SUMMARY
The Importance of Discernment in Christianity
Scripture warns to examine everything carefully to hold onto what is good and let go of what is not. Paul's advice is to examine everything carefully to discern what is good and what is evil. The concept of dokimaz is discussed as the process of testing things to reveal their genuineness. Christians are urged to judge and distinguish everything, holding fast to what is good while abstaining from all forms of evil.
Lack of Discernment in the Contemporary Church
The lack of discernment in the contemporary church has led to its decline, and the culture of non-discrimination makes it difficult to uphold moral and truth values. Evangelical Christianity is fighting for its life, and this calls for people with discernment. The Chief of Police in Los Angeles has a firm belief in the Bible, which includes views on women, homosexuality, and child discipline. The church faces a lack of discernment due to the weakening of doctrinal clarity and conviction, and a culture that encourages non-discriminatory thought. This results in a failure to distinguish truth and criticism towards those who take a firm stand on biblical doctrine.
Cultural Climate of Relativism
The prevailing mood in the church favors sharing over preaching and a move away from clarity, conviction, and doctrine. There is a cultural climate of relativism and a war on standards in various fields. Religion is seen as a personalized experience, and the church is catching the disease of relativism. Martyn Lloyd-Jones predicted the trend of relativism in the church and warned against the abandonment of doctrinal clarity. David Watson led the charge of relativism, criticized the emphasis on the spoken or written word, and believed in the communication of the gospel through performing arts.
Consequences of Relativism
The author laments a trend in the modern church towards emotionalism, relativism, and a lack of theological conviction. This has resulted in a decline in preaching, worship, and even the gospel message itself. The speaker was invited to share his testimony about speaking in tongues, but he had not actually experienced it. He was pulled out of the pulpit after preaching the biblical view and was later told by a member of the group that he wasn't even sure if experiential worshipers were real Christians. The speaker goes on to discuss the importance of clarity in doctrine and understanding the gospel.
DETAILED NOTES
Examination of biblical text 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22
•Paul urges the Thessalonians to examine everything carefully, hold on to good things and abstain from every form of evil in 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22.
•Studying the holy scriptures helps people discern what is right from wrong.
•During a road trip to deliver his son’s car, the writer stopped by an elderly lady’s house, hoping to buy a quilt for his wife.
•The lady’s house had stacks of diverse religious literature and some Charismatic ministries' video cassettes scattered about.
•The writer purchased a quilt of his preference and left the house.
Discernment in Spiritual Living
•The husband has a quilted theology, made up of scraps of knowledge from various sources with little discernment.
•The lack of spiritual discrimination in Christianity is the biggest problem in the church, leading to bad decisions, faulty reasoning, and shallow knowledge.
•The work of Satan, disguised as an angel of light, is to cause confusion and error in the church at both basic and complex levels of theology.
•Christians are warned in Scripture about doctrines of demons, destructive heresies, and other pitfalls.
•Wolves in sheep's clothing will enter the church, and deception will increase as the age goes on.
•Understanding Scripture and heeding its warnings about error is essential to avoid being gullible and accepting a patchwork quilt theology.
Distinguishing Truth from Error in Christian Life
•Not everyone who claims to be in Christ is speaking the truth and people can be gullible.
•The church can behave like the Pharisees of Jesus' day.
•Jesus criticized the Pharisees' inability to distinguish between true and false signs.
•Distinguishing between truth and error is essential for Christians.
•Paul lists the basics of Christian living in verses 16 and following.
•Christians are to have unceasing joy, prayer, thankfulness, and reverence for God's revelation.
•Christians are also to examine everything carefully to discern good from evil.
•The text in Greek says "but examine everything."
Examining and Shunning Evil
•The Greek word 'dokimaz' means to test something to reveal its genuineness, as used in the New Testament.
•Testing should be done to distinguish what is true or false, right or wrong, good or bad, separating the genuine from the false.
•The testing process is an effort to learn what is pleasing to the Lord and to evaluate everything, discern good from evil, and hold fast to what is good.
•Abstaining from every form of evil means to hold oneself away from it and completely separate oneself from what is deemed harmful, injurious or poisonous.
•The worst forms of wickedness consist of perversions of the truth, spiritual lies, and moral perversions, all of which are destructive to spiritual life.
The Importance of Discernment
•The speaker emphasizes the need to shun evil in any form and shape despite its moral nature, especially in cases of truth perversion.
•The audience is called to practice discernment, a trait often mentioned in the New Testament, to separate truth from falsehood.
•The undiscerning contemporary church is criticized for prioritizing relationships over doctrine and favoring entertainment over exposition.
•The speaker believes that the lack of discernment in the church is causing evangelical Christianity to fight for its life.
•The culture that we live in has devalued discernment and sees it as unacceptable, which makes pursuing absolutes and convictions difficult.
The Lack of Discernment in the Church Today
•Bob Vernon, Assistant Chief of Police in Los Angeles, is under fire for his biblical beliefs.
•The culture demands non-discriminating thought, which is intolerable to the church's biblical views.
•Lack of discernment in the church today is a problem.
•Today's norm is to avoid taking firm stands on biblical doctrine out of fear of being unloving toward those with different opinions.
•The weakening of doctrinal clarity and conviction is the primary reason for the lack of discernment in the church.
•Christians in the past were encouraged to think biblically, test everything, distinguish carefully and take a stand.
•However, today's church does not want to appear dogmatic, which leads to shallow biblical interpretations.
•Jay Adams identifies that biblical interpretation has been invaded by ill-equipped individuals.
The Cultural Shift towards Relativism and the Decline of Doctrine in Ministry
•Counseling and ministry lack discernment and conviction.
•Sharing has replaced preaching.
•There is a cultural wave behind the shift towards openness and rejection of narrowness and dogmatism.
•The prevailing climate in the culture has led to a war on standards, where every belief is being questioned and deemed relatively true and valuable.
•The church is catching the disease of relativism.
•The trend towards relativism in the Church has been visible for some time.
•The decline of doctrine in ministry is apparent in favor of relationships and unity.
•Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ biography highlights the decline of ministry doctrine.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones and David Watson Warning against Relativism in the Church
•Martyn Lloyd-Jones predicted the trend of relativism in the church and the death of doctrinal clarity in 1971.
•Many young people in America and the UK, as per Lloyd-Jones, tend to distrust reason and intellectualism, and instead, they focus on experiences and sensations.
•Lloyd-Jones saw the danger in relativism, but instead, evangelicals accommodated this trend into their cause.
•David Watson led the charge of relativism into the Church of England and criticized the Christian church for relying heavily on the spoken or written Word, which, according to him, makes the Christian faith irrelevant.
•Watson believed that performing arts were more effective than preaching to communicate the gospel, which is an abandonment of the biblical pattern of truth proclamation through words.
The Decline of Doctrinal Christianity
•Christianity has shifted from being doctrinal to being emotional, experiential, and mystical.
•The church has moved away from preaching doctrine to induce feelings and emotions that focus on needs.
•The Charismatic Movement and psychologists who promote a relational approach have made preaching relativistic, mystical, and relativistic, leading to a decline in worship.
•Satan has tricked evangelicals into abandoning doctrine by selling them the hermeneutics of liberal theology, making the church increasingly devoid of conviction.
•Preachers have turned into comedians, storytellers, and counselors, failing to proclaim divine truth powerfully.
•John Wimber's popular book, "Power Evangelism," instructs the church on evangelism without mentioning the gospel.
•The decline in doctrinal focus has resulted in a lack of conviction even in the basic issue of the gospel.
My encounter with a Charismatic group
•A group mistook me for someone who had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spoken in tongues, inviting me to give my testimony about tongues.
•I went to give the biblical view on the topic, assuming they were interested in hearing our doctrine, and began preaching.
•After about 20 minutes of preaching, a man pulled me down from the pulpit bodily and prayed that God would zap me and make me speak in tongues.
•A man who had been in the group for nine years had no sense of clarity about doctrine or the gospel message.
•During a radio interview, the host asked me how a person becomes a Christian, and I explained the need for recognizing one's sinfulness and repenting from sin.
The Importance of Doctrine in Christianity
•The belief in Jesus Christ as God’s Son, who died and paid the price for sin, is necessary for salvation.
•Lack of clear doctrine leads to confusion and division within the church.
•Doctrine confronts error and separates true from false.
•Evangelicals who depreciate doctrine and set aside unpopular convictions risk losing truth, conviction, discernment, righteousness, holiness, discipline, true love and spiritual maturity.
•Weakening doctrinal clarity and conviction in the name of unity and mystical experience has contributed to the lack of discernment within the church.
•Christians should study and rightly divide the Word of truth to avoid being ashamed before God.
The Importance of Antithetical Thinking in Biblical Preaching
•The liberals sold us their hermeneutics with a focus on relationships, love, unity, and mystical experiences.
•A failure to think antithetically is a major problem in theology and preaching.
•Antithetical thinking means being black and white in debate, argument, and theology.
•Biblical preaching is not relative nor subjective but is absolute and sharply black and white, antithetical to error.
•Truth is absolute, and it rubs people the wrong way because it hits them with conviction.
•Worldly thinking pollutes the minds of most church goers and promotes the view that nothing is really black and white, or right and wrong.
•Antithetical thinking is crucial to test the thesis and to find the opposite, which is crucial in the process of biblical preaching.
The Importance of Antithesis in the Bible
•The culture today is dominated by continuum thinking where things are seen as different shades of gray and not black and white.
•However, the Bible emphasizes the importance of antithesis and discernment to understand the absolute truths.
•The Bible presents two and only two ways; God's way and all other ways, for everything from the Garden of Eden to the eternal destiny of human beings.
•Everything in Scripture is absolute and crucial to divine revelation.
•The Hebrew language itself seems designed to teach antithesis.
•The clean/unclean system in the Old Testament served to alert the Jews that they must consciously choose God's way in everything they do.
The Importance of Discernment in the Christian Faith
•The clean/unclean system was designed to instill an antithetical mentality in God’s people, but the present Christian environment encourages integration of external principles with Scripture.
•Continuum thinking has resulted in a climate where discernment is deemed unnecessary, divisive, and even evil.
•A preoccupation with image and influence as the key to evangelization is another factor hindering discernment in the church. The belief that winning the world involves winning their favor has lead to a lack of emphasis on doctrinal absolutes necessary for discernment.
Missing the Mark on Evangelism
•The focus on image and influence over truth and doctrine is a concerning trend in modern evangelism.
•The concept of marketing ourselves as a "friendly church" to attract unbelievers minimizes the importance of preaching truth.
•The fear of offending unbelievers has led to the avoidance of topics such as sin, hell, repentance, and the cross.
•The emphasis on creating a comfortable and non-threatening environment for unbelievers is believed to be the key to evangelization.
•The belief that influence and image are more important than scripture is misguided.
•The purpose of the church is to edify believers and to evangelize unbelievers.
•The trend towards ecumenical evangelism began in 1955 with the Billy Graham Crusade in New York.
The Feminization of the Church
•The evangelism strategy in the 1950s was to avoid any division with those who didn't believe the Bible and attain influence for evangelicals.
•The Graham organization aimed to attain prestige and influence for evangelicals by not forfeiting dialogue with ecumenical leaders and churches.
•Fuller Seminary's faculty members pursued prestige by obtaining degrees from elite eastern liberal institutions and wanted association with influential eastern elite even if publicly identifying with evangelicals.
•The church began to focus on attaining influence, prestige, popularity, and intellectual acceptance to embrace people and make them like Jesus, which led to a major turn.
•This view believes that influence, popularity, and prestige are what get people to believe the gospel, which is absolutely wrong.
•Real spiritual men fight and pay the price for bold and clear proclamation of the truth.
•The feminization of the church is causing it to become soft.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones and his perception in Christian community
•Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a highly theological man who believed that the evangelization occurred through powerful preaching of truth rather than prestige and image.
•His beliefs regarding the importance of warning and opposition to error were significant parts of his true commitment to the Bible, which disconnected him from those who put love first and viewed the arguments over doctrine as unchristian.
•His ministry was an inspiration to those who believed in a return to authoritative preaching, but it was an offense to those who supported the spirit of modern pulpit.
•Lloyd-Jones believed that the church's focus on influence, prestige, and image was more effective in fulfilling the calling to preach the gospel than preaching the truth, which he considered a worrying trend in Christian affairs.
The Importance of Truth and Faithfulness in the Church
•The speaker expresses shock over the increasing number of people who believe that building the church according to Scripture is not important.
•The Holy Spirit will bless those who are faithful to the truth, regardless of how small or despised their work might be.
•The church is an offense to those in error, rejection of truth, sin, and those who refuse Jesus Christ.
•Mitigating offense is ridiculous because it is what the Holy Spirit intends to produce.
•The lack of discernment in the church is due to weak theology, a failure to be antithetical and preoccupation with worldly image.
•The church needs to have clear theology, be antithetical to error and sin, and speak the truth in love.
•The church's power is not in its image but in its message. Performing arts cannot accomplish what only the spoken, proclaimed, and written Word can.
Prayer for Discernment and Guidance
•The writer is seeking help from their father, asking for discernment and asking for clarity.
•They acknowledge that they may be in a state of confusion or uncertainty and are requesting assistance to discover the root cause of it.
•The writer is seeking the aid of the Holy Spirit in making the right choices and seeking what is true and just.
•They are hopeful that this will bring blessings upon them and they will be able to glorify God through their actions.
•The prayer is concluded humbly, in the name of Jesus Christ.