Book of Acts Part 6

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Book of Acts Part 7

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So let's pray. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask you, Holy Spirit, to help us to rightly understand what is revealed there so that we may properly believe, confess, and do according to your holy word, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

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All right, we've been working our way through the book of Acts, but I have, like I've said, pre -planned bunny trails, and we are almost to the end of this big pre -planned bunny trail.

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And so I apologize, but not really, for the bunny trails. Sorry, not sorry. Yeah, that's right.

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I'm sorry, but not really. You can pretend that you're sorry. Yeah. So when we were last met, we were talking about 1

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Corinthians 13, and we were talking about the challenges in 1

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Corinthians 13 as it relates to the fact that it says that prophecy and tongues will cease, okay?

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And I've noted that Lutherans are not hard cessationists.

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We are more like the soft type of cessationist, but when we talk about certain gifts of the

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Spirit, we oftentimes refer to them as being foundational. And so let me explain where our challenge was.

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I'll show you a cross -reference or two, and then we'll kind of, well, maybe three, now that I'm thinking about it, and we'll kind of leave it at that.

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So Paul, after talking about how love is patient, love is kind, and again, the context of this is in the exercise of the gifts, and I know that it shows up at weddings, and I know that people sit there going, are you saying we can't use it at our wedding?

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No, I'm not saying that. It's just kind of weird. I'm just saying. But the truth regarding love is true there, okay?

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So Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, it says love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away.

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As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. This is talking about prophetic knowledge.

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For we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when the perfect, and here's your challenge. The Greek word is teleos, okay?

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And one of its primary meanings is when the mature shows up, okay? So this is a legitimate translation.

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You could also translate it as mature, and I would note in the next chapter, verse, chapter 14, verse 20,

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Paul says, brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking, be mature.

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What do you think the word for mature is there? Teleos, okay? So I would note, you can see right here that the

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English translation, when the perfect comes, creates an exegetical challenge because it makes it appear that this text is hard and fast, basically saying that prophecy will continue until Christ returns.

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The issue is that I don't think it's saying that, okay? And again, the context, when

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I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, is that talking about perfection or is that talking about maturity?

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Maturity, okay? So when the mature comes, I think Paul is referencing the completed

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Bible. I am convinced of it, and there's more to it than this, and let me give you another cross -reference then that I think is super helpful.

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In the book of Hebrews, chapter one, watch how these sentences work.

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Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, okay?

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So note here, here we're seeing something. God did what? He spoke, past tense.

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He spoke to whom? By our, to our fathers, he did so by the prophets. When a prophet comes, and they're a true prophet,

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God is speaking to you through them. And I would note, has

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Isaiah stopped his prophetic ministry? No, Isaiah's still prophesying to us today, okay?

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But you'll note that God spoke to Isaiah, past tense, and God is speaking to us through Isaiah.

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You can put that in the present tense. But note the way the inspired author of Hebrew writes. Long ago, at many times, in many ways,

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God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But then you have that annoying word but.

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But in these last days, he has spoken, and you'll note, this is another past tense thing.

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He has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

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Hmm. When we confess in the Nicene Creed, okay? In fact, doing this from memory might be hard because I'm getting old.

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Okay, let me just consult the Book of Armaments here because it's kind of important, right?

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Okay, in the Nicene Creed. Let's see, let's see. All right. Okay. Here we go.

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I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the

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Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.

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So you'll note that in Christian history, and let me grab the thing that fell because that's gonna annoy me. I don't have

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OCD, but that does bother. So note that at the time the

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Nicene Creed was written, it did not say, and the Holy Spirit who is speaking to us through the prophets, present tense, who spoke by the prophets, right?

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And we believe in one holy Catholic, it's literally the right word, universal, and apostolic church.

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What's an apostolic church? A church that's based on the teachings of the apostles.

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Has Peter stopped being an apostle for us? No. Has Paul stopped being an apostle for us?

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Take that woke garbage somewhere else. Always and again,

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I will reiterate this fact. When somebody attacks the scriptures, all right?

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So Joshua's little quip was Paul was a meanie butt who hated women, right?

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He was the original guy who created the He -Man Women Haters Club, all right?

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So when somebody says something like this, I want you to consider what they are not saying, but what they are absolutely meaning.

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The Apostle Paul is a misogynist woman hater, therefore we don't need to listen to him.

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Who should I listen to instead? You should listen to me, right? I'm right, the

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Apostle Paul is wrong. Listen to me, I know the truth, Paul didn't.

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I am speaking more truth to you than Paul ever did. When they attack the scriptures, you can't trust the

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Bible, but you can trust me. They don't say it in that many words, but that's exactly the game that they're playing, right?

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And I would just basically say this, you should not trust me, you should trust the word.

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Don't ever give me the benefit of the doubt. Read everything, listen to me with an open Bible and fact check along the way, that's the idea, okay?

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Yeah, that's true, that's true. That's a great point, Matthew. They're saying the Holy Spirit's a misogynist. Well, the

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Holy Spirit is part of the evil patriarchy, you know, and what

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I do find fascinating is the person who attacks the Apostle Paul, I always sit there and go, are you better than the

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Apostle Peter? The Apostle Peter said that what he wrote was scripture and that people twist it to their own destruction.

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Do you know better than Peter? Those are hate facts.

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Right, right, right. Stop giving me those hate facts, okay? So note then, even

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Hebrews talks about prophecy, and this is where the Lutherans will talk about prophecy. Prophecy is a foundational gift, okay?

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And God can still, if he chose to, talk to somebody through a prophet, but I would note that God is speaking through prophets today, prophets like Malachi.

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Malachi was front and center, prophesying to us today. Yeah, the

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Malachi, the Italian prophet, yeah. Ciao. Yeah.

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Okay. And then also, let me show you this also so that this can kind of come into it.

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It's worth looking, oracles, okay? Oracles. In the book of 1

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Peter, Peter is writing to pastors, chapter four, verse 11, whoever speaks, whoever's in the pastoral office, as one who speaks the what?

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The oracles of God, okay? Actually, oracles is a very prophetic, has a prophetic undertone.

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This is why the church has always understood that every pastor is basically dispensing with a prophetic office.

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But the difference is this, is that the prophetic office that pastors are in, it's a read -along, okay?

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So every time I tell you, Christ has died for your sins, right?

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You'll note the authority that I speak that. And you sit there and go, who do you think you are?

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Who do you think you are telling me my sins are forgiven? Right? And the answer is

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I'm speaking with the authority of Christ and I have this authority from the written word and you can follow along, right?

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So I don't, you'll note that there are so many pastors when they preach, they never preach with that kind of authority.

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And as a result of it, they'll say things like, well, you know, if you are part of that group that believes, and I'm not saying that you are,

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I'm not saying that you're not, not that there's anything wrong with that, you know, this is how they are, right? And so they always preach in a way where they assume that the person, the people they're preaching to aren't even

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Christians. If I preached to you as if you were not Christians, guess what that would turn you into?

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Not Christians. Non -attendees. Right, non -attendees. Joshua would say, we're gonna find another church.

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So funny, I talked with Corey Minor this week. I had a great conversation. We were talking about Alexander Pagani and Mike Signorelli and he just did a video where he legitimately backed up everything

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I said about Mike Signorelli not knowing Greek. And in the middle of it, Corey Minor said

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I was a racist. It's like, ugh. It's so funny. It's because of the color choices

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I choose when I use accordance. I don't have a black background with white text like he does. I have a white background with black text so that means

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I'm a racist. That's so funny. I agree.

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I know, that does kind of work against him, doesn't it? All right, so the idea then, pastors to speak as if he's speaking the oracles of God, right?

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Now, all of that being said, there's another argument that I don't see a lot of people going to.

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And then we can even talk about one that's really not as clear as I wish it was.

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All right, in the book of Daniel chapter nine, Daniel chapter nine, let me get there over here.

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The angel Gabriel, the guy who appeared to Zechariah, the same angel that appeared to the

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Virgin Mary, said this to Daniel, 70 weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and profit, and to anoint a most holy place.

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So note that the 70 weeks, this prophecy legitimately says that prophecy will be sealed at the end of the 70 weeks.

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The question then needs to come up, when's the end of the 70 weeks, okay?

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And you'll note that the sealed visions of Daniel are unsealed, the seals are opened in the book of Revelation.

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That's kind of, that's an important aspect of this. But the question is, when is vision and profit sealed, okay?

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And I would note the historic interpretation is on the timeline that I have down below. And let me see if I can make this just a little bit bigger by doing that.

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There we go. So this is how the church historically, the traditional messianic interpretation of the 70 weeks.

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So how's the church historically understood this? That the first seven weeks of Daniel's prophecy start with Cyrus's decree to rebuild the temple, rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and all that.

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Jerusalem is rebuilt, then Nehemiah, Nehemiah, begins his governatorial reign over the region, although as part of the state of Babylon, okay?

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And then you have basically 62 weeks from Nehemiah to the birth of Christ.

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And in the middle of that you have the Antichrist, Antiochus desecrating the temple, or at least a guy who's a type and shadow of the

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Antichrist desecrating the temple in the middle of all of that, okay? Jesus's birth then begins the final week of the 70 weeks of Daniel.

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And you'll note, they're not literal weeks because 72 weeks is a year and some change, right?

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So here you have the birth of Christ, you have Jesus's life, his crucifixion, and then halfway through the week,

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Titus of the Roman Empire destroys the temple in 70

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AD. There's a half a week left, and then that ends at 135

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AD with Hadrian, the Emperor Hadrian conquering

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Jerusalem and expelling the Jews from Judea and forbidding them to return.

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And he even changed the name of Judea to Syria -Palestinia.

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It was the Romans that set up the Palestinian state. I just want you to let that sink in if you would, okay?

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And so that being the case, the way the church has historically understood this interpretation, the 70 weeks are done, okay?

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And in the 70 weeks, one of the things that happens is the sealing of vision and prophet.

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And I would note, 135 is an extremely interesting number for me, and here's why.

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Is that when you look at how the gift of prophecy was given in the book of Acts, it was given by the laying on of hands by an apostle, okay?

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So certain gifts, if you would, required you to have an apostle lay hands on you.

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Is Peter currently around to lay hands on anybody? Paul, John, Matthew, negative, right?

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And so when you look at the church's history, and this is where it gets interesting, is that there were prophets in the church for sure, and they began to diminish rapidly by the time the apostles are dying and being martyred, and then they practically all disappear with the second generation of Christians.

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And let me explain. So Polycarp, if you've heard of this guy, so he's into many fish,

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Polycarp, okay? Sorry, pastor joke. Okay, what?

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Why are you looking at me like that? People. I have something to throw at you. Okay, so Polycarp is a martyr in Christianity.

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He was baptized by the apostle John in Ephesus, and he legitimately received a prophetic gift from the apostle

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John by the laying on of hands. So not only was he baptized by John, he was catechized, confirmed by John, and had his hands laid on by John, and he legitimately can operate in a prophetic gift.

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I have no doubt about it. I think the texts regarding his life and his martyrdom and his ability to prophesy are absolutely solid, okay, in the writings of the church fathers.

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They don't have that kind of like written 200 years later kind of myth and legend kind of feel to it, okay?

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So that being the case, it's about the time that that generation with Polycarp, that they die, that you see prophecy just disappear, legitimately just go away, with just a few kind of punctuated examples throughout the church's history, but nobody's able to operate in the gift of prophecy, but God seems to have given people individual prophecies very sporadically, long periods of time in between them from the time of Polycarp until now.

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Polycarp's death is going to kind of coincide just a little bit later than Hadrian conquering, right?

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The 70 weeks being completed, there's nobody receiving the gift to operate in the gift of prophecy after the apostles die, and that's what we expect.

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And by the time the author of Hebrews is writing, he's talking about prophets in the past tense and talking about how

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Christ has spoken to us in the past tense and is clearly making references to the apostles, okay?

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He legitimately points to them. And so that being the case, it is not then an accident that when you get to the late 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s, and I hate using that term.

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Barb, you and I were born in the 1900s. It sounds so old, okay?

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Because, yeah, because when we were growing up, we talked about the 1800s like it was ancient history, right?

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And so, and we were children of the 20th century. So back in the early 1900s, you have

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Charles Fox Parham and William Seymour coming along and them claiming that God had restored the gift of tongues.

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They did not, so Charles Fox Parham, William Seymour, who are the two key men behind the

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Pentecostal movement and its rise during the 1900s, they, both of them, were cessationists.

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And they claimed that the gift of tongues was restored to the church, right?

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When Barb and I were in the Latter Rain movement, we were told by the folks in the

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Latter Rain that God, in the late 80s, had restored prophets to the church.

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See, Peter Wagner came along, and in the early 20th century, he said that God restored apostles to the church.

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If I said that God restored tongues, he restored prophets, he restored apostles, what am

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I saying happened to all of those three things? They stopped, right?

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And here's the thing. Nobody, at the time of Charles Fox Parham in the church, can say that God kept giving the gift of tongues and that there were tongue speakers throughout all of Christian history, okay?

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I always kind of use this as an example. The world's shortest book, okay?

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It's a list, and it's the biography of all of the prophets in Christianity from the 1300s.

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The 1400s. All the tongue speakers in the 1500s.

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There's none of them, okay? That's kind of the point. So you'll note that the traditional interpretation of the 70 weeks, that prophecy itself is sealed after the end of the 70 weeks, which coincides with kind of the time when the first generation of people who became

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Christians under the apostles died. Then that's about the time when we see these gifts all just disappear.

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So when we come back then to our text, okay?

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So love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease.

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As for knowledge, it will pass away. Again, this is prophetic knowledge, okay? So no, it doesn't say that hospitality's gonna cease.

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Teaching's gonna cease. It doesn't say that administration is going to cease.

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Or even the gift of faith is gonna cease, right? It just says very specific gifts.

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Prophecy, tongues, and prophetic knowledge. Those cease, yeah.

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Okay? Oh yeah, yep.

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Yeah, no, and I would add some further text to this, for sure, but you're right. So when we talk about the work of the

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Holy Spirit, why is the word of God living and active? Okay, why is the

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Bible not like any other book? The answer is actually quite simple.

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Paul says it in 2 Timothy 3 that all the scripture is theanoustos.

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It's God breathed. The Holy Spirit is the living and active agent in the word of God.

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And the Holy Spirit is speaking to us through the scriptures, okay? And that's the idea.

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And then, so to kinda add to where you were going, if I were to go to 2

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Timothy 3, the Apostle Paul, this is his last epistle, last one.

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1 Corinthians is his first, written in the 50s. This is written late 60s, right, and I mean, we're talking days, weeks, hours before he's martyred.

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This is his last of the last of the last letters, okay? And so he's giving very, very important instruction to young Pastor Timothy.

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You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, my sufferings that happened to me at Antioch and Iconium and Lystra.

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Oh, look at that, Paul didn't have his best life now. He must not have had enough. He didn't speak positive things into existence, right?

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Which persecutions I endured. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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No one wants to hear it, but that's absolutely true. While evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived, but as for you, continue in what you have learned.

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So note what he says, continue in what you have learned. He is not creating an expectation that with his death that Timothy is going to be getting any new revelation, any new doctrine.

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Instead, continue in what you have learned and I firmly believe knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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All scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for some good works.

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No, it says every, right? Is there a good work that Christ is gonna call you to today that the

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Bible will not prepare you for? No. Do I need another revelation?

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Not at all, okay? And I can tell you, I need somebody telling me that I need a suddenly in a new season of breakthroughs like I need a hole in my head, okay?

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Okay? Okay, let's get to 2 Peter. That's your cross reference on this. 2 Peter 1 and starting at verse 16 and I'm gonna use this as kind of a counterpoint.

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I have a video I'm considering recording on Catherine Crick. Catherine Crick, recently in one of her sermons, said that God wills for every

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Christian to have a Mount Transfiguration experience. What if you live in this part of North Dakota and Minnesota?

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Have you seen any mountains out there? I don't see a thing. That's a good question.

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But here's the issue, okay? The Apostle Peter legitimately argues against it, okay?

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I've said it before, I'll say it again, that the Mount of Transfiguration, talk about spiritual experiences, okay?

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I am 100 % convinced that Patricia King would sell her mother into slavery if she could have been at the

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Mount of Transfiguration. She wanted, because she desires so badly to bliss out in the glory, right?

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This is how people talk. But watch where Peter goes with this, okay? We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. When he received honor and glory from God the

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Father, and the voice was borne to him by the majestic glory, saying, this is my beloved

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Son with whom I am well pleased, we ourselves, we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain, okay?

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Now, if the Pentecostals were true, then what Peter should say next is, and God desires for you to have your

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Mount Transfiguration experience, okay? But instead he says something very different. We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, and this word right here, bebios, something that can be relied on to not cause disappointment, okay?

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So you could translate this. Let me give you an alternative translation, okay?

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We have the prophetic word more fully assured, promised, okay, confirmed is a little confusing, but the idea here is that you can absolutely count on the

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Bible, and note what he says, that the Bible is more reliable than the experience he had at the

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Mount of Transfiguration. The Bible is more fully confirmed than even the voice he heard, he heard the

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Father's voice, okay, so we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart, knowing this, first of all, no prophecy of scripture comes from one's own interpretation for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So it's living and active. It's going to make you complete for every good work, and here

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Peter says, in total distinction between the experience he had at the

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Mount of Transfiguration and the Bible, he says, I'm gonna go with the Bible, that's more fully confirmed, okay?

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And the Apostle Paul legitimately tells Timothy, continue in what you have learned.

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Now here's the thing, as soon as you say, okay, I'm going to continue in what

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I've learned, continue in the scriptures, immediately that's going to put you into a box.

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You have one book, you have a set of readings, and when you're done reading it, what do you do?

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You start over again, and then when you're done, you start over again, and then when the pastor dies and the new pastor comes, he does the same thing, which means there's no new messages.

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There's no new prophecies. There's no innovations. There's no winds of doctrine.

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We are all just sticks in the mud. Boring as all get out.

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Not in tune with the times, and all they ever do is preach that old school

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Bible Christianity stuff, right? I will take that boring any day of the week because I've seen the excitement of the other group, and there is no truth in what they preach.

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Okay, they're exciting for sure, but I don't hear Christ. I don't hear the word of God rightly taught.

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So the idea then is this, God wills for you to hear his voice in the word. And another note,

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Peter wrote 2 Peter right before he was crucified. That's his final shot.

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So both the apostle Paul and the apostle Peter, at the end of their lives, say, stay to the word.

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The word, the word, the word, the word, the word, the word. I remember one of our

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Lethians had her daughter baptized, and there was not a lot of churches to choose from to have her daughter baptized.

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And when she brought her to be baptized, she sat down with the pastor, and she legitimately said, when you baptize my daughter, you are to baptize her in the name of the

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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the pastor's response was, well, if you want me to go old school,

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I can go old school. There is no other school, right?

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But that's the mentality of so many people, right? All right, let's see here.

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I gotta check questions. Hang on a sec. Let me. Okay. They're lamenting the inability for junior high kids to read beyond a first grade reading level.

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That's a problem. The Jennings says, my great -grandmother followed

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Parham and Branham, and they were clowns. Ha ha ha ha. Yes, Parham and Branham were clowns, for sure, okay?

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These were not people that you want to be mixed up with. And I would say this, both

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Parham and Branham were extremely in agreement with and sympathetic to the views of the

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Ku Klux Klan. This is unmistakable, okay? The reason why

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Parham did not embrace the Azusa Street Revival is because it was ethnically mixed, and he did not want to be part of a revival with darkies, as he said.

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That's a quote, okay? So, all right, coming back then, okay?

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So we've done our little excurses, and so how do Lutherans then read this text?

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That tongues, prophecy, and prophetic knowledge pass away as gifts, given that people can operate in, after the death of the apostles.

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But that does not mean that God cannot, if he chose to, still give a word of knowledge, or give somebody the gift of tongues, or the ability to speak in tongues, or give somebody a prophecy to deliver.

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It's just that they're not gonna have that in any ongoing fashion. And we would note that the passing away of these gifts coincides with the ending of the 70 weeks, just as prophesied by the angel

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Gabriel, as recorded in Daniel's prophecy. And, like I said, all of the early

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Pentecostals legitimately said that they believe that God restored these gifts, which means that they are saying that they ended, okay?

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Yes? Yeah, yeah, okay, that is a wonderful question, okay?

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So Lutherans are in the, an enviable position of having to do prophetic paperwork, okay?

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Let me explain, okay? We can't just dismiss somebody who claims to be a prophet and say there are no prophets, okay?

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Or that nobody can prophesy, we can't do that. So instead, let me see if I can find this real quick.

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Thessalonians five, okay, let's see here. Hang on a second here.

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Is it second, hang on, this might be second. Nope, no, why did I hit five? No, test, there we go.

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That's what we're gonna do. We're going to do a New Testament look for the word test. Okay.

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So 1 John 4, 1. Listen to what the Holy Spirit tells us. Are you ready?

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Beloved, do not believe every spirit. Okay, I would note that the

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Pentecostals are in error because they believe everybody. Right, they believe anybody as long as they don't tell them to read their

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Bible, okay? Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

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This is annoying, okay? This is annoying. So I can legitimately say

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I have applied this test thousands of times and will apply this test at least 100 times this week, okay?

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And out of every time that I've tested somebody claiming to be a prophet, I have yet to find anybody who is.

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Okay, and so note the test requires us to determine the source, okay?

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The source of prophecy, if it's not from God, we can go, okay, yes, we have.

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I would note much to the consternation and weeping and gnashing of teeth of any of the Pentecostal movement, we have weaponized a test called

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Prophecy Bingo, which then, using the anointing from Mount Carmel, we mock today's prophets, okay?

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Prophets, okay? So you'll note then, as Christians, we're required to test, okay?

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And there's another despising, look for the word despise, okay. And yeah, here we go.

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1 Thessalonians 5 .20. Let me add a little context here, okay.

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Do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies, test everything, hold fast to what is good.

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Again, annoying, but this is where we're at, okay? So when somebody comes along today claiming to be a prophet, the biblical response is, hold it right there, okay?

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We're now going to invoke the spiritual IRS and we are going to crawl through your teaching and preaching and we're going to conduct an extensive audit to determine whether or not you are hearing from God or the sardines that you didn't digest properly last night when you had pizza.

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This is what we're going to do. And again, the requirement is we have to determine the source.

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So when somebody gets up and says empty, worthless words, and the empty, worthless words are that God in the year 2025 is going to be releasing breakthroughs and suddenlies and things like this, it's just that that person's not speaking anything from God.

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And then I would note everybody who you can demonstrate has given a false prophecy in the past is already excluded, period.

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And this is where Deuteronomy 18 comes into play. Deuteronomy 18, in fact, there's two tests of a prophet given in Deuteronomy.

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18 is one of them. And here's what it says. So Deuteronomy 18, 15,

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Yahweh, through Moses, prophesized Christ in his prophetic office, says the

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Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me. So Jesus is a prophet. He's more than a prophet. He's a prophet, priest, and he's king, okay?

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From among you, from among your brothers, and it is to him you shall listen. You are required by God to listen to Jesus.

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You don't listen to Jesus, you are in deep kimchi, right? Those Korean war vets taught me to not only say that, but actually

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I've had kimchi, it's pretty good stuff. So anyway, just as you desired of Yahweh your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, let me not hear again the voice of Yahweh my

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God or see this great fire anymore lest I die, Yahweh said to me, they are right in what they have spoken.

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I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him, and whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name,

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I myself will require it of him. So if you don't listen to Jesus, God the Father's gonna hold you accountable. Why didn't you listen to Jesus?

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Which then begs the question, how do we know a word that God hasn't spoken? We need a test, right?

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But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die, okay?

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Capital crime in ancient Israel to blaspheme God, to take his name in vain, okay?

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All false prophecy is to carry God's name into vanity and worthlessness. So if you say in your heart, how may we know the word that Yahweh has not spoken?

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This is pretty straightforward stuff. Okay, how do I know a word God hasn't spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that Yahweh has not spoken.

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The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. In other words, kill him, okay?

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So coming back to history from four years ago, the 2020 election, there's

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Chris Vallotton, head prophet of Bethel and the head prophet of the

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Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, also known as Hogwarts, right? He said,

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God told me that President Trump was going to win reelection in 2020.

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Who won the election in 2020? Not Trump.

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So when Chris Vallotton grabbed his iPhone, set it up on a tripod, with his wife next to him in a barn somewhere in Bethel, said that I apologize for getting it wrong.

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Then he said, but that does not make me a false prophet. Right, okay?

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If giving a false prophecy doesn't make you a false prophet, then gunning somebody down in cold blood doesn't make you a murderer.

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Premeditated, with malice, gunning them down in cold blood, right? I don't like the spinach salad.

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Right, that's murder, okay? You get the idea. And again, the test that 1

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Thessalonians, sorry, that 1 John 4 gives us, you are to test all things to see whether they are from God.

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Well, did God say that Donald Trump was going to win the election in 2020?

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Nope, he didn't say that. How do I know a word that God hasn't spoken? When it doesn't come to pass.

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Yeah, so that's a good question. What's the text I referenced? We'll obviously get to this in our study.

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But when Paul has to skedaddle out of Thessalonica, let's just say the

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Thessalonians were just not keen on the Apostle Paul. And they wanted, they kept saying that song, we will, we will rock you.

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So he had to leave, okay? What? You have a stone -cold heart.

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Right? Right. So he ends up heading off to Berea, okay?

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And so he leaves town and heads off to Berea. So it says, the brothers immediately sent

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Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue. And now these

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Jews were of a more noble character than those in Thessalonica. They received the word of God with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

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You'll note the scriptures praise them. And since it's the scriptures that do it, the

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Holy Spirit praises them. And I want you to consider this. Today's so -called apostles, right?

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When I critique them, I hear over and over again, touch not

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God's anointed, right? I didn't touch them, I showed that they're false.

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There's a difference, right? Touch not God's anointed. You question today's apostles, you are in a lot of trouble.

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The apostle Paul, I want you to consider the apostle Paul's stance on this. I bring you good news that what

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God promised in the fathers, he's fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And he's proven it by raising him from the dead. And I'm an eyewitness of this and what he promised us, the forgiveness of all of our sins, he is now offering to you because of Christ.

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And the Bereans go, this sounds great, but we need to look in our

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Bibles to make sure what you're saying is what the Bible teaches.

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And so after the apostle Paul left, he didn't sit there and go, well, touch not

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God's anointed. Right? No, after, so they push him out of the room and they pull out their

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Torah. They pull out their prophets and they are checking. Well, yeah, that's right, it does say that.

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Wow, it, hmm, right? So if the apostle Paul had to be checked and the

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Bereans were legitimately praised by God the Holy Spirit as having a noble character for doing that, why on earth did today's wingnut wackerdoodles all get a pass?

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Right? Yeah, Matt. Okay. You say here prophecies, tongue.

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Yeah. Yeah. The context of 1

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Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 actually talks about a gift of knowledge. And it's referred to as a prophetic gift.

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It's not talking about knowledge like everyone then becomes stupid. Okay, the knowledge that is ceasing is this prophetic knowledge.

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It's like God giving you kind of an insight on somebody speaking and saying, you know a thing or two about this situation that you don't normally know.

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You're gonna get me in trouble for twisting God's word. Yeah. So prophecies oftentimes are gonna be for the benefit of the hearer.

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So God is going to speak to you through a prophet and he's gonna deliver a message through them. A word of knowledge is for the person who receives it.

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And they get an insight as to what's happening with a particular person or how they're operating. Jesus operated in this gift very perfectly well.

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Like he knew people's hearts. He didn't have to have anybody explain anything about themselves because he already knew everybody what they were like.

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And so the idea here is that words of knowledge are not generally given for the building up of the church. It's really given for insight on how to deal with a particular person or a situation.

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Oh boy, do I wish I had that sometimes. I gotta admit, I have bumbled my way through so many things.

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I have no idea how I'm still standing at the moment. Because a little bit of prophetic knowledge would have saved me a whole lot of heartache.

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You know, just anyway. All right, I have to end here because I gotta head over to Emmanuel. All right,