Can you say with certainty that the person preaching from the pulpit is truly speaking for the Lord? As our church embarks on a journey to find a new pastor, we sat down with Dr. Jeremy Greer to examine the authenticity of a God's spokesperson. Dr. Greer, armed with humorous anecdotes and profound wisdom, guided us through the process of discerning truth in prophetic messages. He stressed the importance of discernment, especially in our current times of uncertainty.
We also ventured into the territory of prophets, their roles, and how to identify true prophets from false ones. Using the story of prophet Micah as an example, we highlight what to look for in a person who claims to speak for the Lord. Does he or she promote justice, righteousness and courageously speak the unpopular truth? Is his or her message advancing God's kingdom or their own? These are tough questions that we tackle head-on in our quest for truth.
Our journey does not end there. Finding a pastor who can genuinely speak for the Lord requires prayer, discernment, and the courage to face unpopularity and adversity. As we wrap up our discussion with Dr. Greer, we leave you with a hopeful prayer that God leads us to the right person for our church. Listen in and let's walk this path of faith together, seeking a pastor who does not just speak, but one who genuinely speaks for the Lord.
Can you say with certainty that the person preaching from the pulpit is truly speaking for the Lord? As our church embarks on a journey to find a new pastor, we sat down with Dr. Jeremy Greer to examine the authenticity of a God's spokesperson. Dr. Greer, armed with humorous anecdotes and profound wisdom, guided us through the process of discerning truth in prophetic messages. He stressed the importance of discernment, especially in our current times of uncertainty.
We also ventured into the territory of prophets, their roles, and how to identify true prophets from false ones. Using the story of prophet Micah as an example, we highlight what to look for in a person who claims to speak for the Lord. Does he or she promote justice, righteousness and courageously speak the unpopular truth? Is his or her message advancing God's kingdom or their own? These are tough questions that we tackle head-on in our quest for truth.
Our journey does not end there. Finding a pastor who can genuinely speak for the Lord requires prayer, discernment, and the courage to face unpopularity and adversity. As we wrap up our discussion with Dr. Greer, we leave you with a hopeful prayer that God leads us to the right person for our church. Listen in and let's walk this path of faith together, seeking a pastor who does not just speak, but one who genuinely speaks for the Lord.
Hi and welcome to the FBC Eldorado Sermon Podcast. We hope God will use this week's message to both inspire and challenge you as you seek to walk closer with the Lord. Now join me as we listen into this week's sermon. Our speaker today is Dr Jeremy Greer. Jeremy is in Arkansan, real-time Arkansas Baptist, having served with several churches in Arkansas over the years. His husband DeMarily, and dad DeReagan, graham, sidney and Cole. He currently serves as the Dean of the Prude School of Christian Studies at his alma mater, washington Baptist University, and serves as pastor of Fellowship Church in Arkadelphia.
Speaker 2:Hey, join me in prayer if you would. Father, in these moments, we have had occasion to offer to you our praise and our worship, lord, which you are certainly do. And, lord, now we would be so bold to ask that you would give us something. So, lord, our attention is yours, and our hearts, our minds and our obedience are yielded to you, and so we would ask that you would speak to us. Let me pray in Christ's name Amen.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm grateful to be with you this morning. It's good to be back. So I think we were calculating. It was about a year or so ago. We were here before, so it's good to be back. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances, and so that's part of what we're going to be talking about this morning is your church and, you know, moving forward in these days ahead. But first I'm going to make a shocking statement. All right, here you go. You know we're going to be talking about ourselves. People don't always tell the truth. I mean, that's not so shocking after all.
Speaker 2:So there was a guy he won the powerball lottery at $100 million, right, so $100 million. He was distrustful of banks and he wanted to keep his winnings a secret, and so he bought a big chest, and he put all the money in the chest and went to his backyard and buried the chest, all right, and felt pretty good about his plan there. Well, the next morning, to his horror, he looked out the window in the backyard and all he saw was an empty hole. And so he was mortified. But on closer inspection he also saw drag marks where the chest had been taken to the neighbor's house. And so at this point he's enraged and so he goes and grabs his pistol. The problem is, the next door neighbor was both deaf and mute, and so he knew he was going to have trouble communicating. And so he also knew that there was an English professor down the street. And so he went down to an English professor and he knew that this English professor also could speak in sign language. And so he grabbed the English professor and drug him down to his neighbor's house and kicked the door in, found the guy and he brought the English professor in and put the gun in the deaf man's face and he told the English professor you sign to him that if he doesn't tell me where my money is, I'm going to shoot him. And so the English professor dutifully does what he was told and the man responds all right, signs back to the English professor. Well, it's in my basement, it's behind the water heater and the English professor looks at the man and says he's not going to tell you. He said he'd rather die.
Speaker 2:People don't always tell the truth, right. People don't always tell the truth right. Sometimes they do, but sometimes you know they're going to bend the truth and sometimes they just outright lie. You know, hanging out with my family this Thanksgiving break and my cousin said you know, don't ever let the truth get in the way of a good story. All right, and that's the way a lot of people, I think, operate.
Speaker 2:You know, and so it's one thing. When your uncle was telling stories about how fast used to be, or strong or all the kind you know those are, you know we can lay those aside in typical sort of uncle fashion. But it's a little bit different when, it's a little bit more important, when you know when the auto mechanic says, well, you need to fix this and this and this and this, it's going to be this much, and you kind of wonder man, is that really? Is that? I mean, is he telling me the truth? Or you know, when you're listening to. You know candidates who are reviving for political office and they're saying this is what I'm going to do, this is what's important you think man really is. He, you know, is he or she telling the truth? Or when you were talking to your teenager, like what'd you do last night, and your teenager says, well, this is what I did, thinking really, I mean, is this really what you did?
Speaker 2:And so we're always in this sort of battle to know if a person's telling the truth. And so those are important matters because I mean, they have, you know, you make decisions based on those. Well, I think it's even more important, the stakes are raised even higher when someone says this is what the Lord is saying, or this is what the Lord wants you to do, because then it has, like really significant life altering implications to it. And so we want to know is that person telling the truth? Is that person really speaking for the Lord? And that's the question we want to visit this morning. How do you know? How do you know if someone's really speaking for the Lord or not? And I think this is really pertinent for you guys, as you're here on the front end of this season looking for someone who's going to come on the pastoral staff and must have. What he is going to do is stand behind this pulpit and say this is what the Lord says, don't you agree? Let's make sure that's what the Lord says, right? Let's make sure that this guy is telling the truth. So how do you know? How do you know?
Speaker 2:With this, we're going to turn our attention to the book of Micah, right? The Old Testament, prophet Micah. And it's right there between Jonah and Nahum, right? So that's probably not helpful. It's okay to use the table of contents, right? There is no shame in finding Micah, you know, flipping to the front and finding the page number. So if you want to make your way there, I'd invite you to do that.
Speaker 2:So, before we get into the text, I think it's important for us to discern the times of Micah a little bit. And centuries before Micah had come along, in the eighth century, the nation of Israel had split, right, split into two, and to Israel to the north and Judah to the south. And Micah was a prophet to this southern kingdom in the eighth century, and it was a tumultuous time that he came on the scene to do his prophetic work, to do what prophets did, that is, speak for the Lord, and, as we're going to see, micah's task was problematic, right, there were really two things that made his task difficult. For one, some in his audience didn't want to hear what he had to say, because things were actually pretty good in Judah at this time, so the upper echelon of society was doing well. There had been sort of an economic boom, and so people you know, certainly those at the top didn't want things to change. When prophets start coming and saying, lord, I want you to change this and do that, that's not always a popular message, so that's the first thing that's going on.
Speaker 2:Even more problematic, though, is Micah was not the only prophet. There were other prophets also operating in the region, and they were saying this is what the Lord says, and so it raised this important question Micah seems to be saying this, and these guys are saying this who's really speaking for the Lord here? How do we know? How do we, uh, how do we decide here? And the answer to that question had pretty significant implications, and so this is what Micah does. He comes to the people wearing his you know prophetic office, you know, entering into this scene, where he says let me tell you, let me tell you who's really speaking for the Lord and I'll even tell you how you can know. And so, what he gives in this passage. Here are some indicators, three indicators, where he says this is how you can know that the person is really speaking for the Lord or not, and he puts himself in that class as someone who was really speaking for the Lord. So, as we think about our context, we'll go ahead and look toward the end a little bit. I mean, micah's talking about profits, right, and so, uh, our situation is a little bit different, your situation is a little bit different. He's talking about profits, not pastors. But these same indicators, I think, are going to be appropriate to you guys as you look forward to bringing someone in who's going to stand here and says this is what the Lord says. How do you know what are those indicators? Well, let's look and see what he says.
Speaker 2:Chapter three is where we're going to be in Micah. I'm again reading in verse five. It's on the screen when the Lord says this this is what the Lord says. As for the prophets who lead my people astray, they proclaim peace if they have something to eat, but prepare to wage war against anyone who refuses to feed them. Therefore, night will come over you without visions and darkness, without divination. The sun will set for the prophets and the day will go dark for them. The seers will be ashamed and the diviners disgraced. They will all cover their faces because there is no answer from God. But as for me, I'm filled with power for the spirit of the Lord and with justice and might to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin. Hear this, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that's right, who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with wickedness. Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they look for the Lord's support and say is not the Lord among us? No disaster will come upon us. Therefore, because of you, zion will be plowed like a field, jerusalem will become a heap of rubble and the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets. Bold words.
Speaker 2:Three indicators that Micah gives. The first is this it says the true spokesman of the Lord are empowered by the Holy spirit, not compelled by personal gain. In Micah's day, the office of profit had a long and storied history that people could look back on so for about five centuries now, the nation of Israel had come and gone, people who wore this prophetic mantle, who occupied this office, great figures like Moses and Deborah and Samuel and Nathan, and so centuries before this, though, also when Moses was doing his own prophetic work, he warned the people. He said you know, I'm not going to be a prophet, I'm not going to be a prophet. And so Micah says he was doing his own prophetic work. He warned the people. He says one of these days, people are going to come as prophets and they're going to claim to speak for the Lord, but they aren't, don't believe them. And so this lingered in their imagination, in their minds that nearly saw all these prophets and they knew, based on what Moses said, that not all of them were speaking for the Lord. And so Micah found himself surrounded by these kind of prophets who claimed to have a word from the Lord. But Micah says they don't.
Speaker 2:Verse five he talks about their motives Verse 11, he makes it clear when he says her prophets tell fortunes for money. So these prophets claimed they were speaking for the Lord, but really what they were doing was lining their pockets. And the problematic thing here, I think the more, maybe the more unsettling thing is this to some degree, it seems, some of them actually still fought. They were being faithful to the Lord. But Michael Micah says they're not. And he says soon they're going to discover their error because he says God is going to intervene.
Speaker 2:In verses six and seven he says their dreams, their visions, they're going to come to an end. So they're no longer going to receive those and they're going to be so embarrassed by their ineptitude they're going to cover their mouths and not speak anymore. In contrast, look what Micah says when he speaks to himself there. In verse eight, he says he has a place among the prophets of old, not because of his ability, not because of his charisma, but because the spirit of the Lord that empowered those old prophets he says those. That same spirit empowers me. That's how you know, empowered by the spirit.
Speaker 2:So, as you think about your situation, as you look toward bringing someone in who's going to be speaking for the Lord, what's the first thing you can look for? Well, do you see the marks of the spirit? And I would frame it in this way, maybe from the negative side. Then we'll look at the positive side From the negative side. Think about this when the person speaks, consider who's being promoted, consider whose brand is being featured, whose kingdom is being advanced, who is benefiting most by what the person is saying, because oftentimes you can see there's a distinguishing line there between the one who says he or she is speaking for the Lord and you discover that sure seems to be doing you a lot of good, and maybe not the kingdom as much.
Speaker 2:Years ago a friend of mine was serving at a church outside of Atlanta and he said in a staff meeting one day, the, the teaching pastor was talking to them and he says the lifeblood of the church is the budget. And, my friend, he sank back in his chair and thought how did how did he get to this place? Because certainly there was a time in that pastor's life when, if you'd have told him that, he would have scoffed at that. But here he was, in this situation and those words coming out of his mouth. You could see that something had changed. He had exchanged kingdom gains for personal gains. But that's not what the true spokesman of the Lord does. On the other hand, that person looks like the Spirit and you can see these, the signs of the Spirit, and we can go to Galatians, and this is a whole other sermon about what the marks of the Spirit look like, but one, I think, in particular for someone who occupies the role who says this is what the Lord says.
Speaker 2:One of the key features, I think, is humility Humility. It should be on display, because the true spokesman of the Lord both understands and declares that no changes can take place in people's lives, including their own, apart from God's working spirit, and the person who speaks for the Lord truthfully knows that. There's a sort of legendary story about Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest, probably the greatest, english speaking preacher of all time. He says when, oftentimes when he would mount the stairs to go up to the pulpit, with each step he would say I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the Holy Spirit because he knew. He knew that, as powerful and oratorious he was and as skilled as he was in crafting sermons and delivering those, he understood that if real change was going to take place in people's lives, including his own, it was only going to come through the power of the Holy Spirit. The true spokesman of the Lord is empowered by the Holy Spirit, not compelled by personal gain.
Speaker 2:Micah gives a second indicator, though. He says the true spokesman of the Lord promotes justice and righteousness and courageously says what needs to be said, not what people want to hear. The true spokesman of the Lord promotes justice and righteousness. Courageously said says what needs to be said, not what people want to hear. If you'd had a popularity contest among the prophets in Micah's day, guess who would have come in dead last. Right, micah, because the things that he was saying were not the things that people wanted to hear, and you can think about the competing messages between the other prophets and Micah. So the other prophets were saying things like you know, do whatever you want. And Micah says no, do the right thing. The other prophets were saying the Lord is among us. Micah says you sinned against the Lord. The other prophets were saying no disaster is going to come upon us, and Micah says Jerusalem is going to be a heap of rubble, right? So you're thinking about who's got the more popular message. It's not Micah. He's not saying what people wanted to hear. See, it takes courage to call people to do the right thing. It doesn't take courage to tell them exactly what they want to hear. There's no courage involved there.
Speaker 2:Old Testament scholar Leslie Allen is he's commenting on this passage and thinking about Micah. This is what he says. He says Micah, uninfluenced by fear or favor, was filled with courage to speak unflinchingly in God's name, unpopular though his message may have been right. That's a true spokesman for the Lord who says this is what the Lord says. Even if you don't like it, this is what the Lord says, this is what he wants us to know. So again, turning you know, turning the attention to you as you think about this indicator and you think about all right, bringing someone in is going to speak for the Lord. How can you know if someone's actually speaking for the Lord? What do you look for?
Speaker 2:Allow me to make a bold claim here. If a person who claims to speak for the Lord never talks about sin, then that person does not speak for the Lord, because that is something that we see. The Lord says things about. It does not mean the person has to be angry or fiery or point the you know, the finger of contempt and condemnation, those kind of things. No, it's not about that, but it's that the person says this is what the Lord says. And sometimes what the Lord says is hard, it's hard to say and it's hard to hear, but the person who speaks for the Lord has the courage to do that and I think it's worthwhile hearing this.
Speaker 2:It doesn't take a lot of courage, especially in a venue like this, to talk about how the world is wrong. Of course the world is wrong. It hasn't yielded itself to the Lord. That doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to stand before the people of the Lord and say you are wrong. That takes courage, but that's what the person who speaks for the Lord is willing to say, if that's what the Lord says To call us to account for the things that we do, the things that we aren't doing, the things that we say and the things that we aren't saying. Because look the people who really speak for the Lord. They're not in the business of making people feel good, because the Lord's not in that business. The Lord's in the business of making people actually good and making people actually right and making people do the things that he wants them to do. That's the business the Lord is in and he will use his people to build that into us, not making us feel good. And so look for someone who promotes justice and righteousness with courage. Indicator two Indicator three Micah says this the true spokesperson of the Lord faithfully represents the Lord and not one's own agenda.
Speaker 2:Faithfully represents the Lord and not one's own agenda. Look at the contrast of messages between 11 and 12. He talks about what the leaders had done and what the other prophets had done and what they're saying about. You know peace. You know the other prophets are saying oh peace, god is with us. Micah says no judgment, it's not peace, it's judgment. And verse 12, as he says there, zion plowed like a field, jerusalem a heap of rubble, the Temple Mill, the Temple Hill overgrown with thickets. I mean that's a devastating image he portrays there to the people. It was a dire prediction, but it wasn't anything new.
Speaker 2:If you go back to you mentioned Moses earlier in Deuteronomy, chapter 28, as Moses is laying out for the people of his time and says look, this is what's going to happen. If you obey, good things are coming your way, but if you disobey, well, this is what he said in verse 15 and chapter 28 of Deuteronomy. He says if you don't obey the Lord, your God, and don't carefully follow his commands and decrees I'm giving to you. These are the curses that are going to overtake you. And he begins to detail. These are the things that are going to happen, and it sounds a whole lot like Jerusalem is going to become a heap of rubble and the Temple Hill is going to be overgrown with thickets, all right, so this is what Moses said centuries before.
Speaker 2:And so when Micah comes on the stage, he's not saying anything new. He's saying this is what the Lord has said. This was the agenda that he brought to our attention centuries ago. We're living in those times. He's trying to tell us people. So again for you, as you look for someone who's going to speak for the Lord, what do you look for? Well, I'd say, look for somebody who preaches and teaches the scripture, like who uses this. This is the agenda that the person utilizes, not what one wants to do or accomplish those kind of things. Like what does the scripture say? Because that's what the Lord has given to us For Micah. He had given, you know, he had the law at his disposal. Moses had been given that law. That law had gone to Israel and Micah was able to use that. It says hey, this is what the Lord has said. We can see it. This is what has been told us for centuries. For us, we're even a better position. We have the entire word of God at our disposal, where God has said this is who I am and this is who you are and this is what I want. We have all of that for us that God has given to us, and so find someone who preaches and teaches this.
Speaker 2:Now, if I can step a little bit beyond Micah for a minute, let me just offer you this a little bit, expand this a little bit. Right, every preacher who's worth anything, I think, is going to make appeals to the scripture. Right, going to make some sort of well. The Bible says this, the Bible says that. But you know, it takes some discernment, it takes some wisdom, because you know it's different saying the Bible says this, and you know, a right interpretation of the scripture, right, faithful interpretation of the scripture, says this, because the Bible can be used as a weapon just as much as anything else. And so find someone who uses the scripture with God's agenda, not using the power of the scripture to advance their own agenda. There is a difference, and it takes wisdom to be able to know that. And so you know, how do you, how do you figure that out, how do you, how can you, you know, actualize that, put that into application. Well, here's a practical question, I think, something that you can ask as you begin to find someone who speaks for the Lord Does the sermon leave you more hungry for the scripture or more hungry for another sermon?
Speaker 2:That's the question. When the sermon is given, are you more hungry to know more, to dive deeper into the scripture, to know more of what God has to say, or is it man? I can't wait to come back next week and hear another sermon because, whatever the reason right and I think about Luke 24, when the story of the two men who were walking back to Emmaus after Jesus' crucifixion and they meet the stranger on the way, it turns out to be the resurrected Lord, and as they're on the way, luke says that he began to explain to them the scripture. And he opened up the scriptures and explained it to them, all the things that had taken place about him. As you read that story, it says those two guys didn't want it to end and they're trying to compel the stranger. You know, stay with us, stay with us. Finally, it's revealed who he was and he departs. But on reflection they said did not our hearts burn within us as he opened up the scripture to us. Someone who speaks for the Lord makes you hungry for more. That's an indicator. That's how you can know.
Speaker 2:All right, so, church, I'm just a guest. I'm a guest here, right? So you can take what I have to say and leave it if you want to. But here's the thing though I'm not a church member here, I am a fellow kingdom member. So we are all on the same team here, all about the same work, all want to see the Lord's kingdom advance, and so I, as a fellow kingdom member, I implore you please find someone who speaks for the Lord. Find someone that you can say that guy, all right, he's not perfect. If you're looking for the perfect pastor, good luck, you're not going to find him. But if you can find a faithful one who is going to faithfully speak for the Lord, then I'm asking you, please do that, because not only does your church need that, the kingdom needs it, and, as a fellow kingdom member, I want it for you, but I want it for the kingdom. Find someone who speaks for the Lord.
Speaker 2:Well, there's one more lesson I think that we can glean from Micah, and it's not something that he said, but it's kind of how his story sort of plays out. And so years later we read a story in Jeremiah 26, where the king of Judah at the time, jehochim right, he's trying to figure out what to do with Jeremiah, who also is saying some pretty unpopular things. He's talking about judgment and destruction. He's just tired of it and he wants to put Jeremiah to death. But there are some elders who step up to Jeremiah's defense and this is what they said when they're talking to Jehochim, trying to say, no, this is a bad idea. They say look, micah of Morosheth.
Speaker 2:He prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and he told the people of Judah this is what the Lord says, the very passages that we read. Zion we plow like a field. Jerusalem become a heap of rubble In verse 19,. Did Hezekiah, king of Judah, or anyone else in Judah, put him to death? Did not Hezekiah fear the Lord and seek his favor? And did not the Lord relent so that he did not bring the disaster he pronounced against them? We're about to bring a terrible disaster on ourselves, right, and that story goes back to the time of Micah.
Speaker 2:Because what Micah doesn't tell us, that we find here in Jeremiah, is that the people recognized this guy speaks for the Lord. You know what they did? They listened, they listened and it made a difference. In fact, it extended the life of Judah for about 150 years. They listened to what the Lord had to say, and so the lesson of that passage, I think, in our context and this is to you guys and to me when you find someone who speaks for the Lord, listen, listen.
Speaker 2:So do the work to find that person right, who shows those indicators, that you look for that next pastor who's going to be behind this pulpit and teaching and preaching. You Find someone who has the marks of the Spirit, who courageously calls for justice and righteousness and who seeks the Lord's agenda as laid out in his word. Find that person and then, if you do listen, because it's a good chance, that person's going to be speaking for the Lord. I hope you're encouraged this morning, but God still wants to speak and he still uses people to do that, so be prepared to listen. I invite you to bow with me in prayer, if you would. This is an important time for your church, as you think about the days ahead and disorienting, time is. Change is often hard, so in these moments, I would invite you to do this.
Speaker 2:Pray for your search team and, if you know who they are, pray for them by name. Pray that they would have discernment, that they would see these indicators that Micah talks about. I would invite you to pray for those potential candidates, those who will go through their own seeking of the Lord put their name in to come on the pastoral staff of this church. Pray for those individuals that they would truly speak for the Lord. I invite you to pray for yourselves. Pray that God would superintend the process, that the person that the Lord wants would be the person who will be here which really speak for the Lord, and pray that you will listen when the Lord does speak.
Speaker 2:The Father, we thank you for the opportunity to hear from you. Lord, Thank you that you were in the business of speaking to us still. Well, we know that you have entrusted your words into the mouths of people, lord. Sometimes those mouths get it wrong. So, lord, I pray for this church in particular that you would bring someone here who's going to speak the truth, to speak accurately for you and prepare this church to hear when that time comes. And thanks for working among us, thanks for loving us enough that you will tell us the truth and that you will use people to do that. Do that here. Grateful to you. We're thankful for all that you do. We pray this in the name of Christ Amen.