted by God because God doesn't tempt anyone. It's from the flesh, it's from you that the temptation comes. Not from God.

God may give you an opportunity to do good, but the desire to do bad is from within yourself. It's not like, what was that guy who said, the devil made me do it?

Flip Wilson.

The devil made me do it? No. James doesn't even allow for that. Sure, the devil is a tempter, but the desire to do evil comes from you. It comes from within. It comes from the flesh. And so we have these encouragements from James to have joy, wisdom, trust, and not blaming in our trials.

Discernment as the Unwillingness to Be Deceived

We come now to verse 16, and he says something that I think still applies to the same context. He says, do not be deceived. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. And so we're going to talk about today something that I'm sure you've heard this word, especially if you've been here for any length of time.

I'm sure other preachers have talked about it. And I don't know what you guys get to hear on a daily basis, so I have to assume some certain things. I may be wrong, but I'm sure that some of you have heard the word discernment.

What is discernment? Okay, say that again. Please, say that out loud.

The difference between right and almost right.

Ha ha, you got it.

You beat me. Because a lot of people think discernment is the difference between right and wrong.

Right?

But you know who said the difference between right and almost right? You know who said that?

Yeah, you guys are the best.

You just added a sermon on this. Well, hopefully I'll say a few things that are a little different. That's okay though. You know what's good about that though? If I'm saying the same thing another guy said, or at least a similar thing that somebody else has said, not only is it important, but it also shows consistency, and consistency is a hallmark of truth.

You know what is a hallmark of error? Inconsistency. Inconsistency shows somebody's wrong. Somebody's saying something that ain't right. So if what we're saying is consistent, that means we're maintaining a high watermark of truth.

So that's good. So yes, Charles Spurgeon did say it's not knowing the difference between right and wrong, it's knowing the difference between right and almost right. And one of the things that is conspicuously absent in modern Christianity is the idea of discernment.

I have watched as in my lifetime, and I'm almost 40 now, so I'm not terribly old, but I feel old every day. I'm getting older. But I've watched in my short lifetime a tremendous devolution, a tremendous downgrade in the level of commitment to truth-telling in the Christian faith.

It has become where you turn on the television and you're opened up to all kinds of nonsense and false teaching, and yet those people's auditoriums are filled to the brim with people who want to be taught this false nonsense.

The largest church, at least it was at one point, the largest church in America was filled in Houston. Do we know who that is? Yes, Mr. Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen's father was a preacher. His father, I believe, was part of the charismatic movement.

And Joel Osteen comes after his father, taking the reins of the ministry. First, he was production manager, I think, for his father. And then when his father passed on, he took over the preaching role.

And it came to light that he was quite a charismatic speaker. By that I mean not charismatic in the sense of the spiritual gifts, but charismatic in the sense that he was a winsome speaker. Have you ever heard him talk?

Boy! Isn't he?

He has such a way about him. And he would never offend a soul. Everything he says is,.

How great thou art.

But it's not God, it's you.

Right? He says, how great thou art,.

But he's talking to you. And people like that. People like to be told.

That they have all the potential.

In the world to do the greatest things in the world, and God is just rooting you on like a parent at a little league baseball game. He's just sitting in the stands.

Holding up a sign that says,.

You're my boy.

And that's the thing.

The world wants that. The world wants to be convinced of its own greatness. Every person wants to be the star.

Of their own show.

That's what Facebook is. Facebook is your show that you get to produce every day with your photographs. Like people really care what you eat. But you take a picture of what you eat.

You put it on Facebook.

Right? You take a picture of what you wore today. Like anybody cares what you wore today. You take a picture of what you wore.

You put it on Facebook.

You become the star of your show. You become the most important person to your 15 followers on Twitter because every time you post something, they like it and they share it. And you become the most important person in your world.

And we have a narcissistic society.

Where everything is about me.

And everything is about.

Building myself up.

And building my own brand. And it's all about me. And people like Joel Osteen feed that. I read part of his book.

I was in Walmart.

I wouldn't buy it,.

But I was in Walmart.

Waiting on my wife one day.

And his book was sitting on the shelf.

It was for sale in Walmart. So I pick up his book.

I open up his book.

First chapter of the book.

I open up.

I start reading.

And it said,.

God is so involved in your life and He wants the best for you in every single thing possible. In fact, you have to know this. God wants you to have the very best parking space at work. God wants you to have the very best parking space at work.

And so that's the mindset.

Of the whole book.

Was this idea that it's all about your growth and your best and you having your best life now. Why am I talking about Joel Osteen? Because there is no discernment in a world that makes his book.

A number one best seller.

There's no discernment in a world that makes the shack a number one best seller. You all know what the shack is?

Alright.

It burns real well. I don't burn books, but I burn them with words. I say, don't read that. I taught on the Trinity last night. The shack is an awesome representation of a false view of the Trinity. If you want a misunderstanding of God, read the shack.

If you want a misunderstanding of God, read Joel Osteen. If you want a misunderstanding of God, read Kenneth Copeland. If you want a misunderstanding of God, well, just go down the list of all these at Creflo Dollar.

So perfectly named. The only one better named than him is Frederick Price. There's two guys, Creflo Dollar and Freddie Price. Years ago, I had a home Bible study in my house and I said, there's so much false teaching in the world, I could turn my television on right now, turn to a Christian station, and I can guarantee you that we'll see.

I had like ten Christian stations. I had a satellite, so I had like several Christian stations.

I said, I tell you,.

I can guarantee you that we'll find false teaching on at least one of them. There's so much false teaching in the world, we can find it. All I have to do is turn the television on. Nah, yeah it is. I turned the television on.

The first person to come up was Frederick K. Price. And if you don't know who that is, he's a health and wealth preacher. And Freddie Price, he goes by Freddie, so Freddie Price was expressing how he had just bought a Maserati.

Maserati is a very famous, very fantastic automobile. He had just purchased a Maserati. And Freddie Price said this,.

He said,.

Some of you got a problem.

With my new Maserati.

Some of you think I don't need.

To have such an expensive car, but I will tell you this, I put $10 ,000 in the offering plate this morning. And if you can't match my offering, you don't need to talk about my car.

I don't know where, well, from the people I'm sure.

It doesn't do any good.

If it comes right back to you, right? Yeah, the pastor who's celebrating his offerings, who's getting them back in offerings, it's not really that big a deal.

But what gets me is,.

The people's mouth in my Bible said, just opened up. They couldn't imagine somebody so brazen to say such an obviously false thing. And yet the audience is going, whoo-hoo!

Justify!

The Christian church in America is nursing the muzzle of its own gun because we're begging for it. People often say a false teacher.

Is a curse.

I say no, a false teacher is a judgment because the Bible says that the people wanted that, that their ears were itching and the guy coming along to scratch it just gave them what they wanted. The people that are sitting and listening to Joel Osteen are not victims.

They are willing accomplices. The people who are listening to Freddie Price and who are listening to Kenneth Copeland.

Who's got the billion. Flow,.

The people who are listening to him.

Are not victims.

They are co-conspirators. They are willing to be deceived rather than having to discern. That's hard to say. That's hard to hear.

Because you say,.

Well, I've got a cousin who's caught up in that. Yes, but they're willing to do that because deception works both ways. Deception works, there's a deceiver and there's the person who's willing to be deceived.

That's right. They're willing to listen and be deceived.

Yeah.

So we talk about discernment. Discernment is the unwillingness.

To be deceived.

That's the definition that I'll give you today. Discernment is the unwillingness.

To be deceived.

You remember when Paul went to Berea in the book of Acts? Paul preached the Gospel to the Bereans. And you know what the Bible calls the Bereans? What word? You just said it.

Noble.

And why are they called noble? Because they searched...

Go ahead.

They searched for the truth that Paul was preaching.

That's right.

It says they searched the Scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true. It says the Bereans were more noble than those in Thessalonica because they searched the Scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was the truth.

They were willing to even question the Apostle Paul. They were willing to put even the teaching of Paul.

Up to the Scripture.

And saying,.

Does this qualify as truth?

Is he contradicting the Word of God or is he in agreement with the Word of God? Because that's the truth, brother. Here's the thing. If you don't say something that is in line with the Word of God when you're preaching, you're preaching false.

They say, well, that's such an obvious thing to say.

Yeah, but we still got to say it.

Because there's guys out there just going off the rails and it's happening all around us. I want to just point to two quick Scriptures for you. Philippians 1, verses 9 -11. Philippians 1, 9 -11. This is the Apostle Paul writing.

Philippians 1 says this.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve.

What is excellent.

And so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. It's my prayer that you will abound more and more with knowledge and discernment.

Knowledge and discernment.

So that you can approve what is excellent. See, what do we say discernment is? Discernment is being able to define or identify that which is false, but it's also being able to prove that which is true.

So discernment goes both ways. You identify what's untrue and you approve what is true. As an elder in the church, I serve with four of the ministers,.

Five of us total.

Every one of us has a responsibility to listen to what is being taught and to respond to what is being taught and to talk to one another about what is being taught. In fact, several times throughout the year as I'm writing sermons, I'll come to a difficult passage.

And I'll say in myself,.

I'll say this is a difficult passage. Before I preach it, I'm going to send out a note to my other elders.

And I'm going to ask,.

Men, where do you stand on this passage and why? Why does that matter? Because I need to know that what I'm saying is the truth and I can easily make a mistake. And the Bible says in the presence of many counselors, there is wisdom.

So you say, you don't trust the Holy Spirit inside of you?

I don't trust me.

I trust the Holy Spirit,.

But I know that I can mess up. And I know that I can easily be caught up in bias.

I can easily be caught up in anger and say something I shouldn't say or go in a direction I shouldn't go. I can easily malign the truth. And so I'm thankful that I have a wall of protection around me.

Godly men who if I send it out and all of them write back to me and say, brother, I think you're off the rails here, I can feel pretty confident I've gone off the rails. Who in your life would be willing to tell you if you've gone off the rails?

Who helps you with your discernment? Who helps you avoid the evil.

And look to the good?

Who helps you know the difference between right and almost right? As a pastor, I preach every week to our church, and I try to help them understand the difference between right and almost right. I try to help them understand the difference between what we should be avoiding and what we should be pursuing.

But I only get 30 -45 minutes with them on Sunday morning, maybe an hour if I preach a little long. I don't see them the rest of the week. I'm constantly involved with my elders, the five men that we all serve together.

I'm constantly involved with them. And my prayer is that they are constantly involved with the rest of the church and the deacons and everyone else because everybody needs that. We need to have men and women in our lives, men specifically for men,.

To be accountable to.

You know how cult leaders rise up? A lack of accountability. That is exactly right. They rise up to a point where they cannot be questioned. That's why Kenneth Copeland is who he is. He's at a point where nobody questions him.

He can see he saw Jesus in a dress and everybody is like, Oh Lord! It wouldn't matter what he said. He's beyond question. Anytime you consider yourself to be beyond question, to be beyond reproof, you have set yourself up as your own God.

You've made an idol of self. And it's a dangerous place to be. Discernment begins with yourself. You've got to be willing to be corrected. You've got to be willing to have someone tell you, No, that's not right.

And not get mad just because someone does. You get mad when somebody tells you no? Sometimes. Thank you for your honesty. I don't like it either. I especially don't like it when I've done a lot of study about something and I turn around and they all say, You missed the boat.

Man, that feels bad.

And I say, I spent 40 hours.

Yeah, but you took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

Remember Bugs Bunny?

Took a wrong turn way back here and as a result, all the rest of this is no good. Are you willing to be corrected? James says, Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. But the first step to not being deceived is the realization that you could be.

The first step to not being deceived is realizing that you can be deceived. In fact, you are willing to be deceived if it satisfies something of your flesh. In fact, one of my professors used to say it this way.

He said, there is no one who is so blind as the one who chooses not to see. There's no one who is so blind than the one who chooses not to see. We have to be discerning. And we have to be willing to be corrected.

That's me too.

I hate it.

I hate it when I'm wrong. And I say, I'm a man. You may think I'm some pious gasbag.

I'm not.

I'm a man and I have problems just like other men. And one of the problems I have is ego. I didn't get an amen one out of that.

I didn't get an affirmation.

You all are the pious ones.

Thank you.

My sense of self, if I am attacked, it's so easy. It's so easy to respond in frustration. I don't like it. And yet, some of the most blessed things I've ever had in my life was correction by godly men.

Well, I still have a friend. We used to be closer. I considered him very much a mentor in my walk. And I was a youth leader. And he was a man from another church.

But we were very close.

And I chose to take a group of youth to see a film. And it wasn't a Christian film. It was just a movie. I said, we're going to go out and go to a movie, right? I didn't do any research beforehand. I didn't know anything about the movie.

Yeah, I just thought, hey, we're going to go to a movie. I was very young and very dumb. And so we went. And during the movie, I was like, boy, this is a lot more off-color than I thought. But I didn't do anything.

I just sat there. And then we went home. One of the young men who went with us was this man's son, who was also my friend. I sort of meet in the middle of age. His son was in his teens. And I was in my 20s.

And the dad was in his 50s. So we were sort of middle there. And so I went, took him home, took all the kids home from the youth. Not a lot was said. I asked the kids, what did you think of the movie?

A few days later, I get a phone call. Keith, can I talk to you?

Yeah.

He said, I did a Google search on this movie. And I pulled up the family page. I don't know if you've ever seen the family guidelines pages. But they talk about movies and how many bad words are used, how many innuendos are made, how many naughty scenes are in the movie.

And he said, Keith, he said, I can't believe you took my son to see this movie. And at first, I thought, how dare he?

Because that was my flesh, right?

My flesh. The immediate response to the flesh was what? Why would you question me? Yeah, I was very defensive, very angry. But then he said, but Keith, I've just read the review of the movie. And these are the things that happened.

Why wouldn't you leave?

I literally, I sat down and a tear came to my eye. One, because I knew he was right. But two, because I never thought to leave. Why didn't I get up and leave the movie? Why did I collect my, huh?

Maybe your flesh really wanted to see it.

Maybe it did. Maybe I was embarrassed. Maybe I just didn't even think that as a possibility. But in that moment, when that guy was challenging me, my first thought was anger. But then when it hit me that I had done wrong, it was like a wave of shame.

And then another wave of realization of what had happened. And then finally it was just repentance. Brother, you're right. I shouldn't have done that. That was a foolish thing to do. And if I was the man that I want to be, I would have gotten up and I would have taken all those kids out of there and we would have left.

You know, darn the movie price, darn the ticket price, whatever. We should have just walked away. But I didn't. You say, what's this got to do with discernment? Well, I didn't show much discernment in the movie.

But also, when I was unwilling to show discernment in the movie, I was also offended when somebody pointed that out.

That you was wrong?

I was offended that he attacked me first. But then I realized I was wrong. Thankfully, I didn't stay offended. Thankfully, I didn't stay angry. Thankfully, I was willing to be moved by his love for me.

Because here's something that you have to understand. The only people in life who love you are the people who are willing to be honest with you. The people in your life who don't love you will always tell you what you want to hear.

Because they don't care enough to do any different. The people in your life who are the most loving to you will always tell you when you've hurt them. They'll tell you when you've hurt yourself. And they'll tell you when the things in your life are ungodly and unwise and need to change.

And we live in a society today where everybody's a victim and no one's a villain. We live in a society where everybody wants to be the hero of their own story. And the hero can't be questioned. We have to be willing to be able to be questioned.

Everybody. That's me included. Again, when I preach, I preach to myself first. Am I willing to be corrected? Are you? Absolutely. Absolutely. And so Paul says, do not be deceived, my brothers. Do not be deceived.

Every Good and Perfect Gift Comes From the Unchanging Father

And so, he goes on then in verse 17. And you may think these two don't go together, but they do. He says, do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.

Coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. How do those two go together? Understand this when you're trying to make discernment. Understand this. The good and the wholesome and the righteous come from God.

What's the opposite of that then? If every good and perfect gift comes from God, every evil and bad thing does not. And so we have to be able to discern the difference between the two.

What is our goal?

Our goal is to pursue the good. Our goal is to pursue God. In fact, in English, the word good is actually derived from the word God. People don't realize that, but that's where the word good comes from.

It's a derivative of the word God. So that which is good is that which is God. Every good and perfect thing comes from God.

Yes, sir?

When I ask God for something, I need to say it in the name of Jesus because Satan will be listening too. He can send you something you think is from God, but it's really not.

That's right.

One of my professors used to say this sort of like what Spurgeon said. He said Satan will always give you something good if it keeps you from getting what God's best is for you. Satan will always give you something good if it keeps you from getting what God's best is for you.

Because we're so willing to take the good if we think it's something that is what's right, if it's not what God wants. And our flesh loves to be satisfied. Our flesh loves to be satisfied. So do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. This is a reminder of our blessings. All people, all people receive blessings from God in some way or another.

What does the Bible say about the rain? It falls on the just and the unjust, right? The rain doesn't just fall on believers' houses or believers' crops. It falls on everybody's crops, right? But believers, Christians, those who have come to Jesus Christ by faith receive a special type of blessing from God, a special type of grace.

No one can say he's not been an object of God's divine kindness. But God's disposition is one of love to us all, and yet his followers receive a special type of blessing. And again, I've not sat with every one of you.

I don't know where you are in your walk. I don't know if you're a believer or if you're a non-believer where you are in all of this. I hope that by being here, you've at least been confronted with the truth and confronted with the Gospel.

But the reality is this, even if you're not a believer in here this morning, I hope one day you will. I hope today you will become a believer. But even if you're not, you have received some kind of blessing from God.

You've received some kind of grace from the hand of God. He is the Father of lights. He is the Father of truth. He is the Father of grace. And He has given grace to all people. He is giving blessings to us.

But the greatest blessing He gives is through His Son, Jesus Christ. And there's only a certain amount of blessings that we get before we come to Christ. We don't get all of God's blessings outside of Christ.

The Search for the Historic Jesus and the Lordship of Christ

You say, what is all this talking about? What are you trying to drive at? One of the most important aspects of discernment is the discernment of who is Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? Because if you don't have discernment on that, everything else is going to be wrong.

Back at the beginning of the 20th century, the early 1900's, after the Enlightenment period, there was a time where within the church, there was a growth in something called liberalism. Yep, testify. There was a growth in liberal theology.