WWUTT 735 Q&A Prophecy Pirates?

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

There is a very common teaching in charismaticism that you need to pray and ask God for a vision.

00:07

And whatever He puts in your head, that came from God, and you share it with somebody else and that's prophecy.

00:13

Only it's not when we understand the text. This is

00:25

When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

00:33

Find all our videos and resources at www .wutt .com. Here once again is

00:38

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. So, once again, I threw Ms. Sonya off.

00:44

Oh, yeah. And once again, I called her Ms. Sonya instead of Sonya. You did. You did again. Hi, Sonya.

00:50

I didn't have the Old Testament study up in time on Thursday. No. As we embarked upon a new book study.

00:58

It is now the book of Nehemiah. It is up now. I just didn't have it up until later in the afternoon.

01:04

Yeah, those girls, they don't like to sleep. Nope. The girls have kept us up. I've been sick this week.

01:10

Yeah. Still a little congested. Still fighting that a little bit, too. So, it was late getting up on Thursday, but it's there now.

01:18

Woo -hoo. And we're actually. So, listen twice. You can get two today. You get two.

01:23

If you didn't listen to the Old Testament study yesterday. So, right now, we're recording this episode just hours after I had posted a new what video?

01:35

Oh, right. And it was on a sermon that Matt Chandler just preached about prophecy and his text being out of 1

01:42

Corinthians chapter 14. Now, before we get to some of the comments that we've been getting on the video,

01:49

I'm going to play the video. It's only been hours. It's only been online for like four hours now or something like that.

01:56

And we're getting some unhappy comments. So, I'm going to play the video and we'll respond to some of these comments.

02:04

So, there's been some encouraging comments in there as well. All right. Here's the video as you would find it on our what page.

02:15

A pastor told his congregation to speak prophecy to one another, but his definition of prophecy included visions of sharks and pirate ships.

02:22

Lord, what would you want me to encourage Danny with? And then I quiet again, trying to listen, and then automatically in my head, there's a picture of a ship, a pirate ship.

02:32

There's like cannons on the pirate ship and there's a shark chasing the pirate ship.

02:37

Prophecy is not praying for people and then sharing whatever random stuff pops in your head. The Bible says if someone speaks in the name of the

02:43

Lord and it doesn't come true, they've spoken presumptuously and it isn't from God. What if we're only talking to ourselves?

02:50

What if we're like, okay, Lord, will you show me somebody and somebody pop in our head and that's just us?

02:56

So what? Oh no, you're going to encourage somebody. Right? Like why would that be this terrible thing?

03:04

And then what if I'm wrong? Those are the two big things that just haunt, what if we get it wrong and they stone me to death?

03:12

I already said that's not the kind of prophecy we're making. So it's okay to lie to people and take the Lord's name in vain as long as it's positive and encouraging.

03:19

On the contrary, the Bible says, speak the truth with your neighbor and don't grieve the Holy Spirit. What the pastor is unintentionally arguing is that scripture isn't sufficient.

03:28

All the promises of God given in his word through his son, Jesus are not enough. And we need personal revelations of sharks and pirate ships in order to encourage someone.

03:37

The Bible is the prophetic word fully confirmed when we understand the text. So there's the video, your thoughts?

03:49

Uh, I'm a bit speechless. So a lot of the comments that we're getting on Facebook are largely related to you're taking him out of context, things like that.

03:59

I listened to the whole sermon. There were actually weirder things that he said in the sermon than that, but to fit it into a 90 second video would have been a lot more difficult.

04:10

Plus some of the things that he was mentioning were very personal. And I felt like the point was going to be lost if I was confronting a personal thing that he was sharing.

04:21

This is a very common teaching. This doesn't just come from Matt Chandler. There are a number of pastors who teach just like this, who say that you pray and you ask

04:31

God to reveal you something and something pops into your head and you share that with somebody else and that's what they call prophecy.

04:38

That's their definition of prophecy. That's how scripture regards prophecy when it tells us that we have a gift of prophecy that we're supposed to be using for the edification of believers.

04:49

All right. So that's why I chose that section of the sermon to confront that in a video.

04:56

Not because I'm trying to dog on Matt Chandler. If you'll notice that in the actual script of the video,

05:02

I never mentioned his name. You know that's who that is because I used his face, but actually not saying the problem here is

05:10

Matt Chandler. This teaching is what the problem is and it's a very common teaching and because Chandler has done it, there's going to be a lot of other pastors doing it too.

05:20

Yeah, follow suit. Definitely. Yeah, especially since at the beginning of this sermon, Chandler quote mines the early church fathers, takes them out of context.

05:29

What does that mean? Quote mine. Well, he grabs various quotes from various church fathers and tries to use these as evidences that the gifts of the

05:39

Holy Spirit, the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit specifically were continuing through those first few centuries of the church.

05:45

So the idea of cessationism that all of these miraculous sign gifts came to an end at the close of Canon or when the apostle

05:53

John died at the end of the first century, he's saying that is an unbiblical concept because we still see the miraculous sign gifts continuing through those first few centuries of the early church and again citing the church fathers to support that.

06:09

So we quote mines those church fathers. He takes them out of context and I'm going to address that here in just a moment because that has to do with one of the comments that we received.

06:17

Oh, okay. But he doesn't just do that with the church fathers. He does that with the scriptures as well.

06:22

And he will grab passages that will mention being filled with the Holy Spirit and he insists this has something to do with having a supernatural gift that you can then exercise in the church.

06:34

But that's not what Paul's talking about there at all. An example of this would be in Ephesians 5 where it says, do not be drunk with wine or do not be filled with wine that leads to debauchery, but be filled with the

06:46

Holy Spirit. And Chandler is saying this is a call to the supernatural. Well, sure. It's a call to the supernatural, but not supernatural sign gifts.

06:53

The contrast there, and I've even said this on the podcast earlier this week, is not to be filled with earthly things that are temporary and lead to sin, but be filled with the

07:05

Holy Spirit, which leads to holiness and is eternally gratifying. That's the point there.

07:11

It has nothing to do with having supernatural ability that has been granted by the

07:16

Holy Spirit. So, he misuses scripture at the beginning of the sermon, misuses the early church fathers, and then the rest of the sermon, which is like a good half of it, is based almost entirely on personal experience.

07:32

Even the definition that he gives of prophecy is very feelings based.

07:38

It's not scripturally based. He says that a bunch of guys and him were sitting around the room and came up with this definition of prophecy.

07:45

It's not even according to what scripture says prophecy is, and he doesn't come to the

07:51

Bible to give any examples of this kind of prophecy out of the Bible, this kind of prophecy that he's explaining here, the pirate ships and sharks popping into your head.

08:00

He doesn't draw that from scripture. It's entirely on his own experience. I prayed and asked

08:06

God for this, and that's what popped into my head. And then you're supposed to come back to the Bible and test that to see if it was indeed from God.

08:13

And he even mentions that. Like he even draws from 1 Thessalonians 5 where Paul said, test everything, abhor what is evil, and hold fast to what is good.

08:22

He uses that passage, but it's as though he's validating this version of prophecy that he's presenting before his congregation.

08:31

And it is a very common continuationist idea of prophecy.

08:37

I deal with this on almost a daily basis of people coming to me saying, well,

08:42

God told me, he put it in my head, I asked him for something, he gave me a vision of this.

08:48

And when you press a person for that, you'll say, really, God told you? And they'll say, well, it's not like I heard an audible voice.

08:54

There wasn't an audible voice in my head. And Chandler does the same thing in this sermon. It's not like God is audibly speaking to you, but he's showing you things in pictures.

09:04

And really, what's the difference? What's the difference between hearing an audible voice of God and asking

09:11

God for something and getting a picture in your head and insisting that that's God? It's the same thing.

09:16

Right. You're putting it on the same person, which is God. You're saying God is the one who gave me this, whether it's an audible voice or a picture in your mind.

09:25

And it's simply not a biblical understanding. It is not the way prophecy works in scripture at all. When God spoke to a prophet, it was clearly

09:33

God speaking. Right. And like when he was the burning bush or he was the donkey talking or.

09:40

Well, he wasn't talking. He wasn't the donkey talking. But you know what I mean? Right. It was an obvious that this was.

09:46

Yeah. Either it was a dream, a vision or speaking audibly through a blinding light as he did to Paul.

09:54

No matter what it was, it was clearly God speaking. And if what was prophesied came to pass, well, of course it did, because it was

10:03

God. Whatever God prophesied happened. But if it was something that a person claimed that came from God and it didn't come to pass, then according to Deuteronomy 18, that person has spoken presumptuously and it did not come from God.

10:20

Right. And as my friend Tom Buck preached in his own church this past Sunday, when he was preaching on the third commandment, if you attribute anything to being from God that is not from God, that's blasphemy.

10:33

It's taking God's name in vain. Right. And you have selfish intentions with that.

10:40

Now, Chandler is going to say, no, we don't. We're trying to bless other people with it. Right. But you have this very selfish, feelings -based version and understanding of what prophecy is, and you're claiming that your thoughts are actually

10:53

God's thoughts. And so that's vanity. It's taking the Lord's name in vain. It's attributing something to God that he did not say.

11:01

That's why this is serious. And Chandler even presents there, what's the problem if we're encouraging people?

11:07

It's not okay to encourage people with lies. Right. This is... This is the thing that we come...

11:13

What you win them to is what... Right. What you win them with is what you win them to. There you go. If you're going to win them with lies, you are encouraging...

11:21

It's okay. It's okay to tell a little white lie sometimes as long as it's encouraging someone else.

11:27

It's not trusting in the sovereignty and providence of God. It's believing that I need to take matters into my own hands and I need to do it this way because what

11:36

God has given me simply isn't good enough. Isn't enough. Yes. So that's the problem with this kind of teaching.

11:43

And it doesn't just come from Chandler. Just Chandler's the most recent iteration of it. And people who are reformed are going to love it because it came from Matt Chandler because they believe

11:54

Matt Chandler is reformed or Calvinist. Chandler's really not actually on the reformed side of things.

12:00

It's a misunderstanding of what reformed is. He is confessionally

12:05

Calvinist, but that doesn't mean he's reformed. Right. That's a little more complicated. Maybe I'll get to that as I continue on here because that comes up in some of these comments.

12:13

Oh, okay, good. So after posting this video, we've received some comments on Facebook. And again, this is just comments we've gotten the last few hours.

12:23

The comments are disabled on Facebook. So if you're seeing comments on Facebook, it's because they've been approved and they're posted.

12:31

But there are a lot of other comments that if you went to our Facebook page, you wouldn't see. Right. There's a workaround that we can use.

12:38

You might be thinking, wait a minute, when did Facebook install an option to be able to turn comments off?

12:44

Well, they didn't. But we can flag comments with certain words in them.

12:50

And so we've basically just flagged it so that if anybody posts anything, it won't be publicly viewable.

12:58

It's viewable to the person who posted it and to their friends. But not everybody else can see it. Well, I'm knocking my mic here.

13:06

Not everybody can see it. So if the comment is there and you're reading it, it's because it's been approved by somebody.

13:12

But when you write a comment, you can see it. Not everybody else can. And we do that because and this has even happened even among those comments that we've approved.

13:23

Somebody will try to like just they'll get obsessed and they'll go berserk and they'll post like 20 comments.

13:30

Oh, it's like, dude, calm down. And they'll act like they've become the moderator of our

13:36

Facebook video or whatever. And so they have to respond to everybody else's comment to make sure we know or make sure that person knows

13:44

Gabe's being dishonest when we understand the text is misrepresenting Matt Chandler. So that's why we control that.

13:51

And I wish you could just turn comments off altogether. I totally would seize that option, which, of course, we've done on YouTube.

13:57

But anyway, here's those comments that we've got. And I still read the comments, even though I may not approve them publicly or the web master may not approve them publicly.

14:06

But this first one comes from Josh, who is in Texas, and he is a pastor.

14:13

As a matter of fact, he says, if scripture is sufficient as you claim to believe that it is, what evidence from those scriptures can you offer us to support the idea that prophecies undermine the sufficiency or the authority of scripture?

14:27

Well, prophecy itself does not undermine the sufficiency of the authority of scripture because prophecy comes from God.

14:33

But this thing that Chandler has done, I think, is pretty self -explanatory how it undermines the sufficiency of scripture.

14:40

I explained it at the end of the video. If you think that offering the word of God to somebody for encouragement is not enough and you need pictures of pirate ships and sharks, you're saying the scripture isn't sufficient to meet somebody's need.

14:55

And so I need these ambiguous visions in order to encourage somebody. So your claim is that scripture is not sufficient.

15:03

Now, I'm very clear to state there that Chandler inadvertently is arguing this.

15:09

I don't think he's blatantly standing out there and say, hey, folks, scripture is not enough.

15:16

So we need this. And that's not what he's saying. And that's not the claim I made in the video either, lest anybody wants to accuse me of that.

15:22

So that's the argument that comes out in what he's presenting, whether or not he means to say that.

15:28

He's saying, folks, scripture is just not enough for us to be able to encourage one another. So let's let's pray for random visions and then let's go play.

15:37

And that's actually the term he uses in the in the sermon. He says, this is an invitation to play so we can mess around, which is incredibly irreverent.

15:46

It's not taking God's word seriously. It's vanity because you want to say that your thoughts are actually

15:52

God's thoughts. It's also isogetical because you're imposing yourself on the text. Matt Chandler wants this to be the definition of prophecy, and he is imposing that onto the text.

16:04

Robert says, here's a comment from Robert. You can have divine revelation outside of scripture.

16:10

Nope. There there is nothing in scripture that says that you are being given divine revelations.

16:17

In fact, what we have said to us in scripture is actually the opposite. Right. Hebrews one one long ago at many times and in many ways,

16:26

God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.

16:33

We have everything spoken to us by God that we would ever need in the

16:39

Bible. And you don't need anything else. Period. Right.

16:44

There is no need for divine revelation outside of scripture. Therefore, God has no reason to have to give it to us.

16:52

Right. Next comment. This one comes from Phil. Listen to the whole sermon. This video is incredibly misleading.

16:59

I've loved 99 % of Pastor Gabe's videos, but this is incredibly misleading. I just hope it's not intentional.

17:05

Explain the testimony of the church fathers to the miraculous gifts some 500 years after the apostles.

17:11

Cessationism is like KJV only ism. It's not in the Bible. Well, the funny thing is that in my what video,

17:20

I never even make a claim about cessationism. Right. So Phil has drawn that conclusion. That's not anything that I said.

17:27

OK, so this I and like I said at the beginning of the sermon, Chandler quote some of the church fathers and he quote minds them.

17:36

So he just kind of grabs the section of quotes that he wants. And I'm going to speculate here a little bit.

17:41

I believe that he got the quotes that he used from Andrew Wilson. And the reason why

17:47

I think so is because Chandler actually quoted Andrew Wilson. And I've seen Andrew Wilson make the same defense for the continuation of the miraculous sign gifts through the early first centuries of the church using those same quotes from the early church fathers that came from Andrew Wilson.

18:05

It was just earlier this year. I've contacted Andrew about this, but he did not respond to me.

18:11

And this was in a nutshell what I said. Projecting this debate about continuationism versus cessationism onto the church fathers is anachronistic, meaning that we're trying to take comments from the early church fathers 1800 to 1600 years ago and put them into our modern cessationism versus continuationism debate as though what they wrote was speaking specifically into would speak specifically into our present day context.

18:38

And it doesn't. You can't just quote mind the early church fathers. There needs to be a deeper understanding of their writing than that.

18:45

Furthermore, guys like Cyprian actually wrote that the spiritual gifts were the miraculous spiritual sign gifts.

18:54

He wrote that they were declining. So you can find a quote from origin of Alexandria writing in the late second century to early third century about supernatural gifts from God happening in the church.

19:09

You can find that quote from origin, but make sure you read it in context because he goes on to say that these gifts are mere traces compared to what they were during the apostolic period in the first century.

19:22

So even these early church fathers are recognizing, yeah, there's still some occasions in which these supernatural things are happening, but it's hardly any anymore.

19:31

And it's gradually diminishing as the church continues to grow and flourish. Yeah. And so I actually don't deny that there may have been a continuation of these supernatural things even during those first few centuries of the church.

19:45

But during the apostolic era, we see a diminishing of those miraculous sign gifts. Why wasn't the apostle

19:51

Paul able to heal Timothy of his frequent stomach ailments? Why didn't Paul heal himself when he came to Galatia and was sick and had to stop and ended up planting a church?

20:00

There are occasions even within the New Testament in which those miraculous sign gifts were not just something that could be used in any occasion.

20:09

It was given by the Holy Spirit and used as he willed to confirm the message that was being shared came from God.

20:19

And so we read in Hebrews chapter two, verses three and four, the message of this great salvation was declared at first by the

20:28

Lord. And it was attested to us by those who heard while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the

20:38

Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. And it's possible, it's according to the will of the spirit that in the second and third centuries, he was still affirming the gospel through miraculous sign gifts.

20:53

Since in many places there still was not a completed canon or the word of God was not as readily accessible to everybody in the world as it is available to us now.

21:06

Maybe the Holy Spirit was still affirming that message through miraculous sign gifts. I don't deny that.

21:12

And I've read a significant amount of the early church fathers enough to know that when Chandler was quoting from them, he was taking them out of context.

21:20

That wasn't totally what they had to say about the supernatural things. Furthermore, our early church fathers are about as trustworthy as any pastor today.

21:31

We learn church history from them and they can teach us theological things even all these many centuries later, but they're not the apostles.

21:41

So whatever the early church fathers said is not scripture. Right. And there were early church fathers that loved this idea of the

21:50

Holy Spirit working in supernatural ways so much so that they would fall into some false ideas.

21:56

Sometimes Tertullian was one of them. He was snookered by the heretical Montanists because he wanted, he desired to have some sort of Holy Spirit apostolic movement in his day.

22:09

And so he got sucked into the Montanists. The Montanists were basically, they were like the Bethel church of their day.

22:15

Oh, okay. And you also take a guy like Irenaeus who was an extremely gifted orator and teacher, but Irenaeus thought

22:26

Jesus died in his fifties. So if you're going to draw from Irenaeus as an example of continuationism, he's not a more credible source than the word of God.

22:38

Right. These guys were just as fallible as anybody. And so the early church fathers are not a strong defense for continuationism.

22:50

Next comment, this one comes from Jared in Texas. He says, so we're eating our own now? No, of course not.

22:56

I didn't even call Matt Chandler a false teacher in that video. All I'm singling out is a very common continuationist teaching that's wrong.

23:06

It is wrong and it misleads people. I'm not saying, I'm not telling anybody to not listen to Chandler anymore.

23:13

I happen to catch that Chandler is going to be teaching on the book of John starting in August. You know what?

23:18

I hope it's a great series and I hope it is very edifying for the church in the village church down in Texas.

23:26

And I hope that Chandler is able to get back to some expositional teaching and get out of the social justice stuff that he's been in for the course of the last year.

23:35

Uh, so this is not devouring Matt Chandler. He made a comment that is a very common continuationist teaching.

23:44

And I wanted to make sure that you knew this is not biblical. Right. The next comment, this one comes from Justin in Missouri, also a pastor.

23:55

Usually you're pretty on point, but Matt Chandler is almost as reformed as it comes.

24:01

And you clearly took what he is saying out of context. How do I know? Because I listened to the entire sermon. He is not declaring thus says the

24:09

Lord. Let me address that comment first before I address the reformed comment. So Chandler even says in this sermon, this is not about the sayeth the

24:20

Lord and I'll play the clip here. Okay, let's talk about this, that the gift of prophecy is given to the church according to this text to build up, to encourage and to console.

24:31

So let's talk about what prophecy is and what prophecy isn't. The thus sayeth the

24:37

Lord, look right at me, is over. Look at me. When this text is talking about prophecy, it's not talking about the way

24:46

Jeremiah prophesied or Isaiah prophesied. I don't know that that's closed. That's canonized.

24:53

So you will never prophesy in a way that's on par equal to anywhere near the inerrant and fallible word of God.

25:00

That's closed shut. And so the best you've got, the best you've got is the humility to say,

25:06

I think the Lord would have me lay this before you. And even then, only in so much as it would encourage and build up.

25:13

So look at me. God will never give you a prophetic word for your stingy, selfish sister about how

25:18

God's going to destroy her if she doesn't repent. It's not how prophecy works, but that's how selfish people use it, isn't it?

25:25

Man, I had a dream about you last night. All right, I'll stop. That's a strange place to stop.

25:31

But anyway, the thing about it is, though, is that God will give you a prophetic word for your sinful, stingy sister that needs to hear repentance.

25:42

Almost definitely. I mean, it's Jesus in Matthew 4, 17 saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

25:49

Right? That's absolutely a word that you should share with somebody who is in sin. And that is out of love. It's not just sending them on their way and telling them to straighten up.

25:57

It's not the same. It is out of love. You want them to. So that way they would come back to God.

26:05

Straighten up. I mean, just turn from your sin, your eternal soul, turn from your sin before it destroys you and you stand before him in judgment.

26:14

That's an encouraging and a loving word. It is a goodwilled admonishment that we have been called and instructed to give to one another.

26:22

So if there's any kind of prophecy that is going to be going on today, that's what it would be.

26:28

It'd be using the word of God to prophesy. And it's in this context that I've heard Paul Washer say, a pastor is a prophet or he is nothing.

26:37

Whenever the gospel is proclaimed and whenever prophecy from the scripture is announced, because there is still prophecy in the scripture.

26:46

There are things in the scripture that have yet to come to fulfillment. Has Jesus come back yet?

26:51

Then there's still prophecy that we can be proclaiming. It's right here in the scriptures. And when those prophecies are proclaimed, it's accomplishing something in the hearts of believers who are following Christ.

27:03

They are growing in sanctification. And in those who are not followers of Christ, hopefully the

27:09

Holy Spirit is moving in their hearts to convict them of their sin, that they might repent and come to follow

27:14

Jesus Christ. But this is a prophecy that is going forth that is accomplishing something in the hearts of people whom the

27:21

Holy Spirit means to accomplish something in. So this is still prophecy. This is still a proclamation of the word of God of a coming judgment of salvation that has come to all people.

27:34

We still are called to prophesy, but it comes from the word of God. It's not some new fancy voice or picture or vision that you are given in your head, which by the way, this is a very

27:45

Beth Moorish thing to say. Because we've got the... That's become a thing.

27:51

Well, yeah, I mean, we've got the one what video with her saying, you know, God speaks to me by putting a picture in my head.

27:59

Chandler's saying the same thing. He's doing the same thing that Beth Moore does. And this is like her deal.

28:06

It's like if she's not having some sort of vision or voice from God, then she's lost her platform or something.

28:15

Repenting. Yeah. Anyway, so when Chandler says there at the start of that clip, you know, this is not thus sayeth the

28:25

Lord. You know, and this person who commented on Facebook is coming to his defense saying Chandler was clear to clarify, clear to clarify.

28:34

Chandler was sure to clarify. There you go. That this is not thus sayeth the Lord. Then what is it?

28:41

Because he's clearly wanting to attribute a picture that he has in his head to God.

28:47

And he... But he begins in prayer and then it just kind of goes away like he doesn't bring it back to God anywhere else.

28:57

He doesn't ever bring it back to God. Well, it's yeah, it's encouraging someone else.

29:03

Because he starts with prayer. He starts with prayer. But but it's I mean, there's a point in that prayer where your mind is no longer on God.

29:11

I guess that is that what you're getting at? Yeah, that's what I mean. Like it anyway. Yeah. There's a point in the prayer where the mind is no longer on God.

29:18

It's now in this other person and showing them some sort of vision or fancy or random thought that's coming to your head. I mean, honestly, yeah, the meditation is gone from being on God to something of the flesh rather than something of the spirit.

29:30

See, that's what I mean. And it doesn't bring it back to God. Right. There's no full circle in it.

29:37

So it's not edifying of God at all, even though it starts with prayer. It's not glorifying. There you go.

29:43

Not glorifying of God. Right. Yeah, this has its roots in something that's called the higher life movement that came out of the

29:49

Keswick conventions. The Keswick approach to the Christian life is meant to come up with a spiritual solution to what would otherwise be a subnormal

29:59

Christian experience. Indirectly, whether Chandler wants to admit it or not, he's saying that encouraging one another with prayer and scripture, which are the tools that God has given to us, that's subnormal.

30:12

And we need these extra biblical communications from God in order to really be of good service to one another.

30:19

But then he diminishes what he's claiming by saying, I'm not actually hearing from God. It's not an audible voice from God.

30:25

It's not the sayeth the Lord. It's just a picture he's putting in my head.

30:31

Beth Moore will do this, too. She will say, and then God speaks to me. And it wasn't an audible voice.

30:37

I didn't hear an audible voice from God, but God spoke to me. And it's like, what's the difference?

30:42

What are you talking about? Whether it's an audible voice or you received some message.

30:48

He's still talking to you. He's still communicating something to you. Yeah. And what he's communicating is on par with the

30:55

Bible. It has as much weight. It has as much credibility and authority as anything else you would read from scripture.

31:03

If it came from God, then it's that powerful. And it's odd.

31:09

It's so strange of him or Beth Moore to say something to the effect of, well,

31:15

God speaks to me, but not in an audible voice, as though you're gaining credibility by saying that. It's not

31:20

God actually speaking to me. I don't want you to think I'm crazy. Sorry, that's kind of out the window. As a matter of fact,

31:26

Chandler even uses the word crazy. He said, this is going to sound crazy, but what do we lose?

31:33

It doesn't make any sense to me. If you are personally communicating with God. Just because Chandler has made this caveat, clarification, this is not thus saith the

31:46

Lord, doesn't mean he's not later saying thus saith the

31:51

Lord. And furthermore, though I understand the argument that Chandler's making when he says, thus saith the

31:57

Lord is over. It's not over. When you proclaim what God has said in his scripture, you are saying, thus saith the

32:06

Lord. Yeah. Well, yeah. And that is Christ telling us to go forth with his word, as he said in the great commission, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

32:18

And as Paul said to Timothy, when we were finishing up second Timothy, all scripture is breathed out by God and is useful for training in righteousness, for rebuking one another.

32:28

This is how we have our encouragement. It is from the word of God. We are filled up with an understanding of the hope and the purposes of God and his will and his desire for our lives and the call to holiness and growth in the gospel.

32:44

All of this comes from the word of God. You don't have it any other way. You cannot grow a person in sanctification without God's word.

32:51

We are saved by it. We are grown by it. Right. And so what is even the purpose of this, of this whole thing?

32:58

You know, I saw a pirate ship. Yeah. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it because today's the first time that I haven't heard a clip of it.

33:05

And I just, I just don't even know. I'm still trying to talk it out and hash it out and figure it out.

33:10

And it's like, I don't think that God's word should be this confusing. Yeah. It should be clear and tell me exactly.

33:17

Precisely. Precisely. So I'm just, I don't know what to do with this information. There were certainly things that were given to prophets in the old

33:25

Testament. They didn't understand what they were seeing. That's true. But it was, but, but you're talking about, they still knew they were seeing something supernatural and incredible.

33:37

Right. To the point that it terrified Daniel for two weeks. Right. Until Gabriel could show up and tell him what it was.

33:45

He saw what the meaning of it was. Exactly. So it was still terrifying. This is the difference between somebody sitting in a chair and they're, they're trying to like, oh

33:53

God, give me something. I see a unicorn. This, this, what's this unicorn about?

33:59

I don't know. I'm going to continue to think about this. This is the kind of stuff you read about in Charisma Magazine with Jennifer LeClaire doing her whole sneaky squid spirit thing.

34:08

Oh, that's so weird. That's, that's what this is. That's what I was thinking about when Chandler was even going through this sermon.

34:15

I'm like, man, this is something like you would, you would read about in Charisma Magazine. This is not at all the way

34:20

God works. But at the same time, Chandler never gives any evidence from scripture to support his interpretation of what prophecy is.

34:30

Trying to tell people that this, this is how prophecy works with God putting pictures in your head.

34:35

And your whole purpose of the video wasn't just a dog on Chandler. No, it wasn't. Not by any means.

34:42

What was your purpose then? It was for you to understand that the scripture is sufficient for our every need.

34:47

And just like last week when we were finishing up our Q &A, we were reading the lyrics of that song,

34:55

How Can I Keep From Singing from Robert Lowry. Oh, yeah. I don't want you to choke up and go into tears again. Stop while you're ahead.

35:02

But I drew from 2 Corinthians 1, which is a verse that's been coming to me over and over again this year since we've been in 2

35:09

Corinthians 1. And I'm looking at the whole, I'm looking at that whole book, that whole letter from Paul through that opening passage where he says, blessed be the father of all mercies and the

35:22

God of all comforts who comforts us in all of our afflictions so that we might comfort others in their afflictions.

35:31

And the scriptures give us that. Right. And so, you would know how to rightly use the scriptures to encourage somebody else.

35:40

The scriptures is what is going to enliven a heart or give them a hope and an assurance in an understanding of God's promises through his son.

35:52

Right. Not talking, I don't want to encourage you to go talk about pirate ships. True.

35:57

I want to encourage you to rightly handle the word of truth. To put it into perspective,

36:04

I don't think going to your cousins who have been infected with this salmonella poisoning. Yeah. I don't think it'd be very comforting to them to go to them and tell them, oh,

36:12

I had a vision and this is what it was. I saw a barracuda. Yeah. I'm not sure what that means, but maybe it means you'll be eating fish soon.

36:21

Yeah. It doesn't mean anything. I've been so comforted by prayers and by Bible verses and just the biblical thing.

36:34

People coming and spending time with them. And fellowship and just being there for them, meeting their needs as churches should be doing and focusing on.

36:45

And it's like, I don't understand how going to them in their, I mean, they've been hospitalized.

36:52

Yeah. For a long time now. And several times over the course of the several, several times ER trips.

36:58

Like this is, this is serious salmonella poisoning and it's, it just doesn't make any sense that that would be more comforting than the

37:07

Bible and how would this help them? Yeah. And why do you even need this as an excuse to go over to their house and sit with them and talk?

37:14

Right? Like, like there is no need for this thing that Chandler is presenting. There's no need for it at all.

37:21

Except to play. And except to play. That's exactly right. That's, that's the statement that he puts behind it.

37:28

And people are so hostile over this. The fact that I made a video about it, they're getting so mad, accusing me of misrepresenting

37:37

Chandler of lying, of devouring somebody. You know, that's just simply not true.

37:45

Well, you know, you talk about devouring it. The argument that I've presented with that video is,

37:52

I believe it is gently presented, first of all. But, but in Chandler's sermon, he talks about how cessationism, anybody who would, and he does this at the very beginning of the sermon.

38:03

Okay. Anybody who's going to deny what it is that he's about to say about prophecy is speaking out of their own experience.

38:11

They're not speaking from the Bible. But then he goes on to talk about these prophecies that he uses no scripture to support.

38:18

That's how prophecy works. So how am I the one who is devouring him, but he's not preemptively devouring those people who are going to disagree with what it is that he's about to say.

38:31

Now, I'm not saying he is devouring anybody. No. I'm just saying you can't, I don't understand how you can make that charge of somebody just for disagreeing with them.

38:38

It's perfectly acceptable to critique somebody's statement that is not scripturally valid.

38:47

Right. And we've been called to do that. Right. Test everything. You said it earlier. Yes. Chandler said it in his sermon to test everything.

38:55

Well, I've tested what he said. I listened to the entire sermon and it does not line up with scripture.

39:01

Right. And it simply doesn't go with what the Bible says that prophecy is. This next comment comes from J.

39:08

Adam in Western New York. And this is a funny comment. Okay. All right. I wonder if Pastor Matt's vision of the shark included seeing himself jumping over it on water skis.

39:18

You know, the whole jumping the shark thing. Yeah. Yeah. When it comes to prophecy, this very irreverent view of what prophecy is, it's jumping the shark.

39:32

It is jumping the shark. It's like, okay, now I'm going to take it to the nth level sneaky squid spirit.

39:39

And then you got your whole jumping the shark thing. Another great comment. This is from Thomas in Houston, Texas.

39:45

And this was right after this video was shared. I've been a fan of well, what videos, but just discovered you do a daily

39:53

Bible teaching podcast. Wow. What an amazing resource to have for new and Old Testament study.

40:00

I love your dedication to truth for God's glory. And I hope this encourages you as well.

40:05

Oh, that's sweet. Thank you so much, Thomas. So I wanted to end on some happier comments there.

40:12

Thank you. I appreciate that. Especially for my wife's sake. And we did get some great comments.

40:17

Some very encouraging comments. Elizabeth Prada said, I love it. Thank you. I'm amazed you can so biblically give instruction in 90 seconds and lol on the

40:27

Caleb reference that I made in the video too. That's an image you'd have to see if you watch the video.

40:36

And Scott from Theology Driven. We appreciate those guys.

40:41

Oh, yeah. Thanks for what you do on your podcast. Scott said, I started the sermon with the benefit of the doubt, giving

40:48

Matt the benefit of the doubt. And I ended it with sorrow. So and likewise,

40:54

I'm a guy I've loved Matt Chandler. And I've said this before. When we understand the text came about because of something that Matt Chandler said in his

41:02

God is for God sermon. It was partly inspired, inspired me to take concepts like that in a 50 minute sermon and compress them down into a 90 second video.

41:12

It came from that sermon that he preached at Elevation Church, rebuking the church for the stuff that Stephen Furtick preached.

41:20

And so I've loved Matt Chandler. And yeah, you start things like that wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt.

41:25

But if somebody veers off course, it doesn't matter who it is. Right. Matt Chandler, John MacArthur, John Piper.

41:33

Us. Us. Yeah, sure. I mean, and that's what people are doing with their critiques that they were giving on Facebook.

41:41

They felt like we were veering off course. Yes. But you do have a responsibility to respond to these things, but do it with gentleness.

41:49

Paul's instruction to Timothy in Second Timothy, Chapter two, verse 25. Correct opponents with gentleness.

41:55

And so anytime that we need to correct one another or bring one another to a right.

42:01

And I've gotten things wrong. And there's friends of ours even on Twitter who've approached me about it. I don't think you're quite right on that.

42:07

And I've appreciated it. And I would be willing to listen to anybody's comment as long as they're not coming at me, smacking me upside the head.

42:14

Yeah. Unless I'm truly doing something that needs to be that's smack worthy. Praying that the

42:21

Lord keeps you straight and narrow. Right, exactly. There may be instances where I might need that two by four upside the head.

42:27

But anyway, yeah, bring it in love. Do so with the scriptures and be patient with one another.

42:35

Because as Becky has learned when it comes to talking to me, sometimes you just got to plant the seed.

42:42

And then I'm going to walk away. First, I'm going to deny what it is that she's telling me. I don't think you're right on this.

42:48

Yeah, always. Not always, always. But it's quite funny in those in those occasions where this happened.

42:54

I'll deny. I'll fight with her on it and fight with her in the in the denial sort of way. No, I don't do that.

43:00

Yeah, that's not what I meant by that. Yeah, just disagree. And then I'll walk away from the situation and go, yeah, she's right.

43:09

But it's not always. It's not always. And my wife is always very loving and very gentle with the way that she approaches the things because she knows exactly the way that my mind works probably better than I do.

43:19

Sometimes she just knows how to know how to veer me in the in the right direction,

43:26

I guess. So thank you. You're welcome. Let's conclude with prayer.

43:32

And we will resume with more of our teaching in Titus on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

43:40

Yes. And hopefully I'll remember that we're in Nehemiah next week in our Old Testament study. Let's pray.

43:46

Lord, we thank you for our time together, and we thank you that we can come to your word to receive guidance like this, to be set in a right course, to desire to know you and obey you and follow you according to your will.

44:02

Not what we think is the most fun, playful thing for us to do that that makes following you enjoyable.

44:11

But we find joy in your words, in what you have said. And when you delight in us, that is our joy.

44:18

And so I pray that you would convict our hearts and keep us according to your word. May we rejoice as David did in Psalm 119.

44:28

Lord, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day and that we show ourselves as worthy sons and daughters of God through our obedience of you, because you have paid such a great price for us, giving your son to die on the cross for our sins, that by his shed blood, his sacrifice on the cross, all who believe in him will not perish, but will inherit his eternal life.

44:54

And so I pray that you give us new life, that we might walk in step with the commands of Christ every day, desiring to be made more like him in all that we say and do.

45:05

And this all happens according to your word. As Paul said in Colossians 2, it's in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

45:15

Why would we go outside of that looking for anything better? I pray that you would continue to guide our tongues, that we might speak truth to one another and that we would also do this in a loving way.

45:29

And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Tornadoes.

46:42

Tornadoes? Yeah, there's tornadoes today. Where? Iowa. I'm not sure where else, but...

46:51

Where the corn is as high as an elephant's eye? Um, sure.

46:58

Isn't that Iowa? I thought

47:03

I was totally going to get a correction from you on that. I have no idea what you're talking about. It's Oklahoma.

47:08

You don't know where the corn is as high as an elephant's eye? No. It's the song.

47:14

Oh, what a beautiful morning from Oklahoma. I even sang that song. That's interesting.

47:21

I thought for sure you're going to correct me on that. Nope. Sorry. I'm from Kansas.