September 26, 2025 • 60 mins
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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
A lot of issues of history that touch science are
tied up or connected to moralissues in Christian practice.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Everyone is looking for words of peace, comfort, of
recognition, of appreciation.
We want to know that we'reright, that we're good, that
we're doing things well, thingsare going to be okay, and so
it's, no wonder that people lookto so many different sources in
(00:42):
the world for validation, forcomfort.
Well, science has the answer.
Science has said that if I dothis, 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.
(01:02):
Eastern religions, mysticism,the zodiac Everywhere that we
look, people are looking foranswers.
And yet we know there is onlyone source that has all the
answers, that has truth on everytopic that it touches, that has
(01:24):
truth on every topic that ittouches.
That's the Bible and that'sJesus Christ, the very Word of
God.
Today we're going to look atsome of these sources that other
people go to and wonder to whatextent have you and.
I been influenced by humanwisdom, by scientific teaching,
(01:47):
by philosophy that may bedistracting us and keeping us
from knowing the truth of God inJesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
The doctrine of infallibility.
Now, this is a doctrine that'sclosely related to inerrancy,
right, as well as inspiration.
Inspiration is this is theconcept that God spoke through
men in the Bible, which is thecanon.
(02:18):
So that kind of summarizes thebasic doctrine God spoke through
men in the Bible.
So infallibility is related tothese doctrines, like
inspiration, and especiallyinerrancy.
Inerrancy is the idea that theBible is without errors in its
original autographs, that is,the original manuscripts.
(02:39):
Now, since that time it's beencopied down through time and so
these are not the originalautographs, right, but there are
copies and there are variationsin there, and we'll talk about
that.
That's an issue of lowertextual criticism.
I'll talk about that in alittle bit because it's related
to this topic.
But but inerrancy is the ideathat in the original autographs
(02:59):
there's no errors at all.
So the doctrine of infallibilityis tied to this, because
infallibility is it grows out ofChrist's impeccability in the
life of the king, the idea thathe was not able to sin in his
divine nature, is able not tosin in his human nature and not
able to sin as a person.
In other words, what you'redoing is you're looking at the
(03:20):
person of Christ as a singleperson, but you're also
segregating out for a momentjust to look at his divine
nature over here, to look at hishuman nature over here.
And you're asking the questionwas he able to sin?
Or what was his relationship totemptation?
And of course, in his humanityhe is able not to sin, that's
(03:40):
he's able to resist it.
But there's a possibility thathe could truly be tempted Right
In his divinity, thoughinitythough of course god can't be
tempted so in his divine nature,not able to sin.
But you have to look at him asa single person and as you look
at him in that way, he is notable to sin because the divine
(04:01):
and human are in this one person.
And so out of this idea growsthe question of infallibility.
Because what infallibility isdealing with is whether
everything jesus and thebiblical author said was
accurate.
You say, well, of course.
I mean that's the generalresponse of the average
christian.
Well, of course was.
(04:22):
But there are a lot whoquestion whether everything he
said related to history andscience was actually accurate.
Everybody will agree that whathe said with regards to faith
and morals or Christian practiceis accurate.
But what about issues ofhistorical details or scientific
(04:46):
details?
This is actually highlyquestioned.
It began to be questioned highlyin the 1970s, which is known as
the decade of the battle forthe Bible.
That was a huge controversy inthe 1970s, especially among
Southern Baptists, because allthe other denominations had
already given up on the Bibleanyway.
(05:08):
So for the most part, how couldthey be involved in this
discussion?
I mean, the Lutherans were, toan extent, the Missouri Synod
versus the other Lutherans.
The Missouri Synod is moreconservative than just Lutherans
in general.
The Missouri Synod, dr Proust,stood up and said we believe the
(05:32):
Bible is true in every matterto which it touches, and then he
got reamed over the coals ofsome right-wing, occult crazy
person.
That's what always happens.
I mean, if you're theconservative voice, you're going
to be called a crazy kook.
Okay, and that's what happenedbetween the Missouri up there
(05:55):
but among the Southern Baptists.
You know you had Criswell inDallas, texas, and he got
labeled as some kind of crazykook.
Or really Texas did Somehow.
Texas is crazy Because he stoodup.
Amen, thank you Jesus, becausehe stood up against this trend
(06:20):
toward admitting that Jesuscould have made technical errors
as it relates to issues ofhistory and science.
As I taught this a couple weeksago afterward I was talking with
Ken Bryan, ken alerted me tocome over.
He wanted to tell me something.
Ken went to Western Seminary inPortland.
(06:40):
It was outside Portland in thelate 70s, 1980s, these years,
and he's like this totally.
What you just taught justtotally brought back memories of
a course that he took while hewas there and because this was
again the battle for the Biblein the 1970s, right, and one of
their assignments was to go andwas it just to?
(07:02):
To talk to any pastor and gettheir view on the authorship of
isaiah?
Essentially so, and they went.
He went to a presbyterianpastor.
So that you say, what's theissue on isaiah?
Well, the issue is, was theretwo authors or three?
Okay, they call itdeutero-Isaiah or Trito-Isaiah.
(07:25):
So you say, what is all thisstuff?
We're going to get there, we'regoing to explain where this is
all coming from.
But these are views that areout there, not just in
Christianity, let's say inevangelical Christianity, and
(07:45):
that's because evangelicalismhas opened its arms very, very
wide.
And so this is 1980, he told me,and the assignment was to go to
a pastor and ask them who wasthe author of Isaiah.
He did, he went to aPresbyterian and he said, well,
I mean, he held to eitherDeutero or Trito view of Isaiah.
(08:08):
This is a pastor, okay, and Ithink they asked the question
well, what about when Jesus saidIsaiah said, and quoting Isaiah
in the gospel.
And the pastor said well, jesuswas either accommodating to his
audience, who thought Isaiahwrote it, or Jesus just made an
error, a technical error.
(08:31):
And when they questioned himfurther and asked him what his
particular view was, he said Ibelieve Jesus made an error.
So can we believe in the Jesuswho gives us salvation but makes
errors?
This is the trouble.
(08:51):
Many evangelicals say yes, wecan believe in a Jesus who made
technical errors.
Relating to history and science.
I'm going to skip through a lotof this because I've already
covered it, but just to pointout that a lot of issues as we
go through this, a lot of issuesof history that touch science,
(09:17):
are tied up or connected tomoral issues in Christian
practice.
For example, you know, genderand marriage are both tied to
creation, a historical eventwhich has scientific implication
.
In other words, the Bibledoesn't seem to set it up where
(09:41):
you can just have your faith andmorals over here and then have
a separate idea of history andscience.
In other words, can I hold toevolutionary theory and the
bible's view of gender andmarriage?
Well, the bible ties gender andmarriage directly to creation
design.
That will not ever go togetherwith evolution.
(10:02):
And in fact, if Jesus made atechnical error here because he
didn't believe in evolution buthe believed in creation, why did
he then make a huge mistake,right, and build this whole
doctrine of marriage and genderon it, on something that didn't
happen?
See, you can't build doctrineson non-events, things that
didn't really happen.
They kind of fall through whenyou do that.
(10:24):
So, age of the earth, age ofthe human race, fossil record,
all sorts of things that aretied directly to morals and
ethics.
We'll show more of that today,but you can see this idea had
crept in in somebody like GCBurkow who says something like
(10:45):
this.
I said think about thisstatement.
This mystery is the uniquenessthrough which Holy Scripture in
all its humanity wasdistinguished from all other
human rights.
I mean, is that ever a way youwould describe the Bible, the
Holy Scripture in all itshumanity?
I mean, we might as well justsay in the title, in the front
of the book, man's word ratherthan God's word.
(11:07):
Right, that's becauseBurkauer's trying to stay in
step with his academics.
You know peers of the time.
See, the rule in academics ispublish or perish right.
And so in academics there's alot of peer pressure to go along
with the status quo, whateverthe reigning theories of the day
(11:28):
are.
Burkauer was in many casesorthodox, but when it came to
the Scripture itself, he wasgiving away ground to his
liberal peers who didn't believethe Bible was God's Word for
even a second, who didn'tbelieve the Bible was God's Word
for even a second.
And so he made this statementto appease academics.
(11:52):
And then, by the way, once it'sin academia where the pastors
are trained, where do you thinkit's going to be next?
It's going to be in the pulpitswhere those pastors preach,
just as Ken told us 1980,presbyterian Church right over
there in Portland.
Not even believing that, isaiahwrote.
Isaiah believing Jesus made anerror.
(12:13):
A lot of stuff here.
But let's get into how this allgot started.
Here's our doctrinal saying,which I kind of want to amend a
little bit.
We believe the scriptures ofthe Old and New Testaments to be
God-breathed, plenary, verbaland errant, and the original
writings there are supremeauthority in faith and life.
Okay, but what about allmatters upon which it touches,
(12:39):
you know, is it true withrespect to scientific and
historic details.
I want to toss that in thereand I'll show you why in a
little bit, as we look at theChicago Statement on Inerrancy
from 1978.
Most of the church doesn'trealize this language has crept
in to distinguish faith andmorals from history and science.
(13:01):
We're kind of late in the game.
Robert Thomas wasn't late intothe game.
He said the ascendancy ofFrancis Bacon's thinking.
Now, you know this guy right,francis Bacon, 1600s, early
1600s.
If you don't, he's a very whatI call a key idea man.
(13:24):
A key idea man.
You want to know the key ideamen.
You want to understand whatthey thought, because what they
thought has influenced how youthink.
You say you can't say that.
Oh, yes, I can, I just did,okay.
I'm very confident thateverybody in this room has been
(13:46):
influenced very heavily by thekey idea of men in history.
When I was in seminary we had toread a book called Seven Men
who Ruled the World from theGrave by David Breed, and he
just goes through sevenindividuals like Karl Marx, you
know Maslow Freud, in allthere's.
You know Maslow Freud, and inall there's seven Darwin.
(14:09):
These men, he's saying are themost 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 theseseven men taught, you can be in
a conversation with anybody andsay that's Karl Marx, that's
(14:30):
Maslow.
You can hear it and you're like, how can this possibly be?
Because, well, these ideas arepowerful.
And he's talking about theideas of Francis Bacon.
He said the ascendancy ofFrancis Bacon's thinking
pictured Scripture as infalliblein matters of only faith and
(14:50):
practice, but not science andhistory.
Bacon cleared the way for thehistorical critical view that
the Bible is infallible only inspiritual matters but does not
speak inherently on historicaland or scientific matters.
Instead of scripture serving asa guide to science, scientific
(15:11):
interpretations became theexclusive avenue to all truth
and they stand in judgment onscripture.
Okay, so what I'm doing now isI'm just backing up and I'm
saying how did did all this getinto the church?
How did it get to the pointwhere, in Christianity, we have
many Christians who are totallyopen to and totally embrace
(15:34):
evolutionary theory and then, onthe other hand, believe in
monogamous marriage between oneman and one woman?
How can you have this.
Well, this is the first bigstep in the direction the
ascendancy of Bacon's thinking.
In 1620, he published the bookNobem Organum.
(15:56):
In this work he claimed thatall knowledge guess these words.
All knowledge Is that anabsolute.
Yes, I just want to listen tothe absolute.
All, every, always, allknowledge is gained exclusively
(16:16):
through experience andexperience.
This is the philosophy ofinductivism and it's at the
heart of the scientific method.
Of course, I was trained inscience.
That's what I did after I gotmy degrees, five years in plant
physiology.
I hope I understand Baconbecause he was taught in our
(16:40):
courses, our biology courses.
At least this was the steppingoff point in our courses, our
biology courses.
At least this was the steppingoff point.
What had happened, by the way,just before 1600?
What happened in the 1500s?
What is the big story in Europe?
(17:00):
Okay, the Reformation, theReformation Interesting here we
have.
The Reformation was essentiallya back to the Bible movement.
Essentially, that's what it wasAn interest in the Bible.
How long did Satan let that last?
Not very long, because thisnext century was a century that
(17:27):
said oh, no, no, no, you can'tget knowledge from the Bible,
you have to get it throughexperience and experiment, which
is what led to what we call thescientific method, scientific
method, so that now allknowledge is exclusively held by
who Science, science, in fact,that comes from the is
exclusively held by who Science,science, in fact, that comes
(17:48):
from the Latin scientia right,which means to know, or know it
right, science to know.
So this is very common in oursociety, that people think that
the Bible is where you exercisefaith, but science is where you
get known, isn't it?
There's a strict dichotomybetween faith and science, what
(18:14):
you believe and what you know.
The Bible would never, neverpermit this division, never
permit this vision.
Jesus said in John 3, 12, ifI've told you of earthly things,
that is, things you can go outand you can experiment with and
observe, and you can't believeme?
(18:34):
He said then how will you everbelieve me when I tell you about
heavenly things, the things youcan't observe inherently,
things like you know, in heavenyour sins have been forgiven.
Now how can you believe that ifhe tells you about earthly
things, such as the age of theearth, the first man, adam, if
(18:59):
you won't even believe thesethings, global flood of Noah,
how are you ever going tobelieve?
Believe about things that youcan't go and check out in any
way possible, like theforgiveness of sins, where
you've been justified, credited,perfect righteousness in the
high court of heaven.
See, the Bible never permitsthis separation between things
(19:20):
you believe and things that youknow, over here, when I was in,
when I worked for the USDA inplant physiology, one of my
other co-workers another guynamed Jeremy interesting guy but
lost when he found out I wasgoing to seminary he was like
(19:41):
how can you work here andbelieve all that stuff?
He just thinks it's totallyopposite.
How can you be in science andbe 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 believein the god of the Bible, I
(20:03):
expect to find design featuresin the work that we are doing
because there's the designerbehind it.
You know, this is the onlyreason it makes sense to me.
I thought he was.
I think they're crazy for doingscience and expecting to find
anything like a pattern.
You know why would you expectthat if there's no person behind
(20:23):
it who set it all up andorganizes it?
So a very different way ofthinking.
The Bible never permits thistype of separation.
But Bacon came along and he saidall knowledge.
One century after theReformation, when the Bible
became the central point ofknowing.
Now you can't get any knowledgethat direction, because all
(20:43):
knowledge is only accessiblethrough your own personal
experience and experimentation.
Now this got pushed to itslogical conclusion with a man
named John Dewey.
So I'm going to skip ahead tohim and talk a little bit about
this guy, john Dewey.
In the early 1900s, the first50 years of the 20th century,
(21:07):
this guy was the most importantperson in the history of
American public education.
No one has influenced Americaneducation more than this man,
even down to this day.
John Dewey you know him becauseof the Dewey Decimal System
(21:29):
right System in the library, ifyou still go to libraries these
days but the code system on thespine of the book to help you
find a book.
That's the best thing JohnDewey ever did.
What he did from 1930 to 1950was write 50,000 articles,
50,000 articles published andcirculated throughout the US, as
well as travel and do seminarsfor those 20 years, which are
(21:55):
the backbone of all Americanpublic education.
What Dewey did was he tookFrancis Bacon to his logical
conclusion.
What Dewey did was he tookFrancis Bacon to his logical
conclusion.
He was a strict, logical, verylogically rigorous person.
For that, I guess he's to becommended, right, but most
people are not willing to go asfar as John Dewey was.
(22:18):
He said that the only thingthat is true for you is
something that you have directlyexperienced.
In other words, put it this wayif 500 people on one occasion
(22:38):
say that they saw that Jesuswrote in his resurrection body,
he would say that's only truefor those 500 people.
It's not true for anybody else.
You have to directly experienceit for it to be true for you.
This is he was the master ofrelative.
(23:01):
All truth is relative.
Okay, alright, and most peopleare never not willing to go that
far.
Now he would say that you couldexpand your experience or
knowledge by usinginstrumentation like a
microscope to see things thatyour natural eye can't see, or a
microscope to see things thatyour natural eye can't see, or a
telescope to see things furtheraway.
But you know, the only thingsthat are true for you are things
(23:27):
that you have actuallypersonally experienced.
So this became a huge, hugeproblem in our society, because
now that's all you ever hearPeople say well, that's true for
you and it makes no impact onthem.
If you talk to them aboutChrist, this cross, resurrection
(23:48):
, I mean, it's like water off aduck's back.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
They don't even care because they didn't have any
direct experience.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
They haven't had this spiritual encounter that you've
had, so to speak.
So it's not true for them, ithas nothing to do with them.
That's your thing, okay, greatfor you, and they just move on.
That's all a result of Baconand later Manuel Kant, who we
didn't talk about, but then, ofcourse, john Dewey.
Now what did this do for thestudy of the Bible and what's
(24:19):
happened with the Bible?
Let's take this to the second.
I skipped this, but let's goback to it Now.
There's two types of criticismof the Bible.
This is just an area of studyof the Bible Lower and higher.
These are the two areas areas.
The first area, lower criticismof the Bible, is something I
accept.
(24:39):
This is something I engage inevery week in studying the Bible
.
This is the study of manuscriptevidence to determine the
original reading.
You know, I said earlier, wehave the original autographs.
Those were inerrant.
That's what we mean when we sayinerrant.
But then, of course, since thenyou've had copies and we've got
thousands of copies.
(24:59):
We're not really too concernedabout all that.
But there are differences in themanuscripts, like what we call
variants Right, a variant.
So you have to check and see isthere a variant here?
I think I saw one last week in1 Corinthians, a week before
last week.
Wish I could go back and share,but it was the difference in
(25:21):
one letter which turned the wordfrom mystery to something else
I can't remember.
But oh, mystery and testimony,because the Greek words are only
like, really one letterdifferent.
It didn't really impact themeaning substantially.
But you have to study these andcheck the variance.
So people who are doing thisare looking at variance.
(25:43):
You know things like the endingof Mark, which is a big one
Mark 6, 16, 9 through 20.
What's the right ending of Mark?
You know, because there's fourdifferent endings of Mark.
The KJV only is in debate.
Have you ever read a prophecyVery insistent that the King
(26:06):
James Version is the only rightversion of the Bible?
But hey, nobody here isquestioning whether the Bible is
God's Word.
Everybody who's having thesediscussions believes the Bible
is God's Word.
Okay, so lower textualcriticism is fine.
All we're trying to do here isjust try to make sure we have
(26:27):
the right text, the best text.
That's all we're doing Now.
Higher criticism this isdifferent.
These are people who study thebible to determine who really
wrote it.
Who really wrote it and how wasthis human book.
(26:49):
Put together this human book,that's a result of bacon.
Okay, because now science isthe avenue to knowledge, right?
So we approach the Bible thatway and we start to ask
(27:12):
ourselves how did the Bible cometogether from a purely human
perspective?
See, we don't accept, you know,god and all that kind of stuff
and the possibility of a personoutside this universe who can
speak into it.
I mean that Bible, that's acrazy idea.
That idea has long beenrejected.
(27:34):
That that God, if there is one,could actually speak absolute
ideas in human language, that istotally rejected.
That is not even consideredlike a normal thought for a
human being to possibly have.
They do not think that Godcould speak absolute ideas in
(27:55):
human language because theythink that humans will taint
everything.
So that idea is not evenaccepted.
So they have to approach theBible as if it was just written
truly by just human beings.
And that's where you have thisidea that JEBP wrote the Torah,
(28:18):
the Pentateuch, the first fivebooks of the Old Testament, and
so they began to divide it up.
This is where you have ideaslike Deutero-Isaiah or
Tridero-Isaiah One, two, three.
How many authors were there?
And they'll look at textualvariance, stylistic differences
and things like that and drawall these magnificent
(28:38):
conclusions like we're so smart,we know more than Jesus did.
Jesus made an error on Isaiah.
He didn't know that Isaiahdidn't really want him Stuff
like that In the end.
By the way, that is exactlywhat they're saying.
I mean, nobody comes out andsays it that way, but what
they're saying is I mean, nobodycomes out and says it that way,
but what they're saying is weknow more than Jesus.
(29:02):
So higher critics are interestedin who really wrote the Bible
and how it was put together.
So they totally reject theBible as God's Word.
They consider it just to be,you know, another human document
.
Now remind you of Burkhardt'sstatement.
(29:23):
This mystery is the uniquenessthrough which Holy Scripture and
all its humanity wasdistinguished from all other
human rights.
They are interested in theBible like wow, such an
interesting book.
They don't believe it's God'sword, not even for a second.
We went through how this allhappened.
Now I'm going to give you acouple examples of what people
(29:45):
will now do with the Bible,since all knowledge is now based
essentially on your experience.
If you read a historicaldocument right, and that
historical document did not lineup with your experience, let me
just give you an example.
There was these people in theBible who lived over 900 years.
Have you ever read this?
Does that line up with yourexperience?
(30:05):
Then what are you supposed todo with that?
If you come at everything fromthe presupposition that all
knowledge is based on yourexperience, you're going to rip
that to shreds.
You're going to say that's justa myth.
You see so because yourexperience is ultimate, your
(30:27):
experience becomes the standardof all truth.
And those were just people oftheir time.
They made historical andscientific blunders, and so we
can just rip all that stuff toshreds.
On the basis of what?
On the basis of the ultimacy ofmy personal experience.
So this is how experience cameto be the basis that everyone
(30:47):
uses today to decide what istrue and to reject the Bible out
of hand.
Right Makes total sense when wesee what has happened.
Another example People who areinfected with this kind of thing
still are.
And here we have the Bible,right?
(31:08):
The Bible is an ancient book.
It's written by men of anothertime who are products of their
era, including Jesus, who's justa product of his era.
And of course, course they madeerrors.
They didn't mean to make theseerrors.
Of course they'll say, whichmakes it sound kind of nice,
they just did, but now we knowbetter.
So we need to update ourunderstanding so we can further.
(31:31):
This will help us not lookweird in the culture.
This is what's going on inevangelicalism right now.
We've got these people who aresaying that if you're a young
earth creationist, you just lookodd in culture and therefore
you know if you would just comeonto our side, we're old earth,
you know evolutionarycreationists, just go along with
(31:52):
our thing, it will be fine and,by the way, you won't look so
weird in the culture and thiswill actually attract people to
Christianity.
Until they find out, there's noway you can get Genesis together
with the evolutionary story.
I mean, the order is completelywrong.
(32:14):
I studied evolution.
I taught it to other people.
There's no way you can get thetwo together.
I mean you've got plants beforeyou've got light.
You know, like the sun, I thinkyou have to have the sun to get
plants right.
But in evolutionary theoryyou've got the stars billions of
(32:37):
years before you've got plants.
But in the creation storyyou've got plants before you've
got the stars and the sun.
How can that be?
You can't get these storiestogether.
It's a foolish attempt.
Here's what happened in 1978,during the decade for the battle
(32:58):
of the Bible, right?
This is what they finally cameout with Holy Scriptures.
It's called the ChicagoStatement on Inerrancy.
It's in a book called Inerrancythat was edited by Norman
Geisler.
In this book, which has a lotof articles on the issue of
inerrancy, they wrote this HolyScripture being God's own word,
(33:19):
written by men, prepared andsuperintended by His Spirit.
Right.
So you've got.
It's God right, by means of theSpirit superintending humans.
Right.
He is of infallible there's ourword infallible divine
authority in all matters uponwhich it touches.
(33:39):
That was very deliberately putthere In all matters upon which
it touches, which means itincludes historic and scientific
matters.
We're not saying the Bible is ascientific textbook like a
geology textbook, right, or aphysics textbook.
We're not saying that.
We're just saying that it doestouch on these issues.
I mean, does the global floodof Noah not touch on geology?
(34:02):
I mean it's a catastrophic,high-energy hydrological event.
All of those ideas aregeological ideas.
If the Bible touches ongeological ideas, what we're
saying is it's true at thatpoint and any idea that
(34:23):
contradicts the matter uponwhich it touches is false.
That's all we're saying.
Let's go on being holy andverbally God-given.
So the whole thing right.
And verbally means each word,it doesn't mean just the verbs,
it means every word, the wholething and each word is God-given
(34:45):
.
He says Scripture is withouterror or fault in all its
teachings, no less in what itstates about God's acts in
creation, about the events ofworld history and about its own
literary origins under God.
Meaning Isaiah, you know, mightjust have been the guy who
wrote Isaiah Daniel in the 6thcentury, may have actually just
(35:08):
been the guy who wrote Danieland portrayed the four Gentile
kingdoms that we're now seeingunfold in history.
You know he could write thefuture.
It's no less true in thoseareas Than in its witness to
God's saving grace In individuallife.
In other words, it's true ineverything it touches.
(35:30):
You can't just say, thoughthey're saying you can't say
it's true about salvation butit's wrong.
Can't say it's true aboutsalvation but it's wrong about
creation.
It's true about salvation, butit's wrong about the false
marriage.
It's true about creation, butit's wrong about gender.
It's true about salvation butit's wrong about marriage.
You can't do that.
These things are tied togetherwith history and science and
(35:54):
everything.
Now let's apply this a littlebit over to Jesus and the
prophets.
There's a difference betweenJesus and, let's say, the
prophets and apostles, otherpeople who wrote scripture.
Right, there is a difference.
We need to understand this.
Here's the primary difference.
Let's just put the differenceout there.
Here's the primary difference.
(36:16):
Let's just put the differenceout there.
Jesus was infallible ineverything he ever said and ever
did, but prophets and apostleswere not.
They were only perfectlyinfallible when they wrote
Scripture.
Put it this way Was Paul anauthor of scripture?
Did David author scripture?
(36:38):
Did Moses author scripture?
Did these people writeinfallibly when they wrote
scripture?
Yes, now you're at a campfire,you, moses, david, paul?
Could they?
Could they make infallibleremarks around the campfire one
evening?
Sure, they're not writingscripture.
(37:01):
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 standingaround a campfire, could he have
made errors?
Could he have been foul of them?
No, do you see?
(37:21):
There's a difference betweenJesus and what's required on
that level because of the natureof his person we're back to.
He's impeccable, right, theimpeccable Christ, in hypostatic
union.
There's a difference whenyou're with him at the campfire.
So let's look at this a littlebit.
If you read the scripturescarefully, you'll see over 3,800
(37:43):
times it says the word of theLord or the word of God.
In many cases the word of theLord came to, for example,
ezekiel 38.1,.
The word of the Lord came toEzekiel.
Micah 1.1,.
The word of the Lord came toEzekiel.
Micah 1.1,.
The word of the Lord came toMicah.
There's a big question what isthis word of the Lord coming to
them?
(38:04):
I personally think in many ofthese references it's a
reference to the pre-incarnateChrist coming to them.
It's not just like they heard avoice.
Sometimes we might read well,the word of the Lord came to you
.
Oh, that means they heard avoice out of heaven.
I guess that's possible, right,but I think it's more the idea
(38:27):
that the pre-incarnate Christcame to them, not just a voice
or a sound.
Other ways that things happenedwere visions, right, dreams, so
forth.
So there's a number of waysthat God has revealed visions,
right, dreams, so forth.
So there's a number of waysthat God has revealed himself in
the Old Testament.
But I point this out becauseyou never, ever read of the word
(38:47):
of the Lord coming to Jesus.
You never, ever read that, andthe reason is is because he is
the word of the Lord.
So this points up anotherdifference between him and the
prophets.
Remember Hebrews 1, 1-3?
Hebrews 1, 1-3?
This points out this very sharpdifference between him and the
(39:17):
prophets who preceded him.
Hebrews 1, verse 1, god, afterhe spoke long ago to the fathers
and the prophets in manyportions and in many ways you
know like the word of the Lordcame to him visions, dreams and
so forth, he says in these lastdays has spoken to us in his Son
(39:39):
, whom he has appointed heir ofall things, through whom he also
made the world, and he is theradiance 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 infalliblewhenever they wrote scripture,
(40:01):
but Jesus was infallible all thetime, and that's a difference.
Jesus is the word of the Lord.
John 1, 14.
The word became flesh right anddwelt among us.
Let's go to the test of aprophet, deuteronomy 13.
(40:21):
Let's go to Deuteronomy 13.
I think I've taken you thesebefore, but unfortunately people
don't spend much time in theOld Testament anymore.
You know, we're New TestamentChristians, so who needs the Old
Testament?
You might need it to understandthe New Testament, since most
of the New Testament is likepresupposing.
(40:42):
You already know the OldTestament.
Deuteronomy 18, 18 and followinggives the test of one of the
tests of a prophet.
Here's what most people thinkthe test of a prophet is If
somebody predicts something andit comes true, they're a profit.
Here's what most people thinkthe test of a profit is If
somebody predicts something andit comes true, they're a profit.
Has the weatherman everpredicted correctly, yeah.
(41:02):
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 aprofit?
No, it has nothing to do withwhether you get it right.
You've guessed the future manytimes and you got it right.
(41:22):
That didn't make you a profit.
That's not the test.
The test is not if someone saysand then it happens that makes
them a profit.
What is the test?
It's a negative test.
So let's read it, verse 18.
I will raise up a prophet fromamong their countrymen, like you
, that is, like Moses, that'spredicting that, and I will put
(41:44):
my words in his mouth.
Now, that right there ought totell you what a prophet is Whose
words are in the mouth of theprophet, 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
(42:06):
speak to them all.
That I command him.
So he becomes a conduit.
Right, he's going to speakGod's words to others.
19, it shall come about thatwhoever will not listen to my
words, which he shall speak inmy name, I myself will require.
In other words, is it serious?
I mean, if somebody comes alongand they're a prophet and let's
(42:26):
say they really are speakingthe word of god, is it kind of
important for everybody who'slistening to follow it?
Yeah, like it's absolutelyserious.
If you don't, you're in bigtrouble, right, because that's
God's word.
It's not whoever the prophet is, not his words.
Now, but what if they don'tspeak the word of God?
(42:46):
What if they're just a prophetof their own making, as we have
made it today?
People who claim to be prophets,verse 20.
But the prophet who speaks aword presumptuously in my name?
Now, god knew this was going tohappen.
People are going to come alongand say I'm a prophet, but
here's one who speakspresumptuously.
He says which I have notcommanded him to speak, or which
(43:09):
he speaks in the name of othergods, that prophet shall what
Die commanded him to speak, orwhich he speaks in the name of
other gods, that prophet shallwhat Die.
Did God consider this a seriousoffense?
Did someone come along and sayI have the word, I speak what
God has told me.
I am not telling you.
(43:30):
If that's presumptuously done,that's a very serious matter.
God considers it a capitalcrime.
When I was back in seminary oneof my professors would say when
that happened, you were aboutto have a rock concert.
That's silly, verse 21, you maysay in your heart well how will
(44:00):
we know the word which the lordhas not spoken?
Of course that's what you'regonna ask.
I mean, how?
How do we know?
How do we know if what he'ssaying is from the lord or not?
I mean, if you got called up tobe a judge on the matter, I
mean, like I don't know, is theguy really a prophet or not?
I don don't know.
How are you going to know?
Well, it tells us, when aprophet speaks in the name of
the Lord, if the thing does notcome about or come true, that is
(44:22):
the thing which the Lord hasnot spoken.
Now, at that point, what areyou supposed to do with this guy
?
Kill him.
So he makes a prediction and itdoesn't happen.
(44:43):
Now, if you're following God'sword, you'd say well, the guy
was a presumptuous prophet, hehas to die.
Now, if that's the case, howmany times can a prophet be
wrong?
Zero, in other words, you haveto be 100% accurate.
(45:06):
You can never, ever make amistake, 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?
(45:30):
Have some people maybe evenbeen 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.
(45:52):
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.
Now it says then the prophet hasspoken it presumptuously.
You shall not be afraid of him.
Which means, by the flip sideof that, if he really is a
prophet, should you be afraid?
I guess you should In a healthytype of way.
(46:15):
A healthy type of fear towardthis is really God's word.
We need to consider it veryclosely and make sure that we
follow it.
I like ams, I like that kind ofthing.
So that's the negative test.
You'll never be wrong, ever.
When he speaks the word of theLord.
If he's around the campfire,that's okay.
He doesn't necessarily say thussaith the Lord.
But when they say thus saiththe Lord, that's it.
(46:36):
I mean, everything at thatpoint is seriously taken.
Deuteronomy 13.
Here's the other test.
It's called the orthodoxy test.
This one's interesting.
It's just as interesting.
It says if a prophet or adreamer of dreams arises among
you and gives you a sign or awonder, and the sign or the
wonder comes true.
(46:56):
What he just predicted thefuture.
He did this thing.
This is the guy right, we'regoing to follow this guy.
This is the true prophet, right?
Wrong that's what most peopledo.
Wrong, that's what most peopledo.
(47:16):
They follow him because, well,he made this prediction, he did
this thing.
Therefore, this must be of God.
Well, you have to go furtherthan that, it says.
Because it goes on in verse 2to say that he also says let's
go after other gods whom youhave not known, let's serve them
.
And then he says let's go afterother gods whom you have not
known, let's serve them.
And then he says in that case,you shall not listen to the
(47:37):
words of that prophet or thatdreamer of dreams, because the
Lord, your God, is testing youto 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
(47:58):
saying they're going to say thattheir text is saying that their
teaching is leading you awayfrom the one true God.
Obviously, everybody wouldrecognize 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 obviouslike that.
(48:20):
2 Corinthians 11 talks aboutSatan being an angel of light.
He doesn't come to you with apitchfork 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 sosmart scripturally.
(48:40):
We really have to be so smartscripturally.
So they're not going toactually say those words.
The point is is that theteaching that they proclaim has
to be evaluated.
The teaching that they proclaimhas to be evaluated.
The teaching that they proclaimhas to be evaluated to see if
it's in line with the true Wordof God.
(49:01):
A modern way of putting itwould be orthodox, which is
actually from a Greek word, soit's okay, but not heterodox.
It needs to be orthodox, itneeds to be in line with all
other teachings.
Now, did anything change in theNew Testament, by the way, or
are these two tests still theretoday?
(49:22):
These same two tests are stillthere.
These tests never went away.
I've listed two New Testamentpassages.
For the first one, the negativetest, 1 John 4, 1-6.
And for the second one, theorthodox test, the popular
passage Matthew 7, 15-23.
Let's just look at those realfast and then we'll stop there.
(49:46):
Let's go to the 1 John 1.
This one corresponds to thenegative test and then we'll
finish with the reallycontroversial one that people
misuse all the time.
This is one I wish people wouldjust spend more time in the
(50:07):
Bible and less time justlistening to people talk.
I mean, here I am talking, Iknow I get it, but hopefully I'm
trying to show you what's righthere.
First, john, chapter four,verses one through six.
Here's the test beloved, do notbelieve every spirit, but test
the spirits to see whether theyare from god.
Because, why?
Because many false prophets.
(50:28):
So it's the same context.
Right, deuteronomy 18 manyfalse prophets have gone out
into the world.
By this you know the Spirit ofGod, that every spirit that
confesses that Jesus Christ hascome in the flesh is from God
and every spirit that does notconfess Jesus is not from God.
This is the spirit ofAntichrist, of which you've
heard is in the world.
It's coming in the world, buthe's already in the world.
(50:56):
Now understand what's being saidhere.
Right, there's this idea thatconfesses christ come in the
flesh, that is, that christ, whois god, took upon himself a
true body.
That's what this is talkingabout.
This was a problem in the firstcentury because gnosticism said
that god could never come in abody because body was
intrinsically evil.
It was a material, it's flesh.
(51:16):
God could never come in theflesh because flesh is is evil.
That's what they said.
So that was a false teaching ofthe day.
What's what's the point of thetest?
The point of the test is totest the prophets teaching, to
make sure it's orthodox.
It doesn't mean that, you know,somebody stands up there today
(51:38):
and says I'm a prophet, then I'msupposed to go up to him say do
you believe jesus came in aphysical body?
And that's the test.
No, any, any doctrine?
Okay, right, that was the onethat at the time was a major
controversial issue, so that'swhy it's brought up.
But he's saying you have totest orthodoxy, you have to test
(52:01):
their teaching.
Let's go back to Matthew 7.
So this is really the samething, very similar in some
respects to the one in the OldTestament.
They're doing the same thing.
Matthew, chapter 7, in theSermon on the Mount right, 15
(52:21):
through 23.
Here again, false prophets.
Right, you'll notice that's thetopic right in verse 15.
Beware of false prophets.
Now, a lot of people read thispassage today and they say there
are certain people who arefalse believers.
They love to put the wordbeliever there instead of
prophet so they can misuse thispassage Anytime.
(52:43):
Anybody does that they're afalse teacher.
Don't listen to them.
This is a passage about falseprophets.
It says Beware of falseprophets who come to you in
sheep's clothing, but inwardlyare they a ravenous wolves?
Now, how do they come?
(53:04):
Looking?
They look like sheep.
Yeah, innocent, nice littlesheep.
Right, it says Inwardly, whatare they?
Ravenous wolves?
Have you ever seen a wolf getinto a sheep pen?
I've never seen it in real life, but I've watched videos of it
because I was like I have tofamiliarize myself with what
this might be like.
I wouldn't do that unlessyou're ready for a lot of yeah,
(53:31):
because they'll destroy everylast.
I wouldn't do that unlessyou're ready for a lot of yeah,
because they'll destroy everylast sheep in there.
They'll just rip them.
It's unbelievable.
The only thing worse I've everseen is when I've watched humans
do it to other people, likeI've watched several videos of
what Hamas did to Israelicivilians, things I'll never
(53:52):
forget.
Oh God, give me a resurrection.
It's good to see that as men,by the way, because then you'll
understand.
We're here to protect our women.
(54:12):
We're here to protect againstthis kind of nasty, vile evil.
Don't ever let that stuff gettoo far from you, because it's
right around the corner.
You have to be ready to standagainst wickedness.
That's what these wolves do tothese sheep.
(54:33):
They're false prophets.
They're supposed to die rightunder the mosaic economy.
Verse 16 you will know them bytheir fruits.
Well, that can't be what theydo.
It definitely cannot be thingsthey do.
The fruits can't be what theydo, because they look like sheep
.
They're nice little sheep.
They do good little things.
They go around and eat littlegrass and drink some water, go
(54:57):
around the pretty pastures.
That's what they do.
It's not talking about what theydo at all.
It says grapes are not gatheredfrom thorn bushes, nor fixed
from thistles, are they?
So every good tree bears goodfruit.
Well, we all know that,obviously.
But the bad tree bears badfruit, obviously.
He says a good tree cannotproduce bad fruit, nor can a bad
(55:19):
tree produce good fruit.
Every tree that does not beargood fruit is cut down and
thrown into the fire.
So then you will know them byyour fruits.
And lots of people say see, youcan tell whether someone's a
believer or not by looking attheir fruit.
This has nothing to do withwhether you can tell a person's
a believer or not.
It has to do with how you cantell if someone's a false
prophet or not.
What are their fruits?
(55:40):
What they say Out of theirmouth comes that which is in the
heart.
Matthew, chapter 12.
And he describes it explicitlyand uses the word fruit.
Their fruit is what comes outtheir mouth.
It's their teaching.
We're back to the exact samething Of people who did all
these signs and wonders and soforth and people were like, oh,
(56:01):
wow, and then, but they didn'tlisten to the teaching.
Because if they'd listened tothe teaching, they'd find out
what was inside of them.
And what was inside of them,their ravenous wolves, their
ravenous wolves, their ravenouswolves, their ravenous wolves.
So he goes on, verse 21.
Not everyone who says to me,lord, lord, will enter the
kingdom of heaven, but he whodoes the will of my Father.
Many will say to me Lord, lord,didn't we not prophesy in your
(56:24):
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.
If you can cast out a demon, thetest is what is the fruit that
comes out of your lips?
That is the only thing thatmatters in your whole life.
Are you being ruled by theseven men who rule the world
(56:47):
from the grave, the MarxistsFrom the grave, the Marxists,
the Maslow's, the Freud's whohave permeated our culture With
all this trash, or are you beingcontrolled and governed by the
word of God?
It doesn't matter If somebodycasts out a demon, it doesn't
matter.
He says, if you perform manymiracles In Jesus's name, that's
(57:11):
totally irrelevant, thatdoesn't mean anything.
Until we get this through ourheads, we will never listen to
the Word of God.
Flashy lights don't matter.
Big shows have nothing to dowith it.
God's Word has everything to dowith it.
(57:35):
God's word has everything to dowith it.
Then I will declare to them Inever knew you Get out of here.
That is not an overemphasis.
These people are false prophetsand the only thing that matters
to evaluate them Is what istheir teaching?
(57:57):
What is their teaching?
It is a complete joke thatsomeone today would claim to be
a prophet, and the fact thatmillions and millions of
Christians are following peoplewho claim to be apostles and
prophets today is one of thegreatest travesties in the world
(58:20):
.
We are the people who aresupposed to love the Lord, our
God, with all our heart, mind,soul and strength.
What did Deuteronomy 13 say?
If someone comes a prophet or adreamer of dreams and he does
this and he does that and hesays this will happen and it
comes to pass.
And then he also has falseteaching and it says I do this.
(58:41):
God said I do this to test you,to see whether you love me or
not.
He put false prophets in ourmidst today.
To do what?
To test us, to see if we dowhat.
To test us To see if we do what, if we love him.
Do you love him?
Are you going to rush after allthis nonsense?
See, there are very few peoplein this world like y'all.
(59:03):
I'm preaching to the world outthere.
Y'all, y'all, y'all love theword of God.
There are very, very, very fewleft.
It is disheartening.
I feel like my namesake,jeremiah right the weeping
prophet, who was given a job todo knowing that the words he was
(59:28):
supposed to preach to hisnation, 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, Igot it better than Jeremiah.
I got people that will actuallylisten, people that actually do
love the Lord Like y'all.
Don't give up.
Stay the course.
It's the only course.
(59:52):
It's the only safe path, andthis world is going to hell on a
hand.
It's going there fast.
It's going there faster thanI'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 (01:00:12):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(01:00:33):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
A lot of issues of history that touch science are
tied up or connected to moralissues in Christian practice.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Everyone is looking for words of peace, comfort, of
recognition, of appreciation.
We want to know that we'reright, that we're good, that
we're doing things well, thingsare going to be okay, and so
it's, no wonder that people lookto so many different sources in
(00:42):
the world for validation, forcomfort.
Well, science has the answer.
Science has said that if I dothis, 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.
(01:02):
Eastern religions, mysticism,the zodiac Everywhere that we
look, people are looking foranswers.
And yet we know there is onlyone source that has all the
answers, that has truth on everytopic that it touches, that has
(01:24):
truth on every topic that ittouches.
That's the Bible and that'sJesus Christ, the very Word of
God.
Today we're going to look atsome of these sources that other
people go to and wonder to whatextent have you and.
I been influenced by humanwisdom, by scientific teaching,
(01:47):
by philosophy that may bedistracting us and keeping us
from knowing the truth of God inJesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
The doctrine of infallibility.
Now, this is a doctrine that'sclosely related to inerrancy,
right, as well as inspiration.
Inspiration is this is theconcept that God spoke through
men in the Bible, which is thecanon.
(02:18):
So that kind of summarizes thebasic doctrine God spoke through
men in the Bible.
So infallibility is related tothese doctrines, like
inspiration, and especiallyinerrancy.
Inerrancy is the idea that theBible is without errors in its
original autographs, that is,the original manuscripts.
(02:39):
Now, since that time it's beencopied down through time and so
these are not the originalautographs, right, but there are
copies and there are variationsin there, and we'll talk about
that.
That's an issue of lowertextual criticism.
I'll talk about that in alittle bit because it's related
to this topic.
But but inerrancy is the ideathat in the original autographs
(02:59):
there's no errors at all.
So the doctrine of infallibilityis tied to this, because
infallibility is it grows out ofChrist's impeccability in the
life of the king, the idea thathe was not able to sin in his
divine nature, is able not tosin in his human nature and not
able to sin as a person.
In other words, what you'redoing is you're looking at the
(03:20):
person of Christ as a singleperson, but you're also
segregating out for a momentjust to look at his divine
nature over here, to look at hishuman nature over here.
And you're asking the questionwas he able to sin?
Or what was his relationship totemptation?
And of course, in his humanityhe is able not to sin, that's
(03:40):
he's able to resist it.
But there's a possibility thathe could truly be tempted Right
In his divinity, thoughinitythough of course god can't be
tempted so in his divine nature,not able to sin.
But you have to look at him asa single person and as you look
at him in that way, he is notable to sin because the divine
(04:01):
and human are in this one person.
And so out of this idea growsthe question of infallibility.
Because what infallibility isdealing with is whether
everything jesus and thebiblical author said was
accurate.
You say, well, of course.
I mean that's the generalresponse of the average
christian.
Well, of course was.
(04:22):
But there are a lot whoquestion whether everything he
said related to history andscience was actually accurate.
Everybody will agree that whathe said with regards to faith
and morals or Christian practiceis accurate.
But what about issues ofhistorical details or scientific
(04:46):
details?
This is actually highlyquestioned.
It began to be questioned highlyin the 1970s, which is known as
the decade of the battle forthe Bible.
That was a huge controversy inthe 1970s, especially among
Southern Baptists, because allthe other denominations had
already given up on the Bibleanyway.
(05:08):
So for the most part, how couldthey be involved in this
discussion?
I mean, the Lutherans were, toan extent, the Missouri Synod
versus the other Lutherans.
The Missouri Synod is moreconservative than just Lutherans
in general.
The Missouri Synod, dr Proust,stood up and said we believe the
(05:32):
Bible is true in every matterto which it touches, and then he
got reamed over the coals ofsome right-wing, occult crazy
person.
That's what always happens.
I mean, if you're theconservative voice, you're going
to be called a crazy kook.
Okay, and that's what happenedbetween the Missouri up there
(05:55):
but among the Southern Baptists.
You know you had Criswell inDallas, texas, and he got
labeled as some kind of crazykook.
Or really Texas did Somehow.
Texas is crazy Because he stoodup.
Amen, thank you Jesus, becausehe stood up against this trend
(06:20):
toward admitting that Jesuscould have made technical errors
as it relates to issues ofhistory and science.
As I taught this a couple weeksago afterward I was talking with
Ken Bryan, ken alerted me tocome over.
He wanted to tell me something.
Ken went to Western Seminary inPortland.
(06:40):
It was outside Portland in thelate 70s, 1980s, these years,
and he's like this totally.
What you just taught justtotally brought back memories of
a course that he took while hewas there and because this was
again the battle for the Biblein the 1970s, right, and one of
their assignments was to go andwas it just to?
(07:02):
To talk to any pastor and gettheir view on the authorship of
isaiah?
Essentially so, and they went.
He went to a presbyterianpastor.
So that you say, what's theissue on isaiah?
Well, the issue is, was theretwo authors or three?
Okay, they call itdeutero-Isaiah or Trito-Isaiah.
(07:25):
So you say, what is all thisstuff?
We're going to get there, we'regoing to explain where this is
all coming from.
But these are views that areout there, not just in
Christianity, let's say inevangelical Christianity, and
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that's because evangelicalismhas opened its arms very, very
wide.
And so this is 1980, he told me,and the assignment was to go to
a pastor and ask them who wasthe author of Isaiah.
He did, he went to aPresbyterian and he said, well,
I mean, he held to eitherDeutero or Trito view of Isaiah.
(08:08):
This is a pastor, okay, and Ithink they asked the question
well, what about when Jesus saidIsaiah said, and quoting Isaiah
in the gospel.
And the pastor said well, jesuswas either accommodating to his
audience, who thought Isaiahwrote it, or Jesus just made an
error, a technical error.
(08:31):
And when they questioned himfurther and asked him what his
particular view was, he said Ibelieve Jesus made an error.
So can we believe in the Jesuswho gives us salvation but makes
errors?
This is the trouble.
(08:51):
Many evangelicals say yes, wecan believe in a Jesus who made
technical errors.
Relating to history and science.
I'm going to skip through a lotof this because I've already
covered it, but just to pointout that a lot of issues as we
go through this, a lot of issuesof history that touch science,
(09:17):
are tied up or connected tomoral issues in Christian
practice.
For example, you know, genderand marriage are both tied to
creation, a historical eventwhich has scientific implication
.
In other words, the Bibledoesn't seem to set it up where
(09:41):
you can just have your faith andmorals over here and then have
a separate idea of history andscience.
In other words, can I hold toevolutionary theory and the
bible's view of gender andmarriage?
Well, the bible ties gender andmarriage directly to creation
design.
That will not ever go togetherwith evolution.
(10:02):
And in fact, if Jesus made atechnical error here because he
didn't believe in evolution buthe believed in creation, why did
he then make a huge mistake,right, and build this whole
doctrine of marriage and genderon it, on something that didn't
happen?
See, you can't build doctrineson non-events, things that
didn't really happen.
They kind of fall through whenyou do that.
(10:24):
So, age of the earth, age ofthe human race, fossil record,
all sorts of things that aretied directly to morals and
ethics.
We'll show more of that today,but you can see this idea had
crept in in somebody like GCBurkow who says something like
(10:45):
this.
I said think about thisstatement.
This mystery is the uniquenessthrough which Holy Scripture in
all its humanity wasdistinguished from all other
human rights.
I mean, is that ever a way youwould describe the Bible, the
Holy Scripture in all itshumanity?
I mean, we might as well justsay in the title, in the front
of the book, man's word ratherthan God's word.
(11:07):
Right, that's becauseBurkauer's trying to stay in
step with his academics.
You know peers of the time.
See, the rule in academics ispublish or perish right.
And so in academics there's alot of peer pressure to go along
with the status quo, whateverthe reigning theories of the day
(11:28):
are.
Burkauer was in many casesorthodox, but when it came to
the Scripture itself, he wasgiving away ground to his
liberal peers who didn't believethe Bible was God's Word for
even a second, who didn'tbelieve the Bible was God's Word
for even a second.
And so he made this statementto appease academics.
(11:52):
And then, by the way, once it'sin academia where the pastors
are trained, where do you thinkit's going to be next?
It's going to be in the pulpitswhere those pastors preach,
just as Ken told us 1980,presbyterian Church right over
there in Portland.
Not even believing that, isaiahwrote.
Isaiah believing Jesus made anerror.
(12:13):
A lot of stuff here.
But let's get into how this allgot started.
Here's our doctrinal saying,which I kind of want to amend a
little bit.
We believe the scriptures ofthe Old and New Testaments to be
God-breathed, plenary, verbaland errant, and the original
writings there are supremeauthority in faith and life.
Okay, but what about allmatters upon which it touches,
(12:39):
you know, is it true withrespect to scientific and
historic details.
I want to toss that in thereand I'll show you why in a
little bit, as we look at theChicago Statement on Inerrancy
from 1978.
Most of the church doesn'trealize this language has crept
in to distinguish faith andmorals from history and science.
(13:01):
We're kind of late in the game.
Robert Thomas wasn't late intothe game.
He said the ascendancy ofFrancis Bacon's thinking.
Now, you know this guy right,francis Bacon, 1600s, early
1600s.
If you don't, he's a very whatI call a key idea man.
(13:24):
A key idea man.
You want to know the key ideamen.
You want to understand whatthey thought, because what they
thought has influenced how youthink.
You say you can't say that.
Oh, yes, I can, I just did,okay.
I'm very confident thateverybody in this room has been
(13:46):
influenced very heavily by thekey idea of men in history.
When I was in seminary we had toread a book called Seven Men
who Ruled the World from theGrave by David Breed, and he
just goes through sevenindividuals like Karl Marx, you
know Maslow Freud, in allthere's.
You know Maslow Freud, and inall there's seven Darwin.
(14:09):
These men, he's saying are themost 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 theseseven men taught, you can be in
a conversation with anybody andsay that's Karl Marx, that's
(14:30):
Maslow.
You can hear it and you're like, how can this possibly be?
Because, well, these ideas arepowerful.
And he's talking about theideas of Francis Bacon.
He said the ascendancy ofFrancis Bacon's thinking
pictured Scripture as infalliblein matters of only faith and
(14:50):
practice, but not science andhistory.
Bacon cleared the way for thehistorical critical view that
the Bible is infallible only inspiritual matters but does not
speak inherently on historicaland or scientific matters.
Instead of scripture serving asa guide to science, scientific
(15:11):
interpretations became theexclusive avenue to all truth
and they stand in judgment onscripture.
Okay, so what I'm doing now isI'm just backing up and I'm
saying how did did all this getinto the church?
How did it get to the pointwhere, in Christianity, we have
many Christians who are totallyopen to and totally embrace
(15:34):
evolutionary theory and then, onthe other hand, believe in
monogamous marriage between oneman and one woman?
How can you have this.
Well, this is the first bigstep in the direction the
ascendancy of Bacon's thinking.
In 1620, he published the bookNobem Organum.
(15:56):
In this work he claimed thatall knowledge guess these words.
All knowledge Is that anabsolute.
Yes, I just want to listen tothe absolute.
All, every, always, allknowledge is gained exclusively
(16:16):
through experience andexperience.
This is the philosophy ofinductivism and it's at the
heart of the scientific method.
Of course, I was trained inscience.
That's what I did after I gotmy degrees, five years in plant
physiology.
I hope I understand Baconbecause he was taught in our
(16:40):
courses, our biology courses.
At least this was the steppingoff point in our courses, our
biology courses.
At least this was the steppingoff point.
What had happened, by the way,just before 1600?
What happened in the 1500s?
What is the big story in Europe?
(17:00):
Okay, the Reformation, theReformation Interesting here we
have.
The Reformation was essentiallya back to the Bible movement.
Essentially, that's what it wasAn interest in the Bible.
How long did Satan let that last?
Not very long, because thisnext century was a century that
(17:27):
said oh, no, no, no, you can'tget knowledge from the Bible,
you have to get it throughexperience and experiment, which
is what led to what we call thescientific method, scientific
method, so that now allknowledge is exclusively held by
who Science, science, in fact,that comes from the is
exclusively held by who Science,science, in fact, that comes
(17:48):
from the Latin scientia right,which means to know, or know it
right, science to know.
So this is very common in oursociety, that people think that
the Bible is where you exercisefaith, but science is where you
get known, isn't it?
There's a strict dichotomybetween faith and science, what
(18:14):
you believe and what you know.
The Bible would never, neverpermit this division, never
permit this vision.
Jesus said in John 3, 12, ifI've told you of earthly things,
that is, things you can go outand you can experiment with and
observe, and you can't believeme?
(18:34):
He said then how will you everbelieve me when I tell you about
heavenly things, the things youcan't observe inherently,
things like you know, in heavenyour sins have been forgiven.
Now how can you believe that ifhe tells you about earthly
things, such as the age of theearth, the first man, adam, if
(18:59):
you won't even believe thesethings, global flood of Noah,
how are you ever going tobelieve?
Believe about things that youcan't go and check out in any
way possible, like theforgiveness of sins, where
you've been justified, credited,perfect righteousness in the
high court of heaven.
See, the Bible never permitsthis separation between things
(19:20):
you believe and things that youknow, over here, when I was in,
when I worked for the USDA inplant physiology, one of my
other co-workers another guynamed Jeremy interesting guy but
lost when he found out I wasgoing to seminary he was like
(19:41):
how can you work here andbelieve all that stuff?
He just thinks it's totallyopposite.
How can you be in science andbe 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 believein the god of the Bible, I
(20:03):
expect to find design featuresin the work that we are doing
because there's the designerbehind it.
You know, this is the onlyreason it makes sense to me.
I thought he was.
I think they're crazy for doingscience and expecting to find
anything like a pattern.
You know why would you expectthat if there's no person behind
(20:23):
it who set it all up andorganizes it?
So a very different way ofthinking.
The Bible never permits thistype of separation.
But Bacon came along and he saidall knowledge.
One century after theReformation, when the Bible
became the central point ofknowing.
Now you can't get any knowledgethat direction, because all
(20:43):
knowledge is only accessiblethrough your own personal
experience and experimentation.
Now this got pushed to itslogical conclusion with a man
named John Dewey.
So I'm going to skip ahead tohim and talk a little bit about
this guy, john Dewey.
In the early 1900s, the first50 years of the 20th century,
(21:07):
this guy was the most importantperson in the history of
American public education.
No one has influenced Americaneducation more than this man,
even down to this day.
John Dewey you know him becauseof the Dewey Decimal System
(21:29):
right System in the library, ifyou still go to libraries these
days but the code system on thespine of the book to help you
find a book.
That's the best thing JohnDewey ever did.
What he did from 1930 to 1950was write 50,000 articles,
50,000 articles published andcirculated throughout the US, as
well as travel and do seminarsfor those 20 years, which are
(21:55):
the backbone of all Americanpublic education.
What Dewey did was he tookFrancis Bacon to his logical
conclusion.
What Dewey did was he tookFrancis Bacon to his logical
conclusion.
He was a strict, logical, verylogically rigorous person.
For that, I guess he's to becommended, right, but most
people are not willing to go asfar as John Dewey was.
(22:18):
He said that the only thingthat is true for you is
something that you have directlyexperienced.
In other words, put it this wayif 500 people on one occasion
(22:38):
say that they saw that Jesuswrote in his resurrection body,
he would say that's only truefor those 500 people.
It's not true for anybody else.
You have to directly experienceit for it to be true for you.
This is he was the master ofrelative.
(23:01):
All truth is relative.
Okay, alright, and most peopleare never not willing to go that
far.
Now he would say that you couldexpand your experience or
knowledge by usinginstrumentation like a
microscope to see things thatyour natural eye can't see, or a
microscope to see things thatyour natural eye can't see, or a
telescope to see things furtheraway.
But you know, the only thingsthat are true for you are things
(23:27):
that you have actuallypersonally experienced.
So this became a huge, hugeproblem in our society, because
now that's all you ever hearPeople say well, that's true for
you and it makes no impact onthem.
If you talk to them aboutChrist, this cross, resurrection
(23:48):
, I mean, it's like water off aduck's back.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
They don't even care because they didn't have any
direct experience.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
They haven't had this spiritual encounter that you've
had, so to speak.
So it's not true for them, ithas nothing to do with them.
That's your thing, okay, greatfor you, and they just move on.
That's all a result of Baconand later Manuel Kant, who we
didn't talk about, but then, ofcourse, john Dewey.
Now what did this do for thestudy of the Bible and what's
(24:19):
happened with the Bible?
Let's take this to the second.
I skipped this, but let's goback to it Now.
There's two types of criticismof the Bible.
This is just an area of studyof the Bible Lower and higher.
These are the two areas areas.
The first area, lower criticismof the Bible, is something I
accept.
(24:39):
This is something I engage inevery week in studying the Bible
.
This is the study of manuscriptevidence to determine the
original reading.
You know, I said earlier, wehave the original autographs.
Those were inerrant.
That's what we mean when we sayinerrant.
But then, of course, since thenyou've had copies and we've got
thousands of copies.
(24:59):
We're not really too concernedabout all that.
But there are differences in themanuscripts, like what we call
variants Right, a variant.
So you have to check and see isthere a variant here?
I think I saw one last week in1 Corinthians, a week before
last week.
Wish I could go back and share,but it was the difference in
(25:21):
one letter which turned the wordfrom mystery to something else
I can't remember.
But oh, mystery and testimony,because the Greek words are only
like, really one letterdifferent.
It didn't really impact themeaning substantially.
But you have to study these andcheck the variance.
So people who are doing thisare looking at variance.
(25:43):
You know things like the endingof Mark, which is a big one
Mark 6, 16, 9 through 20.
What's the right ending of Mark?
You know, because there's fourdifferent endings of Mark.
The KJV only is in debate.
Have you ever read a prophecyVery insistent that the King
(26:06):
James Version is the only rightversion of the Bible?
But hey, nobody here isquestioning whether the Bible is
God's Word.
Everybody who's having thesediscussions believes the Bible
is God's Word.
Okay, so lower textualcriticism is fine.
All we're trying to do here isjust try to make sure we have
(26:27):
the right text, the best text.
That's all we're doing Now.
Higher criticism this isdifferent.
These are people who study thebible to determine who really
wrote it.
Who really wrote it and how wasthis human book.
(26:49):
Put together this human book,that's a result of bacon.
Okay, because now science isthe avenue to knowledge, right?
So we approach the Bible thatway and we start to ask
(27:12):
ourselves how did the Bible cometogether from a purely human
perspective?
See, we don't accept, you know,god and all that kind of stuff
and the possibility of a personoutside this universe who can
speak into it.
I mean that Bible, that's acrazy idea.
That idea has long beenrejected.
(27:34):
That that God, if there is one,could actually speak absolute
ideas in human language, that istotally rejected.
That is not even consideredlike a normal thought for a
human being to possibly have.
They do not think that Godcould speak absolute ideas in
(27:55):
human language because theythink that humans will taint
everything.
So that idea is not evenaccepted.
So they have to approach theBible as if it was just written
truly by just human beings.
And that's where you have thisidea that JEBP wrote the Torah,
(28:18):
the Pentateuch, the first fivebooks of the Old Testament, and
so they began to divide it up.
This is where you have ideaslike Deutero-Isaiah or
Tridero-Isaiah One, two, three.
How many authors were there?
And they'll look at textualvariance, stylistic differences
and things like that and drawall these magnificent
(28:38):
conclusions like we're so smart,we know more than Jesus did.
Jesus made an error on Isaiah.
He didn't know that Isaiahdidn't really want him Stuff
like that In the end.
By the way, that is exactlywhat they're saying.
I mean, nobody comes out andsays it that way, but what
they're saying is I mean, nobodycomes out and says it that way,
but what they're saying is weknow more than Jesus.
(29:02):
So higher critics are interestedin who really wrote the Bible
and how it was put together.
So they totally reject theBible as God's Word.
They consider it just to be,you know, another human document
.
Now remind you of Burkhardt'sstatement.
(29:23):
This mystery is the uniquenessthrough which Holy Scripture and
all its humanity wasdistinguished from all other
human rights.
They are interested in theBible like wow, such an
interesting book.
They don't believe it's God'sword, not even for a second.
We went through how this allhappened.
Now I'm going to give you acouple examples of what people
(29:45):
will now do with the Bible,since all knowledge is now based
essentially on your experience.
If you read a historicaldocument right, and that
historical document did not lineup with your experience, let me
just give you an example.
There was these people in theBible who lived over 900 years.
Have you ever read this?
Does that line up with yourexperience?
(30:05):
Then what are you supposed todo with that?
If you come at everything fromthe presupposition that all
knowledge is based on yourexperience, you're going to rip
that to shreds.
You're going to say that's justa myth.
You see so because yourexperience is ultimate, your
(30:27):
experience becomes the standardof all truth.
And those were just people oftheir time.
They made historical andscientific blunders, and so we
can just rip all that stuff toshreds.
On the basis of what?
On the basis of the ultimacy ofmy personal experience.
So this is how experience cameto be the basis that everyone
(30:47):
uses today to decide what istrue and to reject the Bible out
of hand.
Right Makes total sense when wesee what has happened.
Another example People who areinfected with this kind of thing
still are.
And here we have the Bible,right?
(31:08):
The Bible is an ancient book.
It's written by men of anothertime who are products of their
era, including Jesus, who's justa product of his era.
And of course, course they madeerrors.
They didn't mean to make theseerrors.
Of course they'll say, whichmakes it sound kind of nice,
they just did, but now we knowbetter.
So we need to update ourunderstanding so we can further.
(31:31):
This will help us not lookweird in the culture.
This is what's going on inevangelicalism right now.
We've got these people who aresaying that if you're a young
earth creationist, you just lookodd in culture and therefore
you know if you would just comeonto our side, we're old earth,
you know evolutionarycreationists, just go along with
(31:52):
our thing, it will be fine and,by the way, you won't look so
weird in the culture and thiswill actually attract people to
Christianity.
Until they find out, there's noway you can get Genesis together
with the evolutionary story.
I mean, the order is completelywrong.
(32:14):
I studied evolution.
I taught it to other people.
There's no way you can get thetwo together.
I mean you've got plants beforeyou've got light.
You know, like the sun, I thinkyou have to have the sun to get
plants right.
But in evolutionary theoryyou've got the stars billions of
(32:37):
years before you've got plants.
But in the creation storyyou've got plants before you've
got the stars and the sun.
How can that be?
You can't get these storiestogether.
It's a foolish attempt.
Here's what happened in 1978,during the decade for the battle
(32:58):
of the Bible, right?
This is what they finally cameout with Holy Scriptures.
It's called the ChicagoStatement on Inerrancy.
It's in a book called Inerrancythat was edited by Norman
Geisler.
In this book, which has a lotof articles on the issue of
inerrancy, they wrote this HolyScripture being God's own word,
(33:19):
written by men, prepared andsuperintended by His Spirit.
Right.
So you've got.
It's God right, by means of theSpirit superintending humans.
Right.
He is of infallible there's ourword infallible divine
authority in all matters uponwhich it touches.
(33:39):
That was very deliberately putthere In all matters upon which
it touches, which means itincludes historic and scientific
matters.
We're not saying the Bible is ascientific textbook like a
geology textbook, right, or aphysics textbook.
We're not saying that.
We're just saying that it doestouch on these issues.
I mean, does the global floodof Noah not touch on geology?
(34:02):
I mean it's a catastrophic,high-energy hydrological event.
All of those ideas aregeological ideas.
If the Bible touches ongeological ideas, what we're
saying is it's true at thatpoint and any idea that
(34:23):
contradicts the matter uponwhich it touches is false.
That's all we're saying.
Let's go on being holy andverbally God-given.
So the whole thing right.
And verbally means each word,it doesn't mean just the verbs,
it means every word, the wholething and each word is God-given
(34:45):
.
He says Scripture is withouterror or fault in all its
teachings, no less in what itstates about God's acts in
creation, about the events ofworld history and about its own
literary origins under God.
Meaning Isaiah, you know, mightjust have been the guy who
wrote Isaiah Daniel in the 6thcentury, may have actually just
(35:08):
been the guy who wrote Danieland portrayed the four Gentile
kingdoms that we're now seeingunfold in history.
You know he could write thefuture.
It's no less true in thoseareas Than in its witness to
God's saving grace In individuallife.
In other words, it's true ineverything it touches.
(35:30):
You can't just say, thoughthey're saying you can't say
it's true about salvation butit's wrong.
Can't say it's true aboutsalvation but it's wrong about
creation.
It's true about salvation, butit's wrong about the false
marriage.
It's true about creation, butit's wrong about gender.
It's true about salvation butit's wrong about marriage.
You can't do that.
These things are tied togetherwith history and science and
(35:54):
everything.
Now let's apply this a littlebit over to Jesus and the
prophets.
There's a difference betweenJesus and, let's say, the
prophets and apostles, otherpeople who wrote scripture.
Right, there is a difference.
We need to understand this.
Here's the primary difference.
Let's just put the differenceout there.
Here's the primary difference.
(36:16):
Let's just put the differenceout there.
Jesus was infallible ineverything he ever said and ever
did, but prophets and apostleswere not.
They were only perfectlyinfallible when they wrote
Scripture.
Put it this way Was Paul anauthor of scripture?
Did David author scripture?
(36:38):
Did Moses author scripture?
Did these people writeinfallibly when they wrote
scripture?
Yes, now you're at a campfire,you, moses, david, paul?
Could they?
Could they make infallibleremarks around the campfire one
evening?
Sure, they're not writingscripture.
(37:01):
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 standingaround a campfire, could he have
made errors?
Could he have been foul of them?
No, do you see?
(37:21):
There's a difference betweenJesus and what's required on
that level because of the natureof his person we're back to.
He's impeccable, right, theimpeccable Christ, in hypostatic
union.
There's a difference whenyou're with him at the campfire.
So let's look at this a littlebit.
If you read the scripturescarefully, you'll see over 3,800
(37:43):
times it says the word of theLord or the word of God.
In many cases the word of theLord came to, for example,
ezekiel 38.1,.
The word of the Lord came toEzekiel.
Micah 1.1,.
The word of the Lord came toEzekiel.
Micah 1.1,.
The word of the Lord came toMicah.
There's a big question what isthis word of the Lord coming to
them?
(38:04):
I personally think in many ofthese references it's a
reference to the pre-incarnateChrist coming to them.
It's not just like they heard avoice.
Sometimes we might read well,the word of the Lord came to you
.
Oh, that means they heard avoice out of heaven.
I guess that's possible, right,but I think it's more the idea
(38:27):
that the pre-incarnate Christcame to them, not just a voice
or a sound.
Other ways that things happenedwere visions, right, dreams, so
forth.
So there's a number of waysthat God has revealed visions,
right, dreams, so forth.
So there's a number of waysthat God has revealed himself in
the Old Testament.
But I point this out becauseyou never, ever read of the word
(38:47):
of the Lord coming to Jesus.
You never, ever read that, andthe reason is is because he is
the word of the Lord.
So this points up anotherdifference between him and the
prophets.
Remember Hebrews 1, 1-3?
Hebrews 1, 1-3?
This points out this very sharpdifference between him and the
(39:17):
prophets who preceded him.
Hebrews 1, verse 1, god, afterhe spoke long ago to the fathers
and the prophets in manyportions and in many ways you
know like the word of the Lordcame to him visions, dreams and
so forth, he says in these lastdays has spoken to us in his Son
(39:39):
, whom he has appointed heir ofall things, through whom he also
made the world, and he is theradiance 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 infalliblewhenever they wrote scripture,
(40:01):
but Jesus was infallible all thetime, and that's a difference.
Jesus is the word of the Lord.
John 1, 14.
The word became flesh right anddwelt among us.
Let's go to the test of aprophet, deuteronomy 13.
(40:21):
Let's go to Deuteronomy 13.
I think I've taken you thesebefore, but unfortunately people
don't spend much time in theOld Testament anymore.
You know, we're New TestamentChristians, so who needs the Old
Testament?
You might need it to understandthe New Testament, since most
of the New Testament is likepresupposing.
(40:42):
You already know the OldTestament.
Deuteronomy 18, 18 and followinggives the test of one of the
tests of a prophet.
Here's what most people thinkthe test of a prophet is If
somebody predicts something andit comes true, they're a profit.
Here's what most people thinkthe test of a profit is If
somebody predicts something andit comes true, they're a profit.
Has the weatherman everpredicted correctly, yeah.
(41:02):
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 aprofit?
No, it has nothing to do withwhether you get it right.
You've guessed the future manytimes and you got it right.
(41:22):
That didn't make you a profit.
That's not the test.
The test is not if someone saysand then it happens that makes
them a profit.
What is the test?
It's a negative test.
So let's read it, verse 18.
I will raise up a prophet fromamong their countrymen, like you
, that is, like Moses, that'spredicting that, and I will put
(41:44):
my words in his mouth.
Now, that right there ought totell you what a prophet is Whose
words are in the mouth of theprophet, 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
(42:06):
speak to them all.
That I command him.
So he becomes a conduit.
Right, he's going to speakGod's words to others.
19, it shall come about thatwhoever will not listen to my
words, which he shall speak inmy name, I myself will require.
In other words, is it serious?
I mean, if somebody comes alongand they're a prophet and let's
(42:26):
say they really are speakingthe word of god, is it kind of
important for everybody who'slistening to follow it?
Yeah, like it's absolutelyserious.
If you don't, you're in bigtrouble, right, because that's
God's word.
It's not whoever the prophet is, not his words.
Now, but what if they don'tspeak the word of God?
(42:46):
What if they're just a prophetof their own making, as we have
made it today?
People who claim to be prophets,verse 20.
But the prophet who speaks aword presumptuously in my name?
Now, god knew this was going tohappen.
People are going to come alongand say I'm a prophet, but
here's one who speakspresumptuously.
He says which I have notcommanded him to speak, or which
(43:09):
he speaks in the name of othergods, that prophet shall what
Die commanded him to speak, orwhich he speaks in the name of
other gods, that prophet shallwhat Die.
Did God consider this a seriousoffense?
Did someone come along and sayI have the word, I speak what
God has told me.
I am not telling you.
(43:30):
If that's presumptuously done,that's a very serious matter.
God considers it a capitalcrime.
When I was back in seminary oneof my professors would say when
that happened, you were aboutto have a rock concert.
That's silly, verse 21, you maysay in your heart well how will
(44:00):
we know the word which the lordhas not spoken?
Of course that's what you'regonna ask.
I mean, how?
How do we know?
How do we know if what he'ssaying is from the lord or not?
I mean, if you got called up tobe a judge on the matter, I
mean, like I don't know, is theguy really a prophet or not?
I don don't know.
How are you going to know?
Well, it tells us, when aprophet speaks in the name of
the Lord, if the thing does notcome about or come true, that is
(44:22):
the thing which the Lord hasnot spoken.
Now, at that point, what areyou supposed to do with this guy
?
Kill him.
So he makes a prediction and itdoesn't happen.
(44:43):
Now, if you're following God'sword, you'd say well, the guy
was a presumptuous prophet, hehas to die.
Now, if that's the case, howmany times can a prophet be
wrong?
Zero, in other words, you haveto be 100% accurate.
(45:06):
You can never, ever make amistake, 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?
(45:30):
Have some people maybe evenbeen 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.
(45:52):
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.
Now it says then the prophet hasspoken it presumptuously.
You shall not be afraid of him.
Which means, by the flip sideof that, if he really is a
prophet, should you be afraid?
I guess you should In a healthytype of way.
(46:15):
A healthy type of fear towardthis is really God's word.
We need to consider it veryclosely and make sure that we
follow it.
I like ams, I like that kind ofthing.
So that's the negative test.
You'll never be wrong, ever.
When he speaks the word of theLord.
If he's around the campfire,that's okay.
He doesn't necessarily say thussaith the Lord.
But when they say thus saiththe Lord, that's it.
(46:36):
I mean, everything at thatpoint is seriously taken.
Deuteronomy 13.
Here's the other test.
It's called the orthodoxy test.
This one's interesting.
It's just as interesting.
It says if a prophet or adreamer of dreams arises among
you and gives you a sign or awonder, and the sign or the
wonder comes true.
(46:56):
What he just predicted thefuture.
He did this thing.
This is the guy right, we'regoing to follow this guy.
This is the true prophet, right?
Wrong that's what most peopledo.
Wrong, that's what most peopledo.
(47:16):
They follow him because, well,he made this prediction, he did
this thing.
Therefore, this must be of God.
Well, you have to go furtherthan that, it says.
Because it goes on in verse 2to say that he also says let's
go after other gods whom youhave not known, let's serve them
.
And then he says let's go afterother gods whom you have not
known, let's serve them.
And then he says in that case,you shall not listen to the
(47:37):
words of that prophet or thatdreamer of dreams, because the
Lord, your God, is testing youto 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
(47:58):
saying they're going to say thattheir text is saying that their
teaching is leading you awayfrom the one true God.
Obviously, everybody wouldrecognize 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 obviouslike that.
(48:20):
2 Corinthians 11 talks aboutSatan being an angel of light.
He doesn't come to you with apitchfork 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 sosmart scripturally.
(48:40):
We really have to be so smartscripturally.
So they're not going toactually say those words.
The point is is that theteaching that they proclaim has
to be evaluated.
The teaching that they proclaimhas to be evaluated.
The teaching that they proclaimhas to be evaluated to see if
it's in line with the true Wordof God.
(49:01):
A modern way of putting itwould be orthodox, which is
actually from a Greek word, soit's okay, but not heterodox.
It needs to be orthodox, itneeds to be in line with all
other teachings.
Now, did anything change in theNew Testament, by the way, or
are these two tests still theretoday?
(49:22):
These same two tests are stillthere.
These tests never went away.
I've listed two New Testamentpassages.
For the first one, the negativetest, 1 John 4, 1-6.
And for the second one, theorthodox test, the popular
passage Matthew 7, 15-23.
Let's just look at those realfast and then we'll stop there.
(49:46):
Let's go to the 1 John 1.
This one corresponds to thenegative test and then we'll
finish with the reallycontroversial one that people
misuse all the time.
This is one I wish people wouldjust spend more time in the
(50:07):
Bible and less time justlistening to people talk.
I mean, here I am talking, Iknow I get it, but hopefully I'm
trying to show you what's righthere.
First, john, chapter four,verses one through six.
Here's the test beloved, do notbelieve every spirit, but test
the spirits to see whether theyare from god.
Because, why?
Because many false prophets.
(50:28):
So it's the same context.
Right, deuteronomy 18 manyfalse prophets have gone out
into the world.
By this you know the Spirit ofGod, that every spirit that
confesses that Jesus Christ hascome in the flesh is from God
and every spirit that does notconfess Jesus is not from God.
This is the spirit ofAntichrist, of which you've
heard is in the world.
It's coming in the world, buthe's already in the world.
(50:56):
Now understand what's being saidhere.
Right, there's this idea thatconfesses christ come in the
flesh, that is, that christ, whois god, took upon himself a
true body.
That's what this is talkingabout.
This was a problem in the firstcentury because gnosticism said
that god could never come in abody because body was
intrinsically evil.
It was a material, it's flesh.
(51:16):
God could never come in theflesh because flesh is is evil.
That's what they said.
So that was a false teaching ofthe day.
What's what's the point of thetest?
The point of the test is totest the prophets teaching, to
make sure it's orthodox.
It doesn't mean that, you know,somebody stands up there today
(51:38):
and says I'm a prophet, then I'msupposed to go up to him say do
you believe jesus came in aphysical body?
And that's the test.
No, any, any doctrine?
Okay, right, that was the onethat at the time was a major
controversial issue, so that'swhy it's brought up.
But he's saying you have totest orthodoxy, you have to test
(52:01):
their teaching.
Let's go back to Matthew 7.
So this is really the samething, very similar in some
respects to the one in the OldTestament.
They're doing the same thing.
Matthew, chapter 7, in theSermon on the Mount right, 15
(52:21):
through 23.
Here again, false prophets.
Right, you'll notice that's thetopic right in verse 15.
Beware of false prophets.
Now, a lot of people read thispassage today and they say there
are certain people who arefalse believers.
They love to put the wordbeliever there instead of
prophet so they can misuse thispassage Anytime.
(52:43):
Anybody does that they're afalse teacher.
Don't listen to them.
This is a passage about falseprophets.
It says Beware of falseprophets who come to you in
sheep's clothing, but inwardlyare they a ravenous wolves?
Now, how do they come?
(53:04):
Looking?
They look like sheep.
Yeah, innocent, nice littlesheep.
Right, it says Inwardly, whatare they?
Ravenous wolves?
Have you ever seen a wolf getinto a sheep pen?
I've never seen it in real life, but I've watched videos of it
because I was like I have tofamiliarize myself with what
this might be like.
I wouldn't do that unlessyou're ready for a lot of yeah,
(53:31):
because they'll destroy everylast.
I wouldn't do that unlessyou're ready for a lot of yeah,
because they'll destroy everylast sheep in there.
They'll just rip them.
It's unbelievable.
The only thing worse I've everseen is when I've watched humans
do it to other people, likeI've watched several videos of
what Hamas did to Israelicivilians, things I'll never
(53:52):
forget.
Oh God, give me a resurrection.
It's good to see that as men,by the way, because then you'll
understand.
We're here to protect our women.
(54:12):
We're here to protect againstthis kind of nasty, vile evil.
Don't ever let that stuff gettoo far from you, because it's
right around the corner.
You have to be ready to standagainst wickedness.
That's what these wolves do tothese sheep.
(54:33):
They're false prophets.
They're supposed to die rightunder the mosaic economy.
Verse 16 you will know them bytheir fruits.
Well, that can't be what theydo.
It definitely cannot be thingsthey do.
The fruits can't be what theydo, because they look like sheep
.
They're nice little sheep.
They do good little things.
They go around and eat littlegrass and drink some water, go
(54:57):
around the pretty pastures.
That's what they do.
It's not talking about what theydo at all.
It says grapes are not gatheredfrom thorn bushes, nor fixed
from thistles, are they?
So every good tree bears goodfruit.
Well, we all know that,obviously.
But the bad tree bears badfruit, obviously.
He says a good tree cannotproduce bad fruit, nor can a bad
(55:19):
tree produce good fruit.
Every tree that does not beargood fruit is cut down and
thrown into the fire.
So then you will know them byyour fruits.
And lots of people say see, youcan tell whether someone's a
believer or not by looking attheir fruit.
This has nothing to do withwhether you can tell a person's
a believer or not.
It has to do with how you cantell if someone's a false
prophet or not.
What are their fruits?
(55:40):
What they say Out of theirmouth comes that which is in the
heart.
Matthew, chapter 12.
And he describes it explicitlyand uses the word fruit.
Their fruit is what comes outtheir mouth.
It's their teaching.
We're back to the exact samething Of people who did all
these signs and wonders and soforth and people were like, oh,
(56:01):
wow, and then, but they didn'tlisten to the teaching.
Because if they'd listened tothe teaching, they'd find out
what was inside of them.
And what was inside of them,their ravenous wolves, their
ravenous wolves, their ravenouswolves, their ravenous wolves.
So he goes on, verse 21.
Not everyone who says to me,lord, lord, will enter the
kingdom of heaven, but he whodoes the will of my Father.
Many will say to me Lord, lord,didn't we not prophesy in your
(56:24):
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.
If you can cast out a demon, thetest is what is the fruit that
comes out of your lips?
That is the only thing thatmatters in your whole life.
Are you being ruled by theseven men who rule the world
(56:47):
from the grave, the MarxistsFrom the grave, the Marxists,
the Maslow's, the Freud's whohave permeated our culture With
all this trash, or are you beingcontrolled and governed by the
word of God?
It doesn't matter If somebodycasts out a demon, it doesn't
matter.
He says, if you perform manymiracles In Jesus's name, that's
(57:11):
totally irrelevant, thatdoesn't mean anything.
Until we get this through ourheads, we will never listen to
the Word of God.
Flashy lights don't matter.
Big shows have nothing to dowith it.
God's Word has everything to dowith it.
(57:35):
God's word has everything to dowith it.
Then I will declare to them Inever knew you Get out of here.
That is not an overemphasis.
These people are false prophetsand the only thing that matters
to evaluate them Is what istheir teaching?
(57:57):
What is their teaching?
It is a complete joke thatsomeone today would claim to be
a prophet, and the fact thatmillions and millions of
Christians are following peoplewho claim to be apostles and
prophets today is one of thegreatest travesties in the world
(58:20):
.
We are the people who aresupposed to love the Lord, our
God, with all our heart, mind,soul and strength.
What did Deuteronomy 13 say?
If someone comes a prophet or adreamer of dreams and he does
this and he does that and hesays this will happen and it
comes to pass.
And then he also has falseteaching and it says I do this.
(58:41):
God said I do this to test you,to see whether you love me or
not.
He put false prophets in ourmidst today.
To do what?
To test us, to see if we dowhat.
To test us To see if we do what, if we love him.
Do you love him?
Are you going to rush after allthis nonsense?
See, there are very few peoplein this world like y'all.
(59:03):
I'm preaching to the world outthere.
Y'all, y'all, y'all love theword of God.
There are very, very, very fewleft.
It is disheartening.
I feel like my namesake,jeremiah right the weeping
prophet, who was given a job todo knowing that the words he was
(59:28):
supposed to preach to hisnation, 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, Igot it better than Jeremiah.
I got people that will actuallylisten, people that actually do
love the Lord Like y'all.
Don't give up.
Stay the course.
It's the only course.
(59:52):
It's the only safe path, andthis world is going to hell on a
hand.
It's going there fast.
It's going there faster thanI'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 (01:00:12):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(01:00:33):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
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