EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/2/2025 9:51 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Learning to Live Discerningly”
This series of Spiritual Diaries will be a bit different
as what we are looking at seems to be an continuation of John MacArthur’s
introduction to “Testing the Spirits” which we began to look at in yesterday’s
SD. It looks like that I will quote the
first half of this section and then tomorrow evening will quote the last have
of it and then on Tuesday evening I will begin looking at the first half of 1
John 4:1a.
“Spiritual ‘fool’s gold’ is nothing new. In fact, the Old and New Testaments are
filled with warnings about false teachers (Deut. 13:1-3; Isa 8:19-20; Matt.
7:15; 24:4-5, 11, 24; Acts 20:29; Rom. 16:17-19; 2 Cor. 11:4, 13-15; Jude 4)
and their counterfeit doctrines (Acts 20:30; 1 Tim 1:4-7, 19; 6:20-21; 2 Tim.
2:17-18; 2 Peter 2:1; cf. Isa. 30:10).
Christians must be discerning lest they be ‘children, tossed here and
there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of
men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming’ (Eph. 4:14). It is
crucial that they ‘examine everything carefully’ in order to ‘hold fast to that
which is good [and] abstain from every form of evil’ (1 Thess. 5:21-22). Otherwise, they increase their vulnerability
to satanic deception (Matt. 13:19; 2 Cor. 2:11; 4:4; 11:3, 14; 2 Thess. 2:9;
cf. Gen. 3:1; Matt. 4:3-10; Luke 22:31; Eph. 6:10).
“Satan’s basic strategy for attacking the truth first
became evident in the Garden of Eden, where he mounted a three-pronged assault
on God’s Word. First, he cast doubt on
what God had said about eating the fruit of the tree of life (‘indeed, has God
said, You shall not eat…?’’,Gen. 3:1). Second,
he denied outright what God has said to Adam (‘You surely will not die!’, v.4).
Finally, he added a distortion to what God had specifically told Adam (‘you
will be like God, knowing good and evil,’ v. 5). Ever since, Satan and his demonic forces have
waged a relentless, nonstop campaign (cf. Rev. 16:14a) against the truth—still using
their original tactics of doubt, denial, and distortion (cf. 2 Cor. 4:4).
“Scripture contains many references to the long struggle
for knowing, upholding, and obeying the truth.
In the Old Testament, Moses (e.g., Deut. 4:1-31; 6:1-25; 8:1-20;
12:29-13: 18; 30:1-20), Joshua (Josh. 23:1-24; 28), Samuel (1 Sam. 12:1-25),
Elijah (1 Kings 18:20-40), and the prophets (Isa. 31: 42:17; Jer. 8:5; 17:5;
Ezek. 18:26; Hos. 14:1) continually called God’s people back to the truth from
falsehood and idolatry. And in the New
Testament, Jesus Himself warned of false prophets (Matt. 7:15; 24:4-5, 11, 24),
as did Paul (Acts 20:29; Rom. 16:17-18), Peter (2 Peter 2:1-3), John (1 John
2:18-24), and Jude (Jude 4-19).
2/2/2025 10:23 PM
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