GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – GIFT OF DISCERNMENT
DR. JIM DIXON
AUGUST 11, 1985
ACTS 8:4-24
“You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Those words were spoken almost 2,000 years ago by Simon Peter at Caesarea Philippi near the headwaters of the Jordan. How did Peter know that Jesus was the Christ, the promised Messiah, the Savior of the World, Son of God. How did Peter know? Jesus said to him “Blessed are you Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in Heaven.” What Peter knew, he knew supernaturally. How did Peter know that Simon the Magician, Simon of Samaria, had a heart that was not right before God? Peter said, ” I discern that you are in the gall of bitterness, and you are in the bond of inequity.” How did Peter know, as recorded in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Acts, or the Book of Acts,—how did he know that Ananias and Sapphire had lied, withholding some portion of what they were meant to give to the Body of Christ and the service of the Kingdom of God? Peter had a gift, and that gift is called Discernment.
This is a gift of the Holy Spirit given to Christians, enabling them to know the heart of other people. The Gift of Discernment enables a Christian to perceive the nature of another person’s heart and message. It enables a Christian to perceive whether someone is speaking by the Spirit of God, by the Spirit of Satan or simply by the human spirit. It is the Gift of Discernment and God gives this gift to the Body of Christ, to individuals within the Body of Christ, in order to help the Body of Christ in three areas.
First of all, God gives the Gift of Discernment in order to keep us from going astray, to keep us from doctrinal error, from theological deception, to keep us faithful to the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints. Now we live in a world that is easily deceived.
In the town of Waldport, – in the State of Oregon – years ago, there was a meeting. A man was speaking—there’s only 800 citizens in that town of Waldport—300 of them were at the meeting. The guest speaker was not from out of town. He was not from another state or even another country. He literally claimed to be out of this world. The guest speaker said that he was from another planet, from another solar system, from another galaxy, and to these 300 people, he made an invitation. He gave an invitation. He said that his planet was conducting an exchange program with the earth. “A tremendous opportunity for those people,” he said. He said he would provide an opportunity for all those who would volunteer to come to his planet and see the beauty and the mysteries of it. All they had to do was sell all their earthly possessions, take the proceeds, and give them to him. Then he had a place for them, in the State of Colorado, where they would go and wait for a UFO that would come sometime in the next ten years, pick them up and take them to this other planet. As incredible as it may seem, 20 of those 300 people believed him. They sold all their possessions, they gave him the proceeds, they went to Colorado, and they waited for a non-existent UFO. Obviously, they did not have the Gift of Discernment!
The incredible thing is that a lot of people who are very intelligent are also easily deceived. A famous 19th Century mathematician named Richard Chalet, who was also a professor at Sorbonne University, once purchased three ancient letters. A letter that was purported to be from Mary Magdalene, written to a Burgundian king. Another letter that was supposedly written by the resurrected Lazarus to the Apostle Peter, and a third letter written by a Gaelic doctor to our Lord Jesus Christ. Dr. Chalet bought those three letters for the incredible fee of $30,000. Now in the 19th Century, that was an incredible sum of money, but even more incredibly, those three letters were written in French, and they were written on contemporary paper. Thirty thousand dollars wasted! Totally deceived!
Now we might think there’s only a few people in the world as stupid as all that – we’re far more discerning—but the truth is the great masses of humanity are easily deceived. Most of the people of this world have bought into deception, into a philosophy of materialism and hedonism and ascensionism, and none of these things are able to satisfy, or bring joy or meaning or purpose in life. They are deceptions.
Incredibly, 40,000,000 people in the United States of America believe in astrology, read their horoscopes every day, despite the fact that the American Astronomical Society- repudiates astrology, says that it is no more than superstition. The great realm of science condemns astrology and says that it has no credibility at all. The Bible condemns astrology and says that those who follow astrology will one day fell into ruin and destruction and yet 40,000,000 Americans believe in it and read their horoscopes daily. Out of 1700 daily newspapers, 1200 of them carry horoscopes and astrological columns. There are 15,000 full-time paid astrologers in the United States of America and 175,000 part-time paid astrologers in this nation. Two hundred fifty million is spent by Americans every year for the services of astrology, and it is all deception. There are millions more in this nation and in the world who have given themselves to transcendental meditation and YOGA, rooted in Eastern mysticism and Eastern religions. There are 350 cults in the United States of America, and they claim millions of followers. This is the very center of cult formation in the world—right here in the United States of America—and new cults are being added all the time. Some cults train their people to infiltrate the institutional churches, the mainline denominational churches. They train their people to go to the major most important mainline churches and just fit in, to pretend orthodoxy, to try to find positions of leadership and then to begin to lead some segment of the people into their beliefs.
I just found out this past week that there is a new cult that and that has been formed and they are sending people like that, and they have sent three people to our church, in our congregation. We’re flattered! But we’re not going to be deceived.
Incredibly, there is deception, even within the institutional church, within the mainline denominations. There within Presbyterian beliefs, within is a growing liberalism within Lutheran—a growing liberalism—an increased tendency to deny the deity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to deny the infallibility, the authority, the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, a tendency to deny the necessity of the New Birth, to deny that a person must be born again, that a person must accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of Life. If you take apart – if you take the denominations, the mainline denominations, and consider them apart from the Baptists, 90% of the mainline denominational churches no longer teach the necessity of the New Birth. That is tragic. You can’t send somebody to another city and say, “Hey, go to the Presbyterian Church there—just find a good Methodist church—just find a good Lutheran church—just go to the Episcopalian church—you can’t send them and KNOW i t’s going to be good. People need discernment today.
In order to find a church that honors Jesus Christ and glorifies Jesus Christ and believes and is committed to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, it takes discernment. Even within evangelical circles, there is deception. Some evangelical pastors, and you see this particularly on television, T.V. evangelists, though I’m sure some of them are good, teach a kind of “name it and claim it ” theology. That is two or they three Christians get together and just agree on something, can make God do it, no matter what it is. But they don’t understand the full counsel of the Word of God, that we are to learn to pray in accordance with God’s permissive will, in accordance with the character and the name of Jesus Christ. We are not sovereign. God is sovereign. There are evangelical pastors today who are teaching prosperity teaching—that God wants all Christians materially rich. The Bible doesn’t say that, but some ministers teach that.
I was watching an evangelist on television some time ago. He had written, a book on Prosperity for Christians. He was speaking to a large assembly of people. He took his book, and he held it up. He said “If you follow the principles of this book, as we draw nearer and nearer to the end times, you are going to see people in the world getting poorer, poorer and poorer, the economic systems of the world collapse, but if you follow the principles of this book, as a Christian, you’re just going to get materially richer and richer and richer and richer” and the whole assembly rose up. They all threw their hands into the air. They all began to shout, and they were all deceived.
The Bible says ”the love of money is the root of all evil”. The Bible says, “Those who desire, who crave to be rich, fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.” The Bible says, “If we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” Some of you may indeed be affluent. It doesn’t mean that you’re a more faithful Christian. It’s simply a peculiar responsibility—even a burden—because “To whom much is given, much is required” and you are called to exercise a ministry called the Gift of Contributions for the sake of the service of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
I want us to understand that there is great deception in this world, in the mainline institutional denominational churches and even in evangelical circles. We need this gift called Discernment. There is moral and ethical confusion in the mainline denomination. They are confused about homosexuality, about abortion, about premarital sex. Don’t be led astray.
Secondly, God gives this gift called the Gift of Discernment to help us counsel in the Body of Christ. It is not possible to counsel effectively in the Christian context without this gift called the Gift of Discernment. For the sake of the Body of Christ, God gives this gift to many counselors.
There was a man whose name was Dr. Robert Linton. He was also called Dr. Joseph C. Sir. His name was also Benjamin Jones. He had many, many other names, many aliases, but his real name was Ferdinand Waldo Dimira. Everybody in this world, most people want to be somebody, but he wanted to be everybody, and he almost succeeded.
It was in the year 1941 that he became Dr. Robert Linton, falsifying papers. He claimed to have a PhD. in Natural Philosophy. He became a monk in a Trappist monastery in Kentucky, but nobody could tell whether he really knew philosophy because he took a vow of silence! After a period of time, he got tired of being a monk and he went on to other names and other identities, taking other chosen professions through deception. Finally, during the time of the Korean War, he took the name Joseph C. Sir, falsified papers, showed himself to have a Doctorate in Medicine—a surgeon. He gained entrance into the Royal Canadian Navy where he became a Surgeon Lieutenant and became the Chief Medical Officer on a Canadian ship.
The first thing that he did was he took out one of the teeth of the captain. He read a dentistry book that night, woke up in the morning, gave his captain a shot of Novocain, took the tooth out, no problem. When they got into combat areas, soldiers with greater injuries were brought to him. One soldier came with a bullet that was lodged near the heart. He had begun to read medical journals on board ship, and he just went ahead and did the surgery. He took the bullet out of this one man and saved his life. When his time on ship duty was satisfied, he was given shore duty. He established a clinic and every day he performed operations and amputations. He became famous, but as he became famous, they began to check into his background. They found out he had no education or training whatsoever. He was kicked out of the Canadian Navy, told to leave Canada, and never come back again. They paid him because they had to acknowledge that he did his work well. He then moved to Texas. He became Benjamin Jones. He was hired by the Texas Prison Systems. Somehow, incredibly, he became the Organizing Director of the Huntsville Prison in Texas, established a brilliant program for the inmates. He organized their daily routines. Finally, he was discovered, and he was fired, though his work had been successful. He went on to become a college professor. He went on to become a secondary school teacher. He became a psychologist and then he became a theologian. Why not? Finally, he found a job where he could be a little bit of a theologian, a little bit of a psychologist, a little bit of a philosopher, a little bit of a monk, a little bit of a teacher, where he could do a different type of surgery, where he could free a different type of prisoner. He became a minister, and he remained a minister with his real name, Ferdinand Waldo Dimira for the remainder of his life. Upon his death, he was referred to as the Great Imposter, and they wrote a movie, or they made a movie concerning his life. You may have seen it. believe it starred Tony Curtis. He was an imposter, but the truth is we’re all imposters.
You find that out in counseling. People come in and you’re not sure who they really are not so much in terms of their professions, but in terms of their character, in terms of their behavior and their actions. That’s why counseling takes a gift called the Gift of Discernment. You see, in the Bible, Jesus is called the Wonderful Counselor?). He has supernatural discernment. He sees the hearts of men and women. When he first saw Nathaniel, he said “Behold, a man in whom there is no guile.” Nathaniel said, “How do you know me?”‘ When the rich man came to Jesus Christ and said, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said “Go, sell everything you have. Give it to the poor. Come and follow me.”
Jesus doesn’t tell everyone to sell everything they have and give it to the poor, but you see, he discerned this man’s heart, and he knew what was necessary for this man to follow him. When Nicodemus came to Jesus Christ, he said “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God for no man can do the things which you do unless God be with them.” Jesus didn’t say “Well thank you.’ He didn’t say “Well what would you like me to give you a teaching on?” He discerned Nicodemus’s heart and he said “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a man be born anew, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Nicodemus didn’t ask, “What must do to get into Heaven?” But you see, Jesus knew what his real need was. He discerned what he really wanted, and he went right to the heart of the matter.
That gift is offered to those who believe in Jesus Christ in some measure and that gift is called. the Gift of Discernment. When I was growing up—this is kind of strange—I don’t know how old I was, I was pretty young, and I would lay in bed at night, and I’d be very afraid. I would look up and I would see spots in ceilings and in the shadow, I would see faces and everything looked suspicious to me as I was trying to go to bed at night. I think that is not uncommon for a lot of children, and it was greater than that with me though. I would oftentimes in the evening feel great pressure in my head, almost as though my head was going to explode. I would begin to say swear words in my head, in my mind, and I would just say them over and over and over again. I felt horrible guilt because I knew you weren’t supposed to say swear words, but I couldn’t get them out of my mind as I was sleeping at night.
So, I went to see Joe Stevens who was one of the pastors at our church. My mother wanted me to go see him and so I went to see him, and I explained the problem. He looked at me, and I was kind of nervous at the time. It was hard for me to share those fears, and he looked at me and Joe smiled and he said “Jimmy” (that’s what he called me), he said “You are in bondage to fear. You so much want to please the Lord, you are afraid of displeasing him. You are afraid of doing anything that would offend him. You’re afraid of getting him angry or upset with you and you are now in bondage to fear. Your heart is pure. You long to serve him and please him and I am going to give you a message from God.” He said, “God loves you. You are his and he is yours, and his message to you is, don’t worry. You go ahead and let those words just float through your mind at night. God is not mad. God is not angry. His love is greater than that.” I can’t tell you what that did for me. I left that place and my chains were broken because he went right to the heart of the problem, and the problem was fear, and he had literally disarmed Satan. I went home and it was no longer a problem if the words were in my mind. Therefore, the words weren’t in my mind. He had a gift called Discernment. He wouldn’t just give that counsel to anybody but it was just right for me. That’s the gift that comes by power of the Holy Spirit.
Now thirdly and finally, this gift called discernment is given for the purpose of delivering us from evil. We’re not talking about war and pestilence and famine. We’re talking about supernatural evil. The Gift of Discernment in the Bible is sometimes called, de-akitenis-pneumatah and that literally means discerning spirits. There are supernatural powers in this world and deliverance from evil sometimes requires this gift called discernment or discerning spirits. Now we live in a world that is increasingly preoccupied with supernatural evil. I read just this past week where 100 million Americans dabble in some form of occultism. If that is true, that is astounding. Now I know that there are 10,000 witches in the United States of America, and they have 6,000 congregations or covens. In San Francisco, California, there is a church called The Church of Satan. Its occultic leader is called Anton Livay. Incredibly, this church, this single church, called The Church of Satan, has 10,000 members and that is today. Anton Livay brags that there is a demon in every member. He says, “Demons don’t need to be exorcised. They need to be exercised.” They put nude women on the altar in their services and he shouts, “Let your lusts reach fruition.” They have been accused of human sacrifice, all kinds of gross practices. Hard to believe that it exists in the world in which we live.
In the United States there are 6,000 spiritus groups—6,000 groups that gather for the purpose of necromancy and divination, summoning spirits from the dead —IN THIS COUNTRY! The number of occultic books sold in the United States has doubled within the past four years. There are currently 800 occultic books available in print being printed today assimilated by the masses. We need to understand that evil, supernatural evil, is not mythology, is not fiction. It is real. We need to understand that Satan is real. He exists. He lives. The Bible confirms his existence. It is evident in the scriptures that Satan once, in the dawn of time, was an angel—high and lifted—perhaps what the Bible calls an archangel, a ruling angel. But the Bible says he corrupted his wisdom for the sake of his splendor. He said in his heart, “I shall ascend above the stars of God, and he was cast out of Heaven as a profane creature sometime before the dawn of man’s creation, perhaps before creation of the cosmos. The Bible says that when Satan fell, he took with him one-third of the angelic realm, and the Bible says that those angels are now called demons. Some of those angels who fell, some of those demons, have the capability of possessing people. I don’t believe that a demon can possess a Christian. I do believe demons can oppress Christians and they can possess others, and the question is how do we discern demonic activity?
In Africa, the people are riddled with fear of demons, drought, calamity, blight, pestilence, plague. They view it all as caused by demons. They blame individuals in the tribes as being possessed by demons and causing the problems. They test the people to see whether or not they have demons, using their medicine men. They give what is called a koskadraut and it contains different elements that can cause a person to vomit. If the person who receives the koskadraut vomits, that person is said to be possessed. If the person refrains, they are said to be free of demons, but it really doesn’t discern demons. It’s simply a medical reality that certain elements cause vomiting when given in certain measure, and the medicine man controls that.
It is hard to discern demonic activity in any part of the world. When we were in Vancouver not too long ago, it was just I guess a few months ago, Barb and I, Bob and Ally, and some other people from the church, we went to the conference called “Signs and Wonders” taught by John Wimber. One evening after John Wimber was through teaching, he had what he called “clinic” and people came forward to the front for prayer, people with various afflictions. More than 100 people who had been called to on minister in healing laid hands on these people and the scene, a few occasions, got—to my way of thinking—a little bit bizarre. I remember as the evening wore on, one guy just started screaming and shouting at the top of his voice with guttural sounds. It sounded kind of hideous. Everybody was listening—the 2,500 people in the assembly—and John Wimber said, “Don’t be afraid.” He said “No problem. Perhaps you think this man is demon-possessed but he’s not. This is just a deep, emotional wound that is manifesting itself and being released.” Now another pastor in the Vineyard Fellowship, of which John Wimber is the head, was standing next to us and he said, ” I disagree. I think that man is demon-possessed.” Well obviously, one of them was wrong. One of them didn’t have discernment, at least not in that moment, and you see it takes discernment to recognize whether there is demonic activity.
The Gift of Discernment is not given without flaw. It is not given in perfection, at least I’ve found this to be true in my life and I do believe I have the Gift of Discernment. As we go through the Gifts of the Spirit, you will rarely see me say I have this gift or that gift, not because of some false humility, but simply because I don’t have most of the gifts. We are not greater or lesser because of the gifts we have. We don’t earn the gifts. They are simply given for service and I find that when I sit and I listen, either in an audience to somebody speaking or in my office in counseling, I believe God oftentimes enables me to discern more than what is actually being said—to discern a person’s heart, what their true beliefs are—but I must confess that I do not like to have anything to do with this realm of demonism. I’m sure most of you feel like that it would just as soon leave it alone, but you see, the Bible says on that it’s real and there’s a great struggle in the cosmos and the earth between principalities and powers. We have been called to minister in that area as well.
Years ago, when I was at Faith Presbyterian Church in Aurora, a person came into the church for counseling who didn’t go to our church. He came into the office area, and he said “I’m demon-possessed and I want to speak to Jim Dixon. The secretaries didn’t know exactly what to do. They sent the guy down to my office and then they buzzed my phone and said there was a demon on the way. This guy came into my office, and he explained to me that he was possessed by the Antichrist—no normal run-of-the-mill demon. He was possessed by the Antichrist he said. He said one he was possessed by a spirit creature called Shakti who was of the incarnations of the third person of the Hindu trinity called Vishnu. He said that this spirit creature named Skakti but was destined to become the Antichrist and to rule the world he had become so close to this spirit creature that he was able to expose him, and he had written a book on the Antichrist. He had the manuscript there and he wanted me to read it. I read through part of the manuscript, and it really was very, brilliantly written. Tremendous research had been made into the history of Hinduism. The more I talked to this man, I have to say I don’t believe he was demon-possessed at all. I believe he had a desperate need for attention. He wanted to market his book. I asked him what church he’d been going to and he told me. I called the pastors at that church, and they said they had been talking to him for a long time and we don’t think possessed either.
I’ve had other times in my life where I’ve encountered people that I really did believe were possessed. You sensed it. people. A presence of evil. You could cut it with a knife. Hideous. But there is no reason to fear—no reason at all—because God has a solution. When you discern demonic activity, you are able they to help. Much of the world does not know what to do when encounter demons.
In ancient Assyria, they used to say abracadabra. That didn’t do any good. In the Malabar Coast in the region of Kennare, there are a people just riddled with the fear of demons. They believe that one person can summon demon upon another person—even a slave can summon a demon upon a master—so they live in fear. They have exorcists that they go to and the exorcists rattle beads and pronounce incantations, but they don’t do any good, so now the people in the region of Kennera have built 4,041 temples in honor of various demons, worshipping the demons, hoping that somehow they will stay at bay.
The world is helpless against demons, but the Christian doesn’t need to be because we have Jesus Christ and he has all power in the heavens and on earth, and if you’re a Christian, you should know that “He who is in you is greater than he who is in world. Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords and He is King of Kings, destined to rule the heavens above and the earth beneath. Before him one day every knee will bow in the heavens and on earth and unto earth.” It was the power of Christ that banished the fallen angelic realm in the beginning, and He has power over Satan today. One day He will bind Satan and throw him forever into eternal ruin.” He has power over the demonic realm today. Jesus Christ cast out the demons. He did not do it in the name of another. He did it in his own name. He alone has that kind of power but we who believe in Him have authority over Satan in His name. As you go through the Book of Acts you see occasion and where there is a deliverance ministry performed in the name in the power of Jesus Christ.
Now this whole realm may scare you. Perhaps you don’t want to have anything to do with it, you just as soon I wasn’t mentioning any of this this morning. Personally, and I think speaking as a staff, we are not that concerned you get into deliverance ministry. We’re far more concerned that you get into discipleship and a knowledge of the word of God, that you learn to love each other, you learn to be servants, but there this of the gift called the Gift of Discernment given by the power Holy Spirit. We are dealing with this this morning simply because we are going through the gifts and God gives this gift and I tend to believe He gives it to many people simply because God doesn’t want His people to be led astray. He doesn’t want us to enter into doctrinal and theological error. He wants us to have effective counsellors and He wants us to go forth in the world and fight the powers of darkness. He wants you to be open to this gift as to all the gifts. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.