8. Discernment – Separating Friends From Foes Series

In the previous chapter we learnt that there are some enemies who are within the camp of God and pretend to be serving Christ, yet they are deceivers who have been sent by the devil to abuse the flock. In this chapter we will focus on how to identify whether a person has been sent by God or by the devil.

Once you start presenting on such a topic, some people will quickly interject and say “Do not judge others”, yes we are not supposed to condemn others but what we are doing here is testing whether a person is sent by God or not. The Bible actually gives us the right to do so, for it says in 1 John 4:1 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

We are not supposed to believe a person simply because they claim to be sent by God, but we are supposed to test the spirit behind that person, whether it’s from God or from the devil. Jesus actually commended the church of Ephesus on Revelation 2:2 for testing those who claimed to be apostles and were not, but were found to be liars. We need to discern, that is to separate the good from the bad, friends from the foes.

It is easier for a soldier to identify whether another soldier is real or fake but if you give that task to a civilian, it would be difficult to perform. Soldiers have standards, they dress in a particular way, they use certain words when communicating, and they carry themselves differently from the civilians. So someone already in the system can fish out any pretenders. You need to be in the system to be able to identify any pretenders from outside, you need to be a child of God in order to be able to separate other children of God from pretenders who would have been sent by the devil.

Let us consider the ways which we can test the spirits.

Be Guided By The Holy Spirit

First things first, be on the right side you yourself, it doesn’t help much to try to test for false gospel ministers when you yourself don’t believe in Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, you and the false pastor whom you have proved to be fake, you are both all lost. Establish a relationship with God first.

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14

God is Spirit, the devil is also a spirit and even the war which is going on is spiritual. You need to have the Spirit of God to be able to understand spiritual matters. Your natural knowledge or intelligence won’t help much to discern between those sent by God and pretenders, but the Holy Spirit will guide you. As Jesus said on John 14:26, The Holy Spirit shall teach you all things, ALL means everything, and even this issue of discernment is included in the word all. Let it be your prayer that you may receive the gift of the Holy Spirit because without Him you cannot separate the real from the fake.

1 John 4:1 which instructs us to tests spirits is part of an epistle written to believers in Christ. It was not written to people who don’t believe in Jesus. Even the previous chapter 1 John 3 is concluded with verse 24 which says “…And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” The recipients of this letter were believers who had the Holy Spirit and on the next chapter they are given the charge to test spirits. How can we test other spirits when we ourselves are not spiritual?

One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of discerning of spirits (read 1 Corinthians 12:10). By the way, to discern means to distinguish something as being different from something else, and The Holy Spirit helps us to do this well on spiritual matters.

There was a man named Ahijah who was a prophet of God whom we read of in 1 Kings 14:1-6. Due to old age his eyes could not see, he was now blind. Jeroboam the king of Israel wanted to take advantage of this man’s blindness, so he sent his wife to go this prophet disguised as someone else so that she won’t be recognized. However, God exposed this and informed Ahijah about this concealment before the wife of Jeroboam had even arrived. If you have a relationship with God, He will reveal to you that which you cannot see with the naked eye, He will expose deceptions formed by the enemy.