Text: Matthew 16:1-4

Since Christ has defeated the principalities and powers we battle and they are truly disarmed, they work their skirmishes many times in subtle ways through lies and shams. Paul said that he was not ignorant of Satan’s devices (cf. 2 Corinthians 2:11) but as the father of lies our adversary will use pretense and deceitfulness to wage war against us. That is why discernment is so important in today’s battles. We need to know what is true and false in our spiritual encounters. For the rest of the week we will be looking at discernment and its importance in fighting the battles for our inheritance.

As you recall from Monday the Jews desired a sign from the apostles concerning Christ, just as they had from Jesus himself in today’s text. In that request we read of both a natural and spiritual discernment.

The natural discernment was open to all who could see the sky. However, this was an illustration that followed Jesus’ spiritual discernment as He discerned the insincerity of their request (cf. Matthew 16:1). One key in the discerning process is to really “see” what is before you. What stood before Jesus were not men desiring truth from Him, but His failure. This is the first time the combination of the Sadducees and Pharisees, who truly disliked each other, spoke collectively to Jesus. It seems their hatred for Him overshadowed their hatred for each other, or as A. T. Robertson said, “Hate makes strange bedfellows.” Point being, if what you suddenly see before you is too good to be true (in the text a unity of dissenting parties) it probably is and needs to be a noted concern.

Jesus then speaks to what these men could not see—the times. What were the times He was speaking of? “The signs of the time of the Messiah’s coming were upon them, and that Jesus was the Messiah; as the departure of the sceptre from Judah, the ending of Daniel’s weeks, the various miracles wrought by Christ, the wickedness of the age in which they lived, the ministry of John the Baptist, and of Christ, the great flockings of the people, both to one and to the other, with divers other things which were easy to be observed by them: but they pretend this to be a very great secret (Gill).

Seeing spiritually what is truly before us can be difficult as we look through the lens of personal bias, prejudice, and justification. Tomorrow we will look at the lens “cleaner” but today pray to be free from the personal clouds that block from seeing what is really set before you. Pray not for a cold-blooded objectivity, but for a compassionate sense of reality.