My journey in the faith has taken me through some interesting places. When I first was saved, my first worship experience took me to hyper charismatic church which was at best, sorely off track.The gospel was preached and the pastor used the expository method, however the service was frequently interrupted by holy laughter and other strange phenomenon. Perhaps the worst experience was one night at a home bible study watching a woman run around in a fit of hysteria, screaming and yelling with her face red, and foaming at the mouth. As I watched in horror I asked one of the attendees what was happening and she exclaimed, "Sister so and so is experiencing a filling of the Holy Spirit" Immediately my 19 year old mind discerned that something was radically wrong. I wasn't much of a bible scholar, but I discerned the hysterical woman was NOT filled with the Holy Spirit. I soon left that church and made my journey through several Pentecostal churches over a five year period until ultimately, my skepticism of all the so called supernatural manifestations had been shored up by my studies in the Word of God. I then found myself worshipping at a sound Baptist church learning and growing in the grace and knowledge of God without being sidetracked by the shenanigans of emotionally driven churches without much substance.
To avoid the pitfall of spiritual pride, I confess it was not my ingenuity that led me away from that system of Christianity, but rather it was the Holy Spirit (ironically) that instructed me in the teaching of scripture and enabled me to discern the difference between false doctrine and sound doctrine. While I believe most of the bothers and sisters I worshipped with in the past were genuine believers, I believe their understanding of the ministry of the Holy Spirit was seriously skewed and were not as discerning as they should have been. This is the case with many believers. We take everything we see and hear that comes across as supernatural and of divine origin. Such spiritual gullibility is nothing to be proud of. The bible exhorts us to "Not believe every spirit, but test the spirits" 1 John 4:1, and that means that we need to be discerning. It would be dangerous naivety to simply accept everything we see or hear in a church as fro God, and disregard the countless warnings in scripture regarding how many false prophets have crept into the church, sent as emissaries of Satan. Which spirit are we listening to? Are we listening to the spirit of Antichrist or the Spirit of God?
When I was a young believer, my ability to discern spirits was very primitive. It took time of studying all of God;s Word before I could rightfully discern truth from error. Studying the Word takes discipline and hard work, which many people want to forgo out of spiritual laziness. Perhaps one of the reasons why False doctrine is on the rise is because Bible illiteracy is also on the rise. As people are more illiterate in the Word of God the more they will be susceptible to the doctrine of demons. Listen to the exhortation that Paul gives to Jewish Christians in the book of Hebrews:
vv. 11- 14 "about this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil."
There are many Christians who have been saved for quite some time and should be teachers at this point, but instead have to be retrained in the elementary teachings of the gospel. The message here is "Grow up! " How? 2 Peter 3:18 "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
I trust this weeks message and article will encourage all who read to seek to grow more in the knowledge of God and thus be able to discern truth from error. So that we as mature believers may be able to have a bolder witness to the world around us that does not know Jesus Christ.
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