Sunday School - Teaching On Baptism (Miracles) - Part 7

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Sunday School Teaching On Baptism Part 7 Miracles Date: 4/2/2023 Teacher: Pastor Josh Sheldon

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Adult Sunday School - Going Public Part 8 (Chapter 8)

Adult Sunday School - Going Public Part 8 (Chapter 8)

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So we finished this short four -week curriculum in continuationism or secessionism.
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We've been following Sam Walter's work. We've continued with the question mark. This has been the basis of it.
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And we've kind of gone outside of it and followed his line of reasoning. We're going to finish this and talk about miracles.
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And the big question is going to be, are there miracle oracles? Now, notice the question.
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I didn't say, are there miracles? Are there miracle oracles? It's a very important distinction.
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And I've got some introductory material. But we're going to go to 1 Corinthians 12,
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I think it's 20, 29, 27, 29, in a little bit. And we're really going to talk about what the apostle
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Paul was saying there. But miracles is an interesting thing to think about. We live in an age like none in any generation has really ever seen.
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Miracles is a word that gets called constantly awesome. Oh, that's awesome. This is awesome.
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We talk about things that really kind of bind us. We lose the power behind that word awesome.
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God is awesome. Oh, yeah, he's awesome. Football game is awesome. God is awesome. Miracles aren't just these good things that happen.
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They're interventions by God into the normal course of nature, if you will.
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And I was talking to somebody about this. This age we live in, things are so amazing. Incredible things happen.
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And we lose the sense of what a difference it is. Let's think about it. When I was a kid, when
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I first went for my first surgery, it was a heart transplant. You didn't think about this, per se. Now, this is commonplace.
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This is all about compared to what we have today. So, barely a generation ago, you cut open your chest.
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Who do you see a minor for? Who do you need? Today is pretty common, right? You take out my heart.
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Wait a second. What do you mean I'm dead, right? No, you take out my heart. You've got a machine that keeps me alive.
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You put in someone else's heart. They no longer exist. But you put that in, hook it up, close me back up, take it off, and she has this every now and then for the next number of years.
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Incredible. And people say, well, how do you know? In a sense, it is. Acts 17 says that God chose the times that we live in and the time that we live in.
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We have available to us technology and medicine and other things that we don't have.
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I was talking about Dick Tracy today. Remember Dick Tracy? You don't remember Dick Tracy. It's a cartoon on TV.
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And when he finally got in trouble, he finally called the bad guys. They're all shooting at him. He's all by himself. He pulled up and he had his phone.
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He pushed the button. I'm calling all cars. I'm calling all cars. Wow, is that ever going to happen? The age we live in is beyond thought.
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One last example. He said, when we're talking about miracles, I want you to think about the times we live in. The things that people today call miracles.
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On 60 Minutes last week, they had a segment about a guy whose arm got crushed in an industrial accident.
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I forget if she was working on it. Died. And he could put a hand on it.
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I don't remember how much it was. It was replaced. It was like a $6 million nap by a violent woman.
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Terminator. This sort of thing. And they showed him using this hand to put the flu screeners.
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And his brain's able to work this mechanical hand. And he could take the brain off a bunch. He could peel and behave with it.
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He could shake hands without crushing anything. He could crush things. Because his body is mechanical.
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Incredible. So, what do we do with miracles today? We're getting tossed around so easily.
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Tossed around so much. What do we do with miracles? I said at the beginning, are there miracles for workers?
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And they made it very clear. The first time we started this a few weeks ago. And we have made it clear every time.
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We're not saying that miracles don't occur. I absolutely, unabashedly, unashamedly, would affirm that there are miracles today.
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The question is, are there miracles who exist? When we were surrounded by the innovators, whose ideas had become realities of certain things
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I'm talking about. So, what do we do with miracles? First, we believe in miracles. As we form
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Baptist Christians, we take the Bible seriously. And so, absolutely, we believe in miracles.
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God does miracles today. He didn't stop doing them when the last period was put to an end.
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And the second part of the answer is we believe in them because the Bible says God does them and he didn't stop doing them.
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The second part of the answer is we believe in miracles on a rational and biblical basis.
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Believing in miracles is rational and it's biblical. God didn't stop doing miracles when the last
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Amen was written in the Bible. But that final Amen represents that final word, that final revelation of God and his purposes for us in Christ Jesus which we believe that's what the
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Scripture is and that's what the Scripture contains. If we believe that that final
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Amen represents the last word as we do then miracles are attested to that authority of that last author or that last scripture or that last
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Amen are done. What I said there is that the miracles that are attested to that man who wrote that last
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Amen and put the period on it the miracles that are attested to that authority to that credibility those are done.
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It's an important word that I use there, it's attested. Miracles in the Bible are attested to something.
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They prove something. They prove someone is a better way to put it. God was working through a man to advance redemptive purposes.
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Or God worked through a man to advance his redemptive purposes. So the miracles did what?
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The miracles certified the man. And the miracle continued the trajectory of redemption in Christ as we go along in some
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Scripture. What are miracles? It certifies a man and it advances
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God's redemptive purposes. Showing someone about Christ. There's somewhere in that trajectory of Christ Jesus.
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I'm sorry, Genesis 3 .15 which is the evangelium of the first Gospel.
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It says, You shall bruise your heel and you shall crush his head.
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So it's got to be somewhere in there that God has a purpose. It's not just things that happen. It's things that God does.
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And this brings us to Spaulding's point. The book that I showed you in the end of this short series on Psalm 101 refers to the five miracles that were going to distinguish between a miracle and a miracle of war.
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So it's important. A miracle and a miracle of war. So a miracle is a redemptive is
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Spaulding on page 100. A miracle is a redemptive, extraordinary, external, astonishing manifestation of the power of God.
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As is, a miracle is a sign done by a prophet or apostle to attest to the divine origin of this message.
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A miracle is a sign done by a prophet or the apostle that attests to the divine origin of what he said.
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Does it speak of a God? Does God speak to the prophet or the apostle? And you can imagine the person saying, how do
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I know he's speaking for God? He said, by the power of God.
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It's just like God giving him the word that God gives him a miracle. Think of it this way.
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Who are you to tell me that God wants me to do this or that? God's going to act in this way or whatever the question is.
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Who are you? Let me show you. And so a miracle is performed.
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Any time you have a comment or a question, please. You add a miracle as redemptive?
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Yes. Why? Because a miracle attests to the speaker, the apostle or the prophet.
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He's speaking for God. You mean like vindicated?
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Yeah, that. Right. Okay. He said a miracle is...
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Repeat what he said. A miracle is a redemptive... Let's make sure we're in the right place.
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Yeah. A miracle is a redemptive, revelatory, extraordinary, extraordinary, astonishing manifestation of the power of God by itself, forgetting that it vindicates a popular order.
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Does that make sense? It does make sense. I don't know if it does make sense.
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The iron axe head, quote, redemptive. Well, it's a certified
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White Shepard. We're not talking about that. If you want to define a...
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Now you're saying that the miracle itself has to be redemptive. I'm picking on the definition of a miracle.
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I don't know how to answer that.
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He didn't make the axe head float just to entertain or to... No, the miracle was the axe head float.
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Yeah. Does that define that? So I would have a very limited...
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A miracle is a supernatural act of God against natural law. It's not redemptive.
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Making somebody walk, you know, that would redeem, say, in a sense.
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Maybe I'm losing the word of redemption. Maybe that's a good example. So in Acts 3,
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Peter is going to the temple of John and they see the man with the lame legs, right?
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So they said, maybe Jesus Christ can't walk. It wasn't redemptive about that. Well, Peter is going to go in a moment and preach the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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And now by that miracle, they know that that's somebody they listened to. He's been tested by the miracle.
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By telling the man to stand and walk, they knew that he was an alms -beggar. And so it's redemptive.
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It advances the trajectory of the redemptive purpose of God. Christ is going to go and preach.
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So why would I listen to Peter? Who is this guy? He's just a fisherman. He just made that guy stand and walk.
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He just did a miracle. God just did a miracle. I don't like that because looking at today,
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God does miracles. I would argue.
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But those miracles, you're saying now, He would only do miracles like if we were praying for someone's health and it happened.
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That would be redemptive in the sense that we all glorify
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God. We're going to get to that. I work with that a little bit in these notes.
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It's still redemptive. God doesn't just... It encourages the church. It glorifies
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Christ. We've got some examples here of things we've prayed for and confounded the medical professions with healing.
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Is that going to advance God's purposes in Christ the way it would with a prophet or in a hospital?
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No, because we have to find work since there's no more advancement. Redemptive in terms of encouraging us to bring a sinner to repentance.
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I think by redemptive you're taking meaning salvificly redemptive. It's been a long time since I've read
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Waldron's book, but I don't think that's the point. The idea behind redemption is removing shame, taking someone out of the situation that they've been bound in.
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So when a man's leg gets healed, he's removed from that situation. When an enemy gets destroyed, people are freed from that situation.
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When the axe head floats, it frees the man from this death that he owes. In all those cases, they are redemptive directly, not salvificly, but also not only by way of consequence that eventually this will lead to point people to Christ.
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Although that too, but I think even in the direct sense. It seems like his qualifying definition of redemptive is to distinguish it from other potential supernatural.
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The girl with the demon spirit who can prophesy. We wouldn't call that a miracle.
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It's still supernatural. It still defies nature. We're talking about the Bible.
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We're talking about God's miracles. Good point.
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It's like the demon's legions shudder. Or the legion.
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This man has supernatural strength, but we wouldn't say that's a miracle. He has strength. That supernatural instantiation is not redemptive.
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Yeah. Take your point. One more step. The miracle of Jesus cast him out.
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That's redemptive. It's certifying him. Most of what he's seen. He says miracles in the
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Bible, God's works, powers, wonders, and signs are connected with the work of redemption. Maybe we're getting mixed up a little bit.
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We're still in the miracles of the Bible, not the miracles of today. We're going to work on what the
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Bible has, and those would have specific purpose in that redemptive purposes.
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We're talking about that trajectory. Miracles to be understood and applied most correctly cannot be divorced from the one through whom
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God did the miracle and the redemptive purposes it was meant to communicate. If God does a miracle today, let's kind of wait until we get through the miracles of the
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Bible, which are pushing towards Christ. To understand them correctly, vividly, they can't be divorced from the one through whom
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God does the miracle and the purposes it was meant to communicate. That takes us to Waldron's point that while God remains a
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God of miracles, it's time for miracle workers has come to an end.
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This is the distinction we're trying to make. This is where we get the third wave of charismatic word of faith and all that.
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Miracle workers in the Bible, miracles we have in Scripture.
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Distinguish that from the miracles of God that exist today, in the human heart, in the church, wherever.
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Somebody tell me where I was going. We're distinguishing between the miracle worker and her miracle.
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Why so? Why do we distinguish between a miracle and a miracle worker?
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One is because the canon is closed. The description of a miracle says that God did the miracle and the
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Scripture, if you will, is the aim that comes from that particular miracle.
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Like the axe head floating, like the red seed floating. The big point there, though, is that the canon is closed, so we don't need that certification anymore.
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There's not an apostle who is going to go and preach the gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and people are going to say, hey, listen to him because God just did such and such through him.
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June 3, beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation,
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I found it necessary to write a petition to you to contend for the faith that was once fully delivered to the saints.
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The canon is closed. No more attestation is needed. Revelation 22, 18 and 19,
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I warn everyone who hears the words of this prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the place described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book, this prophecy,
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God will take it away from his share in the truth of life and in the holy city which you're describing. Revelation is commonly a true word extended to us in Scripture.
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Now, John's gospel is a new revelation that John's gospel is often called the book of signs.
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Have you ever heard that before? The book of signs? It goes through seven signs that Jesus did.
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He's very careful in telling them, such as when he turned water to wine, this was the first sign that Jesus did.
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And when Jesus did the merchants out of the temple and John chapter 2,
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John says this is now the second sign that he did. From water to wine to the resurrection, this sign proves something about God's purposes in Jesus.
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So why did he turn water to wine? Why that miracle? That's the first sign. John says it explicitly.
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This is the first sign that Jesus did. Just to look at that one specific case, that miracle.
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How does that advance and lead up to the purposes as I was trying to argue a moment ago? Listen to Jesus because he just did this.
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What did it prove? What does that do for that trajectory? The pots that had the water that were turned to wine,
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John says specifically that they were for purification. That they were part of the traditions slash purification laws that they would testify to Jesus.
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And when Jesus turns that water to wine, that miracle, John calls it that, the first sign.
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Sign, wonder, power. Our English group can talk about this a little bit more.
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Those are really hard to relate to the words that are used in the scripture.
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The temple rites are no longer necessary or even in any way because Jesus is our purification.
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So those pots that were used for that rite, were used for wine. It attests to something.
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It shows something. At the end of John's gospel it says, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that we may believe that Jesus is the
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Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. So what is the purpose of the signs?
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To show that Jesus is Christ, to attest to something each time he did something, attest it to something about him.
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It advanced the trajectory towards his coming death and the resurrection.
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And there are also condemnatives, to Dale's point, in that in believing you have life in his name, believing these signs are miracles that Jesus did.
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So what we need to prove then is that because the canyon is closed and the final attesting sign, wonder, power, miracle has occurred, we need no more attestation regarding his coming and his complete work.
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Nobody else can come along that we need to believe, to speak about him, giving us scripture and telling us something about Jesus Christ.
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And therefore he's going to do a miracle, and we're going to say, okay, we're going to listen to this guy because obviously
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God was working through him. That's not going to happen anymore because the scripture is closed,
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Christ, and not just scripture is closed, that's very important, but also everything that it tells us about Christ, about God's purposes in Christ, has been completed.
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Any questions there? Here, Walter makes the point that our
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English word for miracles is not exactly equivalent to any of the words used in the Bible, signs, wonders, gifts, works, and so on.
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So miracles a little bit, a little bit of a compromise in a lot of ways.
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The exegetical argument about this, talk about this, miracle, this is very important.
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Remember the cascade argument we had in the beginning, no apostles, no prophets, no tongue speakers, no miracles.
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Christ is risen, so the scripture is attested to that. So 1
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Corinthians 12, 28, 29. And God has given,
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God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of talents.
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All apostles, all prophets, all teachers do all work in miracles. 1 Corinthians 12, 20, 29.
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Now the continuation is one of the ways these miracles continue. Remember we can't enforce a miracle from the miracle order.
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The continuation points to this verse as a really strong point in their favor.
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This would say that they continue. God has appointed miracles. Verse 28, so if we're in the church,
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God has appointed miracles. We're going to do them, right? That's what the continuation says. And then in verse 29,
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Paul asks whether every member of the body works miracles. What does that imply?
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Do all of them work miracles? What does that imply? Some do.
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That's the way they would look at this. We have to remember this whole chapter in 1
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Corinthians 12 leading up to this, it's leading up to this about how God has given the church with the diversity of spiritual gifts and everything it needs to accomplish is
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His purposes for us in Christ. It's simply first and foremost. So the diversity of gifts, your hand, your eye, your mouth, your tongue, all those things is what's leading up to this verse.
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And the big point is God has equipped us. He's given us what we need.
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Verse 18, but as it is in 1 Corinthians 12, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as He chose.
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Verse 24, God has so composed the body, so it's His will. He directly and actively puts each of us here with all the gifts that we need.
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Back in the day of the Corinthians, where it says, and He appointed miracles in the church.
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So verse 28 simply says miracles. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles.
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It just says miracles. It has no immediately apparent reference. It's just miracles. God has appointed miracles.
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Some say that therefore miracles are a gift given to the church to be done by specially gifted members.
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Because it's in there. And He appointed miracles and therefore the implication, some say, would be that therefore
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God is appointing them to work miracles. So verse 29, where He said we'll all work miracles, that takes some explanation there.
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Remember, the idea is miracles versus the miracle of workers. In Greek, it is simply, do all miracles.
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Do all miracles. Most English versions do a different interpretation by adding work or workers.
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Do all miracles. King James are all workers of miracles.
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That's a very necessary way of translating the original. We're not just adding to it. We have to add those words.
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Do all miracles. Do all workers. Because if we didn't have that, if we didn't have workers or work miracles, all we'd have is our own miracles.
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Because each one of you are miracles. And that's nonsensical. Adding the word workers, as we do, keeps us assisted with the other gifts which are performed by men in the church.
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God didn't just pour out gifts under miracles to screw me, but rather He invested miracles in that. So a miracle, by definition, has to be something rare.
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A miracle is often applied as God intervening in the natural law in order to make a particular way or accomplish particular purposes.
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So let's just stop here and talk about this a little bit. King James is a miracle, and if we can try together to find out who did the miracle, why
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God did the miracle, and what's the redemptive purpose behind it. Think of a miracle in the
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Bible. Just call it out. This isn't to test you.
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I was going to say, when
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Peter walked through the synagogue and healed a crippled man outside, and then he was leaping as he was testifying that a miracle happened in his life, and everybody saw it.
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Acts chapter 3, in the name of Jesus Christ, stand and walk.
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And again, how does that detect redemptive purposes? Because when he preached the gospel in a few moments, what he was going to do is he said, this is the guy who told me to stand and walk.
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So there is a purpose behind it. It attested to something. Another miracle. The second king is 13.
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So Elisha has just died, and there's some Israelites who are out about the place.
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I forget what they were doing. It was a many types of king. Was that it?
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No. So when
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Elisha died, they married him. Now man took more light. And as the man was being buried, behold, a roaring man was seen.
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And a man was thrown into the great floodlight of Elisha. And as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet.
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Is that a miracle? What does it prove? Why would
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God do that miracle? Throw a dead man in there, he touches Elisha's bones, back to life.
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Elisha was truly a prophet. A little bit more than that. A guy came to life. This guy is dead.
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Throw him in the grave. Boom. He comes to life. What else? Elisha was a prophet. God raises the dead.
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God raises the dead. Points to the resurrection. So there's a purpose behind it.
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I would go back in Elisha's ministry, and very early after Elisha was taken away,
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Elisha, the school of prophets, they said, oh, father, there's a death in the pot.
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Throw a spring or something in the pot. It's a flower in the pot. So it attests to Elisha as Elisha's true successor, speaking the word of God and a
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God of life. I would argue that Elisha more clearly pointed to the resurrection than Elisha.
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He succeeded. I would argue about that. There's a lot of that happening. So we can see that.
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One more miracle. Give me one that's amazing. How about the sun standing still?
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Was that a miracle? Now, I don't know if the earth stopped spinning around the sun, or if the sun stopped moving.
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It doesn't matter. Okay? The sun stood still. Who did he work that miracle through?
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Joshua. Joshua called it. What's the redemptive purpose behind it?
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Because the sun stood still. They won the battle.
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They wiped out the Amalekites. Redemptive purpose. God is going to provide a place for people to live.
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It's going to be a land. It is what he calls a land of milk and honey. They're going to be able to live in peace in the land and so forth.
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There's a redemptive purpose behind that. As we as believers look at that, how would we apply it?
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How would you teach that to your children? How would you preach it? That God provides.
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God keeps his word. The temple is going to be a holy place. The church, the temple of the
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Lord God is a holy people. What do you think? The prophet ran away to stay with someone and had no food.
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Say it again. The prophet ran away and stayed with someone who had no food and was waiting for her son to die.
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He provided. They never ran out of food. It benefited her.
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She thinks he's a prophet now but no one else does. Or is it because it's recorded? It's because it's recorded.
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There's actually both of them. Elijah provided the oil and Elisha provided the food.
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I think also the incident would be known.
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Where did you get all the soda? The prophet said these guys would not run out. There's still that certification.
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And if you go to Elisha and Elisha you've got to get off that. You're going to get locked down. Each one of them was solely the word of God in Israel at that time.
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So when they went outside the borders especially Elijah when he was at the book of Ruth and Kidron they went to the sire of Phoenician not the sire of Phoenician.
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When they went to that Gentile woman it was judgment on Israel that the word of God was taken away from those who listened to it.
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There's a lot more there. There's a lot more there. If you google it you'll be able to find it. Was the sun setting still?
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The Red Sea part? Water from the rock? The miracles are really kind of bunched up.
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They're very condensed. It's not a miracle every single day every week, every year. They're very bunched up and condensed.
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If you take the whole Exodus event and then still have that same trajectory happening.
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There's an interesting point in the Old Testament that it really caught my eye.
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In Genesis 1 in the beginning the beginning is not time stamped.
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God created the heavens and the earth. That seems like a pretty big deal, right?
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But don't worry it's not called a miracle. He just did this. I was thinking about that a lot.
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There are no natural laws yet to overrule. There's no redemptive purposes yet because sin had happened.
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It's really interesting that that was so matter of fact. In the beginning
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God did this. Two continuations now.
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We talked about in 1 Corinthians 12 about the miracles versus miracles and wonders. Walter cites a man named
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Sam Storms who's a defender of continuationism. What Sam Storms does is he cites a true incident that happened to Charles Spurgeon.
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He cites the example of C .H. Spurgeon a great reformed Baptist preacher in the mid 19th century.
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A number of times in preaching Spurgeon appeared to his hearers with supernatural insight.
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Maybe read his Spurgeon biography. It's very encouraging for Baptist preachers like I think we have here.
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Why am I so mundane compared to Spurgeon? If you read his biography, Spurgeon was really a genius.
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He was just a super super intelligent guy. Almost everything he touched.
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So supernatural insight. He was strikingly and particularly described a sense of circumstance of individuals unknown to him who were sitting in the congregations.
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This sometimes led to perversions of those individuals. These may be instances in which
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Spurgeon was miraculously guided in his choice of illustrations and words. It does not trouble this sensationist to admit that we have a miracle.
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What our storms does not show and cannot show is that Spurgeon will ever claim on the basis of these events to be a prophet or miracle worker.
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I wonder if there were many times when Spurgeon used the same exact kind of language and there was no one matching his description as present.
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Perhaps there were many such times. Storms certainly cannot prove that there were not. The point is that God may have performed miracles in connection with Spurgeon's history, but this fact did not make
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Spurgeon a miracle worker. Storms says, okay, he speaks with supernatural insight right to a person who says, well, my goodness, that's exactly what's happening to me today.
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Storms says Spurgeon was therefore a miracle worker.
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Do you have a point to see where he's going with that? What Walter is saying is that Spurgeon used that kind of language over and over again.
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But that God used a miracle in connection with what
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Spurgeon did or was saying, that did not make Spurgeon a miracle worker. Yeah.
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I was thinking about this one too. A real thing that happened here, my wife was present at the time.
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I was counseling with a woman. She's not here. Has never been a member. Don't have to worry about who.
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She was on the verge of adultery. We were connecting with someone.
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Texting. She was unhappy with her husband. All these other things. And I'm working on it, and I can't get her to see how wrong it is.
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I'm having a real hard time, as a Christian woman, getting her to see this wrong. And at one point, having heard all these different things that she said, and I'm trying to avoid some of the details here.
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I suddenly blurted out, not blurted out, I said to her, did this or that happen to you?
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And I was very specific. And she just stopped.
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What is this? How did you know that? Well, God didn't give me a piece of knowledge.
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I had pieces of information, data points, if you will, that she was giving to me. And I was having a hard time getting her to see those data points and go forward and repent.
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See, the Bible says you're going the wrong way. You've got to stop. So I would argue that God did a miracle, like giving me the confidence to put those pieces together.
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It's like, yeah, okay, you got it. You're right. You are correct. Now just say it.
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And I did. My wife almost faked it. She couldn't believe it. How do I know it was a miracle?
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How do I know it was from God? Not me, the miracle worker, but God working the miracle through me in that sense.
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Because she repented. It brought glory to Christ. She saw her sin and she stopped.
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The deal was there, don't text me, say goodbye. Done. And she finally got it.
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So this thing that I learned about, if you will, was it from God? Well, not
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He gave me a piece of knowledge. He gave me a confidence that I was correct. And the confidence
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I have to look back on it is that there's still a solid couple in the world of Christ.
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She repented and didn't go forty -one. You see what
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I'm saying? Christ gets the glory, not me. She and her husband grew together as a couple who had a very
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Christ -only result. I think it's very similar to what we have in this version.
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Storms vs. Wolves version of it. Did I work a miracle?
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No. Did God certainly intervene and cause me to say something?
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He gave me confidence to say something otherwise I would not have. Any questions about that?
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Do a little instead. And I would argue that's very much like what
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Jesus would argue from Spurgeon. You were telling the story in response to Sam Stone's argument about Spurgeon working a miracle.
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But given our earlier definition of the five laws of nature what would you say?
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Yes, this is God in a province orchestrated in the way that it brought, but it's still kind of a different nature than what the prophets did and the apostles did.
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Yeah, and I'm sorry, I didn't make a good transition from what the prophets and apostles did to what is today.
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The point here was that the prophets and apostles guided directly through them so that the prophet and apostle wasn't a miracle worker.
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And that it was Elijah or Elisha who made the accident. It was
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Joshua who called the world to stop turning etc. So those were miracle workers.
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Big difference. I'm not a miracle worker. God can work miracles.
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101 of Waldron says strictly speaking biblical miracles are called signs as well as wonders, powers, and works and thus are intended to attest to the new revelation given through the miracle worker.
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That's an important distinction. In the Bible miracle workers have said this over and over, attested to something, to a new revelation through the miracle worker that advanced
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God's causes for us in Christ. So are there miracles today?
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Can we say yes, absolutely there are. Do miracles advance
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God's purposes? We can still say yes.
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Not advance purposes in telling us about Christ and His life and His death for us and His resurrection.
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That's concluded. But advancing His purposes in glorifying Christ, advancing His purposes in encouraging the church by doing a miracle through our prayers and that sort of thing, to encourage us, to strengthen us in Christ.
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Those are redemptive purposes as well. Not to salvage it, like Calvin was clarifying with Yale. Not to save it, but to encourage us and to, as it were, vindicate us.
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So if I asked are there miracle workers today, my class would say no.
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No. There are not miracle workers. Are there miracles today? Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
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Canning is complete. God's purposes in Christ are completed. So the miracle worker is no longer
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Let me close with Waldron's closing on this.
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Just take a moment. We have a few extra minutes. Before I close those with Waldron's, are there any questions, any comments, anything
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I didn't make clear that you want to ask about? That's the implication.
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Now, the continuationist would make the distinction, no, I'm not speaking to scripture, but I'm speaking to something new.
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They have this way of framing it so that the scripture's closed. We agree with that, but I'm still waiting to see the new revelation of God.
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It doesn't, yeah, I'm hopeful too. That's the way they frame it.
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I was going to ask, so regarding miracles, every miracle, even including like in today's, there's always going to be a reason why that miracle's happening.
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I mean, if it happens to somebody, is there a reason that that might draw them to the
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Lord, or somebody having cancer, or whatever it might be, can that,
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I mean, miracles that happen actually is to glorify God. Yeah. Today, they advance
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His purpose, like you said, glorify God, and I look back, and I say, did
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God do a miracle? I say, yes. Did I do a miracle? Absolutely not. But because there's repentance which glorifies
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God, because the church is encouraged to play for God, that the last of them up, a very pernicious kind of prank, he was told, get your affairs in order.
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You've got to take time with your family, you're not going to last several months. You're done. Right here in this place, right where you guys are sitting, they have one -to -nine prayer meetings.
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And it's gone. He's going to Stanford, you know, the world's expert school, and he goes to Stanford Doctors, and that particular kind of thing, inexplicable.
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Now, it didn't bring repentance to him. He's still alive. It did not bring repentance to him.
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It did not bring great courage to us, I tell you. Okay.
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Let me read Waldron's closing on this. Why must we say that the miracle workers performing miraculous signs have ceased?
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If we believe the miraculous signs attesting to the miracle the workers continue, then we have thereby committed ourselves to continuing redemptive repentance.
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This would entail the implication that the canon is not closed. If we believe in miracle workers, then we commit ourselves to the idea that they are divinely attested apostles and prophets in the world to whom we must give belief and obedience.
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Again, as this view of the canon is not closed. I'm going to read from Jude. That would say then that Jude was wrong or he was only correct at that time or something.
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He talked about faith once for all delivered to the saints. That's the scripture for centuries and centuries has been understood to be the canon or the scripture.
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Someone actually speaks for God. This is a... I still can't find my book on this so I have to paraphrase what
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Wayne Boone says. He talks about the apostles in the church and people speaking for God and speaking out new revelations of work.
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Well, this is the idea of impressions. And then when we hear we get to kind of analyze it and decide if it applies to me or not.
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All these things that kind of compromise it and say, well, if it's from God who are we to judge it?
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Yeah, so it's been the canon kind of closed. All the key biblical passages in time are actually signs to redemptive revelation and identify miracle workers as organs of direct revelation.
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Moses, the prophets in the Old Testament, Jesus, the apostles in the New Testament prophets worked miracles in order to give divine attestation to the revelations of His work.
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Biblical miracles are signs intended to identify a person and to some degree embody that revelation.
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So if you have friends or family that claim to hear or speak new revelation or to know a miracle worker this is to give you some angle, if you will, to speak from Scripture to them about that.
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And about the proposal Scripture because of Christ's resurrection brings a proposal to all of God's redemptive purposes in Him.
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And I hope this gives you some confidence that when we say we're cessationists, we're not just some dry, old, traditional people who don't believe in anything exciting.
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God is very exciting. He's alive. He's active through us. Christ is with us. And He does miracles each day.
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Last one, two questions. I was thinking about the false
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Christ and the false prophets so I was thinking if we had all this faith for everyone this would be a good deal.
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Very good point, Gerald. It speaks to to Tim's point, too. But it would be supernatural without people finding it.
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Let me close in with a word from the beginning of Jesus' cessation. Long ago and many times and in many ways
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God spoke for our fathers by the prophets. But in His last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom
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He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.
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After making purification for sins, He sat down in the right hand of the Majesty of God. I have not become as much superior to angels as they may be as inherited as more excellent than this.
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Christ has risen. We have no need for any more revelation regarding Him. We have only to live in Him and become more like Him.