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How do you know that the message of salvation is true? How do you know that the message that Jesus Christ, the
High Priest, is actually reliable? Of course, Jesus in the
Gospel of John, remember He said, I'm the bread of life. Is it true? Jesus goes on to say,
I'm the light of the world. And you can hear the echoes of Exodus chapter 3,
I am who I am. Jesus claiming to be God. I'm the bread of life, I'm the light of the world.
John chapter 10, I'm the door of the sheep. Same chapter, He said,
I'm the great shepherd. John chapter 11, I am the resurrection and the life.
John chapter 14, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And finally, in John 15,
I am the vine. How do we know it's true? How do we know we can trust the message that we can have forgiveness for our sins?
I mean, what if this is just a story? It's an ancient book. There are other ancient books out there, other religious books.
Could this be fiction? Could it be folklore? Is this kind of just a myth?
I guess another way to ask the question is, can you trust the Bible? Can you trust the message of salvation in the
Bible? Now, some people trust the
Bible because there's lots of fulfilled prophecy in the Bible. The Messiah is going to come,
Genesis chapter 3. He's going to come from Abraham, Genesis chapter 12.
He's going to be born in Bethlehem, Micah chapter 5. He's going to come from the line of Judah.
He's going to be a great Davidic king, all prophesied in the Old Testament. Some people believe the
Bible because of archaeological data. If you go to Israel with us in a couple of years, you'll go to Caesarea, for instance, by the
Mediterranean Sea. And for many years, there was no evidence for a man named
Pontius Pilate in the historical archaeological realm. And wouldn't you know, in 1961,
Italian archaeologists digging at Caesarea find a limestone block, and it says,
Pontius Pilate in Latin, Prefect of Judea. Oh, many people would say the
Bible's not true. The Bible speaks of David so many times, and we can't find one little bit of evidence for David, the real person.
Until 1993, 3 ,000 -year -old inscription unearthed mentioning
King David of Israel. Even Time magazine stated, does Time magazine even make a magazine anymore?
The skeptics claim that King David never existed. It's now hard to defend that. Time magazine, 1995.
And you can walk through Hezekiah's tunnel. You can go to the Pool of Siloam. You can go to Jacob's well,
Herod's palace. Some people believe the Bible because of archaeological background.
Others believe the Bible because there's a real internal consistency. You have 40 different authors writing for many centuries, and everything revolves around two people in the
Bible, the first Adam and the last Adam. There's internal consistency. Some believe the
Bible because there are thousands of manuscripts. Others, they trust in the
Bible because who would write about themselves in a negative way like the authors do, unless it was true?
Noah gets drunk right after getting off the ark. Abraham not only lies once about his wife, oh, she's my sister, but twice.
Moses murders. David commits adultery and murder. Jesus looks at Peter and says, get thee behind me.
Satan, who writes that about themselves if it wasn't true? Others believe the
Bible because who would put up with such persecution if the message wasn't true? Extrabiblical sources would talk about Matthew killed with an ax.
Luke hung to death in Greece. Bartholomew skinned alive, et cetera.
And others, they believe the Bible is true because what other book transforms people?
Hospitals, orphanages. William Wilberforce abolishing slavery.
Philip Schaff, the historian, said, Jesus of Nazareth, without money or arms, conquered more millions than Alexander, Caesar, Muhammad, and Napoleon without science and learning.
He shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined without the eloquence of schools.
He spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet without writing a single line.
He set more pens in motion and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times.
End quote. Maybe you believe the Bible for some of those reasons, but the readers of the book of Hebrews were told to believe the message for three reasons.
Let's turn our Bibles to Hebrews chapter 2 and find out those three reasons. For the
Christian, of course, we're glad to have scientific backgrounds and archaeological finds and prophecies and the transforming power of changed lives.
Of course, that's all good and it boosts our assurance. But when these
Christians were on the run and they were getting persecuted, the writer of Hebrews, he says, there's a different reason to trust that Jesus is the high priest.
There's a different reason to trust that Jesus makes purification for sins and then sets down at the right hand of the
Father. There are different reasons to trust the validity and the reliability and the veracity of the message.
As you know, the book of Hebrews has one main theme, Jesus is the arbiter.
He's the priest. He's the go -between. He's the mediator between a thrice holy
God and sinful mankind. There's someone to bridge the gap. God, because of Christ Jesus, can be the just and the justifier.
And some of the people who receive this oration and this letter, they believe, but they're struggling because they're persecuted.
Others, they wanted to believe, but it is too hard to believe. There are too many consequences.
And so the writer is saying, believer, keep believing. Unbeliever, believe.
And 2 ,000 years later, the book of Hebrews still ministers to the hearts of both believers and it still penetrates the minds of unbelievers.
You, after today, will be reminded that you can trust the message that Jesus is the only high priest.
By the way, if he isn't, who are you going to trust? Group think, politics, polls, tradition, psychology, sociology, or pick your favorite ology if you'd like.
The writer says early on, remember in chapter one, Jesus is greater than angels. And now he stops for a little pause.
Next Saturday, I go to Germany to teach a preaching class. I'll just be gone for one Sunday. And in the middle of the lectures, there will be a coffee break.
And my German is not very good, but it sounds like coffee pausen. Is that right?
Anybody speak German? Is that right? Okay. It's a coffee pause. We just pause to have a little coffee.
Or in my particular case, a lot of coffee or monster drinks if they have them there. Here's a pause and it's good.
You know, you're reading the Bible, you're reading the Bible, you're taking in this truth. And there's a time where you just have to have a little say -la moment, a little moment where you go, okay, just stop and let the gravity of this sink in.
I can't do this speed reading Bible deal and I just have to read my 18 chapters for the day, so I'm good to go and my tank's full.
You know, you're reading and you're learning and then you think, okay, what are the implications? Truth matters.
I can't just be kind of neutral about it. You know, I think it was Jaber and McGee said, you read a cookbook and nobody's forcing you to make the cookies.
You don't feel the Betty Crocker going through the pages saying, but you've got to make these snickerdoodle cookies.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Yum. Popular mechanics, you've got to reassemble that carburetor and file down those points on that old boat.
But the Bible, you begin to read it and it's not an arm that reaches out, but we have the spirit of God, don't we?
The Holy Spirit dwelling within us and we feel that conviction. We sense that conviction.
Do we really believe this? Must we keep believing this and we need to be reminded God is holy.
You just don't saunter into the king. We're sinful. We need that mediator. We need that elder brother.
We need a high priest. And in chapter 1, he says Jesus is a high priest. 2, 3, 4, 5, all the way through to chapter 13,
Jesus is a high priest. So we come to a little coffee pause, except it's a theology pause.
It's a doctrine pause in chapter 2, verses 1 through 4. And he's giving the readers, he's giving us even as a congregation, how to avoid drift away from this truth that Jesus is the high priest.
Remember in chapter 2, verse 1, how do you avoid drift? Pay close attention to Jesus.
Therefore, we must pay much closer attention, meticulous attention, scrutiny to what we have heard, chapter 1, and of course, what we will hear to the rest of the chapters, lest we drift away from it.
This is not a deliberate rejection, I don't care what you say. This is just we've learned the truth and it just kind of just fades away in our minds.
Additionally, when you're drifting, what else do you do? Well, you realize that ultimate drift is unto hell, unto damnation.
That should keep Christians away and unbelievers. Take notice. Verse 2, for since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and almost parenthetically, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, angels deliver mosaic law and were their penalties exacted upon those who disobeyed?
You better believe there was. God's not going to just go, well, lesser beings angels deliver the law, and when they disobey, there's punishment.
But when a greater person, Jesus, he delivers the law, if you break it, it's okay.
No. How shall we, verse 3, escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
There's danger. If there's temporal judgment for angels' message, there is eternal judgment for the rejection, the ultimate rejection of unbelief for those who would say, no,
I won't believe. And this salvation isn't just any salvation. What does the text say? It's so great salvation.
I like the way that's worded because it just is kind of odd. It sticks out. What do you mean so great salvation?
I would probably say so great of salvation. It's great for lots of reasons.
You can study it on your own. It's great because of the author. It's great because of what it saves us from. It's great because nobody else can deliver us from ourselves.
And now we move to the end of verse 3 and verse 4. How do you avoid drift?
Pay close attention to Jesus. Remember the ultimate judgment. And now we're remembering the validity of the message.
Who declared this message? And you're going to see Trinitarian ideas come through.
It was declared at first by the Lord. That's what we looked at last week. When the winds of doubt blow in, could this be true?
Have you ever driven down the road before and just say, I mean, I've had these thoughts. They just come through your mind.
And they're like, could this all be true? This is too fantastical to be true. It's too good to be true.
Is this really true? And then the writer is saying, don't forget, Jesus is the one that said it.
The winds of doubt blow in, and you're like, no, I have to be reminded that Jesus is the one that said this.
Trouble comes. Persecution comes our way. Could this really be worth it? We get taxed.
We get jailed. We get ostracized. We get condemned by society. Is it worth it? It's worth it because we know it's true.
Jesus said it. It was declared, do you notice, in verse 3, at first by the
Lord. That should give weight, credibility. He is the one.
The Lord has done that. Which Lord is it? Chapter 1, verses 1 to 4. Death, burial, and resurrection.
That Jesus, the living Jesus. When you neglect salvation, it becomes egregious, awful, horrible, because you're neglecting who
Jesus is. And He's the one that said it. He's the one that gave it. He's the one that gave
His own life. Remember Jesus on earth regularly, especially in the
Sermon on the Mount? You have heard it said. But what? But I say to you, the authority of Jesus, the validity of Jesus, did not
Jesus say as He prayed to the Father in John 17, 17, Sanctify them in truth.
Thy word is full of contradictions. He did not say that.
Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is mostly right. Partly right.
It's right about some things, but not other things. No, this
Jesus said, Thy word is truth. The same Jesus said, Scripture cannot be broken.
Why do you believe that Jesus is a high priest? Jesus is the one that gave us this message, because He is the message.
Not only that, the original audience confirmed this message.
Why should you believe the validity of the message of salvation? Jesus declared it, one.
Number two, the original audience confirmed it. Verse three, notice.
And it was attested, that's courtroom language. It was attested to us by those who heard.
This message was validated by other people. Jesus just says it isn't some kind of ethereal concept or philosophical thought.
There's a real calvary, and there's a real cross, and there's real dust, and there's real sweat, and there's real things like people and eyewitnesses who heard this message and validated it.
People who heard Jesus told them, confirmed by eyewitnesses, that word attested means confirm, validate.
It has a legal terminology behind it. This is certified by the court of law kind of language used in 1
Corinthians 1, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you.
Now, if you're thinking like a Hebrew would, original recipient of this, you would be thinking, all right, when it comes to witnesses, for something to be true, how many witnesses do you need?
Well, how many? I'm glad you say that with just conviction.
Two or three witnesses, yes? Some days I'm not glad to be the preacher, but today
I'm obviously glad to be the preacher. Conviction. This is courtroom language.
Jesus said it, and there were other eyewitnesses that confirmed it. And we're going to see just quickly, soon, there's going to be someone else who confirms this message.
Why believe the message? The writer is writing to Hebrews saying, don't forget about Deuteronomic law.
You have to have two or three witnesses. Witness one, Jesus said it. Witness two, these eyewitnesses, attestation.
It's still in force. It's valid. Listen to Peter in Acts 10.
As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is
Lord of all, you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed.
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
And we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the
Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him appear.
The language there in Acts 10, we are witnesses. We are eyewitnesses. You can go to 1
Corinthians 15 and you see the eyewitnesses of the resurrection, the attestation. People say, well, did
Paul write Hebrews? I mean, if I get to heaven and find out
Paul wrote it, fine. But even here, there's one step away.
Paul didn't write Hebrews, and how do I know? Well, I would go right to this passage. Whoever wrote this wasn't an eyewitness.
It was attested to them by eyewitnesses, and Paul, remember, was an eyewitness.
Galatians 1, For I did not receive this message from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? 1 Corinthians 9. Have I not seen Jesus our
Lord? Did not Paul, in fact, see Jesus? He's on his way to Damascus to go kill
Christians, and then Jesus saves him. Paul didn't write this.
This was confirmed to us. Whoever the us is, whoever the writer was, it's not
Paul. Paul, in fact, saw Jesus. So the writer is saying, listen, if you're drifting away, and you're wondering about the validity of the message,
Jesus said it. And there were eyewitnesses as well, kind of implying almost, especially when the timing of this was probably 64 or 63 -ish or something like that when it was written, some are alive now.
You could probably go ask them if you could track them down. They saw with their own eyes. Witness one, witness two, now the third witness.
Is this message that Jesus is the only high priest true? Well, Jesus said it, others heard it, and now the
Father confirms it. Lots of reasons to believe a message.
This is why, or this is what the writer of Hebrews wants you to do along with these readers. Jesus said it, others heard it,
God confirmed it. In case you're saying, you know what, the witnesses are just people.
Maybe they're tainted by sin. Maybe they were looking for things. Maybe they saw mirages.
Well, now we have no mirage. This third witness is God the
Father. So many frauds today. So many charlatans.
So many people running around trying to get money from people. Fakers. How do we know what's true and how do we know what's false?
Here we have the Father, also verse 4, notice verse 4 of chapter 2 in Hebrews, God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the
Holy Spirit distributed according to His will. Why did
God do this? To validate. Why did God have signs and wonders around the life of Jesus?
To confirm. Why did God have Jesus do extraordinary miracles? To validate.
I mean, remember, the New Testament canon wasn't complete in these days. Oh, Galatians was written and James was written.
I just had an altar call and we had like a one -year -old come up to the front. At least somebody's listening.
How do we know the Bible's true? How do we know this is true? Well, regularly, when revelation was being given, when
God's messengers were preaching, God would punctuate that. God would give an accent to what they were doing by causing a miraculous sign or wonder.
So transport yourself 2 ,000 years ago and somebody comes up to you and says, I'm Jesus and I know how to get to heaven.
You're like, well, kind of get in line, you know. Welcome to Venice Beach in 2015. I still think today, if you dress up like Moses and go to Venice Beach and start talking, you'll have 50 followers within about five minutes.
It's a good experiment. I moved to California in 1983 in January and I went to Venice Beach and they had just the oddest thing.
To me, this is just the picture of odd. Five dollar sunglasses, get a free watch.
That's my kind of place. So it would be like the other way around. I knew I was in the alternate universe.
The mirror, mirror universe. I knew I was in. Some of you will understand that. Here, God bears witness.
The Lord earlier was talking about Jesus the Lord. Now we have God here, the Father. He's bearing witness.
He didn't do the opposite. He didn't correct. He didn't say, no, don't listen. He didn't have His voice come out of heaven. You know, don't believe this.
He's bearing witness. Do you notice? Bore witness. That is a wild word in the
Greek, an unusual word in the Greek, a compound word in the Greek. Never found anywhere else except here in the
Greek. And here's the literal meaning, quote, to bear witness at the same time together with.
One Greek word, it means to bear witness at the same time together with.
God takes the preaching and the eyewitness account, Jesus the preacher, eyewitness account, and God says, yes, both of those are true.
He bears witness with at the same time together with what the Lord said, the
Son, and what these men said as eyewitness. He affirms it.
He confirms it. Here's what God the Father does when He does a miracle around the preaching of Jesus or the apostles.
He says, amen. How do I believe this message? I'm kind of drifting away.
It's sure tempting to go the way of the world, and here's the way of God, and I feel myself kind of tugged in the middle.
What should I do? Well, when you look at these miracles around Jesus and His apostles,
God did these miracles not just to say, well, let me just kind of show off a little bit, so that you would say only
God could do that. It's verifiable. I must believe it. God bears witness together with both the
Lord and His messengers. You should be thinking corroboration, witnesses.
Hebrews 10 even says, anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
So many false teachers. How do we know Jesus is the true Messiah? Turn to Acts 2, please.
Let me just show you a few verses that exemplify this idea using different language.
Jesus comes along and He says, I'm God. And then He does things by the
Father's authorization, by the Spirit's power to confirm that.
Nobody else can walk on water. Nobody else is the Lord of the sea. Nobody else makes bread.
Nobody else heals people. Nobody else makes the mute to speak and the deaf to hear.
Why does God do that? Just because He can show how powerful He is? No, to show His power and to confirm and to say,
Amen, that's right. Same type of language here. On the day of Pentecost, Peter preaches that exact way.
Men of Israel. See, it's the same kind of thing with Jews.
The Jews want a sign to make sure this is the right message. Men of Israel, hear these words. What a great way to start a message.
What a great way to give emphasis to a message. Jesus of Nazareth, and then here's what
I'm looking for, that has the same truth echoed in Hebrews 2. A man attested to you by God with, how do you make the attestation?
With mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst as you yourselves know.
As Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.
Turn, if you would please, to John 20. Jesus does these miracles, of course, because He's compassionate.
Of course, because it makes you think, the Messiah that's going to come in the Old Testament, Isaiah said He'd heal the lepers.
But He does these miracles to confirm His message. How do I know Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life?
Well, no one else does this. How do I know He's the bread of life? No one else does this. Just like God the
Father gave attestation to Moses, put your hand in your tunic. Out it comes.
Throw down the staff. What does it turn into? The plagues. How about frogs?
Where are all the frogs? How about the Red Sea? Why does God do that? He's confirming the message.
And signs and wonders in the Old Testament confirmed the message and the messenger. Signs and wonders in the New Testament confirmed the message and the messenger.
Before we read... Well, let me read John 20, 30, and 31. Now, Jesus did many other signs, there's that language, in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book.
But these are written, so that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His name.
Friends, John 20 gives you a little encapsulation. Okay, John 6.
Jesus feeds 20 ,000 people. 5 ,000 men. That's a lot of food.
Don't ever fall for some of the liberals that say, well, He didn't really... Speaking of throwing the rod down and turning into a snake, this chord of Charlie's guitar, it's acting like the snake now going around my ankle.
5 ,000 people fed. People then respond with, hmm, at least
I'm full. But what they should have been thinking, and in fact they did, John 6, 14, they said, this is of a truth, this is the truth that the prophet should come into the world.
In other words, this has to be that Mosaic prophet talked about in Deuteronomy 18, because who else could do this?
How do I know the message is true? Because God says amen with signs and wonders and miracles, and He bears witness to that very thing.
Let's go back to Hebrews 2, please. As you're turning there, ask yourself this question.
When people now are on TV, and they are on channels like Trinity Broadcasting Network, that strangely have many people on there that don't believe the
Trinity, and they're up there, and they're trying to tell you
God said something. God said to them something that's kind of wild, and it's outside the
Bible. You shouldn't believe it for lots of reasons. One of the reasons you shouldn't believe it is, friends,
God has finished speaking, and the canon is closed. But another reason you shouldn't believe it is, they can do no miracles.
First of all, they're bald men who say these things. Physician, heal yourself. Or myself.
But I'm not saying the false prophets. And they've got glasses on. They can't even heal themselves.
And they're playing to people's greed. You show me a false teacher on TBN, the same reason people buy scratchers is they watch these people.
If someone could actually walk on water, feed 20 ,000 people with a little pita bread,
I might actually listen to them, but I would listen more to Scripture, because even Satan can do some of these miracles, can't he?
I don't listen to these people because, A, the canon's closed, and B, there's no corroboration. Why would
I listen to someone who gets up there and says, send Jesus all your money, here's my address.
It doesn't compute to me. Now before there was a Bible, how could we check, is this right or is this wrong?
God is the one that says, Amen. What Jesus said is true. When Jesus walks on water, who can control the seas?
Only God can. Jesus walks on the water. It says of Him, who is this that even the winds and the sea, what?
Obey Him. Kim's brother, Steve Duncan, when he was a kid, he couldn't speak that well as a little child, and he loves that verse, and the way he says that verse sometimes even to me today.
Who is this, even the winds and the sea?
Obey Him. Remember the context?
Kind of drifting away a little bit. Not so sure about all this. Maybe pluralism is right, maybe secularism is right.
I'm just kind of drifting away. The message of Jesus was confirmed using legal language.
There was attestation by Jesus doing the miracles, and if Jesus can do the miracles, then you ought to believe
Him. Only forgiveness found in Christ Jesus, the High Mediator. And look at the language in Hebrews 2, verse 4.
Signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts. God's Amen, God's joint witness.
He uses four words to describe that very thing. Signs and wonders usually goes together. They're clumped together because they're associated with real prophecy in the
Old Testament, and associated with Jesus' words in the Old New Testament.
But just to tell you what those words mean. Signs means signs.
It's pointing. What's a sign do? It points. Clinton, four miles.
Something beyond that. God is corroborating the message of salvation with these signs, these demonstrations the word could mean.
This mark. It means sign or mark. It's a pointer to make something visible, to make something sure.
I don't know, honey. Before GPS, we could be lost. I don't know if this is the left turn or right turn. Should we turn around?
I don't know. And when you finally see a sign, you're like, okay, good. We're going in the wrong direction.
Turn around. I think I was 20. I drove to Chicago from Omaha, Interstate 80, and drove there, saw some concert or something in downtown
Chicago, and there's a thing in Chicago called a what where you get lost on it? The loop.
And I was stuck on the loop. No GPS. Actually, my old 1973 Fury II, old kind of police car, didn't even have a gas gauge, so we'd just drive, kind of calculate how many miles we could get per gallon and everything.
All of a sudden, I'm driving because I'm thinking, you know, the tundra of Iowa looks like the tundra of Idaho, and the next thing
I was seeing was a sign that said, Welcome to Wisconsin.
Well, just check off that for another state. Let's pull off to the side and get some, I don't know, pork rinds or something, get back in the car.
It's a mark. And here, it's like some people say, it's the fingertip of God. It's the writing of God's finger.
This is true. It's a mark. How do I know the message? It's wonders.
That's another word there. It just means something that will make you go, wow, that's amazing.
When I watch TV and they go, you know what, we're going to lengthen your left leg because it's out of joint,
I don't say to myself, that is a wonder of all wonders. Wow, that's amazing. My chiropractor can do that.
That's no wonder at all. This generates astonishment. Actually, that word wonder, it has a root word, and that root word is keep.
The root word of wonder is to keep. Because when you see a wonder, guess what happens in your mind?
That stays with you. You keep that in your mind because it's so wonderful.
It's so fantastic. Miracles means power, dunamis, powerful, mighty, strong.
Who can do that? This is something like when Jesus comes over and there's that crazy man, naked man, demonic man, legion full of demons man, and comes up to Jesus and gets down on his face because Jesus has the power over him and power to get rid of all those demons.
That's powerful. That's a miracle. It's not a miracle when Dwight Clark catches a touchdown pass in the end zone for San Francisco 49ers.
Was that the right guy? Wasn't that called the miracle catch? It is not a miracle on 34th
Street nor 28th Street, biblically speaking. Biblically speaking, it has to do with this corroboration when the supernatural enters into the natural and you just go, there's like a ripple in the universe.
Why does he do it? So that you believe, not just to go, oh, look what I can do. But so you go, huh, authenticate the message, authenticate the messenger.
That's exactly what happens. In the history of the universe, signs, wonders, miracles are rare.
Very rare. We think they happen all the time. If they did, by the way, they wouldn't really be that wonderful.
They'd be normal. Did you see those normals today? You see all those things that happened that were normal? No, these are extraordinary.
And if you take a little red pen that sales people will use, this is my account on this map.
By the way, when I used to go into sales meetings and stuff, it seemed like they would pull my pen out a little bit and say, your job's teetering in the balance, better make sure you can get that sale.
And you see those little dots, and you plot that out. You'll see a bunch of dots around Moses and Joshua, a bunch of dots around Elijah and Elisha, and a bunch of dots around, any guesses?
If there's a lot of revelation given by God here, it needs to be confirmed. Moses and Joshua. A lot of revelation around the prophets,
Elijah and Elisha, given here. And when there's new revelation from Jesus and the apostles, don't you think there would be the commensurate attestations from God the
Father, confirming the message? And the answer is yes. And now we have the message.
You're like, where are all the signs and wonders? I am not saying that God can't heal somebody and do something miraculous.
But He doesn't have to do something miraculous in my life for you to believe the Bible. God can heal anybody, but I'm talking about strictly speaking, technically speaking.
Signs and wonders and miracles are not needed. They might be desired, but they're not needed, because we have the reliability of the message and the messenger.
These things bear witness. Did you notice a verb tense?
Verse 4, While God also, what, is bearing witness by signs and wonders,
He's still confirming among us with signs. That's not what the verb tense is.
The verb tense is past. This verse has to be used in the discussion.
Do the sign gifts continue or are the sign gifts ceased? It has to be because He's using past tense language here in the early 60s.
Why is it ceased? Why did it start back up again, my charismatic friend, in 1901 and following at Azusa, California?
You have to deal with this verse. You say, yes, Mike, God is confirming back in those days
Jesus' message and it's true. But does God still work today? Is God still working in any way, shape, or form?
I know He's powerful. I know He's immutable. Does He still work powers today? I know it's rare.
Not many things happened back in Moses, Joshua's day, in Elijah and Elisha's day, compared to what everybody's saying today about what people want for miracles.
And I would say to you, if I want to really tell you like the miracle of miracles that I think is happening today on a regular basis, is does
God still take an unbelieving heart and regenerate them? I think God's working all the time.
Of course. The Holy Spirit is confirming. The Father is confirming.
Jesus is speaking, the triune God. When there's revelation given, there's an attestation.
So we should be thinking if our canons close, the miracles that we see in the
Bible have no need to be done today. You could take, if you wanted a little zip drive, time -wise,
Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, and take all those miracles that happened around those three time periods and jam them all together, you would have 90 -some years of miracles being done.
Total. But why are they given? To authenticate the message.
Acts 14, so Paul and Barnabas spent a considerable time there speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of His grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.
But for those of you that say, does the Holy Spirit still work today? He doesn't use signs and wonders, but He does one thing, and I want you to turn there, and we must close.
Does the Holy Spirit confirm anything to us today? And the answer is yes, but it doesn't happen to be with signs and wonders and miracles.
It happens to do with your assurance of salvation. And aren't we glad?
It says in Romans 8, in this great chapter on assurance, Romans 8 .15,
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry,
Abba, Father. Spirit of adoption.
Do you see that? Capital S. The Spirit of God produces in a believer, in times of trouble especially, an awareness, a confirmation that in fact the
Holy Spirit is true and that Jesus is alive. And we are not slaves anymore to sin and cowering anymore with sin, but the
Spirit of God confirms to us that God is our Father and we're His child. That's the work of the
Holy Spirit today, among other things. And by the way, when you see that word cry in Romans 8 .15,
whom we cry, that's not really a little whimper. That's when somebody's walking, a little child's walking, and then they start running, and you tell them, don't run anymore, you're going to fall, and they trip, and they skin their knee, and their knee's all bloody, and they cry.
That's the word, Dad. And then we just look at them and I say, I told you so.
When your little one's crying out, Daddy, Daddy, I need help. And we run over, even the sinful dads, we run over and say,
It's okay. And wipe their tears off. And their struggle and life causes pain in the middle of this in Romans 8.
And what does the Spirit of God do? I believe in continuationism, if it's the
Holy Spirit who continues to say, You're my son, you're my child, you're my daughter.
Verse 16, the Spirit Himself emphatically bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God.
You're all mine. See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God.
And if children, verse 17, then heirs, heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may be glorified with Him.
How do you know Jesus is the High Priest? The writer of Hebrews says, because Jesus gave the message, witnesses saw it, and the
Father confirmed it. I thank you, Father, for our day -to -day in the
Word. Jesus, the High Priest. Many here believe that very fact.
And I'm sure there are some that don't. Father, grant them repentance and faith unto eternal life.
I pray that Your Spirit that works today because He's alive today will convict them and rid from their notion,
God, if You're real, you know, give me a sign. God, if You're real, you know, strike something with a lightning bolt.
Father, rid them of that and make them see their own sin and Your holiness, but how
Your Spirit is powerful enough to grant them regeneration and life. Father, help us to trust in Your Word We're going to need it in the future.