873. The Call to Discernment

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today we're continuing the study series in 1 John, but after the message we'll hear part of an interview with Rand Hummel about Christian camping, which was taken from Dr. Pettit's podcast. But first, here's a message from 1 John chapter 4 entitled, The Call to Discernment. Would you take your Bibles this morning and turn to 1 John chapter 4?

I want to begin this morning as we look in 1 John chapter 4 and verse 1 this morning with an illustration of something that I experienced a number of years ago. I started going to the country of India to preach right about 1990. It's been my privilege of speaking over there at least six times. When I went there was a particular gentleman who did most of the translation work for me that I got to know and we became very good friends. He was a little short Indian man, probably I'm going to guess 20 years older than I am, and his name was T.T.

Varghese. So I just called him Brother T.T. And after the first time I preached and he interpreted for me, he said something to me afterwards very interesting. He said, Steve, I don't interpret for everybody that comes to India. He said, I only interpret for those, and this is the way he said it, who preached the crucified Savior. I said, so what do you mean? What do you mean crucified Savior?

I mean, I know what that means, but explain your idea. Well, he said a number of years ago I was preaching in a tent crusade and he said when the service was over with I sat down and I begged God to forgive me for what I had said. He was an invited interpreter. He said I begged God to forgive me for what I said and I got on a bus that night and I left and I never came back to the crusade. And I looked at him and I said, Brother T.T., what in the world did you say? And he said, I preached another Jesus. I said, what do you mean another Jesus? He said, I preached a Jesus that would help you. I preached a Jesus that would heal you. I preached a Jesus who would care for you. I preached a Jesus who would make you wealthy. But he said, in the course of the sermon I never preached a Jesus who was crucified for you on the cross to pay for your sins. He said, I was preaching another Jesus. Well, that whole trip I spent a lot of time with him. In fact, the next night I preached on the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment and when the sermon was over with he looked at me and he said, good sermon.

He said, next time a little bit more of the cross. And if you've ever experienced this, you go overseas. I was there for probably a month so you kind of get immersed in the culture and then you come back and I think I landed in San Francisco and then I flew to Las Vegas. So it was like total culture shock. And I got home and I started listening to preaching with a different viewpoint and suddenly I realized that the preaching of another Jesus is going on all over the United States of America. This morning I want to speak to you on the theme as we have time, the call to discernment. That is discerning the right message. John is writing this letter to warn against false teachers and to confirm the salvation of true believers. First John chapter four is the high point of the letter and it focuses on two main tests of genuine faith. Test number one is the truth test verses one through six and we're going to look at that today and the next time we meet. The second test which will take the rest of the semester is the love test in verses seven through twenty one. So as we consider the truth test this morning, how does John begin this chapter? Well if you look at what he says in verse one, he starts with two urgent commands. The first thing is don't believe everything you hear.

Second command, evaluate or check out everything that you hear. Let's look at first John four in verse one. Notice what he says, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. The point he is making is that every Christian has to avoid being gullible and naive with regards to teachers and preachers. He said try the spirits, examine them, test them, just like medals were tested in the New Testament to see if they were genuine. Test to see if this preacher is preaching a genuine message from God. John Stott said behind every prophet is a spirit and behind each spirit there is either God or the devil. Before we can trust any spirits we must test them. So John is issuing a call for all of us to develop the ability to discern the nature of truth and true spiritual teachers. What is discernment? It's the ability to see through appearances in order to get to the truth, to get to reality, to what really is from God. And so this morning I want us to see very simply as John explains it there are three reasons why it is so important that you don't believe everything you hear.

And the first reason is because of the presence of false teachers. What did John say? Many false prophets have gone out into the world. So let me ask you a question.

Should we be surprised by this? What did Jesus say? Jesus explicitly foretold the coming of false prophets. Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Matthew 24 verse 11 and many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. Jesus was not giving that warning just for his own day but for the whole history of the church. Paul warned the Ephesian elders over 30 years before 1 John was written about the coming of false teachers.

Listen to what he says, for I know this that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock. Also of your own self shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. Later on Paul wrote on 1 Timothy 4.1, now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.

And even Peter warned about it. He says in 2 Peter 2.1, but there were false prophets also among the people even as there shall be false teachers among you who secretly shall bring in damnable heresies. So should there be any surprise when John tells us that many false prophets have gone out into the world. As John was writing this letter, already within the church of Ephesus there were heretical factions that had risen up among the body of believers. And here's what had happened, the false teachers had left the church and they went out into the world.

They were both defectors, but they were also detractors. That is they had left the church, but they were still creating problems. Now if this was the situation in the first century, what about the probability of the presence of false teachers in the 21st century? May I ask you a question, are we so naive to think that things have changed and everything is better, are we that dumb? Do you think false prophets actually exist today?

After I came back from India, I was in Denver, Colorado where my wife lives. I was sitting in the living room with my mother-in-law and she was watching a guy on television preaching. He pastored the largest church in the United States of America and two minutes into his sermon, I couldn't take it any longer. And I said to my mother-in-law, Arlene, do you know this man is a false teacher?

And actually she looked at me a little shocked, I said listen to what he says. How do you discern a false teacher? Well obviously if a guy gets up and he denies the deity of Jesus Christ, that's a false teacher, I think we get that. But this is a call for discernment because the false message was coming from professing Christians. How do you discern the false message? And the answer is not just by what somebody denies, but it is by what somebody de-emphasizes.

Let me say it this way, Paul said, I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. In other words, a false teacher cuts out parts of the message. Or he manipulates the message in such a way as he takes out the parts of it that are more offensive.

To make it more palatable and more acceptable to the hearer. God is called a preacher to preach what God says. To declare the whole counsel of God, to not cut the message, to make it easier. So I said to my mother-in-law, I said listen to him, I said listen to how many times he mentions the word sin. He didn't. Listen to how many times he talks about Jesus. Listen to how many times he talks about the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross to save us from sin and to save us from hell.

You didn't hear it. Because his message was tailored to the desires of his hearers and not to the truth of God's word. Young people, I want to urge you, be discerning because there are false teachers. But there's a second reason why we need to be discerning and that is not only because of the presence of false teachers but because of the impact of false teachers. In John's day, the false teachers were having a dramatic impact on the church and the world.

T.T. Varghese from India said, Steve, the greatest problem in India today is the commercialization of the gospel. It is using the gospel for selfish purposes. In John's day, these people had gone out, they had left their church. Their own ministers were traveling around and they were spreading their false teaching and their impact was damaging because the world was blindly flocking to hear them because their message was tailored to fit what the world wanted to hear. And sadly, even gullible believers were being drawn away by the false prophet's mixed message.

And so what was happening? Their ministries were thriving, their ministries were experiencing this sudden growth. And it was validated in the minds of shallow people because of the apparent success. Those that were shallow were excited about the growth because the church was growing like a weed. And the more discerning were concerned because all they saw were weeds. And I want to say that all growth does not mean that the church is shallow, but not all growth means that the church is solid.

And unfortunately, the impact was affecting God's people. They were confused and they were discouraged. And yet, John says to us, he says, try the spirits.

Now, the idea of the word try is actually very positive. The word means to test for the purpose of approving something. The goal here, as John is saying, is to test and discover and discern which spirit is from God. Or if I could say it this way, he's not calling us necessarily to be heresy hunters. Where we look for a heretic under every rock, that's not what he's saying. He's saying we need to have the ability to listen to what is true and what rings true. And I think John is saying that the positive impact of the presence of false teachers is that it should strengthen the people of God and give them a greater spirit of discernment. And my hope is that you will not only be aware of the reality of false teachers, but their very presence should strengthen your discernment and it should fire up your soul for the truth.

All right? Let me give you an illustration. Next week's Bible conference is based on this very reason. When I came here two and a half years ago that summer, we had two of our professors, Dr. Vogt and Dr. Boyd, who went to a conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan entitled Bio Logos. There were 250 people there, and the vast percentage believed in theistic evolution.

That is, they were professing Christians. Bio Logos' stated purpose, and you can read it online, I'll read it to you. It says, Bio Logos invites the church and the world to see the harmony between science and biblical faith as we present an evolutionary understanding of God's creation. The only two professors at Bio Logos conference that believed in six-day creation were from where?

Bob Jones University. That fired me up. And when they wrote back, look, I went to a state college, I used to have people mock me because I believed in six-day creation.

I got mocked in 1975 or 1977. And when I heard that and they gave me the report, I came back and I said, this has fired me up. You know what? We ought to have a conference on biblical creation and state to the world that we're just stupid people who believe in creation. Okay, admit it, Pettit.

You're just stupid. You believe the Bible for what it says. That God created the world in six days.

My response to that is always, man, that took him a long time. Because he could have done it in one day. There are among you many false teachers. Because let me tell you something, if you don't believe that God created the world and if you are honest with the Bible, you are going to have significant doctrinal breakdowns from that. Because inevitably you will not believe in Adam and if you don't believe in Adam, you don't believe in the existence of a man who sinned and brought death into the world.

Even if the first Adam didn't come, then what's the point of the second Adam coming and dying on a cross? And I want to say to all of you that the presence of false teachers should not weaken your faith, but it ought to strengthen your faith and it ought to fire up your soul. And that leads me to the last thing and why is it that we should have discernment and that is because of the future of Christ's church. The ability of God's people to discern the spirit of truth from the spirit of error is vital for the future of the church. Jesus promised the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, but that promise never meant that the church should go on vacation and fall asleep or become lazy and indolent. Jude said, earnestly contend for the faith.

Paul said, fight the good fight of faith. John said that the false teachers will be energized by a power called the spirit of antichrist. Who is the antichrist? Well, he's a literal historical figure who hasn't come yet, who's coming in the last days. 1 John 2, 18, little children, it is the last time and as you have heard, that antichrist shall come. Just like Jesus was God incarnate, the antichrist will be Satan incarnate. But before he comes, the spirit of the antichrist will be active and influential in the world through false prophets. Think of it this way, before Jesus came, the Old Testament prophets embodied the message in the spirit of the coming Messiah. So Isaiah and Jeremiah, they embodied Jesus' coming. Likewise, the false prophets embody in their message and in their spirit, the spirit of the antichrist.

And I want to say to all of you, this is a warning of huge proportions. It tells of the active presence of an evil and antagonistic spirit that is against God's truth, that energizes false prophets, that attacks God's people and seeks to destroy God's church. False teaching is real and its consequences are devastating. So from the time of John until today, God's people are called to discern and stand against this evil spirit. And that's why next time we meet, I'm going to speak on how to spot a false teacher.

And may God give us discernment. I want our people that listen to really grasp the value of camping. So talk to us about that.

Yeah. Well, especially in our COVID world today, if you think about it, kids are kind of stuck in a house in front of a computer screen or an iPad. They don't get to be with their friends and they're very lonely. And that's why this past summer, oh, the emails and the texts, how much they miss camp is huge because part of getting them away from the normals of life and just getting to a place, camps all over the United States, and there's wonderful Christian camps.

I think you have maybe over 50 that normally come here every fall and get students to go and work for them and all. And they're all great places because we're getting them to a place where we have a controlled environment, extended exposure to the word of God, and then obvious extended exposure to dedicated lives, what we call the counselors. And people say, what makes up a good camp?

Well, honestly, I can say it's not the property. And you can have an okay property and a not so funny fun time and just okay food. You've got counselors that really love the kids and really love God, and you have a speaker that so loves God and uses his word, you're going to have a great week at camp.

You are. Dr. Hay taught us you could have a good camp in a church parking lot. And I remember him saying that, and I said, well, it's nice to have a property with zip lines and waterfalls and all that. And then this last summer when in New England they closed us down in New Hampshire, and within, literally within 24 hours, my staff said, we're going to go to the kids then. And we set up 12 day camps at churches, four of them in Pennsylvania, the other eight through the six states of New England. We had over 1,200 kids show up.

That's awesome. Many, many trusted Christs in church parking lots. Now, they got some orange blossom special, and if my nose is running money and five pounds of possum, and we preached twice to them, I had pizza. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth, we did have hot dogs, a six rally, okay. And then all the rest for pizza again.

So I'm putting off pizza a little bit now. But just to be with these kids, and they were so excited just for us to be there and show that we really care. And so camping is a part where we just kind of come in. If you want to know what I do, I'm a sheepdog, okay. Pastors are shepherds, the other's sheep.

And then as a sheepdog, I can bite at the heels and bark and push them back to the shepherd, back to the local church. And at the same time, showing them how excited that we are about God's Word and trying to kind of infuse and plant seeds into their heart that they would love the Word of God. Well, you and I both, you know, you've been a camp director for many years. I was a camp director up in northern Wisconsin. And the impact of camping on the lives of Christian young people is just absolutely undeniable.

And hundreds and hundreds of young people who have been saved and their lives have been transformed through that concentration of God's Word in one week is unbelievable. So do you see that this is what people still want for the future? Oh, according to what we're seeing, both through fundraising, through letters, I think if we open camp today, if we could, number one, the kids want to come. And number two, the parents, they need a break from their kids. They want to send them for a couple weeks.

And we're seeing that. So I trust next summer, 2021, would, again, for all our camps across the United States, be one of the greatest summers that we'll have. And we trust God will do that.

If He doesn't return, that the doors will be opened up and the regulations are such that we can have four weeks at camp. Yeah, the kids, we do a thing called daily meditations. It's just a five-minute Bible study walking through a book of the Bible for teens. Anybody can subscribe to it.

You can go to Randhummel.com and subscribe to it. And I don't even know how many right now are doing that daily because they just love a touch of that memory of being with their Christian friends and being encouraged by the Word of God. And even those listening, if you think how many people you know or maybe yourself that actually made a life-changing decision at a camp, it is.

It's huge in their lives. You know, historically, revival has always started among young people. And, of course, one of the most likely places for that to take place is in a Christian camp. I've seen it happen over my ministry. And I remember back in the early 90s, some unusual things happened with not just a handful, but literally hundreds of teenagers getting saved and their lives being transformed.

And those people are in ministry today. You've been listening to Dr. Pettit's interview with Randhummel, camp director of the Wilds of New England Christian Camp. You can learn more about Rand and also subscribe to his daily meditations by going to Randhummel.com.

That's R-A-N-D-H-U-M-M-E-L dot com. This was just one of the episodes that are available on Dr. Pettit's podcast, Highest Potential, which explores stories of how Bob Jones University empowers young people to reach their highest potential for God's glory. You can listen to the whole interview by searching for the words Highest Potential at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow as we'll continue the series, Truth and Love, from the book of 1 John, here on The Daily Platform.