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John MacArthur

When people ask me, “What’s the biggest problem in the church?” I always say the same thing: The absence of discernment. That is the biggest problem in the church because if you can’t discern the truth with the Word of God in your hand, with the Bible in your hand, if you can’t discern the truth, you can die of 1,000 heresies. It’s like having spiritual AIDS. People who have a deficient immune system can die of 1,000 illnesses. The church can die of 1,000 heresies if it can’t exercise discernment. This is always the issue.

And part of the responsibility of ministry is the positive side to instruct with great patience, as Paul said to Timothy. But the other side is to reprove, rebuke, and exhort, and use the Word of God to do that. And to exercise discernment is at the very heart of Christian living because Christian living is a reflection of Christian thinking, and Christian thinking must be attached to sound doctrine, and that’s where discernment begins.

It is very evident that a massive part of professing Christianity lacks discernment. And so the effort in this conference these days and with my dear friends who are going to be sharing in opening the Word of God to you and speaking to you is to help you to be discerning. We know there are people who are in this movement who are deceivers, and they know they’re deceivers. They’re false teachers, and they know they’re false teachers. They’re in it for the money, and they know they’re in it for the money.