This tape contains the ninth teaching in the series entitled, Empowered for Ministry. The speaker is the Rev. John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The ninth teaching is titled, Discernment. 

Matthew 16 It's a very familiar passage, but I wonder if you've looked at it in quite the way I'm about to suggest. I want to take it as perhaps the most interesting example of the gift of discernment in operation that we have in the New Testament. Certainly one of the most interesting and powerful examples in the life of Jesus himself.

a gift of discernment operating in and through the Lord Jesus. Matthew 16, and I'm starting at verse 13. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do men say that the Son of Man is?

And they said, some say John the Baptist, Others say Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. this of course was the watershed question this is the pivot point of the whole ministry of Jesus up till now has been preparation after this is an enfleshing of the fact that he is as Peter said the son of the living God Jesus not only acknowledges that he not only owns it and affirms it and claims it for himself but notice what he says to Peter you haven't figured this out for yourself if you know anything about Peter that rings true doesn't I mean Peter very seldom got things worked out for himself but he says flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you nobody else explained it to you either my father in heaven has revealed it now that's discernment if you haven't already picked up a copy of David Pitch's little book. It's in the bookstore.

I recommend it to you very, very highly. A little paperback book called Come Holy Spirit. And in that book, he gives a definition of discernment.

A supernatural gift given sovereignly by God to enable individuals to distinguish the motivating spirit behind certain words or deeds. A supernatural gift given sovereignly by God. All of the gifts of the Spirit are supernatural.

They're given sovereignly by God. The purpose of this is to enable individuals to distinguish the motivating spirit, the motivating spirit, behind certain words or deeds. That's exactly what you see here.

Jesus is not only saying, Peter, you're right, but he's identifying the fact that behind that correct answer that Peter has given is revelation from God. Flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you. My Father in heaven showed it to you.

Now, there were other occasions in the New Testament, lots of them, where people were right, but it was not the Father who had revealed it. You can think of some notable examples. The Gadarene demoniac.

You remember when Jesus gets off the boat and goes up into the area of the tombs and a demoniac comes running out, and it's an extraordinary story. This is the one that ends up, he's full of a legion of demons. But you go back and read it for yourself.

Do you know what it says when he first comes up to Jesus? It says he worshipped him. He worshipped him.

And he cried out, What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Now, worship in the broadest sense is simply an acknowledgement, a recognition of who Jesus is, and he recognized that. He recognized it before anybody else did.

How many of you know the demons have an awareness long before people do? This is long before Peter makes this confession. Okay?

The demons riddling this man's personality recognize that Jesus is the Son of the Most High God. Okay, that is correct, that is true. He comes to the right conclusion, but it is not by revelation from God.

It's from the opposite source, and Jesus says to him, you get out of him. He casts the demon out, the demons, in fact, the whole legion. Come out of him, you unclean spirit.

Being right doesn't necessarily mean that you're inspired by God. Paul and Silas go to Philippi. First time the gospel gets into Europe.

And they come down to a waterside and they begin evangelizing. And it says that a slave girl begins following them through the city of Philippi, shouting at the top of her lungs, These men are servants of the Most High God. You might think that they would welcome the free publicity.

But exactly the same thing. It says Paul was annoyed and turned and said to the Spirit, not to the girl, to the Spirit who's speaking through her, I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour.

Do you see what I'm saying? She came to the right conclusion. Again, long before most anybody else had done so.

These men are servants of the Most High God. Paul does not welcome that. He's annoyed by it.

He turns and addresses the spirit, that's discernment, inside of her and casts it out. At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus says, Blessed are you. Blessed are you.

for it's my Father who has shown you this. And I think what's interesting about this episode is the sequel. He goes on with some very strong words.

I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and so on. And in verse 21, it says, From that time, from that time, from the time of Peter's confession, from the time of somebody recognizing by divine revelation that Jesus is the Son of God, from that time, Jesus began, he hadn't done so previously, he began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. It's as if he's been waiting for this moment, Now that you see who I am, let me tell you what I've come to do.

From that time, from the time of Peter's confession, he began to show them, and in fact spends the rest of his ministry, telling them over and over and over again, Yes, I am the Christ, and I've come to go to Jerusalem to suffer and die. Okay? And Peter, verse 22, took him and began to rebuke him, saying, God forbid, Lord, this shall never happen to you.

Don't you love that phrase, God forbid, Lord? I love it. I mean, how many times have you said that?

God forbid, Lord, right? See, that didn't fit. Peter came to the right conclusion, not because he had figured it out, as he abundantly demonstrates, but because the Father had revealed it to him.

He came to the right conclusion, But as soon as Jesus begins then to build upon that conclusion and say, you're absolutely right. Now let me tell you what sort of a Christ I am going to be. Not the one of your expectation, the one who's going to come in on a white horse with an army and overthrow the oppression of Rome.

Not that. No, I'm going to Jerusalem to suffer and die. Peter says that doesn't compute.

See? That doesn't compute. I expected Messiah to be the king, to be the liberator.

That's what I signed up for. I'm going to be on the winning side. you're going to be crucified?

No way! God forbid, Lord. And look what Jesus does.

The same Jesus who just five verses earlier has said, blessed are you, Peter, for my Father is the one who's revealed that to you. Praise God that somebody has finally seen it. Now I can begin to enlarge upon it.

Jesus whirls around, points his finger at Peter, and says, get behind me, Satan. Blessed are you, for my Father in heaven has shown that to you. Get behind me, Satan.

In a space of minutes, probably. That's discernment. Now, be very clear about it.

Jesus is not saying that Peter is Satan. He's not even saying that Peter is demon-possessed or Satan-possessed. What he's saying is that that comment, that comment from Peter emanates right out of the depths of the pit.

That Peter is at this point being used of the enemy through his own thinking about it, through his own rationalizing about it. Peter is now being used of the enemy actually to tempt Jesus. That's really what's going on, to tempt him to avoid the cross.

Get behind me, Satan. Get that temptation out of here. Do you see what's going on?

In the space of just a few moments, he cuts between two comments out of the same man's mouth and says, that one's from God, that one's from Satan. That's discernment. Five verses apart.

Some people believe that discernment, the gift of discernment, is linked to prophecy in the same way that interpretation is linked to tongues. That's a very common teaching. I think that's partly true.

That discernment is linked to prophecy in a somewhat similar way to interpretation being linked to tongues. It's interesting in the list, if you want to turn back over to 1 Corinthians again, where we've been spending a good deal of time in the last several weeks, it's interesting that in the list in chapter 12, discernment comes right after prophecy. And that's where we were last week.

Verse 10, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, or in one word, discernment. I think that's true. I think discernment is linked to prophecy, and that's probably the principal area in which we see it operative in the church.

But it is not exclusively so. And interestingly enough, I'll just tantalize you for a second. We're going to come back to this in a couple of weeks.

Neither is interpretation exclusively linked to tongues. Did you know that? Let me give you two examples.

In the Old Testament, we have both Joseph and Daniel using the gift of interpretation with regard to dreams. It's the same gift. It's not, in that case, an interpretation of a tongue.

It's interpretation of a dream. In a similar way, discernment, I believe, is wider than prophecy, but one of the principal places that you see it operative is when a prophecy is given. or a supposed prophecy is given, we're to discern it, to test it, to weigh it, to try it, in the words of the King James Version, to see whether we agree in our spirit, whether the Spirit of God inside of us agrees, yes, indeed, that's from God, and we can say the amen to it, or whether it needs to be corrected or even perhaps rejected.

First time I met John Wimber was last July out in Los Angeles, the big renewal conference that several of us went to. And on one evening, we had about 4,000 people in the Shrine Auditorium out there, and John gave a teaching, and then we got into some ministry after the teaching, and he said, Come, Holy Spirit. And all kinds of weirdness began happening all over the place.

People were falling down and people were shaking and people were crying and people were laughing. John would say, the Holy Spirit's on that person. And I'd look real hard.

I didn't see what he saw. And then I got really excited because he said, the Holy Spirit is just sweeping right through here. And he was pointing right at me.

And I thought, I'm going to get it. You know, here it comes. I don't know what this is, but it's coming my way, and I was ready.

Nothing. And then, in the middle of this huge group of 4,000 people, in the middle of the auditorium, this lady threw back her head and began howling like a dog, or like a wolf. It was like a wolf howl.

And Wimber says, Holy Spirit's all over that lady. I said, that doesn't look like the Holy Spirit to me. Well, 32 tapes and three conferences later, I understand what he meant.

And I think he was right. But so was I. What he meant was the Holy Spirit had indeed come upon that lady and had stirred up something inside of her that was reacting violently against the approach of the Holy Spirit. Now I was seeing the violent reaction.

He was seeing what provoked it. Discernment was going on in both of us, but I think his was a little bit more sophisticated, a little bit more experienced. as to what was going on.

Do you see what I'm saying? A supernatural gift given sovereignly by God which enables individuals within the body of Christ to discern the motivating spirit behind words or actions. How do you know which is which?

How do you know who's doing what? It's a wonderful, there's a delicious verse in Hebrews 5. Don't have to turn to it.

It's Hebrews 5.14 if you want to just note it for later. But the verse says, Solid food is for the mature. And then it defines the word mature.

Solid food, the point of the verse is not solid food, it's maturity. Solid food is for the mature, those who have their faculties trained by practice. to distinguish good from evil.

Who are the mature? Those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. And I submit to you that like everything else, you learn to distinguish good from evil by practice.

You learn, say it again, like everything else, you learn to distinguish good from evil by practice. last week as I said we were considering the the gift of prophecy and I think I may have left out the most important verse of all in chapter 14 and that is for you can all prophesy verse 31 for you can all prophesy did you hear it for you can all prophesy but having said that Paul goes on to say let the prophecies be weighed you can all do it but they need testing they need discerning we're not just to accept whatever happens in a meeting and say oh thank you God it may not be or it may be partly from the Lord and partly in the flesh we talked a little bit about that last week how do you know by practice. And here again is where we need each other.

Here again we don't operate in a vacuum. Here again the body of Christ is composed of many members and we need each other. We need to operate in humility and in deference and in mutual support.

I'll give you an example. A man named John Huggett tells this story. He said at a rally in London, a Christian woman gave a prophecy.

It was couched in religious phraseology, but delivered in a wailing tone, and I quickly discerned it was not from the Lord. We were in an Anglican church, and after the woman sat down, the vicar stood up to say he thought the gift should be tested. And a number of folks in the congregation raised their hands to agree that God had not spoken.

then I quickly encouraged people to turn their attention back to Jesus see what do you do when something is spoken and you don't bear witness to it well in humility notice how gentle that was he didn't say shut that woman up he didn't call down judgment on her he said let's test that and several people said I don't believe God spoke in that and then he turned their attention back to the Lord Jesus I think that more often than not if a prophecy is sort of not quite on target rather than dismissing it all together we can correct it with an additional word thank you Lord for that and it seems that you're also saying this Jesus said be careful not to tear out the good wheat along with the weeds right? do you hear what I'm saying? more often than not our prophecy is imperfect we see through a glass darkly and it needs correction but the correction can be gentle sometimes perhaps this kind of strong medicine I don't believe God has spoken let's turn our attention back to the Lord gently in humility in deference with the agreement of the body we train our faculties by practice to discern good from evil and the source, the motivating spirit behind words and actions that we can sift the would-be prophecies and receive that which is from God that it might build up and edify his church.

Let's bow our heads together. Father, you're teaching us about these things and we recognize that we're going to make mistakes. But thank you that there are more and more instances in which we sense you speaking with clarity in the midst of our meetings.

Lord, give us the love for each other the care for each other the boldness to exercise also the gift of discernment to test that which purports to be from you that we might not be deceived we would receive that which is truly from you to the praise of your name Amen