The Bible: Our Primary Source for Discerning of Spirits

by Ivan Maddox

West End Bible Fellowship

Atlanta, GA

The manifestation of Discerning of Spirits our God-given means of receiving information from God concerning what is going on in the spirit realm, and what to do about it. It is God revealing, to an individual who has the spirit of God, information about spiritual situations that the individual would have no way of knowing by means of his senses, as well as God's solution for dealing with the situation, where that is appropriate.

There are two other manifestations of the spirit related to Discerning of Spirits: the Word of Knowledge and the Word of Wisdom. Word of Knowledge is God revealing to an individual information concerning things in the senses realm about which it is impossible for that individual to know anything by his senses. Word of Wisdom is practical direction from God instructing the individual in what to do about a given situation. It is God's solution to a given problem. These are received from God in exactly the same way as Discerning of Spirits: by God revealing information to the spirit of God in you. They differ from Discerning of Spirits only in their content.

These three manifestations, the Word of Knowledge, the Word of Wisdom, and Discerning of Spirits, are called the Revelation Manifestations. Together they compass the entire range of God's revelation to man by means of the spirit.

Every word in the Bible has come to us from God by means of one or more of these three manifestations. When it comes to Discerning of Spirits, this means that every portion of scripture that deals with what's going on in the spirit realm, whether past, present or future, or that deals with the presence or non-presence of spirits, or their names or functions, or what to do about them, was received by means of the manifestation of Discerning of Spirits. God has pre-packaged this revelation for us, and given it to us in a lump sum within His written Word.

The Bible is our God-given manual on the spirit realm, God's initial revelation to each and every child of God concerning what is going on spiritually. Anything God reveals to us by revelation in addition to this will be built on this initial foundation. Any new revelation about spiritual things that disagrees with the revelation given in the Bible is to be rejected as false. And if we refuse to avail ourselves of the revelation already given to us in the Bible, further revelation on the subject is almost always a waste of time.

One example of revelation by way of Discerning of Spirits being given to us in scripture is found in Hosea 4. In the first part of the chapter, the moral condition of Israel is described.

Hosea 4:6-11.

4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

4:7 As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.

4:8 They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity.

4:9 And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings.

4:10 For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to the LORD.

4:11 Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.

The picture is frightening. God's people are about to be destroyed because they lack knowledge. The problem is not that they were ignorant; rather, they threw away the knowledge they already had. The priests, far from trying to correct the problem, were leading the charge away from God. They were rejoicing in the sins of the people, because that meant more sacrifices, and thus more food for the priests. The people were still worshipping God; they had just added the worship of other gods to their worship of God, much like an unfaithful spouse will stay with their partner while taking on another lover.

But in verse 12, God rips away the curtain and shows us the reason for Israel's departure from God.

Hosea 4:12

4:12 My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.

This does not absolve Israel of any of its guilt. They followed after other gods of their own free will. But just like Adam and Eve did not go after the forbidden fruit in the Garden on their own, but were prompted and led to do it by an outside party, so also Israel has been led away from God by a spirit that specializes in this sort of thing: the spirit of prostitution.

One problem we in the Church have with Discerning of Spirits is that we tend not to believe God in this area. We look at a passage like this and assume, "He's just talking about an attitude of heart in these people, not a real live spirit being." But that is clearly not the case in this instance. God singles out the "spirit of prostitution" as the REASON for His people going into prostitution with other gods. And in Jeremiah 2 He points out something that we often forget: what they were doing in departing from God was NOT normal human behavior!

Jeremiah 2:10-13.

2:10 For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing.

2:11 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.

2:12 Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.

2:13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

God pointed out to Israel (and to us) that no other nation was doing what they were doing. No one else was deserting their own gods to serve another god. He challenged them to investigate this for themselves. No one else was doing what they were doing. They were the only ones!

Why was Israel behaving abnormally in their relationship with God? The spirit of prostitution was leading them to do what no other nation on earth at that time was doing: voluntarily changing the God they worshipped.

Once we begin to realize that God is telling us the truth about spiritual things in His Word, and is giving us a glimpse into the spirit realm so that we can see things that we will never see with our natural eyes, a whole new area of understanding opens up to us in God's Word, and we move one step closer to seeing things from God's point of view rather than our own.

Another powerful example of revelation being given to us by way of Discerning of Spirits in scripture is found in the first two chapters of Job. In this passage, we are given a look at a major crisis in a man's life from two very different points of view: the man's point of view, and God's point of view. It is as though we are viewing the scene on a split screen TV. We get to see things that Job himself never saw, and gain an understanding of his situation that he himself never received. Things that to Job's eyes appear to be coincidence are seen to be quite deliberate, and things that seem to be quirks of nature and random acts of violence are revealed to be part of a deliberate attack against this unsuspecting man. At the same time, we get a glimpse of how different our own life situations must look when viewed from God's perspective -- which is the right perspective -- as opposed to our own.

Another area in the Bible where we receive Discerning of Spirits from God is in the record of the life of King Saul in the book of I Samuel. We meet Saul first as a five-senses man without the spirit of God, then we see him as a spirit-filled man and king. We see how his disobedience toward God led to his loss of the spirit of God. Finally we see him as a man inhabited by an evil spirit, and we watch him sink lower and lower until finally he is consulting evil spirits impersonating the dead in an effort to lead God's people in a critical situation, and we see the disastrous results.

In the same way, we are given a glimpse into the inner life and heart of David, the king whom God described as "a man after mine own heart." We see him anointed with the spirit of God as a youth, and we watch as he does heroic deeds, relying not on his own strength or wisdom, but on God. And suddenly we are given a candid look at how God trains people, as everyone in his life that David could trust or rely on is stripped away from him, and he is left alone with only God to help him, and with his very life in danger. We watch as he learns to trust God like never before, and as God raises him up to be a leader in Israel, and finally its king. We see his rise to greatness as God magnifies him, and we see his terrible fall in a moment of sinful passion. We see him confronted by God when he thinks he has gotten away with his sin, we see his heart-rending prayer for forgiveness, and the restoration of his relationship with God; but we see also how the shock-waves from this sin tore through the rest of his life, wreaking disaster after disaster in the lives of his children. We see not only what happened, but why.

Likewise in the life of Joseph, son of Jacob, we see his early promise and his faithfulness toward God. Then we see disaster strike his life so that he spends almost eighteen years in the worst of circumstances, first as a slave, then as a prisoner in a dungeon. Finally, when his life seems irreparably ruined, and all hope seems gone, we see God transform his situation in a single day, moving him from the dungeon to the palace in a single step; and we see how all the disasters in his life were used by God to train him for the job God wanted him to do. And suddenly we are given a whole new perspective on the problems and disasters in our own lives, so that we can look past the things we see and focus on the God who loves us, and whom we trust.

Do you want to excel in the manifestation of Discerning of Spirits? You don't have to wait for special revelation from God. Open the book! Believe what it says! You'll be surprised at how greatly your eyes are opened to what is going on in the unseen world around you, as you learn to recognize the hand of God, and the hand of the enemy, in action around you.