The Spirit's Call
Discernment & Deception
Pastor Todd Barnes
Part of Sunday Morning Sermon Notes
June 9, 2025

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Church is about

; it’s meant to train a believer, not entertain them. But, for one to be discipled or trained it requires instruction from the Word of God; instruction that is to be learned and followed.

1 Tim 4:1-2 – I’ll never do that! I’m not into witchcraft, spirit chasing, satan worship! How do you know?

We may not give heed to demonic spirits, but how do we know if we are departing from our faith (being deceived)?

The Belt of

is the very first piece of in the “Armor of God” Eph 6:10:14. Stay with me here! What can easily and often happen when we don’t wear a belt? Our pants can fall off, leaving us spiritually exposed! To say, “I’ll never do that” 1 Tim 4 – Well, I say there’s too many believers walking around exposed and they don’t know it!

Eph 6:10 begins with the admonition from Paul to “be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.” This is enforced by the

and the individual strengths each piece of His armor provides for us. The very first is Truth! What happens if we not only fail to gird ourselves daily with the belt of truth but also fail to discern it? We won’t know what we don’t know… and if we don’t know, how can we know we won’t depart ourselves!?!??

I truly believe one of the most deceptive teachings of satan – and it’s growing going on in the church today – is, “Live however you want, the blood of Jesus covers you, don’t stress yourself out by worrying about holiness. Just do the best you can and treat people good!”

First, that’s an un-scriptural/doctrinal relationship in Jesus – Colo 2 teaches we are united to Christ (vss 6-7). There’s so much to unpack in these couple of verses… Especially coming on the heels of Ch. 1 mystery of Christ in us. But, that’s a sermon for another day… The point is we can’t be united in Christ and walk our own path. That’s a

doctrine! If we do so, we can be guaranteed we’ll end up departing our faith & not even be aware that we’re spiritually naked/exposed!

I was watching a Gospel conference on-line, and they illustrated something that falls directly in line with our truth this morning. It addressed the ease of deceptiveness and leading us away from our knowledge and our walk with the Lord.

ILLUS… We’re going to try and mimic it here this morning. We’re going to ask ChatGPT a question this morning!
“Please compose a 30 second prayer to God in the Spirit and theology in praise to the glory of God’s grace.”

Are these not words of praise! (NO!) – they’re words

praise!

Mt 15:8 “these people (machines) honor me with their lips (bytes); but their hearts are

.”

Computers do words, better than you and me, but they don’t feel anything… God created us in His image Gen 1:27 We are fashioned with “great” purpose to resemble (not just sound like) Christ’s image and to fellowship with God. This goes beyond the physical traits. It’s about intimacy and fellowship of our soul in and with the Spirit of God. Jesus exemplifies this and is the preeminent and perfect image of God Heb 1:3. We cannot be careless in our efforts! Think of it… We exist to be in Jesus’s image, to “feel” the worth of grace, the glory of grace, and the beauty of grace! It’s then that our lives take on (a non-AI unfelt) meaning in Jesus which brings about true faith and praise to God!

VIDEO
These pastors DID NOT say those words! It’s called “Deepfake Technology” - it transforms existing source content where one person’s words are swapped other verbiage, or AI’s graphics replace the original verbiage. There is a truth within all this peripheral context… how do we know we’re not being led astray according to 1 Tim 4? Are we listening to multiple preachers online (YouTube, podcasts)? How do we know we’re not listening to what we’re looking for? – 2 Tim 4:3-4

The only way we can know that the teaching of the Gospel that we’re listening to is Truth is to know the Word of God! Then we’ll able to build an intimate

with Jesus & learn to embody & exemplify the personage of Jesus.

Acts 17:2; 10-11 – How often have we verified perceived truth in the Word of God (or know that we know)?

1 Tim 4 – for Timothy, in Ephesus came certain people in the church who were following some Greek philosophers. Paul knew that their teachings, if left unchecked, would greatly distort Christian truth. But, there’s a greater problem: satan, he’s even more dangerous than man’s false narratives. Satan deceives by offering a clever

of the real thing… He Disorients, Distorts, Deceives

Consider the wilderness temptation of Jesus, and what he did with Adam and Eve, and what he does with each of us:

**DISORIENT** the perception of reality, so he could
**DISTORT** our perception of reality and
**DECEIVE** us into believing a false narrative about reality.

See if this doesn’t sound familiar: Satan comes when Jesus is in a weakened state (we humans are more easily

when we’re physically, emotionally, and/or psychologically weak).

Satan offered a proposition to Jesus that put a distorted twist on truth. - Satan used truth to present a false reality.

  1. Was it inherently sinful for Jesus to desire to satisfy his hunger? No!
  2. Was it inherently sinful for Jesus to demonstrate his sonship through miraculously making bread? No! (He did this very thing later when he fed the five thousand Mat 14:13–21.
  3. Was it inherently sinful for Jesus to put his faith in a specific promise of Scripture? No!
  4. Was it inherently sinful for Jesus to be highly exalted & every tongue to confess his lordship? No! Phil 2:9–11.

In the right context, all of these were righteous. What made satan’s propositions evil were their

context.

We must be sure of what we know, and not base it on our favorite style of presentation or our itching ears 2 Tim 4:3

Inspectors at the U.S. Mint for counterfeit monies are trained to KNOW the original so detailed, a forgery is evident!

IF “WE” don’t know the truth, then we can’t detect the counterfeit; resulting in departing from the truth.