WWUTT 1790 Q&A Testing False Prophets, Good Study Bibles, Does God Learn

Is there a good, easy, quick test that we can expose someone as a false prophet?

What's a good study Bible to use? And does God ever change His mind? The answers to these questions and others when we

Understand the Text. This is

When we Understand the Text, a daily Bible study for all scripture is God -breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

Tell your friends about our website, www .wtt .com. Here once again is

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Oh my goodness, I was going to read a passage. And you don't even have it out.

I didn't even grab my Bible. What am I thinking? I don't know. Where are you at? Right here.

All signs of life are checking out. All of our family is healthy. Yes. We're doing okay right now.

Amen to that. This is Psalm 4 for the choir director with stringed instruments.

Psalm of David. I'm going to do this a cappella, though, without the stringed instruments. Answer me when

I call, O God of my righteousness. You have relieved me in my distress.

Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. O sons of men, how long will my glory become a reproach?

How long will you love what is worthless and seek falsehood? Selah. But know that Yahweh has set apart the

Holy One for Himself. Yahweh hears when I call to Him. Tremble and do not sin.

Ponder in your heart, upon your bed, and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and trust in Yahweh.

Many are saying, who will show us good? Lift up the light of your face upon us,

O Yahweh. You have put gladness in my heart. More than when their grain and new wine abound.

In peace, I will both lie down and sleep. For you alone, O Yahweh, make me to abide in safety.

How healthy it is even to our bones, to our very bodies, to know that God is in control and His favor is upon us through faith in Jesus Christ, our

Lord. Amen. So I pray for you, good health. Sometimes we get into like, we shouldn't pray for good health because that's health and wealth and the health and wealth gospel is bad.

Oh, I see. No, at the beginning of 3 John. Yeah, at the beginning of 3 John, John says to his friend,

I pray that health is with you. So it is good to pray for health and when we trust in God, that actually is healthy to our bones.

It is peaceful to our spirit, we get good rest when we know that God is sovereign and there is nothing that is happening outside of His control.

Right, because on my days when I worry a lot, I don't really sleep that well either. That's the truth.

Yeah, that's when I'm not trusting in God and I sleep better whenever I'm fully trusting in God. Amen, and when you turn the

TV off and put your phone down. Yeah, you know. You sleep better. That's the one, like I've noticed when

I come to bed, if I'm still scrolling through social media, I'm gonna be up a lot longer. If I pull up my

Kindle and I'm reading a book, I'll go to sleep a lot quicker. That's interesting.

Yeah, there's something about the way your mind engages on that. You read a book, it makes you more tired.

I don't feel like I'm working as hard when I'm reading a book though. Social media is just constantly one thing to the next, you know, boom this, boom that.

It is a puppet, like just happy, sad. Like scrolling through your

Rolodex. Funny. Yeah. Right, scrolling through your Rolodex. Whereas you read a whole page and you're just looking at one page rather than just constantly flipping.

I don't know, I wonder what the science is on all of that. But I can tell you from personal experience, social media costs me sleep.

Whereas reading a book, I can relax pretty well. So increase your reading regimen, folks.

Might need to read more books. Yes. Even if it's on your Kindle. I would just read like a physical book.

I would hold it in my hands and read it and turn pages. But you're asleep usually by that point. I'm not gonna turn on a light and bother you.

I appreciate that. This is the Friday edition of the broadcast. And we do a

Q &A, taking questions from the listeners, which you can submit to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

And now that we've got the new Facebook page, I have also been diligent to check the messages there in case you've sent any.

So look. Well done. Thank you so much. And well done to all of you for joining the page. Just within the first two weeks of having it up, we had,

I don't know, you want me to mention this? It's a number. Oh. I'm gonna mention how many people follow us on Facebook.

Are you okay with this? Okay. It's over 500. That one's fine. Okay. Oh, that's awesome. Over 500 in less than two weeks.

But now we've hit. We got to that mark, hit 500, and now there's a lull. Yeah. So you gotta share it with people.

Of course, I probably need to put more, I need to throw some memes on there. And then those will get shared and people will start following the page.

I could just go through my folder, like the classics, because that page is expired. So I'll just grab the classic memes

I've already posted. There you go. There's some good ones. One of my favorites was the, like, when your

King James only boys roll up next to you in the car, and it's got these King James looking guys in the car, suppeth.

I gotta throw that one on again. I like it. Yeah, that one's great.

I didn't come up with that, somebody else did, but I did give it the what touch.

So it looks like it comes from, yeah, like all the fonts are the same fonts I use on everything else, you know?

That's awesome. This comment comes from Facebook. This is from Virginia, not the state, but the person.

Okay. I listened to the October 7th Q &A podcast all the way to the end. That was last week.

I love the outtakes and some of the tongue twisters to get your speeches going.

I didn't know. She did not know that I was recording, yeah. She said that was hysterical.

I have a tongue twister for you guys as well. Had to do this in order to pass speech class.

As you may find out, it's a tough one. Toy boat, say it 10 times as fast as you can.

Toy boat. I don't know if I want to try. I've already done this.

I did this out loud in my office. Oh yeah? Yeah. How'd you do? You ready? Yes. Toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat.

So now a British accent. Yeah, a British accent starts coming in.

It's pretty wild. So if I'm ever trying out for the part of Bert in Mary Poppins.

There you go. Start in on my toy boat, toy boat. I'm not gonna do it.

You're not gonna try? No. Come on. My mouth is already as stiff as it will have been.

You got the rosy cheeks going on from laughing already. Gotta get those lips together.

Thank you for that one, Virginia. Apparently it's a challenge enough. Becky's not even gonna give it a shot. I would do it five times.

This one's from Courtney. Hey there, Pastor Gabe. I have written to you a couple of times before and I wish to ask you of something new.

We all like to pounce on folks like T .D. Jakes and Benny Hinn and false teachers like them who share a word from God.

But I am becoming more aware of a whole new army of a different kind of false prophets. You already know one,

Paula White. Also Paula White Cain, because she's married to one of the members of Journey. If I recall, you are aware of her false prophecies of Trump's re -election.

I have friends and family who have been telling me more about prophets like these who are very

Republican -centric in their teaching, but also their prophecies. They're basically conservative charismatics.

I don't see anyone dissecting these people. Some people I know are legitimate brothers and sisters in the faith who are being fooled, and others

I know are deep into mysticism pretty much, but the core of it is what we might coin American Christianity, or not to be used as the left uses it,

Christian nationalism. Sorry for the long -windedness, but how do I approach these people? Sure, I could dig up the history of all these prophets and watch hours of video to check their prophecies with reality and hold them to the

Deuteronomy 13 and 18 texts. That's where it talks about if a prophet comes preaching dreams or having visions or a word from the

Lord and what he says does not come to pass, or he tries to lead you to follow after false gods.

You will not listen to that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. He has not spoken a word from the Lord. In fact, what's the penalty for such a false prophet?

They get killed. He was supposed to be put to death, stoned to death in Israel is how that would go. But Courtney says, is there another way that is just as clear from the scriptures?

Sincerely, your brother in Christ, Courtney. P .S. On my days off, I'll play your podcast in my house, and whenever I start a new one, my wife always preemptively says, thank you,

Becky. That's awesome. We appreciate your teaching and we love hearing you and Becky on your

Q and A's. If you ever find yourself in Washington state, I will make you both homemade all from scratch pizza.

I didn't know there was a Washington state pizza or is that just Courtney's specialty? I don't know.

Like, you know, Chicago pizza. Yeah, the deep dish. New York pizza. Yeah. What do

I like? What would be a, I like Philly cheesesteak pizza. So that's combining a

Pennsylvania specialty. I lived there for a little while with pizza itself.

And that's usually a glorious combination. It's one of my favorites, but yeah, I mean a good old fashioned pepperoni pizza.

We'll sure go a long way. That's a good pizza. Well, thank you for that offer, Courtney. If we're ever up in the

Pacific Northwest again, we were there in August just flying through. We stopped in Seattle airport.

Yep. That was, I mean, it was fast. Yeah, it was fast. It was a quick layover. I think we had like an hour.

So we got in, got to our gate, waited a few minutes, and then we were boarding after that.

Anyway. We almost missed supper. That's right. Oh yeah, and didn't you get something you just thought was gross?

Yeah, I did. I remember the sandwich I got was phenomenal.

Yeah. Anyway, what was Courtney's question? I got off on. How do you deal with approaching people who are following people?

Yeah, they're pushing that American Christianity. They got the false prophecies thing going on. I mean, really you're dealing with them the way that you would deal with any other false prophet.

You said you could hold them to the Deuteronomy 13 and 18 test. That's enough. Well, but then you have to like follow what they said and it, you know, how it didn't pass, come to pass.

So you have to like look up everything that they've said. So I understand he's wanting more of a,

A quick go -to sort of a test. Thank you. Yes. Sure. I wasn't going to say easy because it's not easy, but a more direct.

Yeah. Now Paula White Cain is not anybody new. I mean, she was up there with T .D.

Jakes and Benny Hinn and the likes of all of them. She's been in that crowd for years. Kosti Hinn has talked about how she was part of that whole,

I mean, she had an affair with Benny Hinn. She committed adultery with him.

So, I mean, that's how close they are. That's how close she's been to those same charismatic, you know, name it and claim it, word faith circles.

She's been a part of that group for a long time. She just gained a different area of notoriety when

Donald Trump had pulled her in to make her part of, well, what was she part of?

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, the faith group in the White House. I can't even remember what that core group was called.

But anyway, she prayed, prayed, quote unquote, at the inauguration. Right. Gave like an address and, you know, thank you,

President Trump. Of course, I mean, it was very eclectic. He had all different kinds of religious backgrounds that were there issuing some sort of a blessing to Donald Trump.

Paula White just was part of that group. And it was, you know, of little wonder why. It's like Donald Trump picked the blonde.

Yeah. You know, as much as we appreciate Donald Trump for some of the conservative things that he did while he was president, the guy was still a heretic and still rubbed shoulders with mostly heretics.

So praying for his salvation as much as anybody's. But yeah, with some of these people who are, they're very patriotic like Paula White or the

MyPillow guy, you know, being another one. Becky apparently doesn't know that. MyPillow.

I won't get into that. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, we'll just move on from that. Pretty much anybody that appears on It's Supernatural with Sid Roth.

Okay. All of those guys are prophesying Trump's gonna win a second term. All of them were wrong.

Anybody associated with Charisma Magazine, the same group of people. It's always the same crowd.

Okay. Yeah, you apply those tests to them as to whether or not what they're saying is actually a word from the

Lord. Now, we know that God is not actually speaking to them. We know that. People who are cessationists understand that.

That apostolic gifting is over. The canon is complete. There is no reason for God to reveal anything else.

The easy test that you put on that is if special revelation agrees with scripture, then there's no need for the special revelation.

If it disagrees with scripture, then it's false. That's the easy quick test to go on that.

But I mean, there are plenty of people out there that do believe that God is still revealing things.

And so put the prophecies to the test, just straight up show them. Okay, this guy said that God said this, let's go to the word and see what it says.

Or with regards to the Deuteronomy 13 and 18 test, they've made a prophecy.

Did it actually come to pass? Then it didn't come from the Lord. Show me one time in the Bible where a prophet was wrong and he was still a prophet of God.

Right. Those that spoke a word from the Lord actually said what God said.

And if they were ever wrong, it did not come from God. The one that people try to use to say, well, sometimes we can be mistaken because of our own human perceptions get in the way of what

God is saying. So they'll try to go to Agabus in Acts and say that Agabus got a prophecy wrong.

He didn't, he was not wrong in his prophecy. Nathan Busnitz did a great article on this called

Throwing Prophecy Under the Agabus. Clever.

So in Acts 21 11, Agabus took Paul's belt and bound his own feet in hands and said, thus says the

Holy Spirit, this is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the

Gentiles. But there are some people that say Agabus's prophecy didn't happen because there's nothing in the text that describes to us that Paul was bound that way.

But just because the narrative doesn't describe that doesn't mean that Paul wasn't bound that way.

So it is not true that Agabus got his prophecy wrong. And if he did, he would have been the only one.

So the greater likelihood is he didn't get his prophecy wrong. Every prophet in the

Bible that prophesied something that came from God, it came true as he said it would come true.

So therefore, these who are making these prophecies today that are claiming to be prophets that God has given them some kind of revelation, if they're wrong, they're not a prophet of God, period.

That is the Deuteronomy 13 and 18 test. Wrong on anything. Yeah, if they're wrong on anything.

I remember one time that there was a, we went to this very charismatic church.

This was on a Sunday evening. They would do this once a month. They would have like this praise and worship night. We would go from our little town in Southwest Kansas that we were, that my family and I lived in, which the church was, it was good church.

There was a faithfulness to the word of God, but there wasn't a whole lot of like pizzazz and we're looking for that hip music that everybody else is listening to.

So we would travel to another town that was about an hour away once a month and they would have what was called a yes night.

That's what they called it. It was youth something, the savior, I don't know.

I can't even remember what it stood for anymore. I just remember it was called a yes night, but we would go and attend their praise and worship night and have more rocking kind of music.

That really was the draw. It was just the style of music. It wasn't the Lord, you know. But sometimes they would have people from their church.

This was of course a very charismatic church and we really had not been exposed to that in our little town that we were in.

And so they would make prophecies and they would say, the Lord is giving me a word tonight and here's what he wants you to know.

The word for tonight is deliverance. It's something like that. Something ambiguous, it could mean anything.

Sure. But there was one woman that went up to my sister and grabbed her wrist and said, this is not of God.

And my sister actually had attempted to harm herself and so she had marks on her wrist that had been healed.

And so when she did that to my sister, my sister was amazed. She was like, wow, how did she do that? It must be a prophet.

She must really be a prophet. Suddenly she was convicted. Well then the next prophecy that woman said, she feels like she's on a roll.

So she makes another prophecy to my sister. And that one, I can't remember what it was, but it was dead wrong.

And now my sister's standing there going, no, okay, nevermind. Suddenly I'm not impressed anymore.

But it was that thing. You could have just seen her wrist while she was holding her hands up or something like that.

And you spotted something and then tried to manipulate it. Tried to manipulate her with that.

But then your next prophecy was so off, now it becomes, okay, I know you're -

Pulling my leg. Yeah, exactly. You're not being on a level with me. This is not really from God.

I remember one time there was a fellow, if I actually said the name, y 'all would recognize it.

But there was a man who was talking with you and another friend of mine who was an atheist. I was off doing something else at this event that we were at.

Do you know where I'm going? You know what I'm talking about? Nope, keep going. So he said to you, because he was a great admirer of mine, and we were getting married.

We were engaged. I think we're just a few months away from the wedding. And he said to you, God's gonna do great things with y 'all.

I know this, the Lord has impressed it upon my heart and I'm praying for the best for you. And you were just like, that's so wonderful.

Thank you so much. And then he turns to my atheist friend who's standing right there with you.

And he goes, God's gonna use you too. And my atheist friend is right there just going, what is this?

He doesn't even know I'm not a Christian, you know? And so it was, and to this day, he's not.

He's, it was just one of those things where he's just pointing at people and saying God's gonna use you.

It doesn't, it's God did not give you a word to say something like that.

So again, the test being, if a word of revelation is in agreement with the scriptures, then the revelation is unnecessary.

And if it disagrees, then it's false. You put those things to the test and if it doesn't pass the mustard, which is an actual theological term, then it's garbage, have nothing to do with it.

I don't know how much more helpful that was Courtney, but I mean, those tests. Just do what you're doing already. Do what you're doing.

Those tests that we have in scripture, in first Thessalonians five, it says to test everything. Sometimes helping a person see that a false teacher is a false teacher.

Sometimes that takes a little work. There's not something that right away you're gonna be able to show them because they're convinced in their mind.

They want that to be true. Especially if they want their itching ears scratched, as Paul said to Timothy.

And a lot of people don't see the prophesying as being adding to scripture.

And they need to understand that, if it's God's word, that is adding to scripture.

So even bringing them back to the basics, it's God's word and they're receiving

God's word, that's the same thing. The basics are still good tests. Yeah. So stick with those things.

Stick with the basics. Yeah. There's a, oh, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, one more thing. If you don't want to look that up of what all they've prophesied to come back with your friend and talk to them, just ask your friend.

They would know. And be like, okay, so what are all of these things that they've prophesied and -

Yeah, prove it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, put it on them. Yeah. Okay, what have they prophesied that's come true? And what have they prophesied that is not as popular that has not come true?

Yeah. You may want to alert your friend too to something that I've termed a shotgun prophecy, where they just kind of take a shot at something and then whatever it hits.

Yeah. It's like, see, I was right on the bullseye because two shots from my blast hit the target.

Two of them hit the target. So therefore, I'm a great shot. Right, and if it's big enough, it's gonna hit something.

Yeah, exactly. So you gotta caution your friends about that too, about, well, it's obviously vague, it's not specific.

So is it really from God if it's not specific? Getting three predictions right out of 20 is not a profit.

Right. Honestly, they're just playing the averages. That's pretty much it. Right. I mean, what's the difference between what some of these guys do and what some of those mediums do on television?

Like I'm sensing somebody over here whose name starts with A -O -K -U. Who has back problems. Yeah, who has back...

That's my favorite. Who doesn't have back problems? Part of the curse is we all have weak backs, people.

I've got another question here from Jackson. This one looks like it's gonna take a little bit longer. Jackson, if you don't mind, I'm gonna hold off on this question until next week.

But I got it from you, and we'll get to it when we've got a little bit more time. Becky and I don't have quite as much time for this particular episode.

This next one comes from Caleb. Hello, Pastor Gabe. I've been listening to your podcast for some time now, about two years.

Your podcast has been a blessing in my life and has deepened my knowledge of the Bible. Can I just say, you guys are so sweet.

Yeah, definitely. You have such great listeners. We do. I listen to other people's podcasts, and when they read letters from people, of course, like on Ligonier, they want those testimonials.

So they'll play the testimonials from people saying, you guys have helped me go in the word, and those are great.

I love listening to those, just when I'm listening to RefNet or whatever else. But some of the guys whose podcasts I listen to, they just, they ask straight questions.

I don't know if they're, maybe their listeners aren't as nice, or maybe just, you know, they just skip over the complimentary part and just get straight to the question.

Maybe that's what it is. But our listeners are so wonderful. They are. Thank you guys for being such an encouragement to us.

So anyway, the actual question portion. He says, my question is in regards to study Bibles. I would like to buy one as all the

Bibles I own are just the text only without any commentary. Is there any particular version you recommend?

I was looking at the ESV study Bible by Crossway and the ESV John MacArthur study

Bible as well. Just wondering your thoughts before I pick one up, praying that Becky and the kids are feeling better.

No, thank you. We are. We are, we're all doing much better. Thank you so much. Okay, you've actually named the two study

Bibles that I would probably most recommend. I would say the ESV study Bible is the best study

Bible out there. And even conferring with some of my pastor friends, one of whom

I talked to recently who said when he recommends a study Bible, he recommends the Reformation study

Bible. But he admits he thinks the ESV study Bible is a little bit better. The only reason he recommends the

Reformation study Bible over the ESV study Bible is because you can get the Reformation Bible in New King James.

And so he likes to be able to recommend the New King James to people and then they've got the good Reformation study notes in there, which of course the

ESV study Bible is only in the English standard version. Right. If you get a John MacArthur study

Bible, I would highly recommend getting the New American standard because that's been the translation

John MacArthur's preached from. Of course, we've got the legacy standard out now, which comes from masters,

Steadfast Bibles, Grace Community Church, all been involved in the translation of that particular

Bible, which I love. I mean, I've pretty much switched over to the legacy standard

Bible at this point. I would imagine that in the near future, they're gonna come out with a

MacArthur study Bible version of the legacy, but of course there's going to be. So if you don't mind purchasing it twice,

I would recommend that the NASB version of the John MacArthur study Bible and then also pick up an

ESV study Bible. That's actually more affordable than it sounds. If you go to Mardell's, they sell the

ESV study Bible for 20 bucks. Oh, wow. That you cannot beat that. And in a faux leather bind, not just like the hard bound study

Bible, but like the faux leather, this one right here, you can get this exact,

I've got it sitting next to me on the desk. Nobody can see that, babe. Yeah. I was holding it up to you.

Yeah, not for everybody. Look at this. Look everybody, isn't this wonderful? My pages are getting worn out in this one.

I've been thinking about, yep. Especially over in the New Testament, I've been thinking about getting another one because when

I first got this, when I was preaching from it, so it's got all my skin oils in it. But now since I just use it for study,

I'm not preaching from it anymore. Since I preach from the LSB, I've been thinking about getting another ESV study Bible to be more desk worthy.

This one, yeah, the pages really are falling out of it. They are. It's a well -loved, well -used Bible. I've had it for quite a while too.

But anyway, you can get a good bind in an ESV study Bible at Mardell's for a good price.

Yeah. And that's where I've found them the cheapest. So I would highly recommend looking up one of those. And as I mentioned, the

Reformation study Bible is good as well, but I would think the

ESV study is just a little bit better. Yeah, and if you don't have a Mardell in your neighborhood, they do order online,

I think. That's right, because you've gotten some homeschool stuff from them too. Great question, Caleb, always a good one.

And hey, if you can afford it too, Legacy Standard Bible, check those out. They're actually coming out with pretty soon the

New Testament journals. Oh, really? So you can get each individual book in a paper -bound journaling format, and then write your notes out.

It's great for preachers, if you're preaching a series through a particular book, then you've got pages right there where you can write all your notes.

Bible study teachers. Yep. And all that's gonna be on steadfastbibles .com. I'm pretty sure it's .com.

No idea. If I'm wrong about that, just type in .net or .org. Hang on, steadfastbiblesbiblies .com.

Yep, that's it. All right. Last question here. All right.

Hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky, hope all is well with you and your family. I have a question regarding the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22.

Oh my goodness, I'm reading this now and I'm realizing this is gonna be a harder question to answer. Like, here's another quick question.

No, this isn't gonna be a quick one. Earlier today, I was listening to R .C. Sproul's sermon on this chapter called The Trust of a

Man. This is Genesis 22 he's talking about. One of my favorite sermons ever. My wife overheard the latter half of the sermon where R .C.

said, lay not your hand on the boy, for now I know that your trust is in me.

Remember that Abraham's about to slay Isaac. The angel of the Lord shows up, stops his hand and says, don't, don't strike him.

I know that your trust is in me. The text says, fear me instead of trust me. Her question to me was, this is

Daryl's wife asking him, if God is omnipotent and all knowing, then why did he have to test

Abraham to know if he trusted him? I have to admit, I was kind of stumped and was hoping you could help me with this.

I know God is omnipotent and already knows the heart and mind of all people, but the text alludes that God was unsure of Abraham's trust.

Love your podcast and thank you. Well, I would say that God knows what we need when we need it.

And so sometimes he will take us through trials and take us through tests and things like that to further our trust in him.

And so we know that we can trust him and to grow our character and to grow our relationship with him.

And so maybe it was less of a trust for God to know, but more of a trust for Isaac to know.

Yeah, there is - Right, there are things in scripture that are worded a certain way for our benefit that we may learn something of the character of God or the way that he does things, the way he do things.

The way that he does things. His ways are so much higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

How can we who are finite creatures possibly fathom the concept that he has determined all things from before the foundation of the world, that he is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, that he is a

God who never changes. Scripture says all these things about God. So we as theologians sometimes will say that God condescends himself to present himself in a certain language that we can grasp or understand about the way

God is working providentially in time, in the midst of things through people to accomplish his purposes.

He's already decreed this from before the foundation of the world, but he's also working in the midst of us now to bring about those things that he's decreed from the very beginning.

So in this particular circumstance, Abraham, who is gonna be the father of all nations, and we know of Abraham who is referenced multiple times in the

New Testament that his faith is counted as righteousness. Remember, he's our Old Testament example for how righteousness comes not by our works, but by believing in him who justifies the ungodly.

Okay? So because of the work that God does for us, our faith in him is how he therefore transfers all of the blessings of his grace to us through faith.

Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, okay? So before Abraham had put his son on the altar and was gonna sacrifice him to God, he believed

God in his heart, but it was not outwardly manifest yet the trust that he had in the

Lord. So now having put Isaac there and lifted the knife, God stops it at that point so that he would not go through with doing something that eventually in the law is said is sin.

You will not sacrifice your son or your daughter to Yahweh. Right. So the Lord stops him there at that point and Abraham's actions now verify the condition of his heart that he truly feared

God. It is the best evidence of our fearing God is that we obey God.

And so Abraham obeys God and now it's demonstrated. It is shown that he truly fears the

Lord, loves him and trusts him. Whatever God says is good, this I will do, even if it meant the sacrifice of his own son.

Right. Then of course, God provides the ram. Abraham and Isaac sacrificed the ram there. The ram provided as a substitute really for Isaac instead of Isaac, it's the ram.

And it was within eyesight of that very place where Abraham had taken his son

Isaac that you would have seen the place where Jesus would be crucified on Golgotha. It was that close.

That mountain where Abraham and Isaac were, that was Mount Moriah where the temple would eventually be built. All of this is by God's sovereign hand that he's arranging that all of these things would happen in that very place, ultimately even pointing to the sacrifice of God's son, which would be for the salvation of all people who would believe in him.

And now it's with us, just like it was with Abraham, it's with us. We believe God, we believe and we trust in what

Christ and he alone has done and it's counted to us as righteousness.

So we may follow in the example of our father, Abraham. Nothing was revealed to God that he did not already know, but these things were written in the scriptures in this way for our benefit.

Here's another example. And this is one that I often go to when it comes to, the language that's used in scripture to describe

God's actions, sometimes put in human terms so that we can grasp it. The story is in 1

Samuel 15, where God's favor is no longer with Saul. King Saul has now sinned against God so much that God has removed his favor from Saul and he's put it on another.

And so God says to Samuel, this is 1 Samuel 15 11, I regret that I have made

Saul king for he has turned back from following me and has not established my words.

And Samuel became angry and cried out to Yahweh all night. That's verse 11.

Then Samuel goes and confronts Saul. And in verse 28,

Samuel says to Saul, Yahweh has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you.

And who was that? David. Now in the story, David's not yet been anointed.

His anointing is the next king to succeed Saul doesn't happen until the next chapter. But God is already in his divine providence has arranged that David, the shepherd boy is now a man after God's own heart.

And his favor is gonna pass to David who is gonna be the king of Israel. And of course we know it's from the line of David that would come the savior,

Christ. And it's not like Saul did so bad that God is going, oh man, he messed up my plan.

Now I have to rework the plan and I have to put something else into effect to bring about what I intend.

David's a good candidate, let's use him. Hopefully he'll keep himself straight and then from him will come the son that will eventually be the sacrifice for mankind.

It wasn't like that was how God is throwing this plan together. He already had this decreed from the foundation of the world.

Samuel goes on to say very next verse, verse 29. Also the eternal one of Israel will not lie or have regret for he is not a man that he should have regret.

And Samuel's actually quoting from numbers there because in the law it is said that God is not a man that he will have regret.

But hang on a second, just a few verses earlier, same chapter in verse 11,

God said, I regret that I have made Saul king. Yeah. But you come back down here where Samuel's talking to Saul and he says,

Yahweh will not have regret. So which is it? Did God regret or does

Yahweh not have regret? Well, what is regret? What do we mean by that word when we say regret?

Wish I hadn't done it. Yeah, I wish I had done something different. Was God really so clouded in his own judgment that he did not know that Samuel was gonna be or that Saul rather was gonna be a dud?

Absolutely not. And I was gonna have to pass this on to somebody else? No, of course not. All of this is happening according to God's good plan.

But for us to grasp what God is doing and how he is working, we have these human terms that are used to describe

God's change of mind, so to speak. He's not really changing his mind. But as far as our own human perceptions are concerned, there's a change that has happened.

So therefore the scripture is written in that way. It's written by human beings. Samuel's not going up into heaven and is able to stand at this particular vantage point and go, ah, see,

God had decreed this from the very beginning. So he's not really changing his mind. But how else do I, you know, what other words can

I use to describe this? Yeah. And he's not really looking at this from the vantage point that John has in the book of Revelation, you know, where he's actually in the heavenly places and seeing all these things happening from that perspective.

Right. Samuel's seeing this from a human perspective. And so we're given these terms in human perspectives.

It doesn't mean that God did not know, because once again, God knows everything. It doesn't mean that God literally regretted because God will have no regret.

But as far as what God is doing and the way that he is working all things out for our good and for his glory, he meant

Saul to be king for a time and to fail so that the way would be made for David who would be the one that God's anointing would be upon and through his line would come the savior of the world.

All these things ultimately pointing to the cross. But, you know, remember Israel had rebelled against God.

They didn't wanna listen to God or the judges anymore. They demanded a king. So God gave them what they wanted.

Right. And they gave them a flawed man. Yeah. Who was not able to fulfill what it was that Israel expected of their king or what

God expected of a king for Israel. But then God does it his way. Right. And brings in David and it's from David would come ultimately the

Christ who would be the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant that God would make with David. So in using like human terms and human things similar like God rested on the seventh day.

Yeah, right. Exactly. That's a great example. Yeah. Yeah. See, you came up with a much shorter example, man.

You're welcome. I'm gonna come up with the wordiest thing possible. Becky, boom, seventh day rested.

Oh yeah. That's a good point. You know, children. Yeah. She's more experienced in explaining things to kids than I am.

So, yeah. So with kids, I mean, you say God rested on the seventh day but did he really get tired?

No. Did he really need to rest? No. Why did he rest? For our benefit. Yeah, exactly.

The Sabbath was not made for, or hang on. Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the

Sabbath for man. God rested, meaning not that he took a nap, but that he ceased from his work.

He created all things in six days, rested on the seventh. But it wasn't enough to just simply say,

I was done after six days. He rested on the seventh so that we might have a day of rest.

And that would be a day that we rest from all of our other activities, our duties, and give attention to God and to his household of faith that we might worship together on that particular day, which has gone from being

Sabbath to the Lord's day on Sunday. Amen. I know I sound like a

Sabbatarian, but I'm actually not. Anyway, maybe somebody will ask me a question about that now.

That's a whole nother thing. That's a whole nother thing. All right, well, that's wrapping things up for us this week.

Appreciate your question. And I hope that Becky's shorter answer was more explanatory than my wordier answer.

I think they were both good. Both helpful. If you have any questions, send them to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

That's it. Yeah. Got anything else? No. We're gonna continue with our Galatians study on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week,

Song of Songs on Thursday. And God willing, we'll be back for another Q &A on Friday.

Yes. Let's pray. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, thank you for this time together. Thank you for being so loving and patient with us that you have revealed your will and your way to us through the pages of scripture that we might know your mind and know your heart by what we read in the

Bible. It doesn't come by visions and revelations or somebody else thinking that their thoughts are

God gave me this word to give to you. We have the word. It's complete. It's for us right here.

It's in a language we can understand. Praise the Lord. That we may know God and his ways and what is pleasing to you.

We can live lives that are upright and holy before you through Jesus Christ, our

Savior, thanks to your word. So may we pay attention to these things, not just hear them, but also do what they say.

Convict us in our hearts that we may turn from sin and worldliness, the schemes of Satan and the ways of our culture.

And we would desire to please God according to what you have said in your word. Come quickly,

Lord Jesus, deliver us from our present troubles and help us to rest in you.

And it's in Jesus name that we pray, amen. Amen. I'm really coughing and hacking.

So good fun. Okay, well, you sound fine to me now. Yep, right now I do. But it's constant.

I was doing it the whole time we were talking. The whole time we were talking? I was chatting with the ladies.

Oh, not with me. I was gonna say, I think I wouldn't remember if you were coughing and hacking while we were talking. Yeah, I have been,

I've been clearing my throat. But it does that, it sounds froggy, and I have to clear it.

So you'll sound like a seasoned smoker on this episode of the podcast.

Those allergies. This is where we understand the text. A daily

Bible study in God's word. Go fetch me my slippers.

Stop, get off my lawn. Get off of my lawn. So I got the candy to see if that would help, but it doesn't help.