Concluding Exhortations and Commandments (6)

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Dr. Lars Larson

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Let's turn in our Bibles, please, to 1 Thessalonians 5. We're working through this passage a little slower than what
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I originally anticipated. But there's a richness here that we don't dare pass over slightly.
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Now last week we were unable to complete our notes, which isn't all that unusual, is it? But we intended to address the three commands expressed in 1
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Thessalonians 5, 20 and 21. And in these two verses we have three of the 18 exhortations and commandments that we have in this final section in this epistle.
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The three commands read as follows in the ESV. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything, hold fast what is good.
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And you see that three -fold division there. However, I would like to add a fourth today.
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The fourth command in this discussion, which is number 16 in this list, which reads, abstain from every form of evil.
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Because I believe they're connected. Now again, last week we only managed to address the first of these.
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Do not despise prophecies. And we won't rehearse today the main points we covered. But by way of application for us, we would assert to despise not prophecies is to despise not the teaching of the
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Bible. That's not a stretch. We can make that point of advocacy.
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We can say this, for the entire Bible, the Holy Scriptures, is the product of inspired prophecy.
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Through many prophets. Hebrews 1 .1, we cited last week, where the writer introduced his epistle,
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God who at various times in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets. As in these last days spoken to us by his
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Son. And time past refers to the record we have in the Old Testament. And then it can be argued the last days spoken to us by his
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Son may be applied to the New Testament scriptures. But God communicated his word to us through history, through prophets.
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And so again, we're commanded here, do not despise prophecies. Peter described the scripture as prophecy.
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1 Peter 1 .19 and following, he wrote, The Holy Scriptures were more authoritative than even as visual witness of the transfiguration of our
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Lord Jesus. Peter wrote of the Bible, we have something more sure, the prophetic word.
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And he's talking about the scriptures, and he describes the scriptures as the prophetic word.
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To which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
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Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy, there's the word, no prophecy of scripture, comes from someone's own interpretation for no prophecy, there it is again, was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the
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Holy Spirit. So notice Peter refers to the Holy Scriptures as the prophetic word.
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He called every portion of the Bible prophecy of scripture. And then he wrote that no portion of the
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Bible, no prophecy was produced by man's will, but men wrote their words by the Holy Spirit who superintended them, their writing.
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And so Peter affirmed the authority of the prophetic word for Christians until the return of Christ. And so we see that because the
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Holy Scriptures are the product of prophecy, and the Bible is a collection of numerous prophecies, therefore the command of 1
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Thessalonians 5 .20, do not despise prophecies, speaks to the authority of the
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Holy Scriptures, even though we addressed another aspect of that last Lord's Day. The Bible is
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God's depository of spiritual truth conveyed through His prophets. The Holy Scriptures are
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His authoritative instruction to His people. Do not despise the teachings, that is the doctrines taught in the
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Bible, and that's what doctrine is, teaching. Teachings of the Bible are doctrines of the Bible.
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Do not despise prophecies. Now you might recall last week we set forward a number of different translations of these verses in English, and I even threw in a
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Greek text there as well just for observation, and primarily to point out the difference in punctuation, and I set them before us again this morning just to draw your attention.
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And you can look over those if you have notes, and you can see the different punctuation marks that are imposed by translators.
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They weren't in the original text, Greek text. And even the Greek New Testament text, the punctuation is applied by the editors of the
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Greek New Testament. And so really the punctuation marks that are provided in these translations reveal to us how the translators understood the relationships of these words and phrases and clauses to each other.
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And again if you look at the translations of the King James Version and the New King James Version, they believe each command stands alone, so you have short sentences independent of each other.
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Each verse is an independent sentence, except for verse 21 is linked of course with verse 20.
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The ESV which we've been using links three clauses together. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything, hold fast what is good.
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But then the ESV separates verse 22 as a separate sentence. Notice that, abstain from every form of evil.
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So they put that as a separate sentence, period, and then capital A for abstain.
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But the more I consider the relationship of these commands that we have in these few verses, I'm persuaded that the punctuation of both the
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RSV, the Revised Standard Version, as well as the editors of the Greek New Testament, best reflect the relationship and the connection of these commands with one another.
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And it seems to me that verse 22 follows right on verse 21. And although we tend to look at them as separate commands, there is an association here.
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And we might state it this way. Test everything, hold fast to what is good, abstaining from every form of evil, period.
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Testing everything is to distinguish these two things from one another, the good and the evil. And so you can see how the abstain from every form of evil would be connected with the idea of testing or examination.
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You test in order to determine what's good and what's evil. You cling to the good, you abstain from the evil.
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There's a connection between these commands, I believe. And in order to give a sense of the larger context, let me propose a paraphrase.
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This is my paraphrase. Do not quench the Spirit, even the words of prophecy that he has inspired, but rather by his holy word test everything.
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Discerning and distinguishing between what is good and what is evil, embracing the good and rejecting what is evil.
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I think that's what Paul is asserting here. In these verses, therefore, we have the authority of the holy scriptures affirmed to us, and that our entire life should be characterized by filtering all things, everything, through his holy word.
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In order to understand what we're to believe and to know how we are to live, the authority of scripture, and I would argue the sufficiency of scripture, to address all matters, test everything, test all things.
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Now let's pick up where we left off last week, and then we'll expand on what we gave in last week's notes, because we went beyond that.
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So in 1 Thessalonians 5 .21a we read, but test everything.
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Here we have a command that we, that is every individual Christian, is to practice.
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We are to test everything. You are to test everything. I am to test everything. And this betrays a very important principle of biblical
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Christianity, the responsibility of personal, private judgment in all matters of life.
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That is an incredibly important principle. The principle has not always been observed in history, and I would argue that it's a principle that is not commonly observed in society today, even in churches today.
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I found a reference to J .C. Ryle, the Reformed Anglican church leader, great
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Reformed guy at the end of the 19th century. He wrote of this principle and how it was vital to Protestant life and practice.
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He wrote it at a time when dispensationalism was coming into the scene. He corrected that in his classic book on sanctification,
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Holiness. That's the best book available on sanctification, Holiness, by J .C. Ryle, in which he addressed the wrong teaching of sanctification.
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It was being promoted, the Keswick view of sanctification. We've talked about that in the past. But he was also dealing with an issue in the
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Church of England, the Anglican church, with the intrusion or resurgence of Roman Catholicism high church within the
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Anglican church. This was taking place at the end of the 19th century. And so he wrote of this principle in a book.
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And he said that this principle of individual responsibility to test everything is foundational to what it is really to be a
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Protestant. Found it very interesting. And so rather than relegating all matters of decision as to what is right or wrong to a hierarchy of church leaders,
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Protestants emphasize the individual right and responsibility to assess and determine issues of truth and error.
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And so Ryle wrote these words. I put a couple of extended quotes because I thought they were very helpful. There were three great doctrines or principles which won the battle for the
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Protestant Reformation. These three were, one, the sufficiency and supremacy of the
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Holy Scripture. Two, the right of private judgment. There it is. And third, justification by faith only without the deeds of the law.
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These principles were the keys to the whole controversy between the Reformers and the Church of Rome. If we keep firm hold of them when we argue with a
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Roman Catholic, and again this is what he was doing in the Church of England at this stage of history, our position is unassailable.
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No weapon that the Church of Rome can forge against us will prosper. If we give up any one of them, our cause is lost.
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Like Samson with his hair shorn, our strength is gone. Like the Spartans betrayed at Thermopylae, we are outflanked and surrounded.
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We cannot maintain our ground. Resistance is useless. Sooner or later we shall lay down our arms and surrender at discretion.
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Let us carefully remember this. The Roman Catholic controversy is upon us once more.
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We must put on the whole armor if we would not have our faith overthrown. The sufficiency of the
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Holy Scripture, the right of private judgment, justification by faith only, these are the three great principles to which we must always cling.
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Let us grasp them firmly. Never let them go. One of the three great principles to which
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I refer, it appears to me, to stand forth in the verse of Scripture which heads this paper. And it's the passage out of 1
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Thessalonians 5 that we're dealing with. And I mean the right of private judgment. I wish to say something about this principle.
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The Holy Ghost by the mouth of St. Paul says, prove all things, in other words, test all things.
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Hold fast to what is good. And in these words we have two great truths. One, the right, duty, and necessity of private judgment.
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Prove all things. Second, the duty and necessity of keeping firm hold upon the truth.
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Hold fast to what is good. And so Ryle set forth then 18 pages of text in which he delineated this matter.
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In which he emphasized these points. I just want to add one more quote from Ryle about this.
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When I say the right of private judgment, I mean that every individual Christian has a right to judge for himself by the word of God, whether that which is put before him as religious truth is
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God's truth or not. That's not only your right, it's your responsibility. Don't take it just because I say it.
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And that's why everything we do up here is really an attempt to persuade you as to the truth of Scripture.
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Because it doesn't rest in me, in my authority, but in Scripture authority. And you have the right and the responsibility to either say, yes, that's right, that is
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Scripture, or no, that's not. When I say the duty of private judgment, duty is emphasis there,
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I mean that God requires every Christian man to use the right of which I've just spoken to compare man's words and man's writings with God's revelation and to make sure that he's not deluded and taken in by false teaching.
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It's not only your right, but it's your duty. And then thirdly, when I say the necessity of private judgment,
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I mean this, that it is absolutely needful for every Christian who loves his soul and would not be deceived to exercise the right and discharge the duty to which
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I've referred, seeing that experience shows that the neglect of private judgment has always been the cause of immense evils in the
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Church of Christ. Ryle was a good man. And that's in his book,
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Knots Untied. It was published back in the year 2000. Now, if I were to amend what
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Ryle said, I wouldn't be to correct what he said, but rather I would broaden the scope of his comments.
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And yes, every one of us is to test all things regarding matters of spiritual truth, but I think we're to go beyond that.
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Not just in the arena of the teaching of the Church, but we're to test everything. All aspects of life.
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In the world, too. Test everything. All aspects of life, both in the
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Church and the world. They're to be assessed by us so that we might hold fast what is good.
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The need for private judgment of all things with Scripture as the standard by which we measure everything.
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And so as Christians, we're not to be gullible, accepting everything and anything which is said before us, embracing all of what we're taught that's presented to us.
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Christians are to test everything. We're to use the Holy Scriptures as the standard by which we test everything.
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And the purpose and performance of our testing is in order to distinguish between the good and the evil.
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And again, that's why I connect that next command, abstain from that which is evil, with the command, test all things, cling to that which is good, reject that which is evil.
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Because the testing is the distinguishing of these two things. Identifying what is good, identifying what is evil, clinging to the good, rejecting the evil.
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And so we're to be in the business of assessing and evaluating what we see, what we hear, what we read.
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We're to determine what is good and what is evil. Clearly distinguishing the two, sharply separating the two.
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Each of us, not just me, not just our Church collectively, but each of us as individuals are accountable to God.
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To each of us, this responsibility is entrusted to us. Test everything.
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Now really what this is, is the practice of discernment.
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And discernment simply means distinguishing clearly between things. So the
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Scriptures speak forth rightly of the need of God's people to be discerning in order to understand fully the will of God for their lives.
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The word that used to commonly be used in this respect before the last generation or so was the idea of discriminating.
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Now that's only got an evil connotation in our culture today, to be discriminating.
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But formerly that was a good quality. He's a discriminating man. She's a discriminating woman.
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In other words, she's wise and is able to distinguish things clearly, setting them apart.
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But that's lost. That's gone. But we are to be discerning. This is important for there is a tendency to embrace error on our part.
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And so we need to be discerning. Due to ignorance of truth, due to the craftiness of deceivers that are all about, and our own susceptibility to being deceived, we need to be a discerning people.
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Test all things. The Bible refers frequently to discernment as a responsibility to make judgments of what is good and evil, true and false, right and wrong.
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And this is how we are to see each day and live each day of our lives. The two words in Scripture that are most frequently used to connote this process are the
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Hebrew word bin in the Old Testament and the Greek word diakrino in the
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New Testament. Both carry the same idea. According to J. Adams in his book A Call to Discernment, the
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Hebrew word is used 247 times in the Old Testament. That's a frequently used word.
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The word has been translated variously as understand, discern, or distinguish. And so when it's used, the
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Hebrew word bin conveys the idea to separate things from one another at their points of difference in order to distinguish them.
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Adams goes on to write that it refers to the process by which one comes to know or understand God's thoughts and ways through separating those things that differ.
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And the Greek word diakrino carries the same idea or thought in the New Testament. Again, it's a process of separating, discriminating, whereby truth may be set apart in sharp relief from that which is false.
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And so a short discernment is a filtering process by which a person distinguishes and separates good from evil or good from the bad, right from wrong, truth from error.
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Now I would argue that in the New Testament that the ability to be a discerning person is the standard of measurement of Christian maturity.
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A mature Christian is one who is a discerning Christian. An undiscerning
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Christian is a child in the faith, is an immature Christian. The Bible teaches this.
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And so we might consider this in the light of Hebrews 5 .11 -14. The writer was speaking of the
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Old Testament person of Melchizedek in reference to Jesus Christ. Jesus was a priest after the order of Melchizedek.
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And yet he stopped short because he knew that his readers were going to have trouble understanding this.
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It's a rather complicated matter. And so we read in Hebrews 5 .11
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Melchizedek of whom we have much to say and hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. He's saying the subject isn't that hard.
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The problem is you're dull of hearing. This is what's going to make it difficult for you to understand this. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God.
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And you've come to need milk and not solid food. You're babies, basically. You're immature Christians.
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For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in, look at the phrase, the word of righteousness.
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For he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are full age.
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This is the mature Christians. That is those, and here it is, this is a definition of a mature
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Christian who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
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And by reason of use he's talking about by employing or using the word of righteousness as a standard to distinguish these things, both good and evil.
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And if you've practiced doing this, you've acquired some expertise in doing this, congratulations, you are a mature
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Christian. If you can't, you're a baby Christian. Maybe you shouldn't be a baby
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Christian, you ought to be a teacher by now, but if you're not a discerning person using the scriptures to distinguish these things, you are not very advanced in the faith.
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And so the writer is addressing Hebrew Christians of the first century who were under the threat of persecution for their faith.
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And they faced the temptation of escaping hardship by renouncing Christ and returning to Judaism, which was a legal religion at the time in the
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Roman Empire, understand. And so the writer set forth a word of exhortation to them, urging them to persevere their faith in Christ.
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There was no return to Judaism possible. There was no salvation if they rejected Jesus. Christ and salvation that God had brought had fulfilled the
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Old Testament Jewish religion. God had gone on, and so you can't go back. That's like the
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Israelites going back to Egypt. No hope there. And so among the many arguments the writer set forth was to show how superior
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Christ's priesthood was to the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament. And so the ministry of Christ as a high priest resembled that of the
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Old Testament priest Melchizedek who was neither a descendant of Abraham nor was he a descendant of Levi.
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But again, the writer paused and he rebuked his readers. For although the matters he was discussing were complex, they really would have posed no difficulty for these
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Christian Hebrews to understand if they were not dull of hearing. They were but babies.
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And so the measure of Christian maturity by definition is the ability to exercise discernment.
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The writer of Hebrews rejected his readers for being undiscerning when they should have been teachers. And so one cause of the deficiency of these
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Christians was that they were not accustomed to the Word of Righteousness. We should probably not understand this phrase, the
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Word of Righteousness, as a direct reference to all of Scripture. But rather I believe he's talking about the faith, the
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Christian faith, an objective body of teaching that the
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Scriptures testify to throughout. We are to have an understanding of the
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Christian faith, the doctrines of the faith, the teachings of Scripture, and by these we assess everything as to whether they're true or false, right or wrong, good or evil.
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And they were not familiar with the Word of Righteousness. They were not familiar with the doctrines of Holy Scripture.
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And therefore they were immature Christians. The whole point is that there is a need to understand
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Christian doctrine with clarity and precision. And then use that understanding of the faith, the
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Christian faith, to assess everything that we encounter in life, in the church and outside of the church.
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And by this we can assess what's good and what's evil. And we can cling to that which is good and we can reject with confidence and assurance that which is evil.
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Because it does not measure up to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The New Testament writers frequently describe this faith, or this
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Word of Righteousness, in other terms. Sometimes we read about the
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Word which was handed down by eyewitnesses. Luke references this in his prologue.
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The teaching is described as the truth, simply as the truth. The traditions passed on to the church, we are going to see this in 2
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Thessalonians when we get there. The things you have learned and become convinced of, that describes the content of the
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Christian faith. But Jude wrote, the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
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There is a body of teaching about the Christian faith that has been delivered to us. And it is through the scriptures.
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The scriptures reveal it and testify to it. And we are to know this faith, use this faith, and we are to pass on this faith to the next generation.
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By the way, in Ephesians 4 we find this same linkage between spiritual maturity and the ability to discern.
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So Ephesians 4, 11 -16, where we read about the Lord's gifts to the church.
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He himself, that is the risen and enthroned Lord Jesus, gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying or building up of the body of Christ.
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Here it is. Till we all come to the unity of the faith. There is that expression, the faith.
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A body of teaching that we should all know and understand. Of the knowledge of the
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Son of God to a perfect man. And that word perfect can be understood as mature. As maturity reached through the faith.
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To the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ. That we should no longer be children. There is the children metaphor.
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The church is a mature man, children. And how are these children described?
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Tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine. See, they are not able to distinguish what is true biblical doctrine and what is not.
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And so they are confused and tossed about. Persuaded by every different errant doctrine that comes down the pike.
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They are children still in the faith. But it is the responsibility of the pastors and teachers to teach the people of God to grow up in Him.
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Grow up in all things unto Him who is the head. And so we see the chief responsibility of the early apostles and prophets and of the continuing role of the function of evangelists, pastors and teachers is to bring the people of God to the unity of the faith.
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In other words, we are supposed to be standing up here and preaching and teaching the doctrines of the
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Christian faith. From the scriptures. Telling you what the scriptures teach.
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What they don't teach. And then using that understanding to assess everything that we encounter in life.
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That is what it is to live the Christian life. And so the people of God are to be taught the word of God so that they understand the doctrines of scripture, the faith, to which the
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Holy Scripture bears witness. Consider again verse 14 carefully.
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Paul identifies undiscerning persons as children in need of growth who are tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.
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That is what we are facing. And so again, to increase the ability to discern is to move forward to spiritual maturity.
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It is by the knowledge of sound, biblical doctrine that Christians grow up unto Him. That is, grow into mature
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Christians. A mature church. Having been grounded and edified in the faith, they will no longer be children unsettled and deceived by every wind of doctrine.
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But sadly, there are churches and preachers, as well as many, many Christians who have adopted the belief that doctrine is something that should not be emphasized in the church.
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This is common. Because they think that preaching doctrine, teaching doctrine, will result in disagreement, dissension, and division.
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In fact, I learned last week, a man sat with Dave and me in my office, and he talked to his pastor.
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And this pastor told him he intentionally avoids emphasis and clarity in doctrine, for he desires to minister to a broader group of people.
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This is a pastor of an Evangelical church in our region. And this is common in the
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Evangelical realm. They view doctrine as, yeah, it's okay, and it's helpful for some, but for the most part, we don't want to go there, because people aren't going to receive it, and we're going to cause division, and reaction, and rejection.
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The pastor knew intuitively that doctrinal preaching will not be received and welcomed by all, so he avoids these matters in his preaching.
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I would argue he's not faithful to the Lord or to his people, according to the scriptures.
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And so we would acknowledge that indeed, doctrine is, in one sense, divisive, but it's supposed to be.
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That's the whole issue. It's supposed to be divisive. We're supposed to be separating truth from error, and making known truth and making known error, sharply distinguishing these two things.
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The fact is, the Lord is in the separation business within His churches. And He would be, if we were faithfully proclaiming the doctrines of Holy Scripture, the teachings of the
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Word of God. And so, the Lord would have us proclaim the truth in its entirety, without apology, and do so continuously.
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And when we do, His truth will divide and separate the people of God from all others.
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It is divisive. But it's supposed to be. But again, take note of what
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Paul wrote in Ephesians 4, sound doctrine is the ground on which unity is to be built. It's ultimately not divisive, but actually we're supposed to build our unity around the faith, upon the faith, you see.
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There has to be clarity of understanding, and mutual agreement. This is what the scriptures teach.
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And this is what we're standing upon. And this is what we proclaim. Rather than a fear of ramifications, that certain ones that maybe are influential, or it will be detrimental to the growth of the church in numbers or whatnot, and therefore we avoid those things.
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And so, what is the standard by which we are to test all things? Well, the Holy Scriptures is the rule by which we assess all things.
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And again, historically for Protestants, the scriptures have always been the standard by which all claims of spiritual truth are to be tested and assessed.
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But sadly, we live in days in which the faith suffers in the same way that it suffered in the
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New Testament. There are false teachers who are corrupting the faith in ways similar to what
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Jude described, or turning the grace of God into a license to sin.
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I'm not into contemporary Christian culture. I am culturally illiterate, as far as Christian evangelicalism goes.
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But I heard sometime this week on the radio about the very popular heresy that has been published and bought the shack, and now
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I guess it's in a movie form. It's terrible heresy. Joseph Youssef gave a good message the other day about it.
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And yet it's embraced widely by so -called Bible believers. The guy is not even
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Trinitarian, let alone evangelical. It's terrible.
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The faith is suffering terribly because pastors are failing to hand down the teaching, that is, hand down the doctrine, to their congregations.
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Instead, they deliver therapeutic talks, substituting this for the preaching of the faith.
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And there are those who blatantly deny long -held tenets of the faith.
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I think we might have mentioned that new perspective heresy, just alluding to it. There are many now in the evangelical realm who deny the imputed righteousness of Christ.
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Oh yes, they speak of Christ dying for sins on the cross, but they deny the doctrine of imputed righteousness.
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They say that's not taught, and the Scripture is horrendous. The Reformers had it all wrong.
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Protestants have had it all wrong. Now we've got a new perspective on Paul that's truly what
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Paul intended. And we'll tell you what that is, they say. There's ignorance and error.
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And so, in today's Christianity, there is an absence of the definite and precise, and ignorance of what
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God has revealed in the Scriptures. And so, as a consequence, the people of God have no context in which to assess things.
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There's no standard. In other words, there's an absence of sound -based theology, doctrine.
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Churches are unable to discern truth from error, right from wrong, good from evil. But this must be corrected.
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And that's what Paul is writing here in 1 Thessalonians 5. God has given us this command, test all things.
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Cleave to that which is good. Hold to that which is good. Abstain from that which you discover to be evil.
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And so we're to screen all of life through a spiritual filter that is the Word of God.
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And we are to be a discerning people, separating that which is true from that which is false, right from wrong, good from bad.
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And we're to cleave to that which is good, and reject that which is evil. Now, there's a technical term that is sometimes used to describe this kind of thinking.
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We've mentioned this in the past. But this is one of those things that need to be repeated. In order to be a discerning people, we are to think antithetically.
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That's an adverb describing the way in which we think. What does this mean?
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Well, to think antithetically is to view matters in terms of contrasts or opposites, based on an understanding of certain absolutes respecting truth and error, right and wrong, good and evil.
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There are just those two alternatives, you see. That's what it is to think antithetically.
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You have a thesis, and then you have an antithesis. There are two opposing claims.
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And so one who views the world in this manner will recognize and highlight contrasts rather than similarities.
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And the fallen world doesn't want to highlight contrasts, but rather similarities. So we can all get along.
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And so a person who thinks antithetically will see contrasts in issues of morality and faith. A sharp distinction there.
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Things are seen as black and white rather than in shades of gray. He will recognize logical inconsistencies and see deviation from scriptural norms everywhere he turns.
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And I hope you do, don't you, as you go throughout each day. However, in contrast, a person who does not think antithetically will tend to view matters relatively.
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Issues of this life or his point stay on a long line. So it is difficult, even impossible, to distinguish between different things.
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And although someone may affirm there is such a thing as truth, right, and the good, generally these are indistinguishable because they are so mixed with error and hypocrisy and inconsistency.
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And so they conclude there is some good in all and everything. There is some bad in all and everything. So one can really not distinguish these things clearly.
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And that's the way most people view the world about them. Besides, one might reason it serves no real purpose if one could do so.
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Therefore, let's live and let live. I'm okay, you're okay, and we'll mutually ignore what may not be okay.
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Let's just get along. The person who thinks antithetically will be viewed as a maverick, perhaps stubborn, intolerant, uncompromising, certainly unloving.
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This man Dave and I spoke with last week said they called me a hater when I brought up the matter of sin.
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He will be seen as a loner who has a tendency to alienate others from himself, but the person who is relativistic in thinking will be seen as one who gets along with everybody.
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He's cooperative, tolerant of everybody and everything. He's one who can work in just about any kind of situation with any group of people.
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He's just a nice guy. And it's easy to see what kind of person will be most liked and lauded by the world, and which one would be viewed as a troublesome figure that stirs up controversy wherever he has input.
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Our Lord Jesus said that this is the way it is. It's the way it was with him.
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They hated me without a cause, and if you represent me rightly, they're going to hate you too. And if you come to the place, we won't read that passage, but it is clearly what he says, and if you come to the place where the world thinks well of you and speaks well of you, you're no longer a friend of God.
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You've made yourself a friend of the world. You're an enemy of God. And so, increasingly,
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Christians are going to be seen as the problem in the world. I was reading some comments this morning on an article on one of the news sites, and there was an equating see, there we have
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Christians, there's no difference between Christians and the radical Isis and Muslims in their standards of morality.
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Incredible. We're going to see this increasing in coming years.
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The fallen world hates God, hates God's Son, and hates God's people who align with God's Son.
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And it will be an unreasonable hatred. It really is, because we desire God's best for everyone.
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And so it's the way of the fallen world to blur and conceal, to integrate and merge, to grow larger and become more diffuse.
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It's the will of God for the people of God to employ the Word of God to clarify and reveal, to distinguish and separate, to refine and become purer.
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Two different worldviews. Test all things. Hold fast what is good.
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Abstain from that which is evil. The world knows nothing of that these days.
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The world with its perverted view of love and permissiveness and tolerance has legitimized all manner of things that were formerly and universally regarded as deviant, devilish, and disgusting.
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Now we're supposed to celebrate them. Or were the bad guys. The world tells us we must not place a value on ideas as some opinions are true or better, truer or better than others.
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Rather, we must respect and value all people's views. That's nonsense. People in former generations would have laughed at that.
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And please, don't misunderstand. We live in a free country. Thank God for that. And we're free to believe whatever we want.
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And we ought to defend the liberty and freedom for every individual. Liberty of conscience.
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You can believe whatever you want to believe. But don't ask me to say that that's valuable. When it's nonsense and inconsistent and errant.
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With this kind of mindset, there's a tendency not to take a stand on issues, but to allow and even rejoice in the things that should be a source of contempt and shame.
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A glory in their shame, as the scriptures describe it. And sadly, all too many
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Christians have embraced this kind or this way of thinking. And so, when we awaken each morning, we face the world before us.
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We are to engage the world by assessing whatever we encounter or experience as we measure it according to God's Word, the
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Bible, and the teachings of the scriptures. We are to make judgments with respect to every aspect of life as to whether it's good or evil.
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Throughout each day we are to be filtering what we see, hear, what we read, what we think, how we behave, how others behave, whether or not they're good or evil.
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And as we make these assessments, we are to then hold fast or affirm in our souls what is good, and we are to reject or abstain from that form of evil which we identify and we distinguish.
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Discernment is an aspect or a function of the mind. This is very important to understand.
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Some believe that discernment is a sensitized or intuitive feeling as to whether something seems good or evil.
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I just sense in my spirit that's not right. That is not biblical discernment.
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Now, true of the early church, some had a gift of discerning of spirits, but that was an early apostolic age gift.
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You and I now have to acquire understanding of the Scripture to have any ability to distinguish.
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And the idea that somehow you just intuitively sense because the Holy Spirit leads you to assess that's right and that's wrong, that is an invalid assessment.
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Because frankly, whether or not your heart tells you something is right or wrong is not a valid assessment.
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In fact, more often than not, if your heart tells you something's right, it's probably wrong. The heart is deceitful above all things.
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Who can know it? Why, I just sense in my spirit he was wrong, or his teaching was wrong.
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Nowhere to measure all things through God's revealed and written word, this work of discernment therefore involves the mind.
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We have to know the Scriptures. And yet we realize discernment is not only a function of the mind.
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It involves the assistance of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in our thinking. It's spiritual work.
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Paul wrote of this, Now we receive not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may know.
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See, knowledge comes as a result of the Spirit of God. We know it in our mind.
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The mind's involved. The things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the
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Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man, this is the unconverted man, the man who's still in his sin, he does not accept the things of the
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Spirit of God for their foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because in order to understand them they have to be spiritually appraised.
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And he doesn't have that capability, is what Paul is saying. But again, note the mind is still in the process.
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One must understand with the mind, but understanding can only come through the illuminating work of the Spirit as He makes known the
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Word of God to us. And I have found that when believers fail to employ their mind in assessing the teaching or action in the light of the written
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Word of God, they are in actuality judging according to their own limited experience and to the teaching that they've previously been exposed and they embraced.
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And so when they respond to a teaching, I just feel in my spirit that it's wrong, usually they're being confronted with a doctrine they've never heard before or something that goes contrary to their sinful nature.
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And so they assume it's wrong. I just feel in my spirit it's wrong. The fact is, our experience and our intuition are not valuable tools to assess what is good and evil, what is right and wrong, or what is true and false.
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The Scriptures alone are our authority in these matters. And yet, sadly, even among Christians, there's widespread reluctance and failure to test all things.
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That is, to make moral and spiritual judgments about matters. They don't want to do that. Who am
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I to judge? I tell you who you are. You're a Christian with the Scriptures and you're to test all things. That's who you are.
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And you've got the duty, the responsibility, and the right to do so. And one day you're going to be held accountable.
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When you stand before Christ, you're not going to be accountable to what I believe. You're going to be held accountable to what you believe and what you understand.
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It's upon each of us, isn't it? One might argue, does not the
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Word of God say in Matthew 7 -1, Judge not lest you be judged? We're not supposed to judge. That's what the
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Lord was condemning was a censorious spirit. A condemning spirit in order to condemn others, in order to justify yourself.
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And nobody's to have that kind of attitude. We're not to judge in that sense.
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And further, we're not capable of judging the hearts. The Lord's going to do that on the last day.
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We are, however, to judge actions, words, attitudes. These are the things that are observable.
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And we are to assess these things. And we are to make judgments, not in and of ourselves, but we are to make declarations.
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And this is what the Word of God says respecting these matters. There are, however, those that judge everything, including motivations.
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This is wrong. We're not capable of doing that. But again, there are those who judge nothing.
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This too is wrong. We're at top page 9 now, if you're following our notes. Because of the time, I'm having to kind of run over some things.
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They judge nothing. These people never say a bad thing about anybody or any action. These people attempt to accentuate the positive and only the positive.
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They never say anything negative. They never correct, never rebuke, never admonish, never exhort. They're of no help to anybody, really.
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Yes, they're probably very caring people and maybe can comfort, but they really can't help people. As far as telling them, this is what's right.
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This is what's good. This is what you ought to do. This is what the Scriptures teach. Because they don't know.
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We are to judge, however, again, the actions, attitudes of people, the words of people that are clearly seen, heard.
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We are to assess those things. And so we are to use the
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Scriptures, particularly the doctrines of Scripture, the teachings of Scripture, as the tool by which we are to live.
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Not only is there the inspiration of the Scriptures, the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the authority of the Scriptures, but there is the sufficiency of Scripture to guide us and assist us in the way the
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Lord would have us live and walk. May the Lord enable us to do so. May He cause and enable each of us to be a good student of the
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Scriptures and to be able to stand back and understand the whole story of redemption as it unfolds in the
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Scriptures, and to understand the major teachings and principles of the Scripture. Because this will inform us and enable us that when we see something errant, see something defective, see something evil, it's not going to be hard to distinguish it.
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Because you have a standard, a perfect, objective, all -authoritative, inerrant standard by which everything can be measured and assessed.
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May God help us to do so. But again, realize that if you fail to do so, if you fail to abstain from all forms of evil, your ability to discern will diminish.
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To the degree you indulge in evil, rather than abstain from evil, you will become desensitized to what is good.
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The lines will tend to blend. You will soon justify what you condemned maybe not long ago.
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You may not think so, but you will. Remember Hazael, who was a servant, and then one of the prophets declared you'll become king, and then the prophet began to weep.
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Hazael said, why are you weeping? Because I see what you're going to be doing to the people of Syria. I think it was.
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You're going to be abusing people. Women you're going to be abusing. Do you think I'm a dirty dog that I would do that very thing?
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And then in the next chapter you read about him doing that very thing. The fact is, if we do not follow
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Scripture and employ Scripture in testing all things, cleaving to that which is good, abstaining from that which is evil, we'll go down a path of lack of discernment, an inability to distinguish, and we'll be deceived, maybe deceive others, and it will be to our ruin.
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May the Lord help us to be faithful. May the Holy Spirit enable us to rise to this important task and privilege that we have as children of God.
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Amen? Let's pray. Thank you, our Father, for your Word, and we pray that you would help us, our
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Lord, to be more attentive and alert, and not be as ones who just open up the
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Bible on Sunday morning and then close it and walk away and have it not affect us throughout life, throughout each day, but enable us, our
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God, to embrace the Word of God, that the Word of Christ would dwell within us richly, and that we would employ it, our
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God, as our guide, as our canon, as our rule by which to assess all things.
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For we know this is your Word, Lord, that is a lamp unto our feet, and it will guide us,
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Lord, to the blessed inheritance that you have promised us in Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.