Spirit of God, or of Antichrist? | 1 John 4:1-2

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church

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Go ahead and turn with me in your Bibles to 1st John chapter 4 verse 1 1st

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John chapter 4 verse 1 We'll read verses 1 through 3 today

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God's Word says Beloved do not believe every spirit But test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world

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By this, you know the Spirit of God every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God and Every spirit that does not confess

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Jesus is not from God This is the spirit of the Antichrist of which you have heard that it is coming and now it is already in the world

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Amen So Today's sermon as you can see from the title spirit of God or of Antichrist Is we're going to continue.

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I'm going to continue to build from last week on the subject of discernment and we're going to examine discernment and what it is and how to apply it and all those things and Particularly in verses 1 through 2 and I may not get a chance to cover much of verse 3 today but and I also wanted to bring this to your attention that I Guess the first public service announcement for today whenever I read scripture.

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I would encourage you to follow along with your own Bibles Because as you all are aware

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Who have heard my preaching before I tend to add my my own commentary sometimes so it's good for you to know what is

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Actually the scripture and when it's my own Commentary that I'm adding to it.

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I try to make that clear, but it may not always be that clear So it's just best to follow along with your own

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Bibles now Last week.

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I mentioned that the word spirits here the word spirit in these verses

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Does not refer to angels and demons but to men Right it refers to men either men who are from God They are from God And I need to clarify that I said that there are men who are either inspired by God or the devil but by inspired

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I did not mean that They're inspired in the canonical author sense that they wrote scripture or that they you know that God Continues to Reveal himself scripture the way he did back then that's not what

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I meant I was mainly referring to the fact that these men who are from God believe

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God and they follow him and so Why because they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the has come in the flesh?

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so That's that's the one side of it on the other hand

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It can also refer to men who are not from God But instead are

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Antichrist because they do not confess Jesus like verse 3 says Right they deny him

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They deny him speaking perverse things instead like Acts 20 says now

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And in and I could have I should have probably mentioned this verse too But Jesus said he who is not with me is against me

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So if you do not confess Jesus by default you are against him you are denying him There is no middle ground with Christ.

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You can't say oh well You know I don't have a problem with God or with your God or the God of the Bible I don't have a problem with him.

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I just don't I choose not to believe in that Well, Jesus said you are against him So that is a very black and white

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Issue there that John is presenting to us either you come from God or you come from Antichrist period

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There's no other answer or option there So this this brings me to the next point of how in these verses

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Discernment We see and from from a previous week Lord's Day We saw that discernment in a sense

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Illustrates both law and gospel it illustrates both law and gospel Because it is both a command right it we are commanded to discern that is law and It is a daily daily necessity and duty that we all must practice constantly as we will see further today as well as a

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Good gracious gift from God Discernment is both of those things right it's a command. It's law, and it is a gracious gift from God.

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It is gospel gospel grace So a

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Big takeaway here from as well regarding this passage too is that?

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Discernment by necessity is Definitional to the Christian, okay, it is absolutely definitional to the

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Christian To be a Christian is to discern it is to discern

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Okay You cannot be a Christian, I'm gonna say it this way you cannot be a

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Christian unless you have some level of discernment At least some level of course we all have different levels and of maturity and spiritual growth and whatnot sure

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But you have to have discernment at some level Because that's what

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God gives us when he saves us so Discernment is not the only thing

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It's not the only thing that there is to the Christian life obviously there's more. There's a lot more to it

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But it is nevertheless Basic it is basic definitional and foundational to the

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Christian life Especially especially in our time and day in context

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Lord help us there are so many false teachings and false teachers Who do not come from God in our day and age

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I? Mean back then there were many false prophets and many Antichrists which John and the

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Apostles warned about But how much worse is it now? There's so many varieties of false teachings now iniquity has increased in many ways so Ask yourselves this then

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How can you avoid sin and? live righteously without discerning right from wrong or good from evil

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How can you how can you even know what sin is and what?

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Righteousness is without discerning What they are what? Good and evil are what right and wrong are

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You can't that's why I said in part that you cannot be a Christian unless you have some level of discernment you have to you have to and We we should always be growing in our discernment and in the exercise thereof

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Here's another another question. How can you be saved? How can you be saved?

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Without discerning the truth of the gospel and repenting of the false substitutes that you formerly held to Misunderstandings, whatever they may have been ignorance rejection of the true gospel

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How can you be saved without discerning? the truth From the lie from what is false

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You cannot I'll raise you another one How can you know thyself?

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Like Calvin said and the Bible says how can you know thyself?

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How can you know your true self? your thoughts your motives your

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Intents of the heart like scripture says how can you be self -aware?

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Without discerning the false Layers the masks the facades the biases that cloud your own judgment that very often can cloud our judgment

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How can you? After all Testing every spirit which first John for commands us to do and first Thessalonians, right?

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Testing every spirit includes testing your own spirit Whether it is from God your own selves

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Right. You can't forget that We can't forget about our own spirit.

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Do you come from God or from Antichrist? You can't know the difference unless you have discernment very important to understand because Discernment is the mirror

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Discernment is the mirror that allows us to see who we really are

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It's a mirror You know how you see that the Word of God teaches us the law

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Shows us our sin. It's a mirror and That's exactly right

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Discernment helps us to apply the law to ourselves and show us that we fall completely short of God's perfect perfection and standards we are sinners

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Guilty in Adam and by virtue of our own personal sin It's a mirror discernment is a mirror

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Allows us to see more clearly Who we are who others are? Whether they are from God whether we are from God or not, so then it should go without saying that discernment is and must be a

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Fundamental priority in our lives for each and every one of us not just for pastors not just for teachers

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Not it's for everybody everybody needs discernment a

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Christian's maturity spirituality and Growth is measured in large part by his or her discernment

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That is one way that we can measure ourselves and Seeing how we have grown

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It's discernment Again not exclusively, but it is a major major Priority according to Scripture and Should reflect be reflected in our own lives so the next question that you all might be wondering and Dying to ask is how then do we grow in our discernment?

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How do we grow in discernment in our ability to test each and every spirit?

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including ourselves and for that I have very good news beloved because The the

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Lord has some awesome Gospel promises for us in His Word if we turn with me to Hebrews chapter 4 verse 9

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I want us to be encouraged and to take comfort in these

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Verses Hebrews chapter 4 verse 9 in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 9

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God's Word speaks For there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from his therefore

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Let us be diligent to enter that rest Lest anyone fall into the same example of disobedience for the

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Word of God Listen carefully for the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword and piercing as far as a division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and able to judge the heart the thoughts and intentions of the heart and there is no creature hidden from his sight

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God Sights, but all things are uncovered and laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we have an account to give

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Amen so This is a very powerful passage and word from God What helps us to discern is the word the word itself is?

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What discerns it discerns us it discerns truth from error? Soul and spirit joints and marrow thoughts and intentions the

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Word of God helps us to discern Just like the law of God shows us our sin.

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That is our answer the Word of God Okay, so now the next question that may naturally flow from this is how did how does the

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Word of God strengthen our discernment? How does that work, how does that dynamic work well

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Turn with me to the next chapter in Hebrews 5 Hebrews chapter 5 gives us some more insights into how this works pay attention here to the very

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Explicit correlations with respect to discernment and the

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Word of God So Hebrews chapter 5 chapter 5 will begin in verse 9

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God speaks and having been made perfect He Christ that is became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation

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Being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek Concerning him

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Melchizedek that is we have much to say and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing

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I Wonder why that is For though by this time you ought to be teachers

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You have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God And you have come to need milk and not solid food for everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to what to the word of righteousness

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For he is an infant He is a babe But solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern both good and evil

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Amen Right. It's very clear here. This is very clear and this is from the

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LSB the legacy standard Bible, but you can see how

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God's Word repeatedly Instructs us and commands us and shows us the importance of having proper discernment and rebukes us when we lack it

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It rebukes us When we lack it There's something wrong

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With us if we lack discernment so That is very important to bear in mind here

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You'll you'll see that in a verse 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness

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They because they cannot digest it properly. They can't stomach it. They cannot understand it

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They cannot understand it because they do not have discernment For he is an infant

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He does not have The discernment required to understand the deep things of God the solid food of the word of righteousness and then in in verse 14

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It's very clear there as well solid food is for the mature who because of practice Constant practice have their senses their spiritual judgment their intellectual capacity and knowledge to judge good and evil train train

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Exercise refine built up well developed to discern to discern to distinguish

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Both good and evil. I like how the

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ESV renders verse 14 It says but solid food is for the mature for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice

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Constant practice to distinguish good from evil It's constant This passage is very clearly telling us that those of us who are mature

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Constantly practice and exercise discernment and there's a different word used here

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From 1st John the the word here is the accuracy in the accuracy and This word very similarly closely related to the other word in 1st

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John the doki Mazda Doki Mazda and so here

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It has a sense of judicial estimation judicial estimation

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To have sound judgment and to make sound judgments by distinguishing good from evil rightly

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Okay So another public service announcement here a

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Foundational principle for us to consider discernment and Sound judgment are closely related in Scripture very closely related.

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They go hand in hand and frequently overlap They frequently overlap each other

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Well We test We test we discern and inspect every spirit every person as 1st

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John 4 1 says in order to in order to do what in order to Judge whether they are from God or whether they are from Antichrist That's what discernment is for It enables us to judge rightly the source

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Do you come from God or do you come from? the devil

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That is very clear in Scripture and You'll hear people say

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Oh judge not lest you be judged and that people people just twist Scripture Left and right and have no idea what they're talking about.

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No idea Judge not lest you be judged God I'm gonna read a verse from the words of the mouth of Christ himself that contradicts that misunderstanding of that passage the

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Bible clearly teaches us to discern and to judge to discern in order to judge rightly

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How? Well, how do we judge? How do we judge the spirits rightly?

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Well, we have to ask ourselves. What do they believe? What do they believe or More more

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From our vantage point, what do they confess? Because we may not always know what people believe people might be hypocrites.

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They might be you know, masking their true intents like the Pharisees What do they confess out of the out of the mouth and out of the heart comes out

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Who you really are? What do they confess? Which reveals what they believe right so Do they confess

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Christ who has come in the flesh and his doctrine or not?

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That's the that's one of the basic questions it's not the only question of course

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Because there are people who confess that Christ has come in the flesh Jehovah's Witnesses confess it

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Mormons confess it but they have a completely different false Antichrist Christ That's not what

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John is getting at here. Do they have the right? Christ and the right doctrine of Christ Just as Christ himself commands all of us

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Not to judge according to appearance According to mere appearance but to judge with righteous judgment

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Righteous judgment with discerning judgment discerning judgment and that word judge is

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Green at that it's a similar word to the word that Hebrews 5 uses the accuracy the accuracy their same basic words

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Very closely related here the word Though the word judge is to evaluate

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It is to evaluate to form a critical opinion of something either positive or negative by examination or scrutiny

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Or in other words by discernment by discerning it which brings me to My next public service announcement

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You cannot therefore judge Righteously unless you first discern properly

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Right, you cannot judge righteously unless you discern properly otherwise, you're judging falsely or with false mere appearances and Jesus told us not to do that.

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You must judge with righteous judgment With discerning judgment, but I'll raise you

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I'll raise you another one So likewise, then you cannot you cannot understand the

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Bible Unless you know how to discern its truth consistently

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Cumulatively Systematically from all other false teachings and misinterpretations of the

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Bible Even our own false biases that may infect our reading of the

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Bible and understanding of it Which constantly surround and bombard us?

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That's why it's necessary and you can see the relation the correlation in Hebrews chapter 5

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You he who is not Mature and discernment is not even accustomed to the word of righteousness

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You can't understand it apart from discernment from the constant practice of discernment those powers of Discernment so to say it another way again

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Grasping God's Word Understanding God's Word requires discernment plain and simple.

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It requires discernment and In order to understand scripture and apply it correctly

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We must be mature in the exercise of discernment For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness because he is immature

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He is an infant. I hope we can see now how this

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The these passages expand our understanding and application of discernment

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It is required for literally everything Discernment is required for everything anything that is good pure true and holy requires discernment

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To identify it in the first place and Contrast it from the lie the error of the false the bad

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Everything pertaining to truth faith life and godliness to our sanctification to our growth in Christ is indispensable absolutely necessary so beware then

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Beware now now because a lack a lack of active consistent constant daily discernment points to and leads to a lack of Understanding it

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Points to it leads to a lack of understanding It leads to forgetting things that we may have previously learned

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If we don't exercise it Even to a lack of desire to learn and understand

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That's what the author of Hebrews was rebuking his audience for He tells them you have become dull of hearing

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You're immature even though you should have become teachers by now Because you're not practicing discernment and exercising it

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You're dull of hearing and that's a very dangerous position to be in very dangerous

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Very dangerous so the but the constant and continual

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Exercise of discernment helps us to become wise teachers Mature and knowledge and when

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I say this, I don't say well, you got to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and and You know

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Get to work Cowboy up right Now obviously there is a sense in which we have a role to play in this because it's our responsibility to Practice discernment which helps us to develop our powers of discernment

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But God's Graciousness gives us the gift of discernment and he equips us by his means and his spirit to discern rightly more and more

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Which sanctifies us as well? Discernment sanctifies us because it allows us to discern

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What's right and what's wrong truth from error? So discernment is a sanctifying means from God That's what

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Hebrews teaches us and and and several other passages it is the means

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God uses to strengthen our understanding of truth and error and to embrace truth and reject error

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To choose right from wrong to judge right from wrong God the Spirit From God and spirits from Antichrist right so So Now get this this is also important because and because discernment is also cumulative

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Discernment is cumulative It builds up it expands

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It increases our knowledge faith understanding wisdom So that you don't always have to discern everything all the time in the same way

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Right as if for the first time because it accumulates Practice helps you it helps to make perfect and it makes it easier to do

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Makes you better at it It makes you better at it

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It's it's a lot like going on a prolonged diet, right? You know, there's all kinds of fad diets

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But when you go on a prolonged diet you eventually learn what foods you can eat and To avoid right?

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Well, okay I know I shouldn't be eating chips ahoy or Oreo cookies because there's a bunch of sugar and you know preservatives in that And I need to cut down on my sugar intake because I'm on a keto diet right or whatever

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I Know I can eat these foods because they're high in fat Right you identify them and you don't have to constantly learn what they are

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That's what discernment helps us to do It helps us to build up that repertoire that knowledge of right and wrong

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That's one of God's Graces and means of grace. It's an awesome thing and likewise

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Discernment also helps us to identify To identify the solid food that is for the mature

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Like Hebrews 5 14 says right it helps us to identify the solid doctrinal food and resources

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That teach us to understand and systematize Scripture better Both in its individual parts and as a whole right

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It helps us to identify it. It helps us to that's why as a church we hold to the

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London Baptist Confession It is one of those excellent resources that are solid doctrinal food

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It helps us to digest Scripture properly

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Good theology good teachers good pastors in history and and today discernment helps us to identify them and to benefit from them and And likewise to not waste our time with with stuff.

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That is not solid food because I don't know if you've Seen heard and watched recently, but there's a whole bunch of that nonsense out there

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The world is full of churches that are not Doctrinally solid and mature but by God's grace and means we can be equipped to know the good ones from the bad ones, so So then

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Yeah, that's the that's the takeaway here don't waste your time reading listening and watching things that are not going to mature you or Accustom you to the

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Word of Righteousness We don't have time for that Okay.

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So now one of the main reasons We must have our powers of discernment trained by constant practice

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To distinguish good from evil like Hebrews 514 says is because the devil and his

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Antichrist spirit are master counterfeiters right If you recall from the series

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I preached on knowing your enemy on the devil we learned that The devil is a counterfeiter.

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He likes to imitate the truth right and so I Forgot to mention too, by the way, if you want good resources to know by all means ask we're happy to help you with that, but here is where we have to really know how to practice this ourselves because You know, not if the church won't always be there at that moment for you

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You need to be equipped to judge rightly yourself Oftentimes the errors are not so obvious to spot when it comes to discerning people or spirits like first John says and what they teach because that obviously requires a level of maturity of doctrinal discernment and maturity in order to chew to chew to discern the solid meat and spit out the bones now another

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Foundational principle here Okay, this is so important that many churches leave out and miss or deny one of the necessary necessary qualities of biblical discernment in addition to a knowledge of scripture and sound doctrine is logic

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Okay logic We have to know Logic and how to think logically

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Amen God is not the author of confusion. He is the author of truth.

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He is the God of truth and truth is Logical in order to discern biblically

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Rightly, you must know how to think logically consistently coherently

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Systematically and Agree with scripture by conforming ourselves to it in thought word and deed and that is also how you can test your understanding of scripture

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Does my understanding of this passage here contradict? Logically another passage am

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I am I so as an example we saw here from Hebrews Hebrews 9 right it says having been made perfect He Christ became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation

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Well, does that mean that we're saved by our obedience by our works? No No beloved

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You cannot interpret scripture in isolation from the rest of scripture. That's the analogy of scripture and the faith

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Our obedience doesn't save us. We have to carefully contextualize. What is being said here you can't ignore

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What even other places in Hebrew says That Christ is our

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Redeemer Who has once for all satisfied the debt of sin that we owe

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Hebrews 10 right we are saved by grace through faith and not of Works, that's how you think logically and that's how we understand scripture logically

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Putting these things together Now what is what is logic because people have different Definitions of this as well.

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So we need to understand carefully what that means Logic is the science of necessary inference.

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Okay necessary inference what that means is when you wait when you when you like Christ when he said

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Because God said I am the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob Therefore he is the

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God of the living and not of the dead when Jesus stated those words He logically deduced the in the resurrection the doctrine of the resurrection from the tense of a single verb.

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I am Right, not

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I was Not I was I am the God of Jacob. Therefore there is a resurrection

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Because Abraham Isaac and Jacob are still alive that is a the science of necessary inference

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When you make a false inference, that's how we know if it's logical When you deduce falsely that oh, we're saved by works because of that verse in Hebrews 5 9

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That's a false inference because you don't have all the information and you're not

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Understanding it in light of the context in the whole Right, so that is what we must come to understand very carefully

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And I encourage you all to check out the resources on the Trinity Foundation for more on this Lots of good stuff there.

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We need to know Logic we need to know it You know people think that it's unspiritual and all this lot

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What are you what are you getting to all this logic and how to think rightly and syllogisms and deductions? You know why because the

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Bible teaches them The Bible itself uses logical reasoning and arguments the entire

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Bible is logical It is logical and it itself exhibits the law of contradiction the most fundamental law of logic

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Because truth is logical and consistent and cannot contradict itself the law of contradiction is that a

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Cannot be both a and not a at the same time and in the same sense

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Okay, you cannot be both a dog and a cat at the same time Either you're a dog or you're a cat or you're something else

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Right. Maybe you're a fool. I don't know but Tongue -in -cheek there, but that's the idea

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We cannot the words of Scripture mean something that's what people say Oh, well scriptures the whack knows wax knows you can make it mean whatever you want.

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No, you can't No, you can't You judge You and in fact, that's what

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John is telling us How do you judge the spirits you judge if their doctrine is consistent with Scripture?

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Is it logically coherent and consistent with the Bible or does it contradict the

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Bible? Does it logically contradict the Bible? right, so This is

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What we must understand beloved to know the truth that means that we must also reject the lie and In light of this

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I want us to turn back now to first John chapter 2, which I covered some some time ago first John chapter 2 verse or verse 18

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I I think Bearing these things in mind will help this passage jump out at us even more explicitly first John chapter 2 verse 18

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God God speaks to us and says Children it is the last hour and just as you heard that Antichrist is coming even now many

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Antichrist have appeared Just like many false prophets have appeared right from this we know that it is the last hour

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They went out from us, but they were not really of us For if they were of us, they would have remained with us

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But they went out so that I would be manifested that they all are not truly of us

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But you have an anointing from the Holy One and you all know You all know

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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

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No lie is of the truth black and white plain and simple Truth and error are mutually exclusive Who is the liar?

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But the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ This is the Antichrist the one who denies the father and the son

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Everyone who denies the son does not have the father The one who that's a logical deduction by the way, if you deny the son you deny the father

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That's a necessary inference The one who confesses the son has the father also

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Also by way of deduction because if you believe what Christ taught you believe the father rightly

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As for you let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you if what you heard from the beginning abides in you

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You will also abide in the son and in the father Because you believe it by God's grace and mercy and means and this is the promise which he himself made to us eternal life

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Amen Notice again the black and white contrast it is black and white

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No lie is of the truth No lies of the truth God Antichrist God Satan Christ Antichrist table of the devil the the table of the

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Lord and the table of devils the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons Cannot have it both ways and if you claim to have remember if you claim to have both you don't have the truth

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You don't have the truth if you claim both There are many many erroneous ways of relating to God many false claims to the true

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God Many if you turn with me to Matthew chapter 7 as we begin to wrap up here

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Matthew 7 verse 13 Very important warnings that Jesus Christ himself gives us the gospel of Matthew chapter 7 verse 13 our

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Lord says enter the narrow gate For the gate is wide and the way is it broad that leads to destruction

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Because there are many false prophets teachers and So on Antichrist, right and there are many who enter through it

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For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life and there are few there are few who find it and many of these ways that are broad and narrow and lead to destruction lead to hellfire and damnation is

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They they they may seem very appealing and believable Depending on your particular weakness or propensity or personality the devil knows how to entice us the world the flesh and the devil are

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Insuperable unconquerable enemies apart from God's spirit means and so on You can't you can't defeat the the enemy without the armor of God without God and his means remember

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The devil disguises himself as an angel of light he makes himself look good and the words of the serpent sounded very good to Eve and Adam who was there by the way with Eve So, you know this bring by Recently I Came across this social media campaign.

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You all might have seen it as well. It's called near him near him him being

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God presumably And it looked very good, you know that he had all the right words and it looked very

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Christian and You know, it looked very good. But then I noticed some subtleties there That you start picking up on and this is where your discernment helps you to identify these things

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Because they had several young men In the video and they had the white shirts and the little tie and the black pants and the little pocketbook there and okay, so the

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Okay, so without even everything they said sounded good. It sounded Christian It sounded biblical, but then you start seeing there some subtleties all wait these

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I think these guys might be Mormon I think they might be Mormon and sure enough

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I start questioning them on Messaging them and say what do you are you guys

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Mormon? Oh, yeah. Well Mormon is a some angel prophet.

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He said something like that, but I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints Okay. Thank you.

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So you are a Mormon They're Mormon But you wouldn't know that if you just saw the video you wouldn't necessarily tell

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If you just saw what they said near him and there's no there's this is what's so Malicious and deceitful about their campaign.

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There's no indication that they're the church of that. They're the Mormon Church There's no website pointing to it.

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There's no nothing pointing to it They're just trying to talk about God and this and that and yeah contact us near him and it's almost like what it's like They isolated it from their

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Mormon websites Intentionally so that they can deceive people who are unsuspecting and undiscerning so This is why one of the many reasons why we must discern

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Are you able to discern these things? These kinds of situations and things because they're everywhere they hit us from every angle you cannot escape them

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Are you able to identify and discern them whether they come from God or whether they come from Antichrist Because the

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Mormon Christ is a completely false Christ the Mormon God the Father was a man who became

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God and Lucifer Satan is the brother of Jesus They have they make butchery out of the scriptures because Joseph Smith was one of the many false prophets

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Are you able to discern this thing? You know, even the example that I gave last week from the church that reformed church supposedly

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You know, it's easy to discern it when somebody has already done the work for you Right, but would you have been able to point it out yourself without me telling you you need to be honest with yourselves and and be self -aware

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Examine yourselves and Make sure that you know how to discern these things practice practice

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Obviously, we're here to help but you still have to exercise that you we cannot exercise it for you

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You exercise it yourself. You must you have to exercise it yourself This stuff is everywhere.

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And that's why Jesus said wide is the gate wide is the way that leads to destruction

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It's everywhere all around us constantly Because many false prophets have gone out into the world like first John repeatedly want scripture repeatedly warns us

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Back then that was back then how much worse is it today here and now?

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But remember beloved Constant practice makes us perfect just like practice makes perfect Constant practice makes us perfect complete and mature as We have seen like Jesus said be ye perfect.

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This helps us to become complete and mature Ask God for help and us for help and we all need to do this

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We all need to do this. But as you practice it you get better at it that's the beauty of this you get better at it and you're better able to filter things out and To not fall for the lies

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Your radar is more Keen, it's more acute to identify these errors and that's what the church is here for in part to help us sharpen each other sharpen our senses and powers of Discernment.

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Amen With that beloved. Let us go ahead and close now with a word of prayer

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Our gracious Lord and Heavenly Father. We thank you so much For your for this day.

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We ask that you would bless the preaching of your word father God that you help us to discern to discern

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The fidelity of the message Lord of the truth and the error father God and help me to make sure

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That I am properly understanding and applying and teaching your word father father help all of us to judge rightly

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What people say do? What we listen to what we watch Even what we eat father help us to discern all of these things and to discern

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The agendas behind many and of these things Lord Thank you so much for the precious truths of your word that you don't leave us out to hang

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On our own you don't leave us on our own, but you leave us You don't leave us.

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You never leave us nor forsake us you have sent us the great comforter your advocate both

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Christ your son and your spirit to equip us and empower us to give us this gift of this precious gift of discernment to know truth and error and to Believe the truth of the gospel and reject all the other lies that contradict it father

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Help us Lord to grow in these things to grow in our discernment that we may brightly judge the spirits that come from you

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Lord and the ones that come from the devil and From Antichrist, we thank you father.

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God we ask these things in Jesus precious name. Amen Thank you for listening to the sermons of thorn crown covenant

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Baptist Church Where the Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety has applied to all of faith and life we strive to be biblical reformed historic confessional loving discerning

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Christians who evangelize Stand firm in and earnestly contend for the Christian faith if you're looking for a church in the

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El Paso Texas area or for more information about our church sermons and ministries such as Semper Ephraim on the radio and thorn crown

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Network podcast Please contact us at thorn crown ministries .com and may the mercy peace and love of our triune