The Gifts Of The Holy Spirit
Discerning of spirits
Ability to Detect The
Source Of A Manifestation
This is the ability by the help of The Spirit to
detect the source of a manifestation.
By the application of this gift Peter detected the
spirit of envy in the man called Simon, who offered money to buy the Power and
gift of The Spirit (Acts 8:18-23).
And even when a slave girl having a spirit of
divination exclaimed that Paul and Silas were truly servants of The Most High
God, who preach the Gospel of Salvation, Paul discerned the foul spirit in her
and commanded it:
"In The Name Of Jesus Christ I command
you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her (Acts 16:16-18).
The damsel was possessed with a spirit of python (or
of Apollo) by which she brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. She said:
“These men are the servants of The Most High God, which shew unto us the way of
Salvation” (v.17 KJV).
Though astonishing as it seems, how such a testimony
could be given in such a case; every syllable of it true, and at the same time
full, clear, and distinct.
But take note the deep manipulative design and
artifice of this evil spirit:
It well knew that the Jewish law abhorred all magic,
incantations, magical rites, and dealings with familiar spirits; it therefore
bore what was in itself a true testimony to the apostles, that by it may
destroy their credit, and ruin their usefulness.
In the first manipulative design, the Jews, by this
testimony, would be deceived at once to believe that the apostles were in
compact with these demons, and that the miracles they performed were done by
the agency of these wicked spirits, and that the whole was the effect of magic;
and this, of course, would harden their hearts against the preaching of the
Gospel.
The second manipulative design. The Gentiles,
finding that their own demon bore testimony to the apostles, would naturally
consider that the whole was one system; that they had nothing to learn, nothing
to correct; and thus the preaching of the apostles must be useless to them. In
such a predicament as this, nothing could have saved the credit of the apostles
but their dispossessing this woman of her familiar spirit, and that in the most
incontestable manner; for what could have saved the credit of Moses and Aaron,
when the magicians of Egypt turned their rods into serpents, had not Aaron's
rod devoured theirs? And what could have saved the credit of these apostles but
the casting out of this spirit of divination, with which, otherwise, both Jews
and Gentiles would have believed them all to be in compact.