Oftentimes, when life lacks clarity, we get lost. We can’t distinguish between good and evil, truth and fiction, or an outburst of anger and a cry for help. How do we find our way when things seem so confusing?
♪♪♪
male announcer: “In Touch”
with Dr. Charles Stanley,
celebrating 45 years
of God’s faithfulness
and sharing the
gospel worldwide.
Next on “In Touch,” “The Power
of a Discerning Spirit.”
Dr. Charles Stanley: Isn’t it
strange that sometimes we have
difficulty determining
the difference between
good and evil?
And sometimes we find ourselves
being deceived by what we hear
and what we see.
And sometimes we have difficulty
in discerning whether God is
speaking to us or not.
And then oftentimes in our
conversations with other people,
we don’t get it.
They’re saying to us in their
own way in their own words,
their own expressions, “I’m
hurting; I need help.”
And we just go right by it.
Well, one of the reasons all of
those things are true is because
we do not have a
discerning spirit.
Somewhere along the way,
nobody’s ever taught us what it
means to be discerning.
We just take things as they are;
take them at face value.
And living in the day in which
you and I live, you cannot
afford to do that.
Neither we who are parents,
nor our children,
nor our grandchildren.
In fact, this whole nation as
a nation of people, we cannot
afford to make decisions without
a discerning spirit.
We’re in trouble, big time
trouble, because we have not
made decisions based on wise
discernment; but on what appears
to be something that’ll pass
for the moment without thinking
about the future consequences.
Could that be true of your life?
That you’ve made a lot of
decisions without thinking
about the future consequences.
Well, David prayed a prayer to
the Father that all of us should
pray for ourselves.
Now, I want you to turn, if
you will, to the hundred and
nineteenth Psalm and the
sixty-sixth verse in that Psalm.
The whole Psalm is about
the Word of God.
And it does you good once in a
while, about every few months
or so, I just read that whole
Psalm just for myself, because
it’s all about God’s Word and
what it does in our life.
And if you’ll notice in this
hundred and nineteenth Psalm,
it’s the long one, down
the sixty-sixth verse.
Look at the sixty-fifth verse
and here’s what he says,
“You have dealt well with
Your servant, O LORD,
according to Your word.
Teach me good discernment and
knowledge, for I believe
in Your commandments.
Teach me good discernment.”
So if you’ll think about it, and
think about the day in which you
and I live, and the things that
are happening today, and the
fact that we live in a world
that’s full of counterfeit,
lies, half-truths
mixed with truth.
We live in a day when you
have to ask several times,
“Am I hearing the
truth or am I not?
Is this really the truth
or is this, or is this
some counterfeit?
Is something camouflaged about
what I see and what I hear?
A world of deception, lies, and
so, we live in lots of turmoil
because we don’t know
what to believe.
You turn on the television and
you hear one person say one
thing and somebody else
comes on next, has something
absolutely opposite.
You hear all about finances
today and you hear about
something else tomorrow and,
and it’s totally different.
So we live in an age
of being overwhelmed
with information but not
necessarily the truth.
And if you operate simply on the
basis of information without
truth, you’re going to get in
trouble sooner or later.
So what I want to talk about in
this message is simply this,
and that is, “The Power
of a Discerning Spirit.”
It is the will of God that
all of His children have
a spiritually discerning spirit.
That is, when you think about
what discernment is, discernment
is all about making judgments.
It’s about right judgment.
It’s about looking beneath the
surface of things to see
what’s really there.
It’s being able to hear what the
person says and also hearing
what they don’t say.
It’s investigating something
and not taking it for granted.
It’s evaluating; it’s
distinguishing; it’s looking
deep down inside to find out
what is the truth.
And God intends that every
single one of His children
have a discerning spirit.
So what I’d like for us to do is
I’d like to think about it
in this light.
And that is, first of all,
what’s the real need
for discernment?
We talk about lots
of information.
Well, think about it
from this perspective.
If you’re going to live in the
will of God, you’ve got to have
a discerning spirit because
discernment says, “I’m able
to understand truthfully
and in reality what God
is saying to me.
He has a will and a purpose
and a plan for every
single one of us.”
And so the issue is do you
know what the plan is?
Do you understand God’s purpose
and plan for your life?
You say, “Well, how
would I find that out?”
He’s willing to tell you.
He’s willing to show you.
He’s willing to make it crystal
clear, for the simple reason
He is the One who
designed the plan.
He knows exactly what’s best.
And so, if you can’t discern
when God is speaking and when
it’s just yourself or what you
choose, how are you ever going
to know that you’re in the will
of God or doing the will of God?
It’s extremely important we
learn to judge rightly.
And secondly, it’s essential to
distinguishing truth from error.
And we’re going to get from how
in a few moments, but if you
can’t distinguish truth from
error, you’re going to make
decisions that are
going to be costly.
They can be financially costly
decisions, relationally costly,
whatever it might be.
And when you think about what’s
happening in children’s schools,
when they go to elementary
school, and all the things that
they hear about evolution and
ignore the very idea of God.
And now, for example, we have
the whole issue, let’s don’t
talk about Jesus.
What do you expect?
How do we expect them to grow up
having a discerning spirit
unless somebody teaches them?
And the truth is, it’s the
parents’ responsibility.
You say, “Well, how do I teach
my children to be discerning?”
To be discerning yourself.
“Suppose I don’t know how?”
Then you’re in trouble,
your kids are in trouble.
And the truth is, it’s the will
of God that His children follow
His will; which means I must be
able to learn to listen to Him,
what He’s saying, and to be
able to discern what is truth
and what is error.
Now, there are a lot of folks
who will mix truth with error.
And there are sects and
cults and so forth,
that’s what they do.
They put enough truth out there
to mix it with error so if you
only hear what sounds good and
what you’ve probably been
taught, and you don’t get
this part over here;
then you’ve got confusion.
So it’s very important we have
a discerning spirit to be able
to judge rightly,
to know the truth.
Also, I think about it
in this light.
And that is, it’s essential for
us to be able to overcome and
to avoid being deceived by sin.
Sin is a very, very convincing,
persuading thing.
And many things that are
pleasurable in life that
are the will of God.
There are many things that
appear to be pleasurable in
life, but only pleasurable
for the moment.
And one of the things that
discernment helps us to do
is ask this question.
What are the consequences
of this action?
When the world talks about
pleasure, it only talks about
pleasure for the moment, or
promises of the future that it
cannot really fulfill.
And so, a discerning person asks
the question, “What are the
consequences of this action?
What are the consequences
of this purchase?
In other words, what
follows after this?
A discerning spirit doesn’t just
stop with what they see and what
they hear or what they feel
at the moment.
It is a dangerous thing to live
today with no discerning spirit.
And it is a spirit that God
offers His children.
It’s essential to distinguish
in between what’s good
and what’s best.
Now, a lot of folks say, “Well,
you know, as long as I just sort
of get along I’m fine.
That’s not in the Word of God.
Because you and I are followers
of Jesus Christ, and because He
lives on the inside of us, and
because we have the Holy Spirit
within us, listen, He expects us
to do our best and to be our
best at whatever we do.
Not better than somebody else
necessarily, but to be our best.
And here’s what happens.
If I sorta like good, I’ll
never strive for the best.
What we have to ask is, “Lord,
is this as far as You want me
to go?
Or do You have something
else out here that I’m not
even aware of?”
And when a person
has a discerning spirit,
they don’t make quick judgments
when unnecessary.
Sometimes you have to
make a fast judgment.
If you have a discerning spirit,
you’re protected.
But the truth is, unless a
person has a discerning spirit,
it’s like going to battle with
no shield and no weapon.
You’re wide open for defeat;
because we’re being confronted
continuously with decisions we
have to make that affect
all kinds of things in our
life that are very important.
Name any decision that you
make, just want to leave
Him out totally.
You say, “Well, surely there are
some decisions I don’t have
to ask God about.”
Well, some decisions, the reason
you don’t have to ask God about,
you’ve already asked Him
about and you know.
In other words, some things are
crystal clear right, wrong.
And yet, there are many things
that, in people’s minds, are
in the gray area.
But in God’s mind,
it’s not gray.
You say, “Well, is everything
so black and white?”
Not necessarily.
That’s why we have to have a
discerning spirit, to know,
“Lord, what is Your will?
What–in this particular
situation, what would
You have me to do?”
And so likewise, it’s essential
to distinguishing between
legalism, listen, legalism–and
I want them to put this
on the board here–
legalism and liberty.
And I want to give
you a definition.
And I hope you’ll write this
down because somebody
will say to you,
Well, you’re just legalistic.
They don’t even
know what that means.
Here’s what legalism is.
It’s the pressure of personal
preferences that we impose upon
other people as
moral mandates from God.
And that is really
what goes on sometimes.
But we’re not being legalistic
by having a discerning spirit.
We just want to do the right
thing in the right way to please
and honor God
whatever that requires of us.
And so, usually
when somebody
insists that you interpret
scripture a certain way,
you have to ask
yourself the question,
Lord, what’s the
will of the Father?
What are You saying to me?
And what people
don’t realize, I think,
is having the Word of God,
we have the foundation
and the basis for wise,
truly wise discernment.
But I think likewise,
it’s essential
to recognizing when
God’s speaking to us.
Now, if I ask you, “Do you know
how to listen to God?
What would you say?
Do you know how to
listen to God?”
You say, “Well, I don’t know
that God’s speaking.”
Yes, He is.
Listen, He created you with a
plan and a purpose and a will
for your life.
It would be unlike God in His
very character not to be willing
to speak to you to give you
direction and clear guidance
in every aspect of your life.
So He does speak.
The question is, do you know
how to listen to Him?
Because, you see, when you learn
to listen to God, you have
a discerning spirit.
And He will enable you to
distinguish between what I want,
what I feel and what is the will
and purpose and plan of God
in this situation.
It’s our greatest protection,
not only for our children
as they leave home,
but for our daily life.
And so, when you think about it
in your own personal life and
when He’s speaking, how would
you say that you know when God
is speaking to you?
Well, I’m going to come
to that in a moment.
He does speak; He does give
discernment, because it’s His
will that you and I
make wise decisions.
Therefore, I must be able to
look beyond what I see, beyond
what I feel, beyond what I hear,
and be able to see how is it
that God looks at it.
Now, what’s the source of real
spiritual discernment?
Well, the source of real
spiritual discernment, first
of all, it’s a gift of God.
You say, “Well, how can it be
a gift of God?”
Here’s the reason.
Jesus said to His disciples in
the Upper Room the night before
He was leaving, He said, “I’m
going to send you a Helper.
He is the Holy Spirit.
He’ll be in you, with
you and upon you.
He will enable you.
He will give you direction.
He will bring things to
your remembrance.
He will help you understand
the truth.”
That’s the promise that every
single one of us who is
a believer has.
We have the Holy Spirit living
on the inside of us to enable us
and direct us to have
spiritual discernment.
So, we have a Helper.
And so as you think about your
life and you come to make
a decision, listen, you don’t
ever have to make a decision
alone as a believer.
You have the Spirit of God
living within you, that’s God
in the Spirit living within you,
and He says, “I’m sending Him
as your Helper.”
So we have someone to help us.
You say, “Help you how?”
In every single aspect of life,
we have Him.
When you trusted Jesus as your
Savior, He says He came to live
in your life.
Direction, guidance,
your personal Helper.
Naturally He’s going to help
you make wise decisions.
So, when you think about it, we
have the asset number one of
the Holy Spirit to enable us
to be wise in our judgments.
But a second thing we have is
this: we have the Word of God.
He says, “The entrance of
Thy Word gives light.”
Now, so when it comes to making
wise decisions and when it comes
to having spiritual discernment,
what is the basis of it?
The basis of all discernment
is the Word of God.
Because every single situation
and circumstance you and I are
confronted with, there is an
answer in the Word of God.
You say, “Oh,
I’ve got something.”
No, you don’t.
You don’t have any spiritual,
moral issues in life for which
there is not an answer
in the Word of God.
So when somebody says,
“Well, how do I have
a discerning spirit?”
Well, listen carefully.
Think about it in this light.
You come to church week after
week after week after week,
or you listen or you watch,
and you hear one principle
after the other.
One principle after the other,
this is how God works; this is
how God thinks.
I’m just simply giving you
what God says in His Word.
So what have you done?
You have filled your
mind with what?
With biblical truths.
Let’s just take the
Ten Commandments.
If you just take the Ten
Commandments and you say,
“Well, I’m going to run
everything by that.”
That’s just the foundation.
You think about all the truth
in the Word of God.
All through Paul’s epistles and
how he explained things
and so forth.
And so, when you think about
that and you think about how God
intends for us to work, listen
to what He says in
First Corinthians now back
in this second chapter.
And begin, if you will,
in verse ten.
He says, “For to us God revealed
them through the Spirit; for the
Spirit searches all things,
even the depths of God.
For who among men knows the
thoughts of a man except the
spirit of the man
which is in him?
Even so the thoughts of God
no one knows except
the Spirit of God.”
So that, listen, if a person is
an unbeliever, they have no
spiritual discernment.
They can’t have it.
“No one knows except
the Spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the
spirit of the world, but the
Spirit who is from God, so that
we may know the things
freely given us of God.”
The basis of all true genuine
spiritual discernment is
the Word of God.
He says, “Which things we also
speak, not in words taught by
human wisdom, but in those
taught by the Spirit, combining
spiritual thoughts
with spiritual words.”
Now watch this, “But a natural
man,” that’s an unbeliever,
a natural man, “does not accept
the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness to him;
and he cannot understand them,
because they are
spiritually discerned.”
You say, “That word
is appraised.”
The Greek word is discerned.
He says a lost person cannot
understand the things of God
because they’re
spiritually discerned.
You say, “Well, then how would
a lost person ever get saved?”
Here’s how a lost
person get saved.
They hear the truth and the
Spirit of God from without takes
the truth of God, drives it to
their heart in their life and
convicts them of sin.
And, listen, and begins
to reveal the truth,
the truth of salvation.
And then following that, of
course, the Holy Spirit is there
to give them direction.
But here’s what he says.
He says, “The natural man does
not accept the things of God
because they are
spiritually discerned.”
And he says, because they’re
foolishness to him, “But he who
is spiritual appraises,” or
discerns, “all things, yet he
himself is discerned by no one.”
Now, what he’s simply saying is
this: that when you and I have
the Spirit of God living
within us, what happens?
We have the discerner.
He’s the one who
enables us to discern.
And so, thereby, a person who
would judge us, for example,
they can–in other words,
we’re not talking about
condemning somebody.
We’re talking about discerning.
We’re talking about seeing what
is the truth about that person.
And so a lost person, doesn’t
mean that a lost person has
no discernment,
doesn’t mean that.
But they have no spiritual
discernment, because apart
from the Spirit of
God’s not there.
And they don’t have it.
Well, how do you develop
a discerning spirit?
You develop a discerning
spirit by what?
By practice.
You say, “Well, suppose I fail?”
We all fail to begin with.
We all make mistakes.
But here’s what happens: if I
want to develop a discerning
spirit, I will, first of all,
I have to be a Christian.
I’ll ask God to give me
direction, and I will do what
I believe He’s saying as
best I know at that point.
It may be exactly the
right thing, it may not be.
You say, “Well,
suppose it’s not?
How do we learn?”
We learn by making mistakes.
“Well, I thought that’s
what God said.”
But here’s the key.
We go back to what we said
in the beginning.
If you have the Word of God,
and we have it in our heart,
the Spirit of God will do what?
Decision comes; you want to be
wise in what you do.
He will bring back to our mind
and heart the Word of God.
So here’s what God says.
Now, if you don’t have the Word
of God in your heart; this is
why I say read it, read it, read
it, read it, read it because
here’s what happens.
When you read the Word of God,
He’s putting it in your heart.
The more you read, the
more you understand.
You read it, you read it,
you read it, and you read it.
What’s happening?
We program our minds and our
hearts, our spirit to think
the way God thinks.
You neglect the Word of God,
what happens?
You neglect the Word of God,
you’ll begin to think the way
the world thinks.
Because think about it.
Think about how much you hear
from television or your job
or whatever it might be; you
listen to all these things.
You’re bombarded with
information, information,
information.
And then there’s the little bit
of time you spend reading
the Word of God.
Which will naturally
overpower the other?
If you’re not careful, you let
the world’s viewpoint overpower
God’s viewpoint.
Then you make wrong decisions.
A discerning spirit is the
greatest protection you have
in a world of information that’s
so full of mixed up
truth and error.
We all need a discerning spirit.
And where do you get it?
Remember, it’s a gift from God
through the Holy Spirit who
interprets things for us
as we need them to be.
And then we have the Book, we
have the teaching and we
have experience.
So you say, “Well, I don’t think
I’ve been doing too well.”
Then here’s where you start.
Lord, next time I have a
decision, I’m coming to You,
ask for direction.
And here’s the big issue.
What were the consequences
of the last time
I made that decision?
And what happens is the
Spirit of God will show you.
Look how you’ve suffered
from doing that before.
Or, look how I blessed you
for waiting upon Me and
taking my choice.
You learn discernment.
But you have the basis of the
Word of God that’s a source
of all discernment we need.
And it is my prayer if you have
never trusted Jesus Christ as
your Savior, you think, “Well,
how does all this work with me?”
It really won’t work, because He
says, “The natural man receiveth
not the things of God.”
When you trust Jesus as
your Savior, that’s when
the Holy Spirit comes in.
That’s when He enables you.
That’s when you begin to
see things as they really
and truly are.
So I ask you this question:
why would you wait to receive
Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
as your Savior, Lord, and Master
when He is the only Savior?
Why would you wait?
Could you give me
a good answer to that?
Why would you wait?
When your greatest protection is
His presence within you and the
power to discern right,
why would you wait?
In a world of confusion and
people being mixed up about
so many things and not knowing
which way to turn and how to
make decisions and all the
uncertainty that envelops
this world of ours,
why would you wait?
If you’ll think, you shouldn’t
wait; because it can’t get
better waiting.
Now, I would challenge you
to ask the Lord Jesus Christ
to forgive you of your sins
and tell Him that you need Him
in your life.
You’re receiving Him as your
Lord and Savior and Master.
You want what’s best for you
and you want what’s best
for your family.
You’re trusting Jesus Christ
as your personal Savior.
Why would you wait?
Frankly, I’d be
a little bit afraid to wait.
God does know how to get
our attention, doesn’t He?
Amen.