Learning to Grow in Discernment

If someone handed you a $20 bill, how would you know if it's genuine or counterfeit? You know, you and I get bills all the time. The most common counterfeit bill is $20, because it has some value, and everybody has one, and they're passed all the time. How would you know? You and I may have handled a counterfeit bill some time in our lifetime, and we never even knew it. How would you know if it's counterfeit? Now, if you looked at it, they had some strange picture on it. If President Clinton was holding the picture on it, it's not a $20 bill.

But most counterfeits are better than that. That's how they get away with it. If you were going to check a counterfeit, you would check the design, the color, the size, and it's a research this week on how to check counterfeit bills. It's very interesting. Even the really good counterfeiters have a hard time. If you look at a genuine bill long enough, the face looks a little bit almost 3D. There's a depth to it. I don't mean it pops out, but there's a depth to it. Even the best counterfeiters have a hard time getting that depth to the faces for some reason. Probably because it ends up costing so much to do it, it's not worth knowing. But you would look at the design. You would look at the color. You would look at the size, the weight, the thickness of the paper, and you would discern its counterfeit. But before you can discern its counterfeit, there's something you have to know. You have to know what is the genuine bill. The only way you can know a counterfeit bill is because you've studied what a genuine bill actually is. If you don't know what the genuine bill is, you can't tell a counterfeit. I used to do that in camp with the teenagers. I used to have a class. I would talk about counterfeiting. Then I would hand them around a bill that was supposed to be a counterfeit and one that was supposed to be genuine. Then we would have the vote. About half would always vote, well, this was genuine and half would vote, well, this was counterfeit. Then I said, no, actually they're both counterfeit. If you don't have a genuine bill, how do you know? You can be comparing counterfeits, and you wouldn't even know it.

Only by knowing the properties of a genuine bill could you ever begin to recognize what a counterfeit is to discern what is a counterfeit. The word discern is a very interesting word. It means to recognize something. You can recognize it. We use the word discern in a lot of different ways. You think about it and we can say, well, I was barely able to discern the car through the fog. I'm driving along and I see these headlights. I think it's a car that you discern after a while as it comes out of the fog. I can now recognize it's a car. Or we could use it in a very abstract way. I discerned by his words that his boldness worked very good. Or how many times have you...you could use this word this way. We would use a different word. I looked at the diagram and I discerned. I couldn't put the thing together. I looked at the diagram and I discerned this. I can't put this thing together. The diagram won't fit. So the word to discern means to recognize something, to see it for what it really is. To discern is to discern what it really is. There's an interesting passage in Philippians where Paul writes to the church at Philippi. Let's go to Philippians verse 1. Philippians verse 1.

Paul tells us something about his prayer life here. He says, As this I pray, he's talking to this church where he cares for his people very much, that your love may abound more and more. He wants their love. He wants this character of God. It's interesting. He doesn't say, I want your love towards each other, your love towards God, your love, your agape. I want this character of God to just grow in you and get more and more of who you really are. Then he gives us some information about how we grow in that. He says, In knowledge and all discernment. So you have to have knowledge.

But the knowledge has to lead to the ability to discern, to see what is real. What is reality? What is truth? In all discernment. That you may approve the things that are excellent. That you may be sincere without offense till the day of Christ. So growing in this character of God, because of knowledge and discernment, it causes these people to know, to approve what is excellent, what is really of God, and to be sincere and without sin. So as we grow in this character of God, through knowledge and discernment, through knowledge and discernment, it takes both. One of the great problems we've had in the church over the years is we put so much emphasis on knowledge, we always haven't had discernment. And that knowledge has to lead to discernment, to discern what is good and evil, to discern what is truth and error, to discern what is wise and foolish. And then he goes on. This is the result of that, because this is all one sentence. Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, in the glory and praise of God. So as we grow more and more in this character of God, this agape, because of knowledge and discernment, we begin then to approve. We'll be able to see and know what is excellent, what is from God. We're able to be sincere and without sin, as we overcome sin more and more, bearing the fruits of righteousness. That's a remarkable three verses. I'm going to read it from the New International version. And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, depth of insight, being able to look into something and discern, discern what's right and wrong, discern what's truth and error, and discern what is wise and foolish.

Your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless till the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ in the glory and praise of God.

God wants to give us the excellence of who He is. He wants to give us His best. But we have to be able to discern God's best.

We have to be able to have knowledge and discernment. And once again, I see many, many people over the years have lots of knowledge. But discernment has always been a problem in our lives.

The ability to clearly see, have an in-depth perception of good and evil, truth and error, wisdom and foolishness. So how do we grow in spiritual discernment? Well, let's start with three steps.

Three steps that can help us when you receive an idea, when you receive some new doctrine, when you receive someone who wants you to take an action, or you want to take an action, and you have to discern. Your boss asks you to do something.

Or you have an opportunity. You have to discern. Well, is this a good opportunity? Should I do this? Is this right or wrong? Is it truth or error? Is it wise or foolish? That's the three great areas where we have to discern. There's actually another one, but we'll talk about that towards the end of the sermon here. But we have to discern these things.

The first thing we do, you're presented with an issue where you have to, with in-depth insight, know what is the best of God here. What is it that is God's excellence in this? And the first thing you have to do is found in 2 Corinthians 13, verse 5. 2 Corinthians 13, verse 5.

Because how do you know if it's counterfeit? Well, first of all, you have to know what the genuine bill looks like. Many times in life, what we're actually doing is comparing counterfeit with counterfeit. We're comparing counterfeit with counterfeit because we don't know what the genuine bill looks like. So we have to find out what is the genuine bill? What is God's best? What is God's excellence? What does He approve of here?

2 Corinthians 13, verse 5.

You see, the first thing we have to do is examine. And when you examine any situation, part of the examination is a self-examination process.

It is a self-examination process, plus an examination of the situation. Because many times we can be driven by our own emotions—we'll get into that a little bit—so much that we actually are choosing the evil, or we're choosing the error, or we're choosing the foolish. Many people choose foolishness because of our emotions. We were driven by our emotions. So the first thing we have to do is examine. Examine the situation in light of what? Where do we get the genuine explanation of the color, the weight, the size, the imprint, the ink? Where do we get the knowledge of the genuine? What's in the Scripture? Acts 17. Acts 17 is interesting because I've seen people actually misuse this.

They're trying to support a false examination. In other words, they come to an examination of the Scripture, and they come to a false conclusion, and their answer is, well, I'm just like these people here, and everybody else isn't. I'm always amazed when someone says, well, nobody else has ever looked at this. No one else—I have never found an original question yet. Well, earlier in my ministry I did. Now I've been exposed to all of them. Very, very seldom. Once every five years does someone come up with a new argument, or something that we haven't done before.

1st Timothy says, "...that the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were more fair-minded," it's also translated noble, than those of Thessalonica, "...that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men." Now I've seen people use this to say, see, I discovered something in the Scripture, and I've got this in-depth insight, this brand-new, in-depth insight that nobody else has.

And that's because I'm like a Berean and nobody else is. I've actually been told that. Well, these people, there's some real important things here. These people knew Paul was telling the truth why, because they already knew what was genuine. You say, well, what does that mean? Where is he going to? A group of pagans, and handing them some scrolls of the Scripture, and saying, here, let me teach you about what?

What's he even teaching them? First of all, he's going into the synagogue. These would be Jews and proselytes and God-fears, Gentiles who would already do the Bible. They already knew what was genuine. So what is it that he's teaching them that's different, that's new, that they have to then say, well, is that genuine or not? The reason I'm saying this is we have to understand, the Bereans weren't coming up with their own ideas here.

They were examining what Paul said through the fact that they already knew what the bill was supposed to look like, and what was it he was teaching them. Well, we know, because he already went to Thessalonica, where they got mad at him for teaching something. Then he goes to Berea, and he teaches the same thing. And what Luke says is these people are more fair-minded. They listened to what he was saying. Well, what was he telling them? Let's go back to verse 2 of Acts 17.

Then Paul, as his custom was, went to them for three Sabbaths, reasoning with them from the Scripture. Here's how we know whether something's genuine or not, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.

It says in verse 4 that some people followed him. Verse 5, it says, other people didn't. So some followed him, some didn't. So where does he go? To the synagogue in Berea. Why did he go to the synagogue in Berea? Because these people had... They had some knowledge of what a genuine bill was supposed to look like.

And he showed up and he said, Now, you don't understand all of this. Let me explain it. And they were able to take their knowledge, lay what he was saying on top of it, and say, Yes, this is genuine. That's very important to understand the process that's taken here. The examination process these people went through. But they already knew the Scripture, and this means that if you and I are going to examine, we're going to have to study the Scripture.

We're going to have to know what the Bible actually says. Because it's the Bible that gives us the criteria by which we discern. It is the Bible that gives us the criteria by which we discern whether something is counterfeit or whether it's genuine. They do believe that one of the most problems in the lives of Christians today is a lack of discernment. Sometimes we really can't tell the difference. We true truth and error. We can't tell the difference between what's important and what's not important. We get all tied up in twigs and things that aren't not salvation issues.

And we argue and we debate, instead of living the way that God tells us to live. Many times when we're doing that, it's because we're not dealing with the really major issues in our lives. We refuse to deal with the major issues, so we spend our energy on the little ones, the twigs. I think that the lack of discernment has two fundamental causes that we find throughout the history of the church. One is the lack of knowledge and understanding of Scripture.

We have knowledge, but we don't have understanding. We have bits and pieces and parts of it. But we don't have really the great overview of what Scripture really is all about. And that's because we just don't spend enough time in prayer and Bible study.

The second is that we have a lack of discernment because we're relying on our own motivations. Not God's motivation. We have motivations. Selfish motivations, desires, pride, whatever is our motivation. This wrong motivation, we take the knowledge and we discern wrongly. We come up with a wrong decision. But we're absolutely sure of our decision in our examination because we're not examining it through humility before the Word of God. We're examining through our own emotions.

So we have a lack of discernment. So, examination. We have to know the Scripture, be humble before the Scripture, and we use that as our criteria for discerning. The second point is in 2 Thessalonians 5.

2 Thessalonians 5.

Verse 21.

I'm sorry, 1 Thessalonians 5.21. 1 Thessalonians 5.21.

1 Thessalonians 5.21.

Test all things. Hold fast to what is good. I'm staying from every form of evil. So if I examine something, I start with the qualities I know. I start with the qualities I know. You know, no one's going to convince me that we should keep the Sabbath because I go to the Scripture, I start with the qualities I know, and there's nothing you can bring into that that changes the qualities of the real thing.

You could say that about all of the Ten Commandments, right? Every one of us here believes in the Ten Commandments because we look at, we know, we've already examined that. Because we've examined that, we know the qualities of the truth. When someone brings an error up, we know it's an error. I mean, it's so obvious to you, you can't figure out why they can't see it.

So you now have to test it. You have to take the counterfeit and you have to take the genuine, and you have to compare them, you have to test them. You have to look at them and see if the qualities of the counterfeit match the qualities of the genuine. And once again, we're back to what they teach bank tellers. They don't teach bank tellers about counterfeits. They teach bank tellers what is the genuine bill. Then they look at the counterfeit. Here, let me show you a counterfeit.

They show the genuine bill first. So we have to know the genuine, then we have something to compare it with. And like I said, so many times in life, we're comparing two counterfeits. We don't even know it, because we haven't done our biblical background first. So let's look at the biblical background. Now we have the elements to do the test with. But there's another test you have to do in addition to the Bible. The Bible is one test, but there's a second test we must do when we examine anything. And that's in 1 John 1.

1 John 4. Well, I must have dyslexia today. I keep mixing the numbers up. 1 John. Actually, I do have. I don't know what it is. But I have sevens and fours I mixed up, and I had since I was a child. I've never figured out why. There's something in my brain that mixes up sevens and fours. 1 John 4. 1. Listen, people used to ask me when I was a kid, what was my favorite number?

And I'd say 747. 1 John 4. 1. Beloved, do not believe every spirit. Now, the spirit here has to do with the motivation, the emotions, the intent behind something. And this is very, very, very important when we do our testing.

Because factually, we can look at things and the facts can line up. But it's the spirit that we also must test. What is the intent? Why is the person doing this? When you think about gossip, the gossip may be true. But why is the person telling you this? A lot of times you find out what the reason they're doing it is because it makes them feel superior, or because they despise that person, or they just like causing discord.

Well, the spirit of it's wrong. So, the truth of it is really not the issue. He says, but test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Test the spirits. Test something. See, is this of God? What is the purpose in this? What is the driving force in this? And this is when you begin to be able to really discern.

You discern, you know, we first started, you examine. The Scripture gives us the qualities of examination. Then we must test. Does this match up with Scripture, and does it match up with the right spirit? Does it match up with the right spirit? That is vitally important. I'll show you a case of that. Look at Acts 8. Here's the well-known story of the magician, Simon Magus, who actually came into the church. Philip baptized him because he said the right things.

You know, I've baptized people because they've said the right things only to watch their lives never produce any of God's spirit. And they just go back out into the world as if they had never been here.

And I don't know. Did they receive God's spirit? Philip came along and did not discern that Simon had a problem. Simon said the right things. He pretended. He professed Jesus Christ. He said he had faith. So, you know, you can't blame Philip here. The man said the right things. But Peter shows up, and Peter has a greater sense of discernment. Plus, Simon let the cat out of the bag. He showed who he really was here. Look in verse 18. Now when Simon saw that through the laying of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money.

Say, give me this power also that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, your money pears with you because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money. You have neither part nor portion of this matter, for your heart is not right to the sight of God. He was able to discern. His spirit was wrong. Your heart's not right. You and I have to at times discern whether a person's heart is right.

Sometimes their actions or their words may not be exactly right, but if their heart is right, you know, how many times have you heard someone say something somebody knew in the church, and they say something you know was maybe not biblically correct, but you don't say anything to them right away? Their heart's right.

You know, they have to have time. Or someone does something mean or just something stupid. You know their heart's right. You might say, ooh, is that going to cost them, right? But their heart's right. So it doesn't break your relationship. But you know, there's times when a person's heart is wrong. And at that point, we have to be very careful even about the relationship.

We talked about that at the women's study Saturday night when we talked about friendships. And I may talk about it some more next week. I think what I'm going to be covering next week is unhealthy emotions. You know, unhealthy emotions that we all have to deal with and struggle with, and how they can, you know, give us a bad heart before God. So he says, your heart is wrong.

He deserved it. Repent, therefore, of your wickedness and pray that God, if perhaps the thought of your heart, may be forgiven you. Verse 23, for I see, I perceive, I discern, I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity. Sometimes you just perceive this person is just filled with bitterness. You eat them all the time. They're always negative. They're always down on people. They always know nothing's ever right. They feel oppressed. They feel abused.

And they just feel with bitterness. And at that point, there's not a whole lot you can do to help them. Now, I'm not saying if you feel that way, you're hopeless. I'm saying if you stay that way, you're hopeless. Or you feel hopeless, don't you?

Now, God does it. Nobody's hopeless before God. But you feel hopeless. You feel hopeless. So after we test that there's a third thing we have to do, Hebrews 5. Hebrews chapter 5, verse 14. But solid food belongs to those who are full of age. That is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.

The food he's talking about here is spiritual food. It gives us verse 13. He says, you know, we are Christians. We can only receive milk. But those who are spiritually able to discern good and evil, then they have a deeper spiritual food, a deeper spiritual knowledge. But notice, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. So we must examine, we must test, we must exercise. In other words, we must actually discern and choose the good, and then do the good.

I stress we must discern the good. It's one thing to discern the good, then do the evil. You have to discern the good, you have to choose the good, and then you have to do it. This is what integrity is, by the way. You learn, you discern, you choose, and you do. Sometimes, you know, when we're very weak, we even choose the good, and we still don't do it, right? You discern something good, you choose it, and you just don't have the strength to do it.

But to really grow and discern it, we have to discern, we have to be able to see it, then we have to exercise it, and then we grow it. We practice, and the more we practice, the more we understand. The more you discern the good, choose the good, and do the good, the easier it gets to do good. It actually gets easier. But the more you discern evil, choose evil, and do evil, the harder it is to do good. It gets harder and harder and harder to do good. Because after a while, you discern evil as your good.

You discern error as your truth. You discern foolishness as your wisdom. There's even a proverb that talks about how the fool discerns his foolishness and finds joy in it.

It talks about consequences. It finds joy in its foolishness. It seems like such a good idea at the time. So, we take these three steps. Examine, test, exercise. This is a conscious thing we must do. This isn't something you can write down, take it home, and not do it. You have to do it. Now, I talked about the choosing between wisdom and foolishness. That's an area where we can fall down a lot. We can choose the good over the bad. We can choose the truth over the error. But we just do a lot of foolish things. We don't know how to choose the wisdom.

The basis of all wisdom is this. All actions have consequences. All actions have consequences. Be careful whose advice you take. Galatians 6, Paul says something very interesting here in Galatians 6.

Be careful whose advice you take. Galatians 6, verse 4, But let each one examine his own work. Oh, we're back to examining and testing and exercising. Let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself, alone and on another. For each one shall bear his own load. Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, he will also reap. You and I become responsible before God for our own actions. And God doesn't accept. Well, you know, I just follow this guy's advice.

Be careful. All of us need advice. I need advice. I go to people for advice. But be careful when it comes to spiritual matters whose advice you follow. Be careful when it comes to what's wise whose advice you follow. Sometimes we confuse success with wisdom. No. What the wise think to do? My son-in-law came to me and said he wanted to start his own business, buying houses, fixing them up and ridding them out. He asked me what I thought about it. I said, I'm not qualified. I said, what you need to do is find the man in your state of Wisconsin who's the most successful at it. No, ask him. So that's exactly what he did. Found a guy in Milwaukee that he was the most successful man in doing that. Went and interviewed him. The guy actually took him around for hours driving around and showing how to find properties and what to do. So my son-in-law is a slumlord today. But that's wisdom. Wisdom and foolishness is where we have such a hard time discerning. What is the best course of action? What comes to mind right away, of course, is in 1 Kings 12. We won't have to turn there. In 1 Kings 12, Rehoboam was king over Judah and Israel. Jeroboam was a man who was a strong political leader. And God told him, God told Jeroboam, you know what? You're going to get Israel. Rehoboam's going to mess up real bad. What Rehoboam did wasn't sin. He was sold to eyes. He got together all the elders, all the advisors who had been the advisor to his father, Solomon. Now Solomon was a pretty wise guy. And he had wise people around him. He said, you know, the people are heavily taxed. What do you think I should do? And they all said to a man, cut their taxes. These people were burnt. It's too much. Cut their taxes. You'll do just fine with the tax money you have coming in, and they will follow you anyplace. So he got together all the young men that he liked, if there's many grew up with. So he got together his own little council of younger men, and they all said, tax them and we'll all get richer. So that's what they did. He taxed them. Now, was it a sin for him to tax them? No, he had the right to do so. As king, was it wise? But what happened was, ten of the tribes left and said, we're not following you anymore. And Israel became a separate country. And Judah and Israel were separate countries. In fact, they fought wars with each other and have never been united since. All because of the foolishness of one man. He could not discern what was best for his country. Instead, he discerned what was best, he thought, for him. Well, he ended up with a whole lot less taxes coming in. A whole lot less taxes coming in. He and his buddies weren't as rich as they thought they would be because of his decision.

To be able to discern what is wise and what is foolish. That means we have to know what wisdom is. You know how you know what wisdom is? What's genuine wisdom? It's in the Bible. But you have to know that. You have to read Proverbs. You have to know the stories. You have to read the teachings of Jesus Christ. You have to know what wisdom is. And so much of the time, we make foolish decisions. And we suffer the results of foolish decisions. Now, all of us have made foolish decisions. But as life goes on, we should be able to make more and more wise ones as we learn to discern what is foolish and what isn't. We saw Bill Cosby's routine, where he was talking about his son being 12 years old and cutting his own hair. And he said it was a reverse mohawk. Instead of this big, you know, long hair coming down the middle of his head, he cut the middle so it just stuck out on both sides. And he said down with him, he said, did you do this on purpose? And he said, his son saw big and he said, well, yes. Why? You actually wanted this? Yes. Why? I don't know. You know, was his heart wrong? No, he just wasn't wise. You know, it didn't turn out like he expected. He really didn't look the way he thought it would look. There's another item about the sermon I want to bring up. We have the discernment of good and evil, the sermon of error and truth, the sermon here of wisdom and foolishness. You know, I'm not telling you where to go find all these answers. I'm telling you they're in the Bible and they're in a discerning heart that you get from God because you pray and you discern the Spirit. There's another place, Matthew 16. Matthew 16, where Jesus talks about discernment. Matthew 16, verse 1. When the Pharisees of the Sadducees cave and tested him, asked that he would show them a sign from heaven. Show us that you're the Messiah. Show us a sign. You claim to be the Christ. Show us you're the Christ. He answered and said to them, When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening. Hypocrites, they weren't hypocrites because they could discern the weather. You can discern the weather. You know how to do that. Hypocrites, you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. You cannot discern the signs of the times. You and I are going to have to be very, very careful to discern the signs of the times as we move forward into the world that we're moving into, which is changing. As you all know, this is the world we lived in ten years ago. It's changing dramatically, constantly. And you and I are going to have to be able to discern the signs of the times, where we are, where we are with God. It's very interesting, in Matthew 24, Jesus gives another parable about the signs of the times. Matthew 24, verse 32.

Jesus says, Thou learned this parable from the fig tree, when its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves. You know the summer is near. You can discern, right? We're discerning right now that winter is coming. Is there anybody here that hasn't figured out winter is coming?

Okay, you've all figured that out. You've all been able to discern it. The eight-year-olds in the room have figured out that winter is coming. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it's near, at the doors. Now, the first part of Matthew 24, he's telling about the signs of what's happening in the world, what's happening in the church. Surely I say to you, this generation with my no means pass away, so all these things take place.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words with my no means pass away. Both of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only. Now, this is very important. If you think of all the Bible tells us about the end time, it shouldn't catch anybody by surprise.

How can we be caught by surprise when the fourth of the world has died? Because the first four horses, the first four seals. How can we be surprised when the beast power rises up? How can we be surprised when they started to do sacrifices in the temple and then they stopped doing sacrifices in the temple? How can we be surprised? And yet, there are those who will be surprised because they're not discerning the signs of the times.

Verse 38, For as the days before the flood by the way, this shows that the flood, Noah's flood, wasn't considered to be befalling by Jesus. It was considered to be history. It's important. For as the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving and marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away.

So also will be the coming of the son of man, Bea. The world's not going to see it even though they're told it. Noah told people for 120 years, how much of the world did Noah reach? I don't know. I would guess you could go a long ways away from where Noah was and people would be saying, Have you heard that story? A guy over there that's 500 miles away is building a ship bigger than anything that anybody's ever dreamed of because there's going to be a giant flood?

Because his God says we're evil, and then everybody sat around and laughed. Well, with water and technology, lots and lots and lots and lots of people are going to know. But they're not going to be able to discern. That shows you that knowledge and discernment aren't the same thing. Knowledge and discernment are not the same. We have been given this knowledge, but we've also been given discernment. You know, the discernment we're talking about is more than just some kind of human reasoning.

It's God's Spirit that helps give us this discernment. On our own, we can't discern. Completely good and evil, we can only pick out bits and pieces of it. We become a mixture of good and evil. We become a mixture of truth and error. We become a mixture of wisdom and foolishness.

That's all we are without God. With God, we're able to discern more and more and more what really is good, what really is truth, and what really is wise. And it's not enough just to be, well, I know goodness, or I know doctrine, or I know wisdom. We have to know all three of them as we grow, and we have to be able to discern the signs of the times. As the world continues and regenerated in godlessness, we're going to be challenged in all three of these areas, and we're going to have to examine, test, and exercise. It's going to have to be really reasoned out, conscious, examining. Remember, that means you examine yourself, too. Examining, testing, testing whether it's biblical, and testing the spirit behind it. And exercise. Doing this. Doing it, and doing it, and doing it.

We're going to have to continue to do that. We're going to have to watch the signs and the times. But there is a wonderful promise in all this, and I want to leave you with the promise. You know, last week I went through the book of Malachi. I went through the book of Malachi last week, and just showed you how much it's in that book. We really just, we didn't cover everything in the book of Malachi. There's a lot in the book of Malachi we didn't, but by going through it you could see the message and how it's constructed, and how the message that God gave to Judah 400 years before Christ is a message that still resounds to us today. But towards the end of the book there's a great promise, and I read it, but I want to go back and read it again. Malachi 3. Malachi 3.

Verse 16. Malachi 3.16. Then those who feared the Lord. The Bible says the foundation, the beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord. Hold Him up in such awe and respect and love and knowing His power and His greatness, His goodness. For those who feared the Lord spoke to one another. There will be, there will be among those who actually fear God. There will be a brotherhood. There'll be a brotherhood. As we share the goodness we learn, we share the truth, we share the wisdom. Does everybody have all goodness? No. We all still sin. Does everybody have all truth? No. We all still have lots to learn. Does everybody have all wisdom? No. Everyone is going to make foolish mistakes. But we're going to grow together. That's interesting. They grow together here. They fear the Lord. They spoke to one another. They have a relationship. They talk with each other. And the Lord listened and heard them. God listens to what you and I talk about with each other. As I said last week. And so a book of remembrance was written before Him. For those who fear the Lord and who meditate on His name. We talked about in the sermonette a little bit about meditation. They shall be mine, says the Lord of Hosts, on the day that I make them my special treasure, my jewels. You are the special treasure of God. We have to discern that. There are people who come to church and never see themselves as the special treasure of God. And so they struggle with purpose and meaning. And all of us at times, we struggle sometimes through life. It's because we've lost that discernment of what God is doing in our lives. We only see ourselves and we see other people. When you look at yourself and other people, what do you see? Pretty much messed up people, including ourselves. When we see God, we are able to discern who He is. We are able to discern then that we are His special treasure, and what He's going to do in our lives. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. First thing that seems very interesting. Then you shall again discern. God's actions in our lives causes us to discern, to be able to separate, to be able to see clearly. They have this in-depth perception. We're able to discern between the righteous and the wicked, and between the One who serves God, the One who does not serve Him. We will be able to discern that. We must be able to discern that now, between the righteous and the wicked, between the One who serves God and does not serve God. The servant. It's why you and I, you know, a bunch of the suffering you and I go through every day is because somewhere in our life we had a lack of the servant. We're paying for it. And the problems we'll have next week are because of the lack of the servant we may be having now. The servant is something we must grow in. We must grow in the discernment of good and evil, error of truth, righteousness or foolishness and wisdom, and the signs of the times. And we do this through remembering our three points. Examine, test, and exercise, and then you will grow in discernment.