Becoming Better Theologians (part 3) - Theology Proper

I don't know if you saw the news, some exciting news for parents this week. Scientists say that they may have discovered a genetic cause for ADHD.

And I read that and you go, well, how's that good news? Because now parents, when your kids misbehave, you can blame your own parents for their behavior.

So I think that is great news. I'm very excited about that. I'll be in the lounge all week.

Well, good morning, everyone. ADHD. By the way,

ADHD, I think if they ever find the genetic code for ADHD, they're going to find out that every boy has

ADHD. And a significant number of girls.

What is ADHD? Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.

There's also ODD. Are you familiar with that? Oppositional Defiance Disorder. That's true.

You know, you say you have an odd child, I'm likely to think he's rebellious. But the key thing is here, and my point,

I guess, is that what people want to call disorders, we call sin.

You know, you want to know why kids are hyperactive? Well, maybe it's their diet and maybe it's just because they're misbehaving.

Anyway, now that I've prattled for a minute or two, let's open in prayer. Father, what a beautiful day.

What a great day it is to be here and to be among your people and to look at all that you've created, even as we drive in this morning and to drive past the reservoir and to just see all the trees and the fall changing and all the leaves turning color.

Lord, what a blessing it is and how you have sustained us for another day that we might gather here together to worship you, to learn more about you.

Lord, as we look at theology proper, that is the study of you, what you have told us about yourself.

I pray that you would bless our time as we turn to your word and as we engage in dialogue this morning.

We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Well, last week, you know, my wife is really good about pointing some things out to me.

And she said, you know, you really shouldn't do this kind of handout unless you're going to give us the answers.

So I thought we might at least cover the answers and then we'll kind of review what we did last week. And then we will press on.

And, you know, you think, oh, theology proper. How many of you guys saw the study this week where they… and I didn't look it up or whatever.

I just found it fascinating. They did this survey about what people know about different religions.

How many heard about that this week? And the number one group who knew the most about most religions was evangelical

Christians. No? Orthodox Jews, liberal

Christians, Roman Catholics, Muslims, Mormons.

We have any atheists here? If so, be proud of yourself. Oh, thank you. Because they knew more about religion than most people did.

Now, I don't know what the… You know, a lot of times you have to take these surveys with a grain of salt. You know, you see these political surveys and they go, you know, yeah, the survey shows that overwhelming percentage of people want free money from the government and don't think it costs them anything.

And then you look at the, you know, surveyed components. 75 % of the people they talked to were avowed

Marxists. And you go, oh, well, gee, I wonder why that happened. But anyway, I digress. Where was

I? We're talking about theology proper surveys. And the important part about atheists knowing more about religion than other people is because we ought to know more.

We ought to know more about the Bible, the God of the Bible, than anyone else. And it is often shocking how little we do know.

And what's the greatest evidence of how little we know about God? What do you think it is?

Our life. How we respond to crises. What do we do when the chips are down?

Oh, man, I don't know how I'm going to recover from this one. How are you going to recover?

Well, I suppose it depends on the God you believe in. Are there going to be times in life where we get the wind knocked out of us?

Yes. That's without a doubt true. The question is how do we respond?

What is our mindset?

And what we believe about God affects how we act. Okay. So to go over some of these blanks here.

Number one. The most striking statement in the whole Bible may be the first one.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Why? Because so much truth is contained in that.

It doesn't explain God. It doesn't explain where he came from. Because he didn't come from anything.

It doesn't explain the precise process by which he did things. It tells us one thing.

God existed, and he created everything. He spoke, and all of existence came into being.

I do have a few from last week. I have a few of these handouts if somebody needs one.

The second one is God's name appears how many times in the first chapter of Genesis?

Twenty -eight times. It's kind of like God is the feature of the

Bible. When I say that the Bible really is a story about God who exists and his relationship with man and his redemption of mankind, that's what it is.

Twenty -eight times in the first chapter of Genesis. Number three, the clear position of the authors of Scripture is that people come to the

Bible already knowing God exists. We talked last week about Romans 1, 18 -20, and that just by looking around, in fact, we could go to Psalm...

What's the Psalm? I even have it on my wall in the office. Psalm 19. There we go. The heavens declare the glory of God.

We look at all of nature and it declares that God exists. Number four,

Luther's children's catechism,

I believe that God has made me and all creatures. Good thing for children to understand.

Good thing for us to understand. Number five, to bring people true awareness of the living God lays them in the dust of despair.

And again, this is all from Robert Culver, Systematic Theology. Why would he say that? To bring people true awareness of the living

God lays them in the dust of despair. Because they see their own wretchedness and sin.

They recognize that there's a holy God to whom they're going to answer one day and they go, I'm not ready to meet that God.

We talked last week about people need to know, I think we did. If we didn't, we should have. People need to know the bad news before they get the good news.

They need to understand where they stand before God before they're ready to hear the good news about what

God has done on their behalf. Number six, no one is unaware of their dependence upon God or upon him or their accountability to him.

Again, talking about Romans 1, 18 and 20, the Bible says that men know God exists. And what do they do about that?

They suppress that truth. They hold it down. If they could, they would drown it and they would drown God. This whole idea of moral neutrality or that people are somehow neutral to the truth about God is not true.

Number seven, Jonah obviously delivered no preliminary lectures on monotheism or biblical theism.

He just showed up and preached repentance. The implication would be that people already knew that there was a

God. Now this next one, number eight, I read something that a man posted this week about it.

And I just thought, I politely told him it was blasphemous. Number eight,

God tolerates no rivals. God tolerates no rivals.

And this man was saying how the God of the Old Testament commanded people to be put to death in the

Old Testament, people who worshiped idols, people who blasphemed against him and was just saying how bad that made

God. Well, the truth is, God tolerates no rivals.

And why is that? Our God is a jealous God, but why else? There aren't any.

Men make up their own gods, gods that they would like to exist. Number nine, man, the only visible, rational creature on earth, must worship him,

God, as also do the angels in heaven. We're the only ones capable, you know, no matter what you might think about your dog or your cat or your mouse, they cannot worship

God. They do what they do because that's their nature. We are, by nature, creatures who will worship, and we will either worship, what are our two choices?

Self or God? I would argue that self is a subset of what?

Idols, creation. Thank you. We'll either worship creation or the

Creator because we are either worshiping ourself, some other object, some man -made idea, or we are worshiping the

God who created all things. Okay, which catches up to where we were last week.

And the focus this morning is going to be on something

I don't really often talk about, and that is biblical evidences, evidences for the existence of God.

You say, well, frequently, if you ever pay attention to what I say, that I say that we don't present evidence.

Why don't we present evidence that God exists for the truthfulness of the

Bible? Why don't we do that? God doesn't do it. He just says it,

Ms. Cooley. We're presuppositionalists. Give that woman a gold star.

We didn't confer on the way in this morning. Presuppositionalists, meaning we presuppose that people already know that there's a

God, that they know they're accountable to Him. We don't defend the Bible because it's God's Word. It doesn't need to be defended.

But when we talk about biblical evidences, and this morning we're going to see where we primarily talk about two things, miracles and prophecy, miracles and prophecy.

And you say, well, how does this fall under theology proper, that is the study of God Himself? Because He gives miracles and prophecies so that we might know that He is the one true

God and that His Word is His Word. And we pick up with Culver this morning.

He says that there is an utterly anti -supernatural spirit of the times in which we live.

What does he mean by an anti -supernatural spirit? What does that mean? I mean, people are in favor of the supernatural, aren't they?

Look at all the vampire movies and books. Probably most of you have read those, seen them, some of them.

Yes. Many people only accept material understandings or explanations for things.

Materialism. We're living in a material world. Why is that? In fact, you know what?

Many people even come to the Bible with an anti -supernatural supposition.

In other words, we talk about supposition, presuppositions, at a foundation, a basis, a prejudice, if you will.

If someone comes to the Bible and says, you know what, I'm willing to believe everything the Bible says except this thing about Moses parting the

Red Sea, that's out. What actually happened was, it was a particularly dry period of the year and there was a real low tide and they were able to just get across.

That doesn't really explain, though, how the Egyptian army following right behind them was then wiped out by, that doesn't explain that at all.

So, here's what happens with liberals, with people who just say there is no

God. They look at the Bible and where miracles are proclaimed, they say, it wasn't really a miracle, there is a natural explanation for that.

The plagues in Egypt, natural explanation for that. There's a natural explanation for everything and if something like Jesus walking on water, well, he either knew where the really shallow places were in the lake or it never happened at all.

That is the presupposition, the foundational basis, the bottom line for most people today.

They don't want to accept that. I listened to one newscaster this week.

In fact, I think he's probably the number one news commentator on cable

TV, explained that the Old Testament is an allegory. It's a fable.

He's a Roman Catholic. I don't know how that works exactly. I'm a Christian. I just think the

Old Testament is bogus. Noah's Ark didn't happen. Okay. But the biblical narrative from Genesis 12 to the end of the

Bible to Revelation employs what we call miracles and prophecy.

And he uses the term prophecy in the sense of fulfillment of specific prediction.

Prophecy is not some generic kind of, well, this may happen in the future, that might happen and we'll see what happens.

It is specific prediction of something that will happen. Showing how the messengers of the

Lord, Moses and the prophets, and then the people to whom they spoke, became intellectually convinced that the

Lord was the sole living and true God. This is the foundation of monotheism.

And he gives us first an example, a striking exemplary case, he calls it.

And it happens to be about Elijah the Tishbite. And he talks about a time of national apostasy.

Let's look at 1 Kings 17 and 18.

I was just wondering, you know, I was thinking in my head, Elijah the Tishbite, I wonder where that means he was from.

Tishba, and what do you know? That's exactly what it is. Chapter 17 verse 1,

Now Elijah the Tishbite of Tishba in Gilead, see, there you go,

Tishbite, he was from Tishba, In Gilead said to Ahab, king,

There you have time of national apostasy, people walking away from God.

Elijah the prophet appears before Ahab and says something very specific. There's not going to be any dew or rain.

Except by the word of God. And we know the story well.

Elijah confronts whom? The prophets of Baal.

Let's look at chapter 18 verses 36 and 37.

Because many of the people are following these so -called prophets of Baal.

Well, in fact, we'll back up a little bit more. I mean, this is just so good.

Let's start in 18 verse 20. So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together, the prophets of Baal, together at Mount Carmel.

And Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you go limping between two different opinions?

Being double -minded. Splitting your allegiances. If the

Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people did not answer him a word.

Then Elijah said to the people, I, even I only, am left a prophet of the

Lord. But Baal's prophets are 450 men. This is so cool. This is like one of those old westerns.

He's the gunslinger walking into the enemy fortress. There's 450 bad guys.

It's Clint Eastwood. It's John Wayne. Yeah, sure, it's 450 to one.

No problem. Why isn't it a problem for him? Why is

Elijah not concerned? Because God's on his side.

What you believe about God impacts how you live. Then Elijah said to the people, number 23,

Let two bulls be given to us. And let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it.

And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. And you call upon the name of your

God, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. When you see all capitals there, that's

Yahweh, which is the covenant God of Israel. That's his name. And the

God who answers by fire, he is God. And all the people answered,

It is well spoken. Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many.

And call upon the name of your God, but put no fire to it. And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying,

Oh, Baal, answer us. It's like telemarketers calling my house. Oh, Steve, answer us.

It's not happening. But there was no voice, and no one answered.

And they limped around the altar that they had made. And at noon,

Elijah mocked them, saying, Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, meaning thinking, contemplating, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.

He is otherwise occupied. Verse 28, And they cried aloud. So they are screaming, trying to get his attention.

And look at this, And cut themselves, after their custom, with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them.

Why would you do that? Because you think, Hey, I'm going to get my God's attention by hurting myself.

Well, yeah, and you're satanic. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation.

And there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention. Then Elijah said to all the people,

Come near to me. And all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down.

Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the son of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying,

Israel shall be your name. And with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two says of seed.

A measure of seed. And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood.

And he said, Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood. And he said,

Do it a second time. And they did it a second time. And he said, Do it a third time. And they did it a third time.

And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water. So he's like,

Well, you know, apparently Baal was asleep and your fire never happened. But you know what?

Just to kind of make sure you guys know what's going on, I want you to douse this thing with water so that there's no way it can catch on fire.

And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said,

O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word.

Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that these people may know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back.

What's he saying here? I mean, think about what Elijah is doing. He just challenged them to this kind of duel, 450 to one.

Gave them all their time to wake up their God, to get their God to do something. And now he's saying,

Listen, I'm going to pray to God and I want him to light this thing on fire and I'm going to douse it or have it doused with water, etc.,

etc. But what happens if he's wrong? What happens if this thing doesn't light on fire? He's dead.

You think the people are going to let him live after that happens? So this is pretty high -stakes stuff.

You have to really believe what's going to happen. Verse 38,

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench.

And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, The Lord, He is

God. The Lord, He is God. And Elijah said to them,

Seize the prophets of Baal. Let not one of them escape. And they seized them.

And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there. I don't imagine there was much resistance to him at that point, having just called upon God to make that demonstration and he did it.

Why do you suppose that examples like this, miracles like this, prophecies like this are in the

Bible? To give authority, right?

I mean, who would doubt Elijah's authority after this? Who would doubt

God after this? But they're also in Scripture to teach us.

They tell us about God. They show that God has demonstrated

Himself to be true by His mighty acts of power, which are performed at His messenger's word.

I mean, obviously, Elijah was affirmed by this, but it also told us a great deal about God.

Other such incidents in the Bible. But they tell us about two doctrines that we mention sometimes.

They tell us about the omniscience of God and the omnipotence of God. How so?

What is omniscience? That God knows everything. And omnipotence is?

He's all -powerful, meaning He knows everything and He can do everything. Now, how does this illustrate, how does this instance illustrate those two attributes of God?

How does it illustrate His omniscience? He knew

Elijah, what he was doing. Elijah was a prophet, received the word of the

Lord, and because of that, challenged these prophets of Baal to this contest. And he was able to say he knew what the outcome was going to be.

And so he sets up the parameters for this contest, and then he performs them. God not only had the knowledge to do this, but the power to do this.

And Culver points out that how thoroughly woven into the faith of ancient believers, prophecy and miracles were.

And he argues, and I think this is right, that the Bible itself is telling us that this is why it must be believed.

So we have in the world this anti -supernatural bias, this idea that miracles cannot exist.

For example, you know, we've talked, mentioned before Thomas Jefferson. Basically, if you look at his

Bible, it was like, why? Because he took all the supernatural out of the

Bible and made it basically into a bunch of parables and, you know, sayings that were helpful, full of wisdom, but no miracles, no evidences of God's power.

But these things tell us why the Bible must be believed, and they tell us about who God is. They're evidence that all human beings must believe in if they are to be saved.

Can you say that, like this newscaster does, that I'm a Christian, but I don't believe in Noah's Ark? I'm a

Christian, but I don't believe Jesus walked on the water. I'm a Christian, but I don't believe Elijah the Tishbite was able to call down fire from heaven.

Pam. Peggy. Peggy, Pam. Yeah, there is definitely a warning here for false peddlers of religion.

You know, you think about those prophets of Baal. It was not a good day for them. 450 of them tried, and 450 of them died.

Now they're buried together in the countryside. So, all right, Peggy. He said that the fourth generation, this is all happening years later.

Right. People want miracles today. They want to see, you know, marvelous things.

Here's the interesting thing, and I would venture to say that, you know, when we talk about the survey where many

Christians don't know much about the Christian faith, they don't know much about the Bible, they certainly don't know much about other religions, which, you know,

I guess in some ways that's neither here nor there, but you ought to know your own religion. But I think it would be fair to say that many of these people who go to these events to look for the miraculous, to even experience the miraculous,

Ray was talking yesterday morning about this new charismatic phenomenon of being soaked in the

Spirit. You know, you kind of wallow around in water or whatever and twist around on the floor.

And I think, you know, there's always, you know, we laugh, but I mean it's, you know, laughing in the Spirit, it's barking like a dog in the

Spirit, it's, you know, being slain in the Spirit. They're all the, you know, the Holy Spirit's doing, allegedly, all these things that we never see

Him do in the Bible because people want the miraculous.

But here's what they don't want to do. How many of those people do you think, you know, after they watch Benny Hinn slap people around for a couple hours, go home and the next day spend two hours reading the

Bible? That's dull. It's way more fun to go, you know, where is he?

Last night he was at the, you know, Yankee Stadium. Where is he going to be tomorrow night?

You know, let's drive up to Philadelphia and see him there at the Centrum or wherever he's going to be. And does it become about worshiping

God or does it become about worshiping the man and the things that he can do?

And if we look at all the miracles in all the Bible, what we would find is that most of them are confined, most of them are confined to the ministries of a few men.

Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus and the apostles.

And if we examine each of those time periods, what we would find is that God was establishing something dramatic, not new because there really is nothing new after Genesis 3.

It's just an expansion or further explanation. But when he sends these messengers, he establishes their truthfulness by miracles, signs and wonders, the

New Testament column. And we don't ever see things like we see, you know, on our

TVs. You've been suffering from this kidney stone for how long?

You know, you've got, you're healed. Hey, if you get a sudden rush of adrenaline, you can have all kinds of sensations and feelings and all that, but what happens later?

That's the question. And the miracles of the Bible, true or false? The miracles of the

Bible were internal miracles that nobody could see. False. I mean, it's things like this.

Specific instances where God displayed his power so that people would go, yeah,

I need to stop what I'm doing because there is a God and he is the God that we're being told about and I need to worship him.

Let's look at another instance. And by the way, he calls this the apologetics, ancient apologetics of the

Bible. Because if you know the God of the Bible, you believe in the God who fulfills prophecy and the

God who performs miracles. Let's look at Genesis 18. We're talking about Abraham.

And I think last week we talked about the Abrahamic covenant a bit and how the covenant was made between God and Abraham, but it was really made between God and God.

Yeah, God himself. Because he was the one who walked through the animal parts and said, listen, Abraham, these things are going to come true, and by my own death,

I promise these things to you. In other words, if I don't do what I say I'm going to do for you,

I will be destroyed. Is it possible for God to be destroyed?

No. So what he's demonstrating is the absolute surety of what he's saying.

You can rely on what I'm saying. Why? Because I'm telling you that I would destroy myself before I wouldn't fulfill my word to you.

Why do I believe that there's a future for Israel? Because Israel's never occupied the land and he promised that land to Abraham and his descendants and God cannot lie,

God cannot be destroyed, and God cannot break a covenant. Let's look at Genesis 18, verses 10 -12, and who would read that please?

Genesis 18, verses 10 -12. Brian Bartlett. He said,

I will surely return to you at this time next year. And behold,

Sarah your wife will have a son. And Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind her. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age, and Sarah was past childbearing.

Sarah laughed to herself, saying, After I become old, shall I have pleasure, old also?

Did Sarah believe the promises of God? Apparently not.

She said, look, I'm 90, Abraham's 100. This whole idea of us having a son, that's not going to happen.

I mean, what was the result or a result of her unbelief? She tried to fix things her way and encouraged her husband to commit adultery, had a son with somebody else.

But within a year, in Genesis 21, we would see that they did have a child.

And it's interesting, the son's name is Isaac, which means laughter.

She laughs, the child's name is laughter. Seemed impossible, but God did it.

If we look at the life of Moses, was Moses, you know, talk about the

Jewish faith, you can't get much better than Moses. I don't think you can get better at all.

Abraham, the father of faith. Moses, the first prophet, the great prophet, the one who led them out of Egypt.

Let's look at Exodus 3. We're going to see the bedrock faith of Moses right from the beginning, no issues.

He says, yes, God, I will hurry to obey. Exodus 3, maybe not.

That might not be an accurate description of Moses. He's calling

Moses as a prophet, as a messenger.

Look at verse 10. The Lord says, Come, I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

I don't really think you have the right guy, Lord. He said,

But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve

God on this mountain. Then Moses said to God, If I come to the people of Israel and say to them,

The God of your fathers has sent me to you. And they asked me, What is his name? What shall

I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who

I am. And he said, Say to this people of Israel, I am has sent me to you.

Now a couple of things. What was the sign that Moses would know that he was

God's chosen prophet? Verse 12,

But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt.

Yeah. You know how you're going to know that you're my guy? You're going to know when they're out of Egypt.

Can I have something a little more, you know, can you just kind of give me, can

I see the preview? Video introduction.

That's some kind of sign. Did it happen?

Yes. There are other signs that were given, of course, to Moses.

In fact, here's an interesting one. At the time of the burning bush, God told Moses, his brother Aaron, then in Egypt far away, would meet him in the wilderness.

God said, This shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you. When you brought, well, we already read that, but he also told me you would meet him in the wilderness, and he did.

Both the prophecies are quickly fulfilled in detail. Exodus 19, 1 to 25. These experiences are both important parts in the enactment of the

Mosaic covenant at Sinai. And in one sense,

Culver says, the ten plagues of Egypt and the remarkable dividing of the waters of the Red Sea were marvels of God's power.

They show His divine omniscience. Think about it again. Moses says to Pharaoh, This is going to happen, and it's going to happen on this time schedule, and guess what?

It does. God knew that it was going to happen and had the power to bring it out.

And what does that do with regard to, you know, I mean if Moses, you know, if they did polling back in ancient

Israel while they were in Egypt, and they said, Hey, what do you guys think about this

Moses guy? You know, before all the miracles and everything else, they would have said, you know, 2 % in favor, 5 % against, 93 % have no opinion, never heard of the guy.

He was nobody. Not in the sense that, you know, he was some big prophet or some spiritual leader.

He'd been gone. So God verifies who

Moses is through His power of prophecy and miracles.

By the time they leave Egypt, wonder how many people were doubting that Moses was

God's appointed representative and that He had sent Moses to do this great work.

How many people doubted that the Lord was God? But it's interesting,

Culver notes here, 40 years later, with the migrating nation poised for an attack on Canaan, Moses is about to die, and the new civil and military leader,

Joshua, has already been selected, but there was no one yet to take Moses' place as messenger.

At this juncture, Moses proclaimed the office of prophet with a succession of men to fill it.

It's in Deuteronomy 18, 9 -18. Let's go ahead and read that. Deuteronomy 18, 9 -18.

And who would read that, please? Pastor Dave. Okay, so he said, don't consult all these spiritists, sorcerers, mediums.

Why? Because I'm going to send you, God is going to send you a prophet like Moses. But there is one problem with this, and there is the possibility of impostors, of fakes.

How do you make sure that you don't get a fake? Let's read verses 21 and 22.

And if you say in your heart, how may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?

When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the

Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

That would be a great kind of litmus test to use for many so -called prophets today.

People who say that the New World Order will be in place by such and such a date.

Jesus will return by such and such a date. This, that, or the other thing will happen. And then they don't happen.

You need not fear that guy. Why? Because he wasn't speaking of the Lord in the first place. And again, what is a prophecy?

He defines it, and I think this is right. If we look through the New Testament, what we see over and over again are short -range predictions that could be observed and tested by the people of the prophet's own time.

Now, were there long -range prophecies made? Yes. But those were not to verify the truthfulness of a prophet.

Yeah, I mean, many prophecies about Jesus that were not fulfilled for centuries.

That didn't mean that the prophet was not accurate. It just meant that it wasn't yet time for those things to be fulfilled.

But in terms of many, many prophecies in the Old Testament, they were given to sort of verify the fact that this was

God's man. And again, it's interesting, he notes here, the utter seriousness of the matter of being a prophet called of God is demonstrated by the extreme measures employed to enforce the rule.

Deuteronomy 13, which we won't get into all that this morning, explains why later,

Elijah forthrightly demanded the extermination of the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 .40.

They were false prophets, claimed to speak for God, in this case,

Baal. But they claimed to speak for him. They were false prophets, and so they were put to death.

And we will close with that idea. Again, main things this morning, evidences in the

Bible for God's existence and the truthfulness of the Bible are prophecies, that is, short -term predictions,

I'll say, that come to pass, that verify that this is in fact God's representative,

God's spokesperson. Miracles, things, powers, let's just define miracle for a moment.

A miracle is God intervening in the space -time continuum in such a way as to interrupt the normal rules of nature.

For example, if you put a calf on an altar and you pour water on it, and you pour so much water on it that even the ground all around it is soaked and in fact has little trenches of water in it, there's no reason to think that that cow, that calf, that bull, whatever it is, cut in half there so it's all wet and nasty and then you pour a bunch of water on it, it's going to spontaneously combust.

That doesn't happen. Try that today. Hold a barbecue at your house. Throw the meat out there, soak it with water and go, flame!

It's not going to happen. A miracle is

God changing all that, saying, yep, I know what the rules of nature are.

I set them all up. But so that people might know that I am the Lord God, I'm going to cause fire to happen where it should not happen so that my prophet will be vindicated, so that everybody will know he's my spokesman and that I am

God. When we declare these things to people, they are going to say, I don't believe in that.

And that's fine. We're going to talk more about that next week. Why don't people believe that? It's not because they have an intellectual problem.

It's not because they're not smart enough. It's because, shock, they are dead in their sins and trespasses.

They are spiritually blind. They have no interest in these things because they want to remain blind and deaf to the things of God.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are a mighty

God, that you have demonstrated your power in bringing things to pass after you have said that you would bring them to pass, for interrupting the normal continuity of nature, that people might leave incidents like the one on Mount Carmel and just say, the

Lord is God. The Lord is God. Father, would you cause each one here that knows you today to just think in their own lives of the work of your

Spirit within them. If they know you today, they would say, the

Lord is God. He took me that for no natural reason, no natural explanation, would love

Him, and He caused me to love Him. He caused me to see the truth that is in your

Word that I denied my entire life. Would you give us each an appreciation for the knowledge that you have given us of your

Word through your Spirit, how you have opened our eyes that we might see, unstopped our ears that we might hear, and given us a new spirit that we might love you.

Father, bless us today as we worship the God of our salvation. In Christ's name we pray,