God Give Us Discernment

00:00 - Announcer (Announcement) Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. 00:09 - Jack Hibbs (Host) Listen. For the Christian, there's no such thing as separation anxiety. There's separation desire. I want separation, say. What do you mean? I want to see Christ. I want to go to heaven. I want His promises to be fulfilled in me. What he's got for me is better than anything I could ever plan for myself. 00:35 - Announcer (Announcement) You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com Today. If this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five-star ratings. To us that's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. 01:04 - Jack Hibbs (Host) Second, peter, chapter 2, verse 1, says this but there were also false prophets among the people he's speaking about in the Old Testament age, even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive the word destructive, some of your Bible translations say damnedable. Why does it say that? Because they are secret. Damnedable heresies, bad doctrines that are made up by man and or by demon, that look so real but they're not. And that word destructive heresies is a word that implies that a body is systematically pulled apart, a piece at a time. I'm not talking about surgical. I'm talking about can you imagine taking a pair of pliers and grabbing somebody's fingers and pulling them off? That's what that word means. Can you imagine somebody grabbing your ear with a pair of pliers and pulling it off your head? That's what that word means. Do you see what destructive heresies do? Peter is saying watch out. We're going to need the discernment of the Spirit of God. 02:09 In the last days, there's always been false prophets. There's false prophets now and as we see the days increasing, or I should say getting shorter, they're going to be destructive heresies. That's what one of the things will sound like or reveal, denying even the Lord who bought them. They'll say Jesus, but they'll see, as ministry is limited, somehow not enough, that's destructive and it says that they'll deny the Lord who bought them and bring on themselves swift destruction. Now, that's an interesting word. It means like right now, for example, they are under God's judgment, but the judgment hasn't fallen. The word swift means when it falls, it's going to go like an ax. So you might know some false teachers. You can turn them on TV and you wonder why are they still in business, god? Why don't you do something? And God is saying read my book. I'm doing something right now. Every day they wake up and they don't turn to me. They get worse and worse. They're storing up for themselves in the day of wrath. Wow, god does not take false ministry lightly and many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed by covetousness. They will exploit you with deceptive words. You're going to need discernment to look beyond those deceptive words, because everything's going to sound right, everything's going to sound just perfect. And for a long time their judgment has been idle and their destruction does not slumber. 03:45 Next passage that's powerful, isn't it? Next passage 1. Timothy 4, verse 1. Now the spirit capital S. So it's the Holy Spirit. Now the spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith. In other words, the later we get into the hour or the further down the calendar we go, we're going to know more people who you thought were believers Depart from the faith. Why? Because they're not really believers. What are they gonna do? They're gonna give heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. Why? What do those do? They speak lies and hypocrisy. 04:29 The things that our nation, in fact our world, is going through right now, I believe, is none other than deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. Yes, just about three weeks ago, I was on a, the digital print media of some news organization. I'm not even gonna give you their name, I don't want you to give them any. What's the word? Viewership? Let them go out of business. And they said Southern California pastor says that the gender issue in the world today is of demonic influence. Yes, I did say that. Yes, right on. Why? Because the Bible says confusion's not from God. Yes, and I believe it's doctrines of demons. And that's why, listen, so many children today are being manipulated by people that they trust. That's doctrines of demons. Now listen, I'm not talking about the human. I'm not talking about the person that might be perpetrating, that's bad enough. I'm talking about the invisible powers behind them. Look at global governments. It seems as though they're promoting doctrines of demons, blinding, lying spirits to deceive and to manipulate. See, jack, you actually believe in that stuff. Jesus did so. I'm good with it also. Absolutely yes. And the latter times, as the days get lengthening, as the shadows get longer and the time, as it were, the sun begins to set and we're at the end of the church age, many will depart from the faith and there's gonna be these doctrines of demons. 06:07 And then 1 John, 4, verse one, says this that, beloved, do not believe every spirit, don't listen to everybody who's talking to you. Notice, it's capitalist, that's safely. Safely, you can say that's a human spirit talking to you. A human spirit, it's the inside of them, but you don't know what's inside of them. So who's doing the talking here? Well, listen, beloved, do not believe every spirit, don't believe everything people say to you. Acts 17, 11 says don't believe a word. I'm saying to you, how's that? You're supposed to test it? But test the spirits whether they are of God. How do I do that? You gotta know the Bible. You gotta know the Bible and then you'll know. 06:52 And verse 10 it says and if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin. He's making a statement of fact here. So, in fact, watch real carefully. I'm gonna read it wrong. Are you ready? Look at your Bibles. I'm gonna read it wrong. Stay with me. 07:09 And if Christ is in you, the spirit is life because of righteousness. Now, what I just said is exactly true, but I read it wrong. Did you hear me? Yes, what did I miss out? The body part. You missed the body part. That's exactly correct. I left out the body part. So let me look at it again. 07:29 And if, look at your Bible carefully, some of the words in your Bible will have the word since. That's a good translation. The word if doesn't mean maybe you're saved and maybe you're not. Nope, it's being written to believers that are saved. The if is not bringing your relationship to Christ in question. It is a setup, which is why some of your Bibles use the word since. And since Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin. Now, what do we say by this? We know this that the spirit brings life. 08:07 I never knew what the Bible said. Before I was a Christian, I didn't know and I didn't care. But God began to get my attention and then I first woke up, like you did, to the fact that there's a part of me that wants to follow God and there's a part of me that does not want to follow God, and both of those things at the beginning were very weak Can I put it that way? Very weak, I say very weak. My flesh was very strong. My new relationship with God was very new and very weak. But the more I ate of the word, the stronger I got Are you with me? The stronger I got. My body didn't. My body appetites did not go away. They became more and more controllable by the power of God's word. In other words, I could tell, so to speak, my flesh go to your room when before. It would tell me exactly what it wanted, when it wanted, how it wanted and what time. And I was a slave to those appetites, and so were you. 09:15 But we're talking about the believer. So the first thing that we realize here is that the Spirit of God is the one who seeks to control you, and that shouldn't threaten you. He wants to control you. Why you and I need controlling, and either I'm doing it for me or you're doing it for you or, maybe even worse than that, is somebody else doing that to you you ever think about? 09:41 The Bible teaches absolute independence, independence and freedom. The only thing is it comes with great responsibility, my friend. So the question is since Christ is in you? Here, the believers in Rome are hearing it as a matter of fact. But we ought to ask ourselves can I know for sure that the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit is at work in my life? 10:08 And I wrote down four things. This means a lot to me. I don't know if it does to you, but this is what I wrote down to myself. Number one if all this is true, if I'm in Christ and Christ is in me and I'm a new creation in Jesus and I'm a true follower of Jesus, then this is what I've discovered is that I'm no longer my own, and I'm very happy about that. I'm no longer my own. 10:34 You ask yourself today, believer do you understand and do you revel in the fact that God now controls you? You're no longer your own. It's part of being a disciple. It's very basic, but being in the family of God, I'm no longer my own, and I love that. Second thing I wrote down again this is just for me that I'm no longer under the law of God, because now God's grace empowers me. See, what do you mean by that? God's law is awesome, but when I look at it I wanna run from it because it's perfect and I'm not. But when Christ saves, god writes his law on your heart. He puts it in your mind. You don't have to make yourself be a Christian. The spirit of God does this. He's the one that, by his grace, begins to empower you. 11:21 Thirdly, you're no longer subject to fear. This is a big one, I know. For me personally. This happened to me in my first few hours of being a Christian. I just remember a situation where I was living. I went home from church that night. After being born again, I no longer had this situation of fear that had been there all my life, and I thank God right now. There's been His goodness in my life where fear has just never been a factor ever since. 11:55 Sometimes there's what the Bible calls strongholds, and God breaks those down. And I tell you what, if he can break down one stronghold, then I'm sure he's delighted to break down all of them in our lives. You don't need to be fearful anymore of anything, pastor. You don't know who I'm married to, or you don't know our situation, or you don't know the company, or you don't know what's going on. Listen, I don't need to know. The fact of the matter is there's no justification for you to decorate yourself down. Being created in the image of God, to be fearful. God says no way. He has your life. 12:34 The fourth and final thing on this is that of no longer of this world, and this is increasing, by the way. This sense, this knowledge, hope you feel the same way. This world now it's like week by week. It used to be decade by decade, then some years by some years, and then it was year by year and month by month. Now it's like week by week when this world, happily the Bible, announces you and I are not of this world and you sense it. And it's amazing, the increasing awareness we have as believers of I would just call separation. 13:10 Listen, for the Christian, there's no such thing as separation anxiety. There's separation desire. I'm here right now, I'm wearing clothes right now, I'm in the skin right now, I happen to be breathing air right now, but I am not experiencing separation anxiety. I want separation. So what do you mean? I want to see Christ. I want to go to heaven. I want His promises to be fulfilled in me. What he's got for me is better than anything I could ever plan for myself. Now I don't know about this in life, how this illustration might work, but I've been watching some news and I was going down a course on this this AI stuff that's happening and you talk about month to week today, just and listen to this as you and I sit here. The new surrounding man's development of AI, artificial intelligence is advancing so quickly that now, just one week passing from our last time together shows exponential growth in AI information and development. That is of great concern. 14:25 Elon Musk has been blowing the whistle on Stop it. We need to stop. He's asking nations of the world to stop all of this engineering, especially Google. He tried to meet with his friend that operates Google and he said now they're no longer friends. The guy basically said get out of here. I'm going forward on this, and Elon Musk began this last week. He was telling us where it's heading and I gotta tell you I was listening to him talk to Jordan Peterson and I had a hard time believing what he was saying. Is he gonna be kidding me that now AI devices have conspired with one another and they have created things without human involvement? And I don't understand what he meant by this. It's kind of freaky. I wanna know it. Elon Musk said to a response. 15:19 The question was can't you just unplug the thing and it'll die? And he said maybe. I don't like that, maybe part what are we doing? Listen, it's so bizarre. Our world will reject the existence of God, but it will create a device that now we run the risk of being overtaken by the device. It knows more than you do. You're not connected to the web. It does math, it does music, it writes books, it can do a song, it can conduct or author the most incredible discipline, and you can't do that. And it can do it and it can do it all. 16:06 And now the great engineers of our world are concerned and they're talking about what happens when the first rogue military gets a hold of an AI unit that is able to control satellites and trajectories. And wow, think of that. And then, of course, they went down the path of elections and the conclusion was when AI with, in three years, there may possibly not be elections, because if AI gets introduced, ai will create the leaders that it wants and you won't know if it's true or not. You won't know what it's doing is true or not. If that's happening in this world, where man has created something that he's fearful of, listen, God, listen. God didn't create man and he's fearful of man. God created man with the ability of choice. Man chose the wrong thing. We are not artificial intelligence. We are the extension of the intelligence, but he gave us a free will, and what's amazing about that is our free will has to do with will we bow our heart and our lives to God or not, will we love him or not? But the Bible tells us if Christ is in you, well, there's a complete transformation. 17:25 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 18, says this 1 Corinthians 10, 18,. This is pretty wild. Listen up, everybody. I wanna remind you. This is 2,000 years old. Observe Israel after the flesh. Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? 17:42 Yes, what I'm saying then? What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? So stop right there. An idol, jack? What are you talking about? Idol? Well, back in those days, an idol was a statue. Okay. So you think today, by the way, anything the Bible says, don't make things, don't carve things out of any wood or metal or stone, of that which is God said don't make that stuff. 18:19 Now you say, well, that's kind of weird. Okay, maybe we don't know everything you say are you talking like? Are you talking like? Are you talking like, like, like, like, like Saint Bernard, like a statue? Yeah, it's exactly what I'm talking about. So why is that a problem? 18:39 He said verse 20, rather, that the things which the unbeliever sacrifice to, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And do not want you I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. Can you imagine the Corinthians we're most of them went. What Can you imagine? We're the 21st century? We're very smart people. We would never do that thing. Nobody walks around the statue. Well, listen, what if an AI thing got possessed by a demonic spirit? If statues can be demonic, if a little carved image can be demonically possessed, could you? What if an AI thing got possessed? What if an AI thing started saying and doing things? You say that'll never happen. Well, you got to talk to Elon Musk. Pretty weird, isn't it. God says watch out Idols. You think it's innocent, you think it's nothing. He says you're communicating with demons. Get away from that. Watch out for that. Thus, we need discernment. It's Christ in you. One of the great things is that you're going to have discernment about the age in which we live, in this. 19:51 - Announcer (Announcement) Jack Hibbs podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected.