Daniel 2:1-11

Cornerstone Church

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Lord, we come as your children seeking your word, and we think of Daniel and his friends living in captivity, knowing that you are the sovereign king, you are the king of kings, you're the

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Lord of lords. Lord, the question of what is prophecy is so important for us to know and to be able to perceive and to hear prophecy, to take it into our hearts, but yet to have the wisdom to know what is and is not.

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We thank you for this teaching today, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. As John just prayed, whenever we speak about spiritual gifts, it's just an interesting subject, isn't it?

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Whether prophecy or miracles, I just recently saw a video from Bethel Church, Bethel is out in California, and they are very much enamored with the spiritual gifts, to the point where you could well say that they're chasing after the gifts, more so than chasing after the giver of spiritual gifts.

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Well, this was a very untestable video, and frankly, just strains credulity.

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It was the story of a miracle, and the young man telling the story said he was in a small group, and a woman came in for the first time, who had a broken toe.

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And so he reached down and prayed over the toe, and he could tell that the bones just reformed themselves.

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Well, it sounds pretty fantastical, pretty amazing, but the story goes on that the next week, she came back in with another broken toe, and so he healed it again.

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And then he said this happened a third time and a fourth time. Each time, each week, she comes with a broken toe and he heals her.

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And it gets to the point of saying, do we really believe this testimony?

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It doesn't even make sense. Is it reasonable, or is it somebody who wants to believe that the toe was broken?

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Where is the cast? Where is the x -ray? You begin to say, is this actually testable or credible, or is this somebody that just wants to make them look like they themselves are some super saint with these prophetic or healing powers?

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The same thing is true with prophecy. The phenomenon that I've observed over the years with the gift of prophecy, coming from Bethel Church and some others, is the idea that the pastor has a measure of clairvoyance.

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He's ministering from the stage, and it will be invariably to a room of many people, or generally it will be the case.

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And he will begin to call out specific things that he says he knows about people.

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And he considers this to be prophetic. This is ministering in the prophetic, the supernatural.

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Now, what ends up happening is when you have a room of 800 people, or in Bethel's case, thousands, and you say, there's a woman named

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Kathy with back pain. Okay. There are probably many women named

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Kathy, and most people have issues with their back. Right? I mean, I've had back issues for years.

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It goes in and out, and different things that happen. And most people will wake up with a sore back from time to time.

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But it being very untestable, they will say, well, God is healing your back.

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Now, this is always accompanied with almost a hypnotic kind of working up to that moment in the service, a very emotional, musical arrangement with much repetition that gets people in the sense that God is really here, the presence of God.

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And rather than focusing on the presence of God, which is always in every believer, the presence becomes something that must be ushered in.

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And then as people are anticipating that, they're anticipating with the coming of the presence, healings or prophetic words.

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And these prophetic words then are generally very vague, or even if they're specific, they're given to a large number of people where many people could fit that bill.

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And my question for you, and as we dive into the passage today, does this fit with the presentation of prophecy in the

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Old or New Testament? Is there an example of clairvoyance to indicate information that could be simply communicated?

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In other words, if Kathy has back pain, is there anything gained in the prophet so -called saying, there's a woman here named

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Kathy who has pain on this side. I feel like it's somewhere the upper shoulder versus a woman named

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Kathy who has pain saying, pastor, I have pain right here, can you pray for me?

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You see, there's nothing gained by being able to do that, except that if the audience is convinced that the pastor saw that prophetically, he then becomes validated as a man of God.

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So the prophecy functions not to the gain of the church, but to the building up of the man of God, interestingly.

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Now I'll give you two examples from the New Testament of the prophetic gift as we have it recorded. We'll look at them later.

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Agabus in Acts 11 and in 21. In the first case, Agabus comes and says there will be a famine in the land, a severe famine.

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And because they believe this was a word from the Lord, even in the New Testament, they began to store up their resources to send help to the

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Jewish believers who are also soon to be exiled from their own people and therefore suffer want.

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And so because of that prophecy, they store up and they meet the need of the believer.

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Who did it benefit when the prophecy was given? The people. It was for the building up of the church.

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Secondly, Agabus in Acts 21 will come and tell Paul, you are going to be handed over by the

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Jews who will bind you and give you over to the Romans. And so everybody began to hear that word and dissuade

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Paul from going up to Jerusalem. But Paul said, no, I'm not only willing to be bound, I'm willing to die.

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But what this did for Paul is it fortified him mentally, prepared him for the suffering that was about to happen.

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And that's why it was necessary for Paul's sake. It wasn't actually to dissuade him. It was to show him ahead of time and that he would be grounded in his resolve to go suffer for Christ.

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It was for the good of the church. And again, in this case for Paul specifically, and then the church to see that God was in this in the binding of Paul.

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Ultimately for him to appeal and then go to Rome as was his plan all along. Prophecy serves the church, not the individual.

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What you see in the charismatic movement today is not the same kind of prophecy.

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If it's prophecy at all, which I doubt in many cases that it is. It's not for us to say that every expression of prophecy in the charismatic world is false.

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I think that would be overstating on our part. Because maybe

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God still does things in certain ways that are similar to what we see in the Bible. But when you can look at something and test it by the scriptures, we are to be good

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Bereans. And in those particular cases, I think we can say, you know what? What I see happening in Bethel does not look biblical to me.

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And I would not want my child to go to college at the School of Supernatural Ministry.

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I would say, no, this is not of God. Does it make sense? So we must be discerning.

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We must be Bereans. And it doesn't mean that we have to make the blanket statements as if we have a corner on truth.

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But we are to discern based on scripture. Right? Does that make sense? All right.

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Let's read. In Daniel chapter 2, we have a prophetic gift that we will see

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Daniel walk in. But you also have false prophets.

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And these false prophets have been running their game for some time.

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But what's very interesting is that Nebuchadnezzar, who ultimately will confess the

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Lordship of God, of Yahweh, must be broken free of the stronghold of the false prophecy of those he had been listening to for years.

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And in verses 1 to 11, you see him breaking free. And what we can glean from that is the kind of test that we need to employ against a prophet.

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Someone who claims to be speaking for God. How do you test prophecies? And I'll say that when people make prophetic statements, they need to be testable.

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They need to be falsifiable. They can't just be Nostradamus style vagaries that you can't even understand the language.

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That someone could later look back and say, Oh, I can see how that fits with the falling of the

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Twin Towers in New York. That's not testable.

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It's just vague language that you later try to make fit. It has to be clear, precise, and testable.

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And with that, falsifiable. Falsifiability is the ability to prove something false one way or the other.

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It doesn't mean that it is false. It just means that it can be shown to be false at some point in time when the evidence is considered.

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And that's the light bulb that goes off in Nebuchadnezzar's mind. So John, would you mind reading for us in Daniel 2, 1 to 11, and then we'll break it down.

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Now, in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams.

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His spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him. Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the

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Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king, and the king said to them,

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I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, Oh, king, live forever.

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Tell your servants the dream, and we will show you the interpretation. The king answered and said to the

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Chaldeans, The word from me is that is firm. If you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins.

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But if you show the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor.

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Therefore, show me the dream and its interpretation. They answered a second time and said,

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Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show you its interpretation. The king answered and said,

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I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see that the word from me is firm.

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If you do not make the dream known to me, there is but one sentence for you.

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You have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change.

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Therefore, tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can show me its interpretation.

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The Chaldeans answered the king and said, There is not a man on earth who can meet the king's demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean.

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The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.

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Isn't that an interesting interchange? You can just kind of see that the light bulb is going off in Nebuchadnezzar's mind.

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The jig is up. He knows what's been happening. These guys have been just telling him whatever their fanciful minds were making up.

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And he's realizing that what they've been saying isn't even falsifiable. They can sit together as enchanters with their potions and come back and say,

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O king, in 100 years, the kingdom shall triumph over the

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Persians or whatever, because now this is Babylon. Later, the Persians will conquer.

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But they can look out the times and kind of read the newspaper and say something which the king cannot test.

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And they'll be long gone before that supposed thing comes to pass.

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It's untestable. And he's getting frustrated. He's very troubled by his dream because, in fact,

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God has put that dream on him. And with it, the weight of it. He just knows there's something spiritual about this.

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He just doesn't know what it is. And he's not going to let these Chaldeans with their potions and their conferences to come up with some meaning.

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He's not going to let them pull the wool over his eyes again. So he comes up with this. Let's look at verses 1 to 4.

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There's never a shortage of false prophets that claim to speak for God.

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In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. His spirit was troubled and his sleep left him.

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He just knew something about this particular dream was not like eating a bad taco and going to bed.

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Ah, I should never have had that salsa right before bedtime, right? Yeah.

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He knew that he was troubled in his spirit. Deep down, he knew that God was showing him something he needed to pay attention to.

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Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers and the

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Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So, he's not yet broken from his pagan idolatry.

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What does the word of God say about sorcerers? In Deuteronomy, if anybody contacts the dead or engages in sorcery, they're to be executed.

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This is a sin with a high hand. It's against the God of Israel. It is

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Toeva. It's the highest blasphemy. You cannot consult the dead.

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You cannot conjure potions. You cannot read the stars. It's astrology. You cannot do these things because it is associated with demons.

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It's against Yahweh. But the king is still calling them.

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What does that say about him? He's been into this stuff. It's been his thing.

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He's been consulting these sorcerers and enchanters and magicians.

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They come and they stand before the king. The king said to them, I had a dream and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.

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Now imagine these sorcerers at this moment. They've got their crystal balls and they know their craft.

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They are at this point excited to be called before the king because this is what they're good at.

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Looking spiritual. Looking like they have that special edge that sets them above all the people.

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They have contact with the supernatural world whereas the ordinary people live here. And the king has called them in.

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Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, Oh king, live forever.

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Don't they look like good guys in the story? Oh king, they're so respectful.

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Live forever. They're smooth. Tell your servants the dream and we will show the interpretation.

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Now, there's no shortage of men like this in the Old Testament. In pagan

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Babylon, you would expect it. But what about in the United States of America?

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A Christian nation founded that way. Ten of the thirteen colonies had

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Christian church denominations in their charter. No longer.

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Those were all written out by the 1830s. And we've moved away and of course as the church has drifted, more and more false prophets have come.

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Would somebody turn for me to 2 Peter 2 1 or you can read those read that in the notes.

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Is there a distinction between the Chaldeans and the enchanters, magicians and sorcerers?

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It seems to be part of the same list. It might have, each one probably has a special function. You know, they're known as a different group.

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But Chaldean just means Babylonian. So it's a kind of one of their people that are involved in this.

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Mine says astrologers. It could be a textual difference there.

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Sandy, would you mind reading 2 Peter 2 1? False prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who brought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

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Let me give you an obvious example of this. A man named David Koresh, calling himself a prophet, hearing direct words from God, he says, leads a number of people into his cult.

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And there are allegations that he's sexually abusing them, which I think the evidence points to be the case.

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And young children. Well, the government catches wind of this and descends upon the compound.

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There's fire exchange to open fire until finally the entire compound is overrun.

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I think maybe 6 or 7 of them survive. And it is a horrible tragedy. Obvious false prophet.

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Probably a case of government overreach as well. The government rolling in with tanks and a lot of innocent, well not innocent, well of the people that were killed.

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Innocent lives. David Koresh not innocent, but how many of the kids growing up there? Right? Deceived people by the prophet.

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How much damage can a false prophet do? Well there's a picture of it in smoke, right?

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But you look at Bethel Church in California and you say, well okay, if someone prophesies that Aunt Sue has a bad shoulder that God's going to heal at least she feels loved that they care for her and they pray over her shoulder.

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What harmful thing is coming from Bethel Church? Well, it's a false prophet.

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Yeah, but he's only prophesying good things. But it's not true. Oh, truth matters so much to you.

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Amen, brother. With a capital T. It matters because it's true. Now, here's the thing.

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What seems to be harmless is a destructive heresy that introduces greater and greater error.

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How many of you all know that Brian Simmons is one of their prophets there? And Brian Simmons created his own translation of the

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Bible called the Passion Translation in which rather than scholarly work showing the meaning of the

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Greek word as it was given he himself is the only person doing the work.

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Rather than the Lockman Foundation translating the NASB where the greatest scholars in the world come together to collaborate to make sure every word matters.

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No, but by Brian Simmons' gift of prophecy he brings forth the translation, the

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TPT that he regards as being a faithful translation of the

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Word of God. Now do you see how destructive it gets? A lot of people will be led astray by false translation of God's Holy Word.

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Truth matters. It's worse than that. Brian Simmons has now prophesied that he has the 22nd chapter of the book of John.

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Sounding a lot like Joseph Smith to me. Do you see how deep the rabbit trail starts to go?

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And so, 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 1 when it says, false prophets also rose among the people just as there will be false teachers among you.

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Do they look? Do they wear wolf clothes? Or sheep clothes?

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Sheep clothes. Who will secretly bring in destructive heresies even denying the master who bought them.

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Bringing upon themselves swift destruction. So this, what we see in Daniel chapters 2 verses 1 to 4 is not just from ancient

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Babylon, it's with us to this day. False prophets will abound.

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And as the last days approach, we'll see more and more of them. Matthew 24, many coming in Christ's name even.

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Or some of them claiming eventually to be the Messiah as David Koresh did. Alright.

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Let's look at verses 5 to 6. I love that God is already beginning to work in Nebuchadnezzar.

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That he would not just accept the prophetic gifting of these men that for so long he's trusted.

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Says in verse 5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans The word is firm from me.

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I mean, there's a resolve in that. Something just clicked in his brain. He's been listening to these guys for so long and now he says, he just stops.

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The word is firm from me. He makes up his mind if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation

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You shall be torn limb from limb and your houses laid in ruins.

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Something snapped. That is not just the way he talks to his friends. He turned from a friend to the man who's threatening to tear them limb from limb.

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What happened in Nebuchadnezzar there? What do you suppose? Yeah, that's what it is.

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Yeah, something clicked in him where he realized these guys are frauds.

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I can't believe them. Well, here's the thing. Testability and objectivity are elements of what's your word?

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Truth. Truth. That's important. Words have to clarify and correspond to reality as it is.

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This is what we call in philosophy, the correspondence view of truth. Truth is not subjective.

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Words are not to just be malleable to whatever the individual wants them to mean. Truth is the correspondence of words to a reality as it is.

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And if there's a reality as it is, it can be testable. It's objective. It's not just this subjective feeling.

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It's something objective. Aren't we to just take what someone says in the name of the

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Lord? Rick, could you turn to 1 Corinthians 14, 29. Oh, 29, you're right.

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Yeah, 29. Rick, or you could look up the next one. 1

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Corinthians 14, 29. Let two or three prophets speak and let the others weigh what they say.

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So should we just take a quote -unquote prophecy for what the person says, or do we have a responsibility to test?

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The word weigh means test, right? Now, there's debate between what is even meant by prophecy here.

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I'll say it's not just clairvoyance, where somebody claims to just know something random in order to validate himself.

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In the case of Agabus, let's look at those two examples, and I think that can clearly be an example of New Testament prophecy.

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Turn and Bob, could you get Acts 11, 27 to 30? And then, Sue, could you be 21, 10 to 12?

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These are two New Testament prophecies that are given by Agabus. The prophets and the apostles form the foundation of the church, according to Ephesians 2 .20.

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What that prophetic gift looks like going forward as we see in 1

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Corinthians 14 .29, and in 1 Thessalonians 5, where it says do not despise prophecies, but test the prophet.

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Hold on to what is good, and abstain from every form of evil. There is a testing requirement, which means that what's being said has to be testable.

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Alright, so Bob, could you read this prophecy from Acts 11, 27 to 30? Take your time.

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Acts 11, 27 to 30, a prophecy from a man named Agabus. During this time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

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One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire

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Roman world. This happened during the reign of Clarius.

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The disciples, each according to his ability, decided to provide help for the brothers living in Judea.

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This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.

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Alright, in that prophecy, it's objective and it's testable. There will be a famine.

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And this he's referring to soon. Start taking the offering of the collection now, get ready it's coming, and then send it.

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If they do this and no famine comes, why did you say that?

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You're a false prophet. You're here telling us that you're speaking for God, but it didn't happen. Right, testable and objective.

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I'm not pointing at you, I'm saying if Agabus' prophecy didn't come true, then he's a false prophet.

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And it did, right then and it was purposeful for the protection of the church.

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It would provide for those who would have likely starved to death in that situation. A second time he appears.

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We have no reason to think this is a different Agabus, because Luke's telling the story and he relates Agabus as the only appearing prophet twice in the text.

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Probably the same one although we can't prove that. 21, 10 -12

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This is the second appearance of Agabus. Acts 21, verses 10 -12

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Thus says the Holy Spirit so shall the Jews in Jerusalem find the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the

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Gentiles. Very good. It's objective and it's testable.

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You're going down to Jerusalem here's what's going to happen when you get there. The Jews are going to bind you and hand you over.

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Now interestingly, Wayne Grudem has a whole section in his systematic theology about whether or not this was exactly and precisely the case.

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Because as it turned out, the Jews tried to kill him and the Romans were the ones who came and bound him and then took him on trial.

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So there's a slight discrepancy there that maybe the text is communicating that and maybe it's not.

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So you can read MacArthur and Grudem back and forth on that point. The point though is in the case of Daniel here he's giving a statement about the future which is testable and objective.

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These things are going to happen and more than that it's got a purpose. And what was the purpose as we said earlier?

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Who did that benefit? Did it validate Agabus the man? No, it prepared

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Paul and it was for the good of the church. So we move on to chapter 2 verse 7 and notice now the tactics of a false prophet.

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False prophets have to control the narrative and the parameters, the definitions and the rules of their game.

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It's the nature of a charade, right? If the magician doesn't have his set up on the stage and his rules to do his trick then it won't function.

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That's why the faith healer spends so much time on stage with a mass of people where he can call out and say somebody just was healed of Crohn's disease and someone with Crohn's disease says

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I'm healed and comes running forward and testifies I'm healed and jumps on the stage and everybody says he's healed of Crohn's disease until tomorrow.

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Because anybody can say that while he's controlling the rules of the game but he's not so good at going to the children's hospital in Philadelphia where the patient with Crohn's disease is and in the waiting room saying the

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Lord Jesus Christ heals you and then he goes in to be tested and finds there's no more Crohn's disease that's where the faith healer should spend his time in my opinion but you have to control the rules of your game if you're a false prophet and look what happens in verse 7 they answered a second time and said let the king tell us his servants the dream what are they trying to do control the rules of the game under these new rules they're impotent they can't tell him what he dreamed he objectively knows he has that etched in his mind and it's troubling his spirit he knows if he tells them the dream they'll make something up and he's figured that out so he's saying

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I will not tell you what I dreamed if you're such an enchanter if you have this direct line with God you tell me what

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I dreamt and then I'll trust your interpretation isn't that amazing they're still trying to control the rules of the game because it's fake they can't do it under these parameters verses 8 and 9 false prophets are expert dissemblers they're good with language dissembling but when their mask comes off the disillusion will hold them in disdain how many people have gone to the faith healer and got all excited and worked up and heard the word of prophecy and later hold them in disdain meanwhile the masses go on thinking some great healing has happened some great prophecy was given and yet in the wreckage there's a body count behind the bus 8 and 9 the king answered and said

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I know with certainty that you're just trying to gain time he's got them figured out because you see that the word from me is firm if you do not make the dream known to me there's but one sentence for you you've agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change therefore tell me the dream and I will know that you can show me the interpretation now the final part of this lesson is that these false prophets down deep at least they know that they're false they kind of know what they need to know but they don't believe that there's anything true and the transition here is from the false prophecies of these false prophets to the introduction of Daniel who's going to come in and bring true prophecy so let's look at verse 10 and 11 false prophets assume there are actually no true prophets the

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Chaldeans answered the king and said there's not a man on earth who can meet the king's demand for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician they're still buttering him up expert dissemblers no great all the ones before you have never asked something like this it's totally unreasonable verse 11 the thing that the king asks is difficult and no one and I love this because it's just setting up to show the contrast between false prophecy and genuine prophecy which is focused on Jesus it's for the sake of the name that is above every name and what they're doing they say listen now no one can show it to the king except the gods whose dwelling is not with flesh yeah and I miss the mark there verse on your notes verse 12 is actually where next week begins we'll pick up there

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I think I'm teaching next week okay I'll pick up there next week in verse 12 but notice here through 11 the real prophecy involves

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God actually being near even in the flesh that's the contrast in verse 11 what do they say

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I mean you'd have to hear from God to know that um isn't that the point of what you say you do only the gods could tell us this like what you dreamed that was the first real prophecy yeah right and that's the point yes that's their first real prophecy

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I love that John and they say whose dwelling is not with flesh what's the spirit of genuine prophecy the testimony of Jesus Christ God in flesh that's their first real prophecy

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John well said there is a God who draws near he's gonna draw near to Daniel and Shadrach Meshach Abednego he is the true

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God of Israel he will be with Daniel in the lion's den he will be the fourth man in the fiery furnace with men and ultimately

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Jesus is God in flesh ironically these false prophets say well the gods their dwelling is not with flesh how much more is the true

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God able to come in flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and that is what genuine prophecy is all about revelation 1910 then

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I fell down at his feet to worship him speaking of an angel but the angel said to John you must not do that church there is a humility that needs to characterize those who walk on holy ground not to assume for oneself a spiritual status above what

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God has given and false prophets are quick to say they speak for God but they are walking on holy ground prophecy is not something flippant what is prophecy he says

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I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus worship

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God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy what we are going to see beginning next week is genuine prophecy where God speaks through a man in this case it is going to be

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Daniel a genuine prophet he will give the king a picture of what is coming in the future who but God knows what is coming in the future genuine prophets get that from God they walk on holy ground to speak for God and in the church too many people claim a gift of prophecy claiming to speak for God when they are doing no such thing it is a very dangerous path that people go down the real prophecy is what testifies of Christ it is for the glory of Jesus it is for the good of his bride, the church it is not for the building up of a man that you would fall down at his feet and worship him

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I think that is what happens in these faith healing episodes it is always exalting the man and the glory does not in that case go to Jesus Christ you will find people running all over this country to get a word from God they will go to the prophet quote on quote prophet to hear from God when all along hears your word from God this is what you need, the word of God this is the highest authority and anything that a man says pales in comparison to what

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God says I think the thing I appreciated about Billy Graham was he was constantly saying the

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Bible says that was the power of his preaching in any place where he may have erred in his older years the power of his preaching when people did come to Christ was by the word it was the testimony of Jesus that was prophetic in that sense of preaching the word

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I think John MacArthur a cessationist speaks prophetically in the sense that it means here to give the testimony of Jesus to unpack

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God's holy word Spurgeon would talk about many prophetic instances in his preaching that are beyond our understanding very specific things that brought conviction of sin in people unto repentance that they would get saved

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I'm open to that I think that is something that we should even eagerly pursue when we're teaching we want to speak words that are taught by the

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Holy Spirit it's not my job as an expositor of the word to open

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Daniel chapter 2 and read verses 1 -11 20 times

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I actually don't think that's what we see in Ezra as the priest gives the meaning explains the sense of it the application the preacher has a role in expounding what the text says and bringing sharp application to the lives of the people so to talk about Bethel Church and to say be on guard against false prophets in that sense it's the

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Holy Spirit teaching through the word what to look for it's not claiming some authority from me it's saying compare this with that that's not testable that's vague and it's not even falsifiable versus the prophecies of the bible look like this and that's how we handle the text so a preacher rightly handling the word is speaking prophetically making application to the lives of people yeah people who may be well respected and cared about the word of God I'm thinking of Howard Campion for years faithfully and yet he went against one principle and that is

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Christ's words no one knows it day or the hour nine minutes time only the father and so we've had him and we've had other ones and we're strong teachers of the word of God go off in that area so anytime somebody comes and says well the end is going to be next week we can see signs that it's coming for ourselves

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I don't know the day or the hour and I can't tell if I don't know when it's coming do you think Jesus comes to you and says yeah they did 2000 years ago also

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I don't know that I know one thing things that we see in the culture happening are going to be towards the end because as it was in the days of Noah so those truths

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I know from God's word but I have to also be very careful to say when it is because I don't know right very good

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Rod so many times the false prophet claims the second coming what time that will be Jehovah's Witnesses and even

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Seventh Day Adventists were founded on those kind of false prophecies it's just very common

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Mormonism had those kind of claims as well Joseph Smith said 1890s never happened just again and again this happens so John I'm going to ask you to close in prayer but the big idea here is to be critical of what so often passes for quote unquote prophecy

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Lord we come to you as your children we come to you as your children who having turned to you and professed you and confessed you we have received the gift of the

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Holy Spirit and it's that power within us that allows us to discern truth we don't discern it by ourselves we discern it by you

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Lord we pray that we would never ever grow tired or weary or complacent but we would always test the truth in accordance with you we would be satisfied with nothing less thank you

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Lord that we do have your word thank you Lord that we do have your spirit thank you Lord that we do have men that can stand up and exposit the scriptures and instruct us so that we walk with you not to gain glory for themselves or to have any false motive

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Lord we need you we need your true word give us Lord your discernment we pray in Jesus name