SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Lambs and Company, a podcast about life. We will feature guests and friends on the podcast to have quality conversations and wonderful fellowship. We hope you will join us. It's a life worth living and it's a life worth giving.

SPEAKER_05 0:25

Welcome to another Lambs and Company. We're excited about this particular series that we're uh in the middle of. And this will be like an installment part two on uh deception and delusion. And the basis of uh of what we're talking about, and I just want to pick up with Second Thessalonians chapter two, where Paul was addressing uh really a young congregation in many ways. Um the um Paul had been probably a convert about 15 years when he established the Thessalonian or Thessalonica congregation based on Acts chapter 17 and verse 1. And it was probably 20 years uh beyond uh the time of Jesus' death, burial, uh crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension. And so uh the first epistle of First Thessalonians probably was uh had been uh a year that uh after Paul's conversion, and um so that would have been around 16 years. Of course, some of this is flexible because we don't have an exact day and time and stuff like that, but we have a general idea. But the point is, this young congregation had an incredible faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they were actually living in a very hostile environment, even compared to some of the other regions that Paul had been ministering in. And one of the things that came up in the second epistle was he said, now brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, concerning our gathering together unto him, we ask you not to let your mind be quickly shaken or be troubled, neither in spirit nor by word, nor by letter, coming as though from us, as if the day of Christ had already was already here. Do not let anyone deceive you in any way, for the day will not come unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself to be God. And I'm not just going to jump down to verse 10 just for the sake of time. Well, let me drop down to verse 9, really, and um Paul says, even him whose coming is in accordance with the working of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all deception in verse 10 of unrighteousness amongst those who perish, because they did not receive the love for the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore, God will send them strong delusions that they should believe the lie, that they all might be condemned who did not believe the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness. And um, you know, part of the thing that is going on there is a really a parallel to what's going on in our culture and society right now in many ways. I think there are a lot of areas that are deception. I think there's a lot of uh areas that um have strong delusions that are going on. And you have to remember everything that's spiritual may not be of God. 1 John chapter 4 tells us very clearly, he said, beloved, believe not every spirit, because every spirit is not of God. In other words, he was saying everything that's coming that's spiritual is not really a truthful spirit, a representation of the character and the nature of God, which would always be in righteousness and justice and truth. And so, uh having said that, before we go any further, I just want to just again welcome you to the Lambs and Company, remind you that a life worth living is a life worth giving, and just to ask that our Heavenly Father would bless this time of communication and conversation with Dr. Hall and myself, and it would be something that would help equip you uh for your life in Christ. Um, the very place that we see Thessalonians and uh first discovered the gospel and the word of God in Acts chapter 17, we also could drop down in the same chapter, I think in the 11th verse, and it makes reference to a group of people that were called the Bereans. And the Bereans were men and women that heard things, but then they searched out the scripture to make sure what they were hearing was accurate and true. And I think if ever before, it's not just the excitement, the enthusiasm, it's not just for the fact that we can we can see spiritual movement or momentum that happens, but is that spiritual movement and momentum that's happening really in agreement with God? Because we're warned in Isaiah chapter 50 that we're not to kindle our own fire. We're not to uh just to make something happen to say that it's happening and then label it as if it's God. God's fully capable and able of identifying himself, revealing himself, and actually making known who he is, which he is the Lord and God. And he's not only the Lord and God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but the Father, the Lord Jesus, as well as the Holy Spirit are very capable of defending themselves. But the real question is, are we willing to submit and surrender ourselves to God? One of the things that James said in James chapter 4 is, beloved, he said, submit yourself to God in James 4, 7. He said, Submit yourself to God, resist the devil, and he'll flee. I'm watching today, and a lot of people are trying to resist the devil, but there's no real indication that they've ever surrendered or submitted himself to God. It's going to be impossible for you to overcome the enemy and what he's doing in this age, in this hour of time, in your life or your family's life, or your friends' lives, if you don't submit yourself to God. And that's such an important thing. And I just want to just say that one of the ways we're able to do this, uh, of avoiding deception and delusion that was mentioned there in 2 Thessalonians 2.11 is really by discernment. And I just want to give you what Paul said in Philippians chapter 1 in verse 9 and 10. I'm going to read this. And I know I'm just taking some time, laying out some things this morning, kind of hitting this second installment. But he says, and this I pray that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless in the day of Christ. You know, there was a guy uh named John Cazan, and he was a significant writer that uh actually wrote, and he was actually in the Abbot, he was, he was, he was recorded or documented in a conference called Abbot Moses. And it was, I think, during the um uh one of the councils that took place. But one of the things that he said, discernment is the mother of all virtues, as well as their guardian and their regulator. You know, there are other people that have come along since then that were true voices to the body of Christ, like A. W. Tozer. A.W. Tozer declared that the spiritual gift most needed in the church today is the gift of discernment. Lee Grady, who was uh one of the contributors to uh Ministries Magazine and Charisma magazine for years, was also said that he admonished that discernment is the most neglected of all spiritual gifts. Someone that I highly respect and had the opportunity to go out and be a part of one of his pastors' conferences, Dr. Jack Hayford in Van Nos, California, said the deeper we move into the last days, the greater the need for the young people to have the shelter and the shield and the presence and the power, the wisdom and the discernment of the Holy Spirit. You know, uh again, um just a couple more quotes here, because what what really is discernment? Discernment is not criticism, discernment is not the fear of evil, discernment is not suspicion or skepticism, discernment is not judgmentalism, discernment is not just a negative assessment, discernment is also a positive thing that works in the life of the believer. And this is where, you know, Artie, can you comment on actually the Hebrew word for discernment? You know, it I I want to because I've got some things listed here, but I think the primary Hebrew word is like B-I-N ben?

SPEAKER_03 10:59

Bean, yeah, is to have knowledge. Um that is one of the words, yada is a word for uh knowledge, and uh is to be wise, and it's like chukmah. The the concept in in Hebrew of uh discernment uh is this the is the idea that you have you have knowledge, which is the whole idea of of something like being uh uh din is the uh word for judgment, and it's sort of interrelated with that, but and and and yada is just to have knowledge of something, to know about something, to know that a fact exists, like the truth. And then with chokma, you know how, or the the chakam to be wise, you know how to apply that information. And that's the aspect of discernment, the two sort of run together. The New Testament concept is more uh the the word that's used is kriteel, and it's it's this word that is where we get the word critic from, criticon, uh, or uh, you know, a criterion, it's like a standard. And uh I I I think just you know, last week we talked so much about the importance of truth, knowing the truth, understanding the truth, but the obvious question is how do you know how what kind of standard can you use? And I do see one in in in the New Testament, it's the thing that James said. Uh he said this in uh verse 17, it's chapter, ooh, what chapter is this, um, chapter three, uh, chapter three, verse 17. He said, the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, then gentle, then open to reason, is full of mercy and good fruits, and impartial and sincere. A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. So, what you see in that is is this idea of discerning the truth in the very thing you're saying. It's not that it's a negative thing. This is not a judgment against someone for condemnation. This is just a judgment to know whether something is a fact or not, whether it's actually true. And that is a very important thing for us to understand.

SPEAKER_05 13:26

Well, you know, it's like going back to the Hebrew thing, it seemed what I was looking at, it actually was kind of like a not uh the word there is is uh there was a word discern, but it also is like to perceive or to separate or distinguish.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:42

And so it's it is for the purpose to understand the very thing you're exactly you're you're asking.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

That's the word translated understanding often.

SPEAKER_05 13:49

Yeah, and and so it's between the idea of distinguishing and dividing between things.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 13:55

And you know, I I think if I'm you know, one of the things that the writer of Hebrews told us in the fifth chapter of Hebrews and the 14th verse, one of the things he said is we needed to be able to discern between right and wrong. And it's amazing to me that many people in the body of Christ are listening more to the culture to determine emotionally and mentally what they feel is right and wrong instead of what God's counsel says to us of what's right and wrong. And you know, I think Proverbs 3 is very clear that we're not to lean to our own understanding, but we're to acknowledge the Lord in all of our ways. And this is um this has become critical, you know, and maybe that's why, you know, and maybe that's where the Greek word comes in.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 14:52

That's the critical. We've got to know how to separate between right and wrong. And matter of fact, in the fourth chapter of the 12th verse of Hebrews, before he gets to the fifth chapter in the 14th verse, he actually says to us, he said, the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing both soul and spirit. Yeah, and I think a lot of people are operating still without even realizing it, and they're innocent about it, but they're operating out of their soul instead of their spiritual vitality and virtues of life that come by way of the word of God and the spirit of God.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

That that the the the New Testament idea uh with with uh Krino uh critique on that, they're all it's all that same route. And it the very thing you said, to divide. That is the root meaning of that is to is to separate something so you know what's true and what's false. And uh it's interesting that that both of us, of course, and uh hopefully the rest of the church, you know where we go to find out the truth? The Bible. Yes, exactly. We all that everything we just pulled out of here was not out of a hat, it was out of the Bible, and I and we are lost without that.

SPEAKER_05 16:13

Well, and it and again, it it's like um when I first came to Christ in 1974, there was a wonderful family that's a part of the body of Christ in this community that invited me to go with them to the mountains for a weekend. And you know, on that Sunday, we went to a local church. I remember it was up around Boone, North Carolina, and they took me to a local church, and we went, and they were very devout and very committed believers. I won't name the church, uh, but it's one of the churches that has found itself in the news over the last 10 years. And part of the controversy is for the fact that people are leaning more towards what the world wants and what the world desires than what the word of God has already established and the standards have already been set. Yeah, but I just remember even as a young Christian that was probably uh came to Christ July the 31st of 1974, and this was probably in late October or early November of 1974, and I remember sitting through that whole service, and not one scripture was read. And the the minister was reading from uh he was reading from a like it was not a bad thing, it wasn't uh a negative thing, it was very likable and common in that day for people to read kind of devotionally and things of that nature, but it was more stories than it was actually the word of God. And I just remember, even only being less than six months old in the Lord, I'm thinking, where's the Bible in all of this? You know, I mean, like where's where's God in all this stuff? And you know, people were able to come in, sit down, go through all the motion, and then after all the motion and activity, they were able to dismiss with an amen and leave and go about their business in their day. And pretty much you could have done all of that without any conviction or comfort.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 18:32

No conviction, no comfort, uh, no real challenge put out there. It's just we went, we showed up, we fit in, we blend in, we finished, we conclude, and we go home.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:44

And I'm not sure that that's not part of what the difficulty of the day that we're in is people have moved so it's almost like it's a frightening thing to some people to talk about the supernatural, to believe that God is supernatural and that He can intervene into the natural of their lives every day. And yet we will accept all kinds of supernatural movement and activity that is foreign, alien, and many times idolatry in the sight of God from his word, and people will blend in and lay hold of that, but yet reject the concepts that are actually clearly defined in the word of God. And and I think Paul told me, he said, you know, he said, in the last days, one of the things that would happen, in the last days, there would be spirits that would actually be working, but part of the thing that occurs as the activity in the society and culture happens, it is five different uh or six different things that it says they're lovers of. And they're lovers of themselves, they're lovers of all the stuff. One thing they weren't lovers of was lovers of God. But the results of it were tragic. It said they have a form of godliness, yeah, but deny the power thereof. Yeah, and God's the only real power that we have to get free from ourselves and from life itself many times. And when you when you def move away from that, I I think you're doing that thing out of Mark 7 that Jesus referenced, where you know, he was talking to his disciples and he talked to some of the people around him, and he referenced, he said, you know, they were more concerned about the ritual of washing and the rituals of these things, which he Jesus wasn't finding fault with that. He said, But you're more concerned with this. And he said, Because you're so much more concerned with this, what you've done is you've made the word of God of no power or no avail in your life. Yeah, and um, and you know, there have been times, and I I believe that you're I we know each other well enough, I can say it. There are times that both of us have found ourselves praying the prayer of Psalm 139-22.

unknown 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:13

Where we've asked the Lord, Lord, search me and see if there's any wicked way in me. Absolutely. You know what I'm saying? It's like I've asked the Lord, Lord, search me because I can't be looking and talking about everybody else and finding fault with everybody else. Yeah, it starts with me, yeah, it starts with my house, so to speak. And I have to be willing for the Lord to reveal things, but he's not gonna reveal it necessarily just because of my emotion and my feeling. And so I fit in and I blend in. He reveals things that bring correction as well as comfort and conviction, but the real outcome of that is a transformation of my life.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Yeah, yeah, it it uh Every every institution, and and just particularly when you're thinking in terms of organized church, institutional church, denominational systems, and they can be any system, it can be the the government, it can be a public service, whatever, none of it ever has a t if you leave it alone, none of it have ever has a tendency to get better. Just like the whole world, if you throw the banana peel on the ground, it rots. That that is a principle in that. Things just don't get better by themselves. And there's a tendency toward liberalism, and most of the denominations go in that direction. There's generally never you have to push toward conservatism because what you're looking at there is what used to be that was the truth then and it never changed. Something over here went crazy, and that's where our culture is. We we used to have some sort of pillar that would support us, something that was unchanging. And not just people, but the culture believed that. You know, there was a God in heaven, he existed. And even if you didn't serve him, even if you didn't like him, even if you hated him, there was still that generalized belief in that. You you disconnect yourself from that, you get a whole bunch of corruption over here. You can have corruption over here too, because people are bad, but it gets way out of hand over here, and that's where we are. It's like anything goes now. And I you just every time you hear the news, it's just some new crazy thing that happens. You kind of go, how did that happen? How did we get here to the craziness where we are in all of this?

SPEAKER_05 23:39

Well, it's like I heard a guy uh that's a pastor out in Texas, and he played a clip of a guy that's very renowned individual, very popular amongst the younger uh younger folks, and um he basically was finding tremendous fault with the church because he was talking about how the church has gotten involved in politics. Well, the pastor played the part, played the piece, and he said, wait a minute. He said the church is doing the same thing it's been doing for centuries. Yeah he said, What's happened is politics have now come in and they want to dictate the standard of life to the church.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:26

He said, That's gaslighting.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:28

And he said, you don't get to do that. And he said the church can't buy that and become a silent person and a silent voice and silence even. And what it does is it wants to change your mind and my mind from biblical truth. And the truth is, if I'm not mistaken, that's actually what Paul was talking about with apostasy to the Thessalonian church. He said, you're moving away from the truth. And the culture and the climate of the hour are trying to get the church to move away from being the pillar of truth in the culture. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

You know, Franklin Roosevelt uh had his had had the freedom of the four freedoms, five freedoms, I'll recall them all. But one of them he he had, he he called it freedom of worship. Not freedom of religion, freedom of worship. And the implication was you can be as Christian as you want to as long as you're in the church. But if you go outside and try to do that, you can't do that. At least now he didn't say that, but that's the idea that was circulating to some degree at the time. And that that that took hold of us that somehow you can be free to do whatever you want to do over here. But if you come out and you preach Jesus on the sidewalk or something, they're gonna arrest you. And and you know, and maybe there's you're being obnoxious, I don't know. I I I don't know how effective some of that is, but but the point is you it but to practice my religion of Christianity, my religion says preach the gospel and make disciples. The very nature of that's outside the building. Yeah, you know, you said all of us really supposed to be outside the building. You know, so so you just can't do that. And that means, can I preach the gospel in Congress? I bet so. You know, I why could I not? You know, that that and I'm not sure I want to go do that, but but it it it because they probably usher me out, I guess. But but it uh I but there there we have we have bought that and it and it's sad because it it it removes our influence on people and on the world.

SPEAKER_05 26:45

Okay. Honest Lord, do what you gotta do in us as your people, as your sons and daughters, to give us the backbone and the strength to be uh joined to you in spirit as well as in word and in life, just so that we can live life, not just in the four walls of the church, but really the gospel was meant to be outside the four walls because those that are in the church are already a part of the church and the family of God. It's for the lost and the damned. And Father, I just pray that you would revisit your body and revive that spiritual reality and that spiritual truth in all of our hearts in Jesus' name. Um, you know, Artie, going back to the thing, discernment is really at the root of the ability to distinguish between right and wrong and good and evil.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:40

And yet, I love what Charles Spurgeon said. Charles Spurgeon said this was powerful when I discovered this. Charles Spurgeon said that discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong, it's telling the difference between right and almost right.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:06

You know, Oswald Chambers, who was actually influenced by Charles Spurgeon, said the good is sometimes the enemy of the best. Discernment involves not only distinguishing the good from the evil, but also decrees, degrees of good and better and best.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:27

You know, and and Paul writes, you know, in that passage in Philippians that we read in Philippians chapter 1, verse 9, 10, and 11, he he makes mention of the fact that it was really supposed to be out of love, understanding, and increased discernment. And that's really part of what we're talking about that has to happen. And, you know, sometimes, guys, this stuff gets um it gets to be a challenge in our heart to be willing to surrender and submit to God, to hold our peace, to have a confidence and a courage and a boldness, to stand up in the face of the culture and not to cave and to give up the ground that really was intended for the kingdom of God. That that is such a necessary thing in this hour. And if you can have a takeaway, if you can take that away and realize that the voices sometimes that you hear that may be crying, Hosanna, Hosanna, and the highest today may just a few days later be crying out, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him. Other words, the general public sometimes is not the way to measure your spiritual development and success. Your spiritual development and success is not measured by the general public. They might get to see the fruit and the evidence of it, but the true development of it is in our obedience and our surrender and our submission to God. And living that life and not being uh complaining about it, not be bemoaning it or groaning it, but just simply living it and learning how to love it. And um, you know, and that's a journey that you will spend the rest of your life learning.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:29

You do, ain't that true?

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:31

How long have you been doing this already?

SPEAKER_03 30:33

Uh since I was a kid. Uh since Eisenhower was the president. Wow. Yeah. That was a while back. Some people don't even know who Eisenhower was. There's a there's a lack, we often say there's just a lack of common sense. And the and the term common sense that we use so much kind of came from a fellow named Thomas Reed, who was a Scottish guy, um Scots, they actually say, back to during the uh Scottish Enlightenment. And there was a philosophy called common sense realism, swept over Europe. It controlled the academic world in the United States for years until about the end of the 19th century, early 20th century. And the idea is that God made us to perceive the world with, you know, we can see, smell, taste, hear, we can do all that stuff. And on the basis of perceiving the world, we'll all come to a common sense of what everything is about. You know, the I the law of gravity doesn't change. The law of physics, all that stuff doesn't change. It's something that is common to all of us. Men are men, women are women, you know, all those things that are there. And we we have disconnected ourselves from that.

SPEAKER_05 31:43

Yeah, when we don't know who who which which gender goes in what bathroom, there's something going on there. Um, listen, I think that this is so important um what we're doing. And I just we we could we could push this thing over the next five or six minutes and close it out, or we can just kind of come to a landing place and pick up on an installment three. And I'll but having said that, I want to give you two more quotes of important people that I appreciate and then ask already to close us out in prayer. But Oswald Chambers also cautions that God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede. Horitan Boone likewise affirmed discernment is God's call to intercession, never to fault finding. Genuine discernment does not lead us to judgment, but to prayer. You know, I I boy, I could I I could say a lot of stuff about that, but um a lot of times when you have discernment in your life about something, it isn't so you can have the hair stand up on the back of your head and so you can walk away and then you can talk about it to everybody. It's so that you can see a problem and you understand that heaven is the solution to the problem, and Jesus even set a precedence for this. When Jesus was asked by his disciples, Lord, teach us how to pray, and Jesus taught them principles. We've made it into a prayer, and we call it the Lord's Prayer, but really that was the prayer, that was content that Jesus gave to his disciples to know how to pray. But one of the things that Jesus taught them how to pray is deliver us from evil. Deliver us from evil. So if you see something that's really wrong and evil, you don't just see that so you can talk about it, you see that so you can pray about it and ask that God's kingdom come into that arena of life and invade that area and actually change and transform those things that are happening. And that's not always an immediate, instant thing that happens because what you're seeing is the manifestation and the fruit of something that's had a long time, many times, to develop and mature and grow. So you have to begin to pray into that area to begin to see the kingdom of God come and the will of God to be exercised and done. But in the meantime, you're able to actually walk in that covering and that protection of the Lord delivering us from evil because yours is the kingdom, yours is the power, and yours is the glory. Amen. So, Artie, would you pray?

SPEAKER_03 34:46

All right, we can do it. Lord, we ask you to give us discernment. We ask you to teach us to know right and wrong, good and evil. Lord, what you think about it, not our opinion, not the opinion of the world. Help us to discern rightfully what's there. Help us always use the standard of your word and your truth. Lord, help us live in reality and also understand that the supernatural world cancels out how many evil things are planned. Lord, protect us, keep us, show us your ways, teach us, and help us to be able to share your truth and preach the gospel and make disciples, Lord, and bring glory to your name. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_05 35:34

Amen. A life worth living is a life worth giving. Thank you for your time today. God bless you.