“The Danger of Diminishing Discernment”
Hosea 7:8-10
8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.
10 And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this.
First: Encarta dictionary defines discernment as “keenly selective judgment. Also synonyms would include judgment, acumen, discrimination, taste and sensitivity.”
Introduction: To get this message started let me make some observations. I would think that most church observers would agree that the American church is in a state of spiritual decline and the evidence is everywhere, particularly in the area of church health. Thousands of churches are closing their doors every year. One study, published in April, estimated that in the decade ending in 2020, 3,850 to 7,700 houses of worship closed per year in the United States, or 75 to 150 congregations per week. Hundreds of ministers are leaving the ministry monthly. 42% of all ministers have considered leaving. There has been an alarming decline in the frequency of church attendance among Christians during the Covid years – 2020-2023. I don’t want to belabor the point but the evidence for this decline is everywhere. In our text this morning there is a declaration from the prophet that the tribe of Ephraim, (who represents the nation of Israel) is experiencing a spiritual decline characterized by a loss or lack of discernment. First…
I. The Cause of Diminishing Discernment
a. Prayerlessness - When we break commands concerning prayer it leads to diminished discernment.
1Thesselonians. 5:17 "…Pray without ceasing."
Luke 18:1 "Jesus spake a parable unto them to this end that men ought always to pray, and not to faint"
Ephesians 6:18 says that the Christian is to be praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints"
There are many commands in the Bible that Christians should pray and Jesus warns His disciples more than once to watch and pray lest they should enter into temptation.
When we do not pray we deprive ourselves of the things that we need. Many do not have daily necessities because they do not pray. God says we are to ask,
Matthew 6:11 "Give us this day our daily bread"
No doubt many of the afflicted are still afflicted because they have not obeyed God's command, "Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray."
When we do not pray we deprive ourselves of the wisdom we need. Many are undecided and in doubt about duty because they have not prayed and they lack wisdom because they have not obeyed God when He commanded,
James 1:5 "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not"
James 4: 2 "…have not, because they ask not"
They do not ask and they do not receive. They do not seek and they do not find.They do not knock and the door is not opened (Matt. 7: 7). Sometimes there are other hindrances, but often it simply lack of prayer.
Others die die because we do not intercede on their behalf. In Exodus 32, God threatened to destroy the whole nation of Israel and make Moses and his family a new nation. But Moses prayed and God forgave them. If there had been 10 praying men in Sodom, God would have spared the city!
b. Lack of Study of God’s Word
2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
Hebrews 5:12 “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
2 Peter 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
c. Inconsistent church attendance
Hebrews 10:25 “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
In his book, When God Whispers Your Name, Max Lucado tells the story of John Egglen, who had never preached a sermon in his life before the Sunday morning when it snowed and the pastor wasn’t able to make it to the church. In fact, he was the only deacon to show up. He was not a preacher, but he was faithful and that meant on that particular Sunday morning he preached. God rewarded his faithfulness, and at the end of his hesitant sermon, one young man invited God into his heart. No one there could appreciate the significance of what had taken place that morning. The young man who accepted Christ that snowy Sunday morning was none other than Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the man who has often been called, the "prince of preachers." God blessed his preaching and when he was still less than 30 years old he became the pastor of London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle. His sermons were so powerful that although the building could hold 5000 people, the crowds who came to hear him were so thick that they would line up outside trying to hear his sermons. That amazing life of faith all started on a cold Sunday morning with the faithfulness of a deacon who had never preached a sermon before that day. Faithfulness means being committed to what God lets us have the chance to do, whether it looks like a big assignment, or a small one. Giving the sermon to a handful of people on a Sunday morning when almost no one shows up doesn’t seem all that significant, but it demanded faithfulness & God blessed John Egglin’s faithfulness.
II. The Consequences of Diminishing Discernment
a. Faulty judgment – Do you remember our definition of discernment? Keenly selective judgment! Well when we do not pray as we should, and do not study as we should and do not attend services like we should we develop defective, faulty judgment. We cannot tell the true from the false and the real from the counterfeit. This is especially dangerous as this age draws to a close and we see more and more false teaching and false teachers!
b. Defective devotion -
Revelation 2:1 “Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Revelation 3:16 “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:”
c. Incomplete Separation
Hosea 7:8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
2 Corinthians 6:14 ‘Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
III. The Cure for Diminishing Discernment
Hosea 6:1 Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
3 Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.
5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
a. Remember – From where you have fallen!
When Jacob was in spiritual trouble he went back to Bethel. He went back to the place where he met with God. He went back and reconsecrated himself.
" Then God said to Jacob, 'Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.'" (35:1)
This isn't just an escape from the danger of staying where he was at. This is a renewed invitation to faith. Jacob sees it as a call to holiness and separation, and so he commands his household and other servants to purify themselves.
“2 Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. 3 Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone." (35:2-3)
b. Repent
1 John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Not too many years ago newspapers carried the story of Al Johnson, a Kansas man who repented, who came to faith in Jesus Christ. What made his story so remarkable was not his conversion, but the fact that as a result of his newfound faith in Christ, he confessed to a bank robbery he had participated in when he was nineteen years old. Because the statute of limitations on the case had run out, Johnson could not be prosecuted for the offense. But because of his complete and total change of heart, he not only confessed his crime, he voluntarily repaid his share of the stolen money! That’s repentance – radical reconstruction of the heart.
ILL: Johnny the painter, was big on cutting corners so he could make more of a profit. So when a church hired him to paint their wooden building, Johnny submitted the lowest bid, and was hired. As always, he thinned his latex paint with water to stretch it.
One day while he was up on the scaffolding -- the job almost finished -- he heard an oppressively loud burst of thunder, and it began raining cats and dogs.
The torrential rain washed the thinned paint off the church while intense winds blew Johnny off his scaffolding to the church graveyard, surrounded by puddles of thinned paint.
Johnny interpreted this as a warning from God above, so he got on his knees and cried: “Oh, God! Please forgive me! What should I do?”
God’s voice thundered from heaven: “Repaint and thin no more!”
Remember this dear friend…"Repentance is always difficult, and the difficulty grows greater with delay."
c. Repeat – Do the first works! What does this mean?
Remember the causes for diminishing discernment?
1. When we break commands concerning prayer it leads to diminished discernment.
2. When we neglect the reading and study of God’s Word it diminishes our discernment.
Spirit discernment is rare because it is expensive. It means a sensitive conscience, an instructed understanding through study of the Book of God. It means a passion for purity, for truth, for the right, for Christ Himself, and for living uncompromisingly true in the daily habit. All this lies back of a seeing spirit eye. And these things cost. Discernment is expensive.
S. D Gordon
3. Inconsistency of church attendance will cause a diminishment of our discernment.
Conclusion: Encarta dictionary defines discernment as “keenly selective judgment. Also synonyms would include judgment, acumen, discrimination, taste and sensitivity.”
We are in the last times and we need to be able to try the spirits to see if they are of God. Discernment enables us to tell the truth from a lie; the real from the counterfeit…
True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, and the permanent from the transient. And, yes, it means distinguishing between the good and the better, and even between the better and the best.
Sinclair B. Ferguson
Discernment is not a matter of telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.
Charles Spurgeon
