Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - Only one or many sources for truth?
Economists can tell what happened to money supply. Biologists can tell you how animals grow. Botanists can tell you how to cross breed plants. Psychiatrists can describe how people react. And none of these have a lock on truth. They may each describe one area well, and even then do so only in hindsight, none can tell you accurately what will be, for that and the only accurate picture of the past as well, you need to go to The Source.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament Framework. Today, the full lesson from Jeremy Thomas. Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2:A lot of issues of history that touch science are tied up or connected to moral issues in Christian practice.
Speaker 1:Everyone is looking for words of peace, comfort, of recognition, of appreciation. We want to know that we're right, that we're good, that we're doing things well, things are going to be okay, and so it's, no wonder that people look to so many different sources in the world for validation, for comfort.
Speaker 1:Well, science has the answer. Science has said that if I do this, I'll be okay. Or science has said that, well, this is good for me and this is bad for me. I can trust in that. What about human wisdom? Philosophy? People turn to this. Eastern religions, mysticism, the zodiac Everywhere that we look, people are looking for answers. And yet we know there is only one source that has all the answers, that has truth on every topic that it touches, that has truth on every topic that it touches. That's the Bible and that's Jesus Christ, the very Word of God. Today we're going to look at some of these sources that other people go to and wonder to what extent have you and.
Speaker 1:I been influenced by human wisdom, by scientific teaching, by philosophy that may be distracting us and keeping us from knowing the truth of God in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:The doctrine of infallibility. Now, this is a doctrine that's closely related to inerrancy, right, as well as inspiration. Inspiration is this is the concept that God spoke through men in the Bible, which is the canon. So that kind of summarizes the basic doctrine God spoke through men in the Bible. So infallibility is related to these doctrines, like inspiration, and especially inerrancy. Inerrancy is the idea that the Bible is without errors in its original autographs, that is, the original manuscripts. Now, since that time it's been copied down through time and so these are not the original autographs, right, but there are copies and there are variations in there, and we'll talk about that. That's an issue of lower textual criticism. I'll talk about that in a little bit because it's related to this topic. But but inerrancy is the idea that in the original autographs there's no errors at all.
Speaker 2:So the doctrine of infallibility is tied to this, because infallibility is it grows out of Christ's impeccability in the life of the king, the idea that he was not able to sin in his divine nature, is able not to sin in his human nature and not able to sin as a person. In other words, what you're doing is you're looking at the person of Christ as a single person, but you're also segregating out for a moment just to look at his divine nature over here, to look at his human nature over here. And you're asking the question was he able to sin? Or what was his relationship to temptation? And of course, in his humanity he is able not to sin, that's he's able to resist it. But there's a possibility that he could truly be tempted Right In his divinity, thoughinity though of course god can't be tempted so in his divine nature, not able to sin. But you have to look at him as a single person and as you look at him in that way, he is not able to sin because the divine and human are in this one person. And so out of this idea grows the question of infallibility. Because what infallibility is dealing with is whether everything jesus and the biblical author said was accurate. You say, well, of course. I mean that's the general response of the average christian. Well, of course was. But there are a lot who question whether everything he said related to history and science was actually accurate. Everybody will agree that what he said with regards to faith and morals or Christian practice is accurate. But what about issues of historical details or scientific details? This is actually highly questioned.
Speaker 2:It began to be questioned highly in the 1970s, which is known as the decade of the battle for the Bible. That was a huge controversy in the 1970s, especially among Southern Baptists, because all the other denominations had already given up on the Bible anyway. So for the most part, how could they be involved in this discussion? I mean, the Lutherans were, to an extent, the Missouri Synod versus the other Lutherans. The Missouri Synod is more conservative than just Lutherans in general. The Missouri Synod, dr Proust, stood up and said we believe the Bible is true in every matter to which it touches, and then he got reamed over the coals of some right-wing, occult crazy person. That's what always happens. I mean, if you're the conservative voice, you're going to be called a crazy kook. Okay, and that's what happened between the Missouri up there but among the Southern Baptists. You know you had Criswell in Dallas, texas, and he got labeled as some kind of crazy kook. Or really Texas did Somehow. Texas is crazy Because he stood up. Amen, thank you Jesus, because he stood up against this trend toward admitting that Jesus could have made technical errors as it relates to issues of history and science.
Speaker 2:As I taught this a couple weeks ago afterward I was talking with Ken Bryan, ken alerted me to come over. He wanted to tell me something. Ken went to Western Seminary in Portland. It was outside Portland in the late 70s, 1980s, these years, and he's like this totally.
Speaker 2:What you just taught just totally brought back memories of a course that he took while he was there and because this was again the battle for the Bible in the 1970s, right, and one of their assignments was to go and was it just to? To talk to any pastor and get their view on the authorship of isaiah? Essentially so, and they went. He went to a presbyterian pastor. So that you say, what's the issue on isaiah? Well, the issue is, was there two authors or three? Okay, they call it deutero-Isaiah or Trito-Isaiah. So you say, what is all this stuff? We're going to get there, we're going to explain where this is all coming from. But these are views that are out there, not just in Christianity, let's say in evangelical Christianity, and that's because evangelicalism has opened its arms very, very wide.
Speaker 2:And so this is 1980, he told me, and the assignment was to go to a pastor and ask them who was the author of Isaiah. He did, he went to a Presbyterian and he said, well, I mean, he held to either Deutero or Trito view of Isaiah. This is a pastor, okay, and I think they asked the question well, what about when Jesus said Isaiah said, and quoting Isaiah in the gospel. And the pastor said well, jesus was either accommodating to his audience, who thought Isaiah wrote it, or Jesus just made an error, a technical error. And when they questioned him further and asked him what his particular view was, he said I believe Jesus made an error. So can we believe in the Jesus who gives us salvation but makes errors? This is the trouble. Many evangelicals say yes, we can believe in a Jesus who made technical errors.
Speaker 2:Relating to history and science. I'm going to skip through a lot of this because I've already covered it, but just to point out that a lot of issues as we go through this, a lot of issues of history that touch science, are tied up or connected to moral issues in Christian practice. For example, you know, gender and marriage are both tied to creation, a historical event which has scientific implication. In other words, the Bible doesn't seem to set it up where you can just have your faith and morals over here and then have a separate idea of history and science. In other words, can I hold to evolutionary theory and the bible's view of gender and marriage? Well, the bible ties gender and marriage directly to creation design. That will not ever go together with evolution. And in fact, if Jesus made a technical error here because he didn't believe in evolution but he believed in creation, why did he then make a huge mistake, right, and build this whole doctrine of marriage and gender on it, on something that didn't happen? See, you can't build doctrines on non-events, things that didn't really happen. They kind of fall through when you do that. So, age of the earth, age of the human race, fossil record, all sorts of things that are tied directly to morals and ethics. We'll show more of that today, but you can see this idea had crept in in somebody like GC Burkow who says something like this.
Speaker 2:I said think about this statement. This mystery is the uniqueness through which Holy Scripture in all its humanity was distinguished from all other human rights. I mean, is that ever a way you would describe the Bible, the Holy Scripture in all its humanity? I mean, we might as well just say in the title, in the front of the book, man's word rather than God's word. Right, that's because Burkauer's trying to stay in step with his academics. You know peers of the time. See, the rule in academics is publish or perish right. And so in academics there's a lot of peer pressure to go along with the status quo, whatever the reigning theories of the day are. Burkauer was in many cases orthodox, but when it came to the Scripture itself, he was giving away ground to his liberal peers who didn't believe the Bible was God's Word for even a second, who didn't believe the Bible was God's Word for even a second. And so he made this statement to appease academics.
Speaker 2:And then, by the way, once it's in academia where the pastors are trained, where do you think it's going to be next? It's going to be in the pulpits where those pastors preach, just as Ken told us 1980, presbyterian Church right over there in Portland. Not even believing that, isaiah wrote. Isaiah believing Jesus made an error. A lot of stuff here.
Speaker 2:But let's get into how this all got started. Here's our doctrinal saying, which I kind of want to amend a little bit. We believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be God-breathed, plenary, verbal and errant, and the original writings there are supreme authority in faith and life. Okay, but what about all matters upon which it touches, you know, is it true with respect to scientific and historic details. I want to toss that in there and I'll show you why in a little bit, as we look at the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy from 1978. Most of the church doesn't realize this language has crept in to distinguish faith and morals from history and science. We're kind of late in the game.
Speaker 2:Robert Thomas wasn't late into the game. He said the ascendancy of Francis Bacon's thinking. Now, you know this guy right, francis Bacon, 1600s, early 1600s. If you don't, he's a very what I call a key idea man. A key idea man. You want to know the key idea men. You want to understand what they thought, because what they thought has influenced how you think. You say you can't say that. Oh, yes, I can, I just did, okay. I'm very confident that everybody in this room has been influenced very heavily by the key idea of men in history.
Speaker 2:When I was in seminary we had to read a book called Seven Men who Ruled the World from the Grave by David Breed, and he just goes through seven individuals like Karl Marx, you know Maslow Freud, in all there's. You know Maslow Freud, and in all there's seven Darwin. These men, he's saying are the most influential idea of people in the history of the human race. And their ideas are everywhere. You can hear them all day long. If you are aware of what these seven men taught, you can be in a conversation with anybody and say that's Karl Marx, that's Maslow. You can hear it and you're like, how can this possibly be? Because, well, these ideas are powerful. And he's talking about the ideas of Francis Bacon.
Speaker 2:He said the ascendancy of Francis Bacon's thinking pictured Scripture as infallible in matters of only faith and practice, but not science and history. Bacon cleared the way for the historical critical view that the Bible is infallible only in spiritual matters but does not speak inherently on historical and or scientific matters. Instead of scripture serving as a guide to science, scientific interpretations became the exclusive avenue to all truth and they stand in judgment on scripture. Okay, so what I'm doing now is I'm just backing up and I'm saying how did did all this get into the church? How did it get to the point where, in Christianity, we have many Christians who are totally open to and totally embrace evolutionary theory and then, on the other hand, believe in monogamous marriage between one man and one woman? How can you have this. Well, this is the first big step in the direction the ascendancy of Bacon's thinking. In 1620, he published the book Nobem Organum. In this work he claimed that all knowledge guess these words. All knowledge Is that an absolute.
Speaker 2:Yes, I just want to listen to the absolute. All, every, always, all knowledge is gained exclusively through experience and experience. This is the philosophy of inductivism and it's at the heart of the scientific method. Of course, I was trained in science. That's what I did after I got my degrees, five years in plant physiology. I hope I understand Bacon because he was taught in our courses, our biology courses. At least this was the stepping off point in our courses, our biology courses. At least this was the stepping off point.
Speaker 2:What had happened, by the way, just before 1600? What happened in the 1500s? What is the big story in Europe? Okay, the Reformation, the Reformation Interesting here we have. The Reformation was essentially a back to the Bible movement. Essentially, that's what it was An interest in the Bible.
Speaker 2:How long did Satan let that last? Not very long, because this next century was a century that said oh, no, no, no, you can't get knowledge from the Bible, you have to get it through experience and experiment, which is what led to what we call the scientific method, scientific method, so that now all knowledge is exclusively held by who Science, science, in fact, that comes from the is exclusively held by who Science, science, in fact, that comes from the Latin scientia right, which means to know, or know it right, science to know. So this is very common in our society, that people think that the Bible is where you exercise faith, but science is where you get known, isn't it? There's a strict dichotomy between faith and science, what you believe and what you know. The Bible would never, never permit this division, never permit this vision.
Speaker 2:Jesus said in John 3, 12, if I've told you of earthly things, that is, things you can go out and you can experiment with and observe, and you can't believe me? He said then how will you ever believe me when I tell you about heavenly things, the things you can't observe inherently, things like you know, in heaven your sins have been forgiven. Now how can you believe that if he tells you about earthly things, such as the age of the earth, the first man, adam, if you won't even believe these things, global flood of Noah, how are you ever going to believe? Believe about things that you can't go and check out in any way possible, like the forgiveness of sins, where you've been justified, credited, perfect righteousness in the high court of heaven. See, the Bible never permits this separation between things you believe and things that you know, over here, when I was in, when I worked for the USDA in plant physiology, one of my other co-workers another guy named Jeremy interesting guy but lost when he found out I was going to seminary he was like how can you work here and believe all that stuff?
Speaker 2:He just thinks it's totally opposite. How can you be in science and be a person who's, in his mind, religious and you're just faith? You know, and I was like I said, the reason I do science is because I, because I do believe in the god of the Bible, I expect to find design features in the work that we are doing because there's the designer behind it. You know, this is the only reason it makes sense to me. I thought he was. I think they're crazy for doing science and expecting to find anything like a pattern. You know why would you expect that if there's no person behind it who set it all up and organizes it? So a very different way of thinking. The Bible never permits this type of separation.
Speaker 2:But Bacon came along and he said all knowledge. One century after the Reformation, when the Bible became the central point of knowing. Now you can't get any knowledge that direction, because all knowledge is only accessible through your own personal experience and experimentation. Now this got pushed to its logical conclusion with a man named John Dewey. So I'm going to skip ahead to him and talk a little bit about this guy, john Dewey. In the early 1900s, the first 50 years of the 20th century, this guy was the most important person in the history of American public education. No one has influenced American education more than this man, even down to this day. John Dewey you know him because of the Dewey Decimal System right System in the library, if you still go to libraries these days but the code system on the spine of the book to help you find a book. That's the best thing John Dewey ever did. What he did from 1930 to 1950 was write 50,000 articles, 50,000 articles published and circulated throughout the US, as well as travel and do seminars for those 20 years, which are the backbone of all American public education. What Dewey did was he took Francis Bacon to his logical conclusion. What Dewey did was he took Francis Bacon to his logical conclusion. He was a strict, logical, very logically rigorous person. For that, I guess he's to be commended, right, but most people are not willing to go as far as John Dewey was. He said that the only thing that is true for you is something that you have directly experienced. In other words, put it this way if 500 people on one occasion say that they saw that Jesus wrote in his resurrection body, he would say that's only true for those 500 people. It's not true for anybody else. You have to directly experience it for it to be true for you. This is he was the master of relative. All truth is relative. Okay, alright, and most people are never not willing to go that far. Now he would say that you could expand your experience or knowledge by using instrumentation like a microscope to see things that your natural eye can't see, or a microscope to see things that your natural eye can't see, or a telescope to see things further away. But you know, the only things that are true for you are things that you have actually personally experienced. So this became a huge, huge problem in our society, because now that's all you ever hear People say well, that's true for you and it makes no impact on them. If you talk to them about Christ, this cross, resurrection, I mean, it's like water off a duck's back.
Speaker 1:They don't even care because they didn't have any direct experience.
Speaker 2:They haven't had this spiritual encounter that you've had, so to speak. So it's not true for them, it has nothing to do with them. That's your thing, okay, great for you, and they just move on. That's all a result of Bacon and later Manuel Kant, who we didn't talk about, but then, of course, john Dewey. Now what did this do for the study of the Bible and what's happened with the Bible? Let's take this to the second. I skipped this, but let's go back to it Now.
Speaker 2:There's two types of criticism of the Bible. This is just an area of study of the Bible Lower and higher. These are the two areas areas. The first area, lower criticism of the Bible, is something I accept. This is something I engage in every week in studying the Bible.
Speaker 2:This is the study of manuscript evidence to determine the original reading. You know, I said earlier, we have the original autographs. Those were inerrant. That's what we mean when we say inerrant. But then, of course, since then you've had copies and we've got thousands of copies. We're not really too concerned about all that.
Speaker 2:But there are differences in the manuscripts, like what we call variants Right, a variant. So you have to check and see is there a variant here? I think I saw one last week in 1 Corinthians, a week before last week. Wish I could go back and share, but it was the difference in one letter which turned the word from mystery to something else I can't remember. But oh, mystery and testimony, because the Greek words are only like, really one letter different. It didn't really impact the meaning substantially. But you have to study these and check the variance. So people who are doing this are looking at variance. You know things like the ending of Mark, which is a big one Mark 6, 16, 9 through 20. What's the right ending of Mark? You know, because there's four different endings of Mark.
Speaker 2:The KJV only is in debate. Have you ever read a prophecy Very insistent that the King James Version is the only right version of the Bible? But hey, nobody here is questioning whether the Bible is God's Word. Everybody who's having these discussions believes the Bible is God's Word. Okay, so lower textual criticism is fine. All we're trying to do here is just try to make sure we have the right text, the best text. That's all we're doing Now. Higher criticism this is different.
Speaker 2:These are people who study the bible to determine who really wrote it. Who really wrote it and how was this human book. Put together this human book, that's a result of bacon. Okay, because now science is the avenue to knowledge, right? So we approach the Bible that way and we start to ask ourselves how did the Bible come together from a purely human perspective?
Speaker 2:See, we don't accept, you know, god and all that kind of stuff and the possibility of a person outside this universe who can speak into it. I mean that Bible, that's a crazy idea. That idea has long been rejected. That that God, if there is one, could actually speak absolute ideas in human language, that is totally rejected. That is not even considered like a normal thought for a human being to possibly have. They do not think that God could speak absolute ideas in human language because they think that humans will taint everything. So that idea is not even accepted. So they have to approach the Bible as if it was just written truly by just human beings.
Speaker 2:And that's where you have this idea that JEBP wrote the Torah, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, and so they began to divide it up. This is where you have ideas like Deutero-Isaiah or Tridero-Isaiah One, two, three. How many authors were there? And they'll look at textual variance, stylistic differences and things like that and draw all these magnificent conclusions like we're so smart, we know more than Jesus did. Jesus made an error on Isaiah. He didn't know that Isaiah didn't really want him Stuff like that In the end. By the way, that is exactly what they're saying. I mean, nobody comes out and says it that way, but what they're saying is I mean, nobody comes out and says it that way, but what they're saying is we know more than Jesus.
Speaker 2:So higher critics are interested in who really wrote the Bible and how it was put together. So they totally reject the Bible as God's Word. They consider it just to be, you know, another human document. Now remind you of Burkhardt's statement. This mystery is the uniqueness through which Holy Scripture and all its humanity was distinguished from all other human rights. They are interested in the Bible like wow, such an interesting book. They don't believe it's God's word, not even for a second. We went through how this all happened.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to give you a couple examples of what people will now do with the Bible, since all knowledge is now based essentially on your experience. If you read a historical document right, and that historical document did not line up with your experience, let me just give you an example. There was these people in the Bible who lived over 900 years. Have you ever read this? Does that line up with your experience? Then what are you supposed to do with that? If you come at everything from the presupposition that all knowledge is based on your experience, you're going to rip that to shreds. You're going to say that's just a myth. You see so because your experience is ultimate, your experience becomes the standard of all truth. And those were just people of their time. They made historical and scientific blunders, and so we can just rip all that stuff to shreds. On the basis of what? On the basis of the ultimacy of my personal experience. So this is how experience came to be the basis that everyone uses today to decide what is true and to reject the Bible out of hand. Right Makes total sense when we see what has happened. Another example People who are infected with this kind of thing still are.
Speaker 2:And here we have the Bible, right? The Bible is an ancient book. It's written by men of another time who are products of their era, including Jesus, who's just a product of his era. And of course, course they made errors. They didn't mean to make these errors. Of course they'll say, which makes it sound kind of nice, they just did, but now we know better. So we need to update our understanding so we can further. This will help us not look weird in the culture. This is what's going on in evangelicalism right now. We've got these people who are saying that if you're a young earth creationist, you just look odd in culture and therefore you know if you would just come onto our side, we're old earth, you know evolutionary creationists, just go along with our thing, it will be fine and, by the way, you won't look so weird in the culture and this will actually attract people to Christianity.
Speaker 2:Until they find out, there's no way you can get Genesis together with the evolutionary story. I mean, the order is completely wrong. I studied evolution. I taught it to other people. There's no way you can get the two together. I mean you've got plants before you've got light. You know, like the sun, I think you have to have the sun to get plants right. But in evolutionary theory you've got the stars billions of years before you've got plants. But in the creation story you've got plants before you've got the stars and the sun. How can that be? You can't get these stories together. It's a foolish attempt.
Speaker 2:Here's what happened in 1978, during the decade for the battle of the Bible, right? This is what they finally came out with Holy Scriptures. It's called the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy. It's in a book called Inerrancy that was edited by Norman Geisler. In this book, which has a lot of articles on the issue of inerrancy, they wrote this Holy Scripture being God's own word, written by men, prepared and superintended by His Spirit. Right. So you've got. It's God right, by means of the Spirit superintending humans. Right. He is of infallible there's our word infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches.
Speaker 2:That was very deliberately put there In all matters upon which it touches, which means it includes historic and scientific matters. We're not saying the Bible is a scientific textbook like a geology textbook, right, or a physics textbook. We're not saying that. We're just saying that it does touch on these issues. I mean, does the global flood of Noah not touch on geology? I mean it's a catastrophic, high-energy hydrological event. All of those ideas are geological ideas. If the Bible touches on geological ideas, what we're saying is it's true at that point and any idea that contradicts the matter upon which it touches is false. That's all we're saying. Let's go on being holy and verbally God-given. So the whole thing right. And verbally means each word, it doesn't mean just the verbs, it means every word, the whole thing and each word is God-given.
Speaker 2:He says Scripture is without error or fault in all its teachings, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history and about its own literary origins under God. Meaning Isaiah, you know, might just have been the guy who wrote Isaiah Daniel in the 6th century, may have actually just been the guy who wrote Daniel and portrayed the four Gentile kingdoms that we're now seeing unfold in history. You know he could write the future. It's no less true in those areas Than in its witness to God's saving grace In individual life. In other words, it's true in everything it touches. You can't just say, though they're saying you can't say it's true about salvation but it's wrong. Can't say it's true about salvation but it's wrong about creation. It's true about salvation, but it's wrong about the false marriage. It's true about creation, but it's wrong about gender. It's true about salvation but it's wrong about marriage. You can't do that. These things are tied together with history and science and everything.
Speaker 2:Now let's apply this a little bit over to Jesus and the prophets. There's a difference between Jesus and, let's say, the prophets and apostles, other people who wrote scripture. Right, there is a difference. We need to understand this. Here's the primary difference. Let's just put the difference out there. Here's the primary difference. Let's just put the difference out there.
Speaker 2:Jesus was infallible in everything he ever said and ever did, but prophets and apostles were not. They were only perfectly infallible when they wrote Scripture. Put it this way Was Paul an author of scripture? Did David author scripture? Did Moses author scripture? Did these people write infallibly when they wrote scripture? Yes, now you're at a campfire, you, moses, david, paul? Could they? Could they make infallible remarks around the campfire one evening? Sure, they're not writing scripture. It's not thus saith the Lord, it's thus saith Moses, or thus saith David, or thus saith Paul. But Jesus, if you're standing around a campfire, could he have made errors? Could he have been foul of them? No, do you see? There's a difference between Jesus and what's required on that level because of the nature of his person we're back to. He's impeccable, right, the impeccable Christ, in hypostatic union. There's a difference when you're with him at the campfire. So let's look at this a little bit.
Speaker 2:If you read the scriptures carefully, you'll see over 3,800 times it says the word of the Lord or the word of God. In many cases the word of the Lord came to, for example, ezekiel 38.1,. The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel. Micah 1.1,. The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel. Micah 1.1,. The word of the Lord came to Micah. There's a big question what is this word of the Lord coming to them?
Speaker 2:I personally think in many of these references it's a reference to the pre-incarnate Christ coming to them. It's not just like they heard a voice. Sometimes we might read well, the word of the Lord came to you. Oh, that means they heard a voice out of heaven. I guess that's possible, right, but I think it's more the idea that the pre-incarnate Christ came to them, not just a voice or a sound.
Speaker 2:Other ways that things happened were visions, right, dreams, so forth. So there's a number of ways that God has revealed visions, right, dreams, so forth. So there's a number of ways that God has revealed himself in the Old Testament. But I point this out because you never, ever read of the word of the Lord coming to Jesus. You never, ever read that, and the reason is is because he is the word of the Lord. So this points up another difference between him and the prophets. Remember Hebrews 1, 1-3? Hebrews 1, 1-3? This points out this very sharp difference between him and the prophets who preceded him.
Speaker 2:Hebrews 1, verse 1, god, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways you know like the word of the Lord came to him visions, dreams and so forth, he says in these last days has spoken to us in his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the world, and he is the radiance of his glory, the exact representation of his nature, and he upholds all things by the word of his power. That's a little bit different, see, a little bit different. They were infallible. The prophets were infallible whenever they wrote scripture, but Jesus was infallible all the time, and that's a difference. Jesus is the word of the Lord. John 1, 14. The word became flesh right and dwelt among us. Let's go to the test of a prophet, deuteronomy 13. Let's go to Deuteronomy 13. I think I've taken you these before, but unfortunately people don't spend much time in the Old Testament anymore. You know, we're New Testament Christians, so who needs the Old Testament? You might need it to understand the New Testament, since most of the New Testament is like presupposing. You already know the Old Testament.
Speaker 2:Deuteronomy 18, 18 and following gives the test of one of the tests of a prophet. Here's what most people think the test of a prophet is If somebody predicts something and it comes true, they're a profit. Here's what most people think the test of a profit is If somebody predicts something and it comes true, they're a profit. Has the weatherman ever predicted correctly, yeah. Does that make him a profit? No, have people predicted that, oh, the stock market's going to go down on Tuesday? Sure, does that make him a profit? No, it has nothing to do with whether you get it right. You've guessed the future many times and you got it right. That didn't make you a profit. That's not the test. The test is not if someone says and then it happens that makes them a profit. What is the test? It's a negative test.
Speaker 2:So let's read it, verse 18. I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen, like you, that is, like Moses, that's predicting that, and I will put my words in his mouth. Now, that right there ought to tell you what a prophet is Whose words are in the mouth of the prophet, the Lord's. It's not theirs. Whenever they're prophesying, it ain't their voice, it ain't their words, it's God's words, it's God's voice and he shall speak to them all. That I command him. So he becomes a conduit. Right, he's going to speak God's words to others.
Speaker 2:19, it shall come about that whoever will not listen to my words, which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require. In other words, is it serious? I mean, if somebody comes along and they're a prophet and let's say they really are speaking the word of god, is it kind of important for everybody who's listening to follow it? Yeah, like it's absolutely serious. If you don't, you're in big trouble, right, because that's God's word. It's not whoever the prophet is, not his words. Now, but what if they don't speak the word of God? What if they're just a prophet of their own making, as we have made it today?
Speaker 2:People who claim to be prophets, verse 20. But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name? Now, god knew this was going to happen. People are going to come along and say I'm a prophet, but here's one who speaks presumptuously. He says which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall what Die commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall what Die. Did God consider this a serious offense? Did someone come along and say I have the word, I speak what God has told me. I am not telling you. If that's presumptuously done, that's a very serious matter. God considers it a capital crime. When I was back in seminary one of my professors would say when that happened, you were about to have a rock concert.
Speaker 2:That's silly, verse 21, you may say in your heart well how will we know the word which the lord has not spoken? Of course that's what you're gonna ask. I mean, how? How do we know? How do we know if what he's saying is from the lord or not? I mean, if you got called up to be a judge on the matter, I mean, like I don't know, is the guy really a prophet or not? I don don't know. How are you going to know? Well, it tells us, when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. Now, at that point, what are you supposed to do with this guy? Kill him. So he makes a prediction and it doesn't happen. Now, if you're following God's word, you'd say well, the guy was a presumptuous prophet, he has to die.
Speaker 2:Now, if that's the case, how many times can a prophet be wrong? Zero, in other words, you have to be 100% accurate. You can never, ever make a mistake, because God never makes mistakes right. So, if you're really a prophet, you never, ever will make a mistake in your prophecy, because if you make one mistake, you're already dead. So is it good enough to be 99% correct? Have some people maybe even been 60 or 70% correct in their days of prophesying? Are they true prophets? Absolutely not, absolutely not. It's not even a question. God said they weren't. You have to be 100% correct. One error and you're done. You're not a prophet. You have to be 100% correct. One error and you're done. You're not a prophet.
Speaker 2:Now it says then the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him. Which means, by the flip side of that, if he really is a prophet, should you be afraid? I guess you should In a healthy type of way. A healthy type of fear toward this is really God's word. We need to consider it very closely and make sure that we follow it. I like ams, I like that kind of thing. So that's the negative test. You'll never be wrong, ever. When he speaks the word of the Lord. If he's around the campfire, that's okay. He doesn't necessarily say thus saith the Lord. But when they say thus saith the Lord, that's it. I mean, everything at that point is seriously taken.
Speaker 2:Deuteronomy 13. Here's the other test. It's called the orthodoxy test. This one's interesting. It's just as interesting.
Speaker 2:It says if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true. What he just predicted the future. He did this thing. This is the guy right, we're going to follow this guy. This is the true prophet, right? Wrong that's what most people do. Wrong, that's what most people do. They follow him because, well, he made this prediction, he did this thing. Therefore, this must be of God. Well, you have to go further than that, it says. Because it goes on in verse 2 to say that he also says let's go after other gods whom you have not known, let's serve them. And then he says let's go after other gods whom you have not known, let's serve them. And then he says in that case, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, because the Lord, your God, is testing you to find out if you love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and so forth. Now you say, well, obviously, if somebody does a sign, and then they come in and say, hey, let's go worship some idol over here, you're going to be like, well, no, this text is not saying they're going to say that their text is saying that their teaching is leading you away from the one true God. Obviously, everybody would recognize it and say now let's go worship Baal. We don't do that. That's not what it's saying. It's not going to be obvious like that.
Speaker 2:2 Corinthians 11 talks about Satan being an angel of light. He doesn't come to you with a pitchfork and red horns. You know. He comes as an angel of light. He looks like righteousness, like purity, like love, like grace. That's how he comes. It's a deception, right? That's why we have to be so smart scripturally. We really have to be so smart scripturally. So they're not going to actually say those words.
Speaker 2:The point is is that the teaching that they proclaim has to be evaluated. The teaching that they proclaim has to be evaluated. The teaching that they proclaim has to be evaluated to see if it's in line with the true Word of God. A modern way of putting it would be orthodox, which is actually from a Greek word, so it's okay, but not heterodox. It needs to be orthodox, it needs to be in line with all other teachings.
Speaker 2:Now, did anything change in the New Testament, by the way, or are these two tests still there today? These same two tests are still there. These tests never went away. I've listed two New Testament passages. For the first one, the negative test, 1 John 4, 1-6. And for the second one, the orthodox test, the popular passage Matthew 7, 15-23. Let's just look at those real fast and then we'll stop there. Let's go to the 1 John 1. This one corresponds to the negative test and then we'll finish with the really controversial one that people misuse all the time. This is one I wish people would just spend more time in the Bible and less time just listening to people talk. I mean, here I am talking, I know I get it, but hopefully I'm trying to show you what's right here. First, john, chapter four, verses one through six.
Speaker 2:Here's the test beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from god. Because, why? Because many false prophets. So it's the same context. Right, deuteronomy 18 many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God, that every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of Antichrist, of which you've heard is in the world. It's coming in the world, but he's already in the world.
Speaker 2:Now understand what's being said here. Right, there's this idea that confesses christ come in the flesh, that is, that christ, who is god, took upon himself a true body. That's what this is talking about. This was a problem in the first century because gnosticism said that god could never come in a body because body was intrinsically evil. It was a material, it's flesh. God could never come in the flesh because flesh is is evil. That's what they said. So that was a false teaching of the day.
Speaker 2:What's what's the point of the test? The point of the test is to test the prophets teaching, to make sure it's orthodox. It doesn't mean that, you know, somebody stands up there today and says I'm a prophet, then I'm supposed to go up to him say do you believe jesus came in a physical body? And that's the test. No, any, any doctrine? Okay, right, that was the one that at the time was a major controversial issue, so that's why it's brought up. But he's saying you have to test orthodoxy, you have to test their teaching. Let's go back to Matthew 7. So this is really the same thing, very similar in some respects to the one in the Old Testament.
Speaker 2:They're doing the same thing. Matthew, chapter 7, in the Sermon on the Mount right, 15 through 23. Here again, false prophets. Right, you'll notice that's the topic right in verse 15. Beware of false prophets. Now, a lot of people read this passage today and they say there are certain people who are false believers. They love to put the word believer there instead of prophet so they can misuse this passage Anytime. Anybody does that they're a false teacher. Don't listen to them.
Speaker 2:This is a passage about false prophets. It says Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are they a ravenous wolves? Now, how do they come? Looking? They look like sheep. Yeah, innocent, nice little sheep. Right, it says Inwardly, what are they? Ravenous wolves? Have you ever seen a wolf get into a sheep pen? I've never seen it in real life, but I've watched videos of it because I was like I have to familiarize myself with what this might be like. I wouldn't do that unless you're ready for a lot of yeah, because they'll destroy every last. I wouldn't do that unless you're ready for a lot of yeah, because they'll destroy every last sheep in there. They'll just rip them. It's unbelievable. The only thing worse I've ever seen is when I've watched humans do it to other people, like I've watched several videos of what Hamas did to Israeli civilians, things I'll never forget. Oh God, give me a resurrection. It's good to see that as men, by the way, because then you'll understand.
Speaker 2:We're here to protect our women. We're here to protect against this kind of nasty, vile evil. Don't ever let that stuff get too far from you, because it's right around the corner. You have to be ready to stand against wickedness. That's what these wolves do to these sheep. They're false prophets. They're supposed to die right under the mosaic economy.
Speaker 2:Verse 16 you will know them by their fruits. Well, that can't be what they do. It definitely cannot be things they do. The fruits can't be what they do, because they look like sheep. They're nice little sheep. They do good little things. They go around and eat little grass and drink some water, go around the pretty pastures. That's what they do.
Speaker 2:It's not talking about what they do at all. It says grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor fixed from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit. Well, we all know that, obviously. But the bad tree bears bad fruit, obviously. He says a good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then you will know them by your fruits.
Speaker 2:And lots of people say see, you can tell whether someone's a believer or not by looking at their fruit. This has nothing to do with whether you can tell a person's a believer or not. It has to do with how you can tell if someone's a false prophet or not. What are their fruits? What they say Out of their mouth comes that which is in the heart. Matthew, chapter 12. And he describes it explicitly and uses the word fruit. Their fruit is what comes out their mouth. It's their teaching. We're back to the exact same thing Of people who did all these signs and wonders and so forth and people were like, oh, wow, and then, but they didn't listen to the teaching. Because if they'd listened to the teaching, they'd find out what was inside of them. And what was inside of them, their ravenous wolves, their ravenous wolves, their ravenous wolves, their ravenous wolves. So he goes on, verse 21.
Speaker 2:Not everyone who says to me, lord, lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father. Many will say to me Lord, lord, didn't we not prophesy in your name? Didn't we not cast out demons? I mean, my gosh, this has out. No, he is not the real thing, because that's not the test.
Speaker 2:If you can cast out a demon, the test is what is the fruit that comes out of your lips? That is the only thing that matters in your whole life. Are you being ruled by the seven men who rule the world from the grave, the Marxists From the grave, the Marxists, the Maslow's, the Freud's who have permeated our culture With all this trash, or are you being controlled and governed by the word of God? It doesn't matter If somebody casts out a demon, it doesn't matter. He says, if you perform many miracles In Jesus's name, that's totally irrelevant, that doesn't mean anything. Until we get this through our heads, we will never listen to the Word of God. Flashy lights don't matter. Big shows have nothing to do with it. God's Word has everything to do with it. God's word has everything to do with it. Then I will declare to them I never knew you Get out of here.
Speaker 2:That is not an overemphasis. These people are false prophets and the only thing that matters to evaluate them Is what is their teaching? What is their teaching? It is a complete joke that someone today would claim to be a prophet, and the fact that millions and millions of Christians are following people who claim to be apostles and prophets today is one of the greatest travesties in the world. We are the people who are supposed to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.
Speaker 2:What did Deuteronomy 13 say? If someone comes a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and he does this and he does that and he says this will happen and it comes to pass. And then he also has false teaching and it says I do this. God said I do this to test you, to see whether you love me or not. He put false prophets in our midst today. To do what? To test us, to see if we do what. To test us To see if we do what, if we love him. Do you love him? Are you going to rush after all this nonsense?
Speaker 2:See, there are very few people in this world like y'all. I'm preaching to the world out there. Y'all, y'all, y'all love the word of God. There are very, very, very few left. It is disheartening. I feel like my namesake, jeremiah right the weeping prophet, who was given a job to do knowing that the words he was supposed to preach to his nation, they wouldn't listen. He said go. Wouldn't listen. He said go, do it anyway. Go, do it anyway. Hey, at least I'm like hey, I got it better than Jeremiah. I got people that will actually listen, people that actually do love the Lord Like y'all. Don't give up. Stay the course. It's the only course. It's the only safe path, and this world is going to hell on a hand. It's going there fast. It's going there faster than I've ever seen, and some of you have been here longer than me. You've seen a lot more than me. You know how far it's gone, better than I do. Don't lose hope. He's coming soon.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app, and until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.