The Bible teaches the doctrine of justification. If somebody comes along and writes a book and says you can be saved without ever hearing the gospel, or you can be saved by believing in Jesus Christ, not necessarily believing in the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, I say that's not true. That's a lie. That's contrary to the truth which is established in Scripture. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. How would you respond if a friend asked you, how can I grow as a Christian? You might encourage that friend to pray more and memorize Scripture or join a Bible-believing church, and those habits will likely produce spiritual growth. But when John MacArthur answered that question for over a thousand college students, he talked about one word, discernment. What exactly was John getting at, and how do you cultivate discernment? Find out today as John issues a plea for discernment to the student body at the Masters University and to you as well.
So now here is the Chancellor of the Masters University and the Bible teacher every day here on Grace to You, John MacArthur. People ask me this all the time, what's the greatest need in the church today? What is the most compelling need? What do you see as the biggest problem in Christianity, the biggest problem in the church?
It's simple for me to answer that. The biggest problem in the church today is the absence of discernment. It's a lack of discernment.
It's the biggest problem with Christian people, they make bad choices. They accept the wrong thing. They accept the wrong theology. They are prone to the wrong teaching.
They're unwise in who they follow, what they listen to, and what they read. So it seems to me that if any problem outstrips the other problems in the church, and if any problem outstrips the other problems in an individual Christian's life, this growing lack of spiritual discrimination is, in my judgment, the main issue. This is really what is the death knell to biblical Christianity. Bad decisions, faulty reasoning, superficial understanding, shallow knowledge, ignorance are contributing and always have contributed more anguish to the church than any persecution. I would rather the church be persecuted.
I would rather Christians shed their blood than abandon their theology. In fact, there's no question historically that the lack of discernment, discrimination, precision regarding the truth has cost the church far more than all the persecutions of the church combined. You show me a persecuted church and I'll show you a church that clings with tenacity to the truth. You show me an affluent, flourishing, comfortable church and I'll show you a church that easily abandons the truth. Persecution has taken its toll on lives, but it strengthens the church because it strengthens our grip on the truth. So I want to talk about this issue of discernment. And I'm not just talking sort of historically, although we will look at that a little bit.
I want to get it down eventually as we go through the week to our own practical lives. Now just in general, if you look at the literature of the Bible, really from the beginning to the end, the Lord makes it very clear that there are two things sort of available to us in the world. One is the truth of God and the other is the lie of the enemy.
So we live in a world where truth and lies are in constant conflict. Now I want to take you to the main passage that we're going to be dealing with and that's over in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 20, 21 and 22, and that's where we want to focus. Do not despise prophetic utterances, but examine everything carefully. Hold fast to that which is good, abstain from every form of evil. Now this is virtually a call to discernment, a call to discernment.
Let's go back and just kind of take the text apart. Verse 20, do not despise, do not downgrade, that's what that Greek word means. Do not make light of, do not belittle, do not treat as trivial or insignificant, prophetic utterances. What he's saying is do not despise preaching, do not despise the presentation of the divine will. But while you're hearing preaching and while you're elevating protheteos, the gift of interpreting and proclaiming the divine will, do this, examine everything carefully. Test everything you hear to determine what's true. And he says, what you find is good, cling to it, hold on to it. On the other hand, verse 22, whatever comes across as evil, whatever its schema, whatever its form, the word abstain means push it away from you. You have to be able to make that distinction.
Precision is everything. Discernment is everything. I mean, if you were to go to the medical doctor and you were having severe headaches, debilitating headaches, you went to the doctor and the doctor said, well, it could be a lot of things.
It could be a fatal brain tumor growing, or it could be too much sugar, drinking too much soda pop, or it could be just being out in the sun. But you're welcome to believe anything you want. That's not helpful. That's not helpful.
You could say, well, I choose to believe that it's just being out in the sun, so I'll wear a hat, drink as much coke as I want. That's not helpful. The one thing you want to know is the truth about your condition. Why if we demand such precision with that regard, do we not demand precision in the spiritual realm and in the interpretation of divine truth? Test everything. It was said of King David, 2 Samuel 14, 17, that he was able to discern good and evil. Paul said, learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
It's the same thing. Hold on to what you determine is kalas. Good is the word kalas. Kalas is what is inherently noble, what is inherently true, what is inherently right and righteous and genuine. So when you're listening to the preaching, or when you're reading what's written, or when you're hearing somebody espouse something, examine it carefully. Put it to the test.
And the test is always the Scripture, like the Bereans who searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so. And when you determine that something is good, cling to it, grip it, clutch it. And on the other hand, as I said in verse 22, if it is not good, if it is evil in any form, the word literally means shun it, apah is the prefix, hold it far away from you. Separate yourself completely from it.
Don't sit under it. Don't expose your mind to it. It has a corrupting influence. And evil, by the way, is always understood in an active sense.
It's never something static. You can't ever play with evil as if it were some something completely objective, something fixed, something static. Evil is always presented in Scripture as something malignant, something harmful, something working disaster, something growing, corrupting, defiling and influencing and injuring everything it touches. Evil is like poison. It is like an infectious disease.
Stay away from it like you would stay away from a plague. This is a call for discernment. And Linsky, the New Testament commentator writes, the worst forms of wickedness consist of perversions of the truth, spiritual lies.
You know, I think that's really an important statement. The worst forms of wickedness are the perversions of the truth, spiritual lies. There are a lot of elements of wickedness in the world. You could talk about sexual sin, you could talk about covetousness, you could talk about all of the elements of materialism, you could talk about the horrors of war, you could talk about all of the terrible crimes, you could talk about abortion, whatever, pick whatever category. The...I think he's right...the worst form of wickedness that exists in the world is a perversion of truth.
It's the worst. So don't be guilty of that and don't be sucked in by those who are guilty of it. By the way, the word here, just for your filling out your knowledge on this, the word form is eidos, eidos.
It simply means shape. Evil in any form, any shape, any appearance of any kind, any sort, any species, shun it. This is critical. Or you will be susceptible to being led astray. So this then is a call for discernment. And this is such a critical thing and I can't emphasize it too strongly, young people, your value to the Kingdom of God, your value as a Christian as one who serves Christ is going to be directly related to your discernment regarding the truth. Also, the blessedness, the productivity, the fruitfulness, the joy of your Christian life is going to be directly related to your ability to discern because that's going to aid you to make good choices. And so I say that when the church loses its ability to discern, it puts itself in a disastrous situation, absolutely disastrous.
And I'll go back to what I said at the very beginning. I think evangelical biblical Christianity is fighting for its life and the reason it's fighting for its life is because it's lost its discernment. I can't even keep up with all the aberrations. I can't keep up with all the theological aberrations that are coming out of the evangelical movement.
Staggering to me. Now with that sort of as the foundation, we're going to ask some questions this week and then we're going to get to some practical application regarding discernment. But let me start with an initial question that sort of fills out our thinking. Why is there such a lack of discernment? It's obvious it's there.
The question is, why is it there? What has contributed to this? And simply, I'll give you the main contributor, is a weakening of doctrinal clarity and conviction. It's a weakening of doctrinal clarity and conviction. There were much better times in the history of the church when Christians were encouraged to think, to think biblically, to think theologically, to think precisely, to search the Scriptures thoroughly, to distinguish carefully its truths.
Churches weren't in the hands of pastors and leaders who didn't think deeply or clearly or precisely or carefully about the Word of God. Theology will disappear in the hands of novices. That's very, very obvious, especially in an environment where there's no real persecution. Today if you take a strong stand on a theological issue, you're criticized. I know because I'm criticized quite frequently, pretty much routinely.
In fact, one guy...I was introduced one time at the Booksellers' Convention as John MacArthur, the guy who's much nicer in person than he is in his books. And the reason they say that is because when you take a position in a book that's definitive and says, here's the truth of God, that's not acceptable in the pluralistic, syncretistic, tolerant environment that we live in now. You're criticized as being a heresy hunter and...I remember going to lunch when I wrote the book, The Gospel According to Jesus, a very well-known pastor took me to lunch and he said, your book is a problem, big problem. And I said, really? He said, yeah. He said, it's divisive, it's dividing the body of Christ.
It's a severe problem, it's causing a huge division in the church. And I said, I think I'm aware of that. But I said, can I ask you a question? Is it true?
Is what I wrote true? Because that's all I'm responsible for. I'm only responsible to teach the truth of God.
Just because it creates chaos doesn't change my responsibility. Jesus came and He preached the truth and they killed Him. But it didn't change the fact that He preached the truth. Paul preached the truth and they killed Him.
All the Apostles preached the truth and they killed all but one of them and they exiled Him to Patmos. It's just about the truth. That's all it's about. And he said, well, I don't agree with you. Oh, so I said, the issue is you don't agree with me theologically, so we need to talk about that.
You need to read the book. It's just about the truth. But when the superficial unity overpowers the role of the truth, you have obvious problems. So the fact that there's this tolerance and this disdain for precision and doctrine and clarity in understanding the Word of God is not because people disagree when they've done the hard work in the text, it's because people who haven't done the hard work in the text want to be accepted in the mainstream of evangelicalism without anybody questioning what they believe.
This is not an accident, believe me, because what Satan would want to do more than anything else is to become powerful in the church by getting the church not to make an issue out of the right interpretation of Scripture. Just tolerate everything and lack precision and conviction. There is very little doctrinal clarity today, very little conviction about doctrine. There's just the...really the death of clarity in doctrine and with the death of clarity comes the death of conviction.
And so what we want to do as we go through our education here, certainly in your behalf, is to make sure you get your theology right and it comes right out of the Scripture. There's a movement that's slowed down now as the Vineyard Movement. The real architects of the Vineyard Movement, John Wimber and another guy in England, David Watson, they led the charge of relativism into the church, they really did. Certainly David Watson led the charge of relativism into the Church of England and partnered up with the Vineyard here. They've been...they were really some prime movers in the early years of sapping the church of its doctrinal confession and conviction. And this is what David Watson said. Now David Watson was an Anglican and this is what he said. The reason I travel with a team...he has a kind of a music praise team...the reason I travel with a team gifted as they are in the performing arts is that they are able to communicate the gospel much more effectively than I could with mere words.
What in the world does that mean? You can communicate the gospel more effectively through performing arts than through words? God didn't give us a music video, He gave us a book. These are words. And words demand precision. The reason God gave us a book is because printed material is frozen and that leads to evaluation, assessment, comparison, contrast, exegesis.
It's there, it's unchanging. Not one jot or tittle will ever pass away of this eternal Word. There isn't any performing arts that are going to communicate the gospel more effectively than the words which God has given us. And then he...David Watson went on to criticize the Christian church. He said, quote, "...Most churches rely heavily on the written Word." And then they wonder why so few people find the Christian faith to be relevant.
So go back 30 years to the Vineyard Movement and you're going to find that they began to bring relativism into the church to replace the written Word with entertainment, performing arts because the Word couldn't convey the truth of God in a relevant way, they said. They were really saying that relevant Christianity is not mental, it's not rational, it's not doctrinal, it's psychological, it's emotional, it's experiential, it's mystical. So that's what we've got, experience and emotion and sort of Christian mysticism in the church without real doctrinal conviction.
That's the first reason why discernment has disappeared because if you don't have sound doctrine and you don't hold with all your passion to the conviction that those doctrines should bring to you, then you have no standard by which to discern anything because you have no fixed point by which to measure anything. I have a doctrine that I believe with all my heart, it's the doctrine of the Trinity. So when somebody comes along and says, God is not three in one, I say, that's a lie, right?
I have a doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ that says He is the God-Man, so when the Gnostics come along and say Jesus is a created emanation that descended from God down the long chain of emanations and is an elevated angel, I say, that's a lie because I understand the Bible teaches that He is God. The Bible teaches the doctrine of justification. If somebody comes along and writes a book and says you can be saved without ever hearing the gospel, or you can be saved by believing in Jesus Christ, not necessarily believing in the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, I say that's not true, that's a lie. I don't care who said that, I don't care who wrote that, that's contrary to the truth which is established in Scripture.
So the point is, you can't even have discernment unless you have the fixed standard. That's why it's absolutely critical that you know theology. Look, theology...the theology that has come down to us from the Word of God has been protected and preserved and fought for for millennia.
Here we are fighting for it today, no different than at any other time. They've been fighting for it, the Christians who believe the truth, for two thousand years fighting to hold on to this, earnestly contending for the faith, preserving, protecting, guarding the faith. And it comes down to us intact and then we've got this willy-nilly superficial kind of quasi-Christianity floating around that doesn't want to say anything for sure. And that's how you lose the faith altogether. So you have to stand where the Bible is crystal clear on these issues and that's the fixed points.
They don't change, they don't move. And by that you begin to measure. And then you go from there to matters of sanctification and matters even of discerning the will of God and matters of sin and righteousness and you know exactly what the Bible teaches. You know exactly what the Bible teaches about divorce. You know what the Bible teaches about issues like abortion, homosexuality, fornication, premarital sex. You know what the Bible teaches about cheating, about covetousness, about materialism.
You know all of those things. Those are fixed in the Word of God with unmistakable clarity. They have to then become convictions and against the plumb line of those great truths you make choices and you have discernment. If you don't affirm those doctrines, then you can't be discerning whatsoever. So if we're going to be discerning, we have to start with a conviction about sound doctrine. That's why in this institution the entire faculty agree on a doctrinal statement, the most lengthy one of any Christian college that I know of in America because that's the standard by which everything is then discerned. I thank God for the faculty from all the various places they've come, they agree completely on these great truths, not because I told them to or our administration told them to, but because they're reading the same Bible. That's where discernment starts.
We'll leave it at that point for today. Father, we are again aware of the fact that we wouldn't know anything unless You told it to us and how human wisdom leads us nowhere, the world by wisdom knows not You. Where is the wise man?
Where is the scribe? He can't on his own come to any true knowledge. So therefore, he's comfortable with just opinions but we have come to know the truth, the truth revealed in Your Word. And may we take that truth and may we learn and even master that truth to the degree that You've revealed it in Scripture so that it becomes the fixed framework, the plumb line against which all issues are discerned and measured. May we be people of the truth which truth then provides our doctrine, our conviction and guides the choices we make as we live our lives to Your eternal glory. We ask these things in Your Son's name. Amen. That's Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary.
John's current study is titled A Plea for Discernment. John, one of the principles you've talked about, the idea of abstaining from evil that Paul mentions in 1 Thessalonians 5, that brings to mind the notion of being in the world but not of the world. So talk about what that needs to look like with respect to our evangelism. In other words, how can believers cultivate friendships with non-believing co-workers and neighbors and classmates and yet not be seduced by worldly influences? We used to teach our children when they were very small that they needed to find friends who lifted them up. That was very important for small kids because the Bible says evil company corrupts good morals.
We always wanted them to have friends that lifted them up. That was so important in those early years as we were instructing them in the things that related to the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Now when they grow up, obviously they're going to be exposed to other kinds of people, people in the world who don't know the Lord, who aren't going to be positive influences on them. So the responsibility now becomes evangelism. But we always felt that if the kids grew up under the right kind of influences, they would collect together with the influences that mom and dad were having on them, and they would be impactful in rearing a young person who knew what it was to live a godly life. And we were blessed. Our four kids grew up to love the Lord, and when they did face the opportunity for people who don't know the Lord to come into their lives and take roles in their lives and be a part of their lives, there was never a question about what was right. There was never a question about what was good, what was elevated, what was honest, what was true. They'd always known that.
They'd always seen that. How do you cultivate those kinds of friendships? You then become the influencer.
You become the kind of person we wanted our kids to be with, somebody who's going to lift you up. You need to look at friendships as an opportunity to lift this person up, be a positive influence in their lives, and that may transcend into an opportunity to present the gospel to them in a more specific way. Thanks, John. And friend, to have a sort of influence, John mentioned, you need to know God's Word. So to help with that, I encourage you to check out the more than 3,600 hours of John's sermons on our website.
Get in touch today. Just go to our website, gty.org, and if you have a question about a specific verse or a topic, you'll likely find a sermon that addresses it, and all of them are available free of charge. Plus, you'll find helpful articles and devotional readings and more. Take advantage of all the Bible study tools available to you for free at gty.org. And when you get in touch, let us know how John's teaching is strengthening you spiritually. Maybe your family has been encouraged by the daily devotionals on gty.org, or maybe someone you know has come to faith in Christ after hearing one of our broadcasts. We'd love to hear about that, so email your story to letters at gty.org. That's our email address one more time, letters at gty.org. Or you can drop a note in the mail and address it to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be back tomorrow when John answers the practical question, What do you do if you hear your pastor or Bible study leader teach something that isn't biblical? Find out as John continues his series, A Plea for Discernment. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
