3.1.2 屬靈的分辨力
Outline:
Talk about how to recognize deception from the spiritual realm.
How to closely inspect information to discern the truth.
The Passing of Billy Graham
Pastor Billy Graham was a symbol of this era.
Passed away at the age of 91
Many prophets spoke that Pastor Billy Graham’s death would signal the arrival of a new era.
Three seasons will come; and with each season a new era.
Revealing of God’s Hidden Place: The hidden prophet Elijah will appear from the hidden place, along with others whom God has hidden for the last days. Two witnesses will also be revealed, and they will help bring in the new era.
Sign of the Great Revival: His death signals the end of the old age and arrival of a new, and talks that the important thing is the coming revival.
The Great Revival has already begun: Due to Billy Graham departing, they believe it's a sign that the great revival has already begun.
Another interesting sign is that when Billy Graham passes away, we will enter the era of miracles; the era of God’s mighty actions.
After all this, the age of Revelation will begin.
God will release a fallen angel at the end, to make us more aware that this age is very special.
We will also see that the confusion of this age is becoming more and more obvious.
When we have entered an age of great confusion, it will be more and more important for us to have discernment and examination.
We must see what deception looks like to discern what deception is.
It's similar to viewing real and counterfeit banknotes. You need to see what a real banknote looks like to know what a fake one is.
Many people will claim to be these witnesses and convince others to follow them. The real witnesses have already been revealed, so we must be careful.
As an example, she explains a story where she was sent a message recorded by another preacher (I think). When she listened to the message, she immediately went to tell those who sent it to her that the message was not good and the person speaking was being controlled by a demon.
Why do we resist being inspected and examined?
We often will make excuses for ourselves to not be examined or to not inspect ourselves.
God would protect me from any evil spirits that would deceive me!
Would others see me as being unfaithful if I questioned this?
I don’t want to risk doing the crime of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit!
Humans naturally resist inspection.
We do so because we often define our identities with what we receive.
We use what we have received to define our status and value in front of others.
So naturally, any revelation we may have received from others or the spiritual realm we will want to defend since it is something we received personally.
She talks about a story where an evil spirit helped to guide people to find God; in which Bodhisattva appeared in a patient's dreams and told him to worship God.
She questions if an evil spirit is helping to bring people to God, is it really evil?
It caused a dispute among those in the church, stirring many questions.
Why can evil spirits make people believe in Jesus?
Why do evil spirits persuade people to believe in God?
What is the reason?
Is there any benefit to this evil spirit or the kingdom of darkness?
“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
-Mark 1:24
When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!”
-Mark 5:6-7
She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.”
-Acts 16:17
As we can see, even in the bible ghosts and evil spirits know who Jesus and who God is. They announce to others and some ghosts even come to worship him out of fear.
She now explains a story where one of her friends went to Salt Lake City for a trip, and is quite mature in the spirit. After arriving and being in his hotel room, he had a supernatural experience and quickly called her to talk about what he had just seen. He explains that God in white robes and angels with white wings appeared before him and gave him a message. Although while she was excited he had heard a supernatural message, God suddenly whispered in her ear that it was a fake. She then told her friend that what he had heard and seen was a deception from Mormonism. He then explained he was near the Crystal church; the largest Morman church in the world and upon opening the drawer in his hotel room, realized there was a Morman bible in it.
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
-1 John 4:1-3
Another difficulty in gaining discernment is we will often shape our judgement around our own experiences, rather than the truth.
Many people enter the the spiritual battlefield not ready.
The kingdom of darkness will fight back, and not just one or two, but many of us will fall.
We never prepare for a worst case scenario because we think “Oh that couldn’t happen to me”.
To know what deception looks like, we must see the darkness and deception in our lives.
There are 3 kinds of deception and darkness in our lives that can be separated into.
Darkness of the individual
Darkness of the collective society
Darkness of the regional nations
The darkness of the individual is us acting on our selfish desires.
Following the heart of our flash and the thoughts of the flesh.
Marriage, career, family and relationships can all be included in this.
The darkness of the collective society can be broken down into 2 segments:
The darkness of the social level.
Darkness that binds us on a social level are all those we have relationships with, religious partner, family, work partners, friends etc.
The darkness of the collective level.
This is where the collection of all our relationships binds us on a spiritual level, and it can affect us whether we or they know or not.
The darkness of the regional and national level:
This level would include the governmental ruling darkness, such as the social system, certain government programs and legislation, etc.
Satan has spiritual legalities when we sin, and can act according to his own rules.
When we hide our heart with evil thoughts, the light in us turns dark.
When we disobey God, it creates a spiritual darkness and a hiding spot for the devil in us.
Because of this, we need to carefully inspect ourselves to make sure our hearts have no darkness for the devil to hide in.
Many Christians are binded by fear, fear being its own kind of torture.
Things such as headaches that cannot be relieved or anxiety can be a product of overruling fear.
When we enter some situations, our body enters a fight-or-flight mode, focusing entirely on survival.
We will avoid being harmed from external threats.
In order to overcome this, we must surrender our self-defense nature to Jesus Christ, lest we let sin become our habit.
Knowing Deception
The first deception is easy to distinguish.
Three different classifications for this kind of deception:
Satan’s voice
Evil spirits voice
Our own voice
All deceptions are easier to distinguish once we can recognize the voice of man, the voice of Satan and the voice of God.
The person’s voice is his own, our own desires and needs. Often they describe the desires.
Arguably, the human voice can be overly rational.
I am thirsty, I want water etc.
The next easy to discern deception is the voices of Satan’s evil spirits.
They lie, deceive, and create negative, destructive voices, making people fearful, accusatory or are contrary to God’s nature.
There are many many examples in the bible that describe Satan’s deceitful voice that causes destruction.
For example the story of Job.
His goal is to make us sin and turn away from God.
When we hear negative thoughts they are easier to distinguish from the good ones.
“By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?”
-Matthew 7:16
We can recognize Satan’s voice easily, because it makes us afraid, binds us and self-expands. You become worried, forces our hand, accuses, decieves and fills us with fear.
Another deception that may be easy to discern is whether we live a life that conforms to God’s will or not.
Some people enter a belief system where they do not conform to God’s will.
This can be considered easy to discern due to it being easy to reveal just with studying and knowledge of the truth of the bible.
Although it can be difficult at times to discern, as some will treat the bible as knowledge, not God’s living words, so we are not able to distinguish, or still hold onto some areas in our life that are sinful.
The earliest example of people who were unable to conform to God’s will in the bible is at the very start with Adam and Eve.
Because they ate the fruit that gave them knowledge of right and wrong, their eyes were taken off God and looked at each other, and afraid they were no longer wearing clothes.
Before, they were so focussed on the eyes of God, they did not care if they were clothed or not, and the lies of shame came to their minds.
The enemy uses sin to change our relationship with God, from then on, we cannot look at ourselves and look at ourselves in the way God created us.
We must believe we are successful, capable and others are willing to accept us, just as God made us.
This will create a strong basis for our souls and spirit.
The mind must be released, you must repent before you can bring healing to others. Do not be a hypocrite.
If our belief system does not change, then we will only continue to invite evil spirits to come back.
The last easy to discern voice is God’s voice.
In the scripture, we are described as sheep, but it's also said that we are naturally able to know the voice of our shepherd.
The bible never says we are trained to follow his voice, nor do we need to do anything to hear it; we simply know it is his voice when he calls out to us because it is so much different from everyone else.
We are not strangers to God, we are his children.
Sometimes the voice of God can seem unreasonable.
She explains a story where a famous prophet named Pasto held a meeting in the Middle East preaching about the word of God among the mostly hostile Muslim populations. Suddenly one night, God tells Pasto to stop his meetings, and leave the Middle East and head back to America, where he should wait for his calling. Even though he had been planning this meeting for months, Pasto obediently flew back to America, because he simply knew it was the Lord’s voice.
The Lord’s voice is also different, because it is edifying, comforting, and exhorting.
When we hear someone prophesying to us, and it fills us with frustration, we know there is something wrong.
In John, we are told not to believe all spirits, and we are implored to test if these spirits are from God or not.
The principle mentioned, is that the Spirit of God is testable.
We are to see if this fruit can promote our faith, bring peace, and produce more good fruit, humility, revelation or knowledge.
One of the criteria for discerning the authenticity of the spirit is by discerning whether a person has been filled with the Holy Spirit or possessed by evil spirits in his life.
Jesus said to us that only good trees bear good fruit and bad trees can only bear bad fruit.
While the earlier deceptions were under the category of easy to discern, there are a few that are more difficult to identify.
The first, largest deception among the tricks that is hard to identify is the belief that the content of the deception is false.
In a deception, we often believe that every word in it is false.
While trying to discern a prophecy or message, if we find even just 1 thing wrong in it then the entire thing becomes false.
Even evil spirits will talk about the Lord and know the Son of man.
We should look for the hidden truths in messages, even ones dripping with deception.
The best lies are ones mixed in with the truth.
Spiritual discernment itself is a gift from the Holy Spirit, it helps us to see the invisible realm and understand and recognize spiritual things.
When we want to distinguish deception, we must first remove the veil that blinds us.
We must identify the veil that covers our hearts, such as our own selfish judgements and other things that are not in accordance with God’s will.
The gift of discernment is not just a function, nor something we can distinguish by ourselves or operate on our own because it is from the Holy Spirit.
The true discernment comes from the presence of God, and through God to discern the tricks of the enemy.
We may have some bias on our own that arises from our wounds that have not yet been healed.
We cannot have discernment while we are wounded, as it clouds your judgement and. We must first pray for healing before we pray for discernment.
Because all of God’s gifts are derived from love, if we are too wounded to love others, we cannot receive spiritual discernment.
We are recommended that no matter what sector we are in or what kind of ministry we partake in, we are to check all our teachings with the words of the bible.
Not all false prophets start as false prophets.
Balaam was a prophet of God at the start, but issues arose later.
