Don’t Change God’s Word

Answers Bible Curriculum Second Edition Unit 1 Lesson 8

This week in Sunday school, we’re talking about how the Bible calls us to assess those claiming new revelation from God. What is God’s standard for His prophets? Is there such a thing as fallible or imperfect prophecy today? How have various self-proclaimed prophets and apostles sought to get around God’s standard for prophecy? And how should we speak with those caught up in movements based on false prophets and prophecy? The issue of ongoing revelation is a critical topic, so I hope you will join us!

Our main texts for this lesson are Deuteronomy 18:20-22, Deuteronomy 13:1-5, and Galatians 1:6-9.

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Well, good morning everybody. Let’s get started.

Welcome to Sunday school.

As you can see on the screen, our lesson title for today is Don’t Change God’s Word. Last two weeks, we’ve looked at why we can trust the 66 Old Testament, New Testament books as God’s complete, perfect, and preserved word. But what about those who today claim that the ability to receive and proclaim supernatural revelation from God continues? What about those who claim that there are new prophets and succeeding apostles?

Or the claim that certain groups have new scriptures that really completes what God was saying in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

How do we respond to these kinds of claims?

Well, partly we’ve already answered that question in last week’s lesson, but I think we could use a little bit more.

Let’s go more in depth in talking about modern claims of New Revelation because we need a biblically steadfast response.

As always, the basis for our answering these claims and answering how to respond to these questions is going to be based on the Bible. So, here’s our agenda for today’s class.

We’re going to center our discussion today on two key passages from Deuteronomy. We’re then going to discuss some defenses from those who do claim that prophecy continues and then we’ll consider a little bit more the application for this topic. Let’s pray before we go on.

Great God, this is a this is a wonderful wonderful lesson we have to go through today.

encouraging, sobering. Lord, I pray that it’s edifying and instructive to the people at Calvary and to anyone who might listen.

God, I pray that you help me to be able to explain it well, explain it accurately, explain it helpfully.

I pray that you’d encourage us with your words that we may love you more in Jesus name. Amen.

Right. Please open your Bibles to Deuteronomy 18.

Deuteronomy 18 is where we’re going to start today. One of the most important statements in the Bible when it comes to assessing prophets and their prophetic claims, it comes from this passage in Deuteronomy 18 20-22.

Deuteronomy 18 20-22. Just three verses here, but let me read it.

But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name which I have not commanded him to speak but which he speaks in the name of other gods that prophet shall die. You may say in your heart, how will we know which how will we know the word which Yahweh has not spoken?

When a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously.

You shall not be afraid of him.

All right. So, we’ve read the passage.

Hold on a sec here. There we go. Let’s conduct inductive study on this passage starting with observations.

First, notice the context. Moses writes to the Israelites are about to enter the promised land without Moses.

Moses doesn’t want the people of Israel to forget God’s law or his covenant with them. So he writes these words at God’s direction right before a passage in verses 15 to 19. If you just glance back a little bit, you can see that Moses promises that another prophet like Moses will arise from among the people. He’s going to come after Moses. He tells the people that Israel must listen to that prophet because that prophet will be from God. Right after this passage, the subject changes. So everything we have to understand regarding the topic of prophecy has come before or is right here. Let’s look a little bit more closely at the three verses we just read. Notice that God himself speaks here to Moses and he intends this instruction to be passed on to Israel. And notice that what it is that a prophet does or claims to do that makes people identify him as a prophet.

A prophet speaks on behalf of God or behalf of a god.

This speaking may include it and sometimes does include foretelling the future. But most basically a prophet is one who speaks forth the words given to him by God. That’s what a prophet is. He speaks forth the words given to him by God. Supernaturally given to him by God.

Now notice how God says the people will know if what a prophet says is spoken truly from God.

If the prophecy does not come true, those words and that prophecy did not come from God.

And notice what is prescribed for the person who speaks such a false prophecy.

That false prophet is to die. He is to be put to death.

Now you say, why? That seems a little severe. What’s the big deal? Well, notice the repeated word in this passage describing the false prophet’s cry. It says he has spoken presumptuously.

Spoken presumptuously on God’s behalf.

With these observations, let’s now move to the interpretation step and attempt to form a main idea of this passage.

I think it is again pretty straightforward. God’s message to the people of Israel is that they will know false presumptuous prophets when those prophets prophecies do not come to pass.

And these prophets are to be put to death. This is part of keeping Israel pure. But what does such a warning show us about the character of God? Let me ask you, what does this warning show us about the character of God?

What do you think?

I mean, like I said, killing false prophets is pretty severe. Putting them to death. Why would God do that?

God’s not cruel. God’s not unjust. But what is he?

I hear little murmurss, but can someone give me a more loud and confident answer?

He’s just. He’s a just God.

Okay. He is just. So, we know that there is a there is a deserving of this death.

This is a this is a heinous crime to speak presumptuously on God’s behalf. So, you’re right. There there is justice in this. What else?

Holiness.

Yeah. Oh, more basically this is about holiness, right? You cannot um impugn God’s character by doing this.

That is so far from what you are allowed to do that it requires the just response of even a a prophet being put to death.

This is God’s holiness being emphasized here. I think along with that we can say the the greatness, the trustworthiness, the authority of God’s word is emphasized here. God wants his word to be valued. It wants his word to be reverenced. And so when someone speak presumptuously in God’s name, that that is an extreme offense to God. His word is to be held high because he is to be held high as the great and holy God.

And so he gives this warning. We’re seeing more about who God is and even uh even in this commandment. Roy, I saw your hand go up briefly. Did you want to say something?

I think the other part of that is probably this is just probably more serious. The precedent that it sets to do something like this where does it end? everyone then becomes a prophet and there’s you lose control over it when there’s no end to this kind of thing why we see it going on today.

Yeah, I think that’s true. And we see that in in other instances the Old Testament law, just to repeat your your idea that there’s a precedent, a dangerous precedent in one who speaks presumptuously on God’s behalf. And then all sorts of claims could be made on God’s behalf. And this is one of the the same reasons why God says don’t intermar with the people around you. You say, “Oh, it’s just one mil little marriage.

What is that? How’s that going to affect anybody?” But as people begin to do that, that’s just going to result in greater greater corruption of the people of Israel. They will be drawn after other gods. So yeah, there’s an aspect of an evil precedent here. This is not to say that this is an unloving command.

This is actually a greatly loving command because God, he knows that because he himself is the greatest. It’s only when people are valuing his word and not lies on his behalf that they are going to have the way of blessing that they are going to know and walk with God. So a lot of a lot of aspects of God’s perfections or his attributes being displayed here.

He is a holy and glorious God. He will not have his name or his word soleied.

And he wants the words of his true prophets to be taken seriously. That’s the other that’s the flip side, right?

Not only is God’s word devalued or not only are lies spread on God’s behalf, but it takes the true words of God and makes them less valuable. How can you believe them if you don’t even know if they’re really God’s words?

Now the passage specifically talks about how you will know that someone is not a true prophet of God. They their words will not come to pass. But how do you know who is a true prophet of God? Well, this passage would lead us to believe that you can identify a true prophet by whether his words do come to pass. If he speaks true, if he foretells the future accurately, then that is a sign he is a true prophet. But is that the only principle for identifying a true prophet? Will that principle hold up in every circumstance?

You’ll know God’s true prophets when they say things that come to pass.

Is that enough?

Not necessarily. Because you can notice back in verse 20, it says a prophet may speak in the name of another god.

And the implication is that if that if that is the case, then that prophet is not to be listened to either.

Well, what if a prophet speaks in the name of another god and his words prove true? He accurately foretells the future or he gives some sort of sign or wonder.

What then? Again, I think the answer is implicit in this passage, but it’s more explicit in a passage that comes before this one. Turn back to Deuteronomy 13.

Deuteronomy 13:es 1:5, where God deals specifically with the situation I’ve just described.

Deuteronomy 13:es 1:5.

Let’s look at these verses.

If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true concerning which he spoke to you, saying, “Let us go after other gods whom you have not known, and let us serve them.” You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For Yahweh your God is testing you to find out if you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall follow Yahweh your God and fear him. You shall keep his commandments, listen to his voice, serve him and cling to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he has counseledled rebellion against Yahweh your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery to seduce you from the way in which Yahweh your God commanded you to walk.

So you shall purge the evil from among you.

So I think you can see many of the same principles from our previous passage here. And we have a more specific answer about the situation we were talking about. God says that someone might come along who is able to accomplish signs and wonders even accurately revealing the future. But if such a woman calls on Israel to serve other gods, well the people are to react by rejecting him as a false prophet and then putting him to death.

But what qualifies as another god? What if the prophet still calls this other god Yahweh?

You notice the phrase in verse two in this passage says, “Let us go after other gods whom you have not known.” I think that’s key for understanding this here.

The principle is that if a false prophet calls others to follow a god different than the one previously revealed to Israel especially through the scriptures then that prophet is essentially calling Israel to follow a different god may use the same name but if it’s not the god revealed to Israel previously revealed and uh recorded in the scriptures that is a different god you know the good illustration of that is when Israel has the golden calf incident when in Exodus Moses goes up to the mountain. The people are apart from him. They don’t know what happened to him. They say, “Aaron, make us gods to go before us or make us a god to go before us.” He makes this molten image of a calf and then he says, “Here’s your God that brought you out of Egypt.” They may have even called this calf Yahweh, but it wasn’t the true God. That wasn’t the God that God revealed himself to be.

They contradicted that and so they were now serving a different God. Same issue with God’s prophets or with a prophet.

If he if he calls Israel to follow a god different than the one revealed, he is a false prophet.

So from Deuteronomy 18-13, we see two principles for judging God’s prophets.

For a prophet to be trustworthy, for Israel to really believe that this prophet comes from God, the prophet must both have his words come true. And he must hold to what God has already revealed about himself. It can’t be a different God even if he’s given the same name. So it must hold to what God has already revealed about himself.

Just to double just to double check to be a true prophet, do these words have to come true or do his words have to come true all the time or just some of the time?

All the time. All the time. It must be all the time. God does not lie. God does not make mistakes. So his prophets cannot misrepresent him by lying or making mistakes. The Deuteronomy 18 criteria is very clear. If even one prediction comes or one prediction of the prophet, one foretelling does not come to pass, that prophet is not from God and under Israel’s law deserves to die.

That is a pretty serious standard, right? If you’re going to claim new revelation from God in Israel, you are really taking your life in your hands.

If you’re not really a prophet from God, you’re very much risking your own death.

And this is a very plain set of instructions both in Deuteronomy 13 and Deuteronomy 18. It’s not as if, oh, you know, you can interpret this different ways. No, it’s it’s very straightforward. It avoids figures of speech. And such language makes sense considering the seriousness of the offense. If God is so zealous for his own character, which he is, if he does not want his word cheapened by false or presumptuous prophets, then he will make his commandment very clear. and the consequences very severe.

Now, what about us? This was given to Israel more than a thousand years ago.

But if God wanted Israel to be so serious about false prophecy, shouldn’t we as well?

Has something changed? Shouldn’t we also heed this warning? Now, granted, we don’t live in the unique theocracy of Israel, so we aren’t called to execute false prophets.

But certainly we ought to identify and reject false prophets and seek to protect people from their influence.

Indeed, these principles of this the principles of this passage are for us as well. These passages because people today are still claiming prophetic words from God. And so they ought to come under the assessment that these two passages require of God’s prophets. We have to ask when someone claims to be speaking for God, are the words of this prophet always and verifiably true?

And does what he say or does what he says proclaim something different about God than what was previously revealed in the scriptures?

Something different on about God or behalf of God than what was revealed in the Bible. When subjected to these tests, modern prophets always come up short. You can’t pass these tests.

However, continuationists, those who assert that revelation from God continues today in various ways, either through prophecy or speaking in tongues or seeing visions or dreaming dreams or experiencing guiding impressions. They seek to defend their claim that prophets have come or are around even now. and revelation from God continues. And one way that they seek to argue their case is by appealing to an example in the book of Acts.

They argue that prophecy today does not require the same accuracy or authority as earlier times. You can’t subject the strict standards of Deuteronomy 13 and 18 on modern prophets because well, let’s just look at Agabus. So, turn over to Acts. Acts chapter 21 10-11.

Acts 21 here they say is an example that modern prophets follow.

Some say acts 21 10-11.

It says, “As we were staying there for some days, prophet named Agabus came down from Judea and coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says. In this way, the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.” Aha. advocate of modern prophecy says.

Here we have a prophet who got some details about his prophecy wrong.

Later in this chapter, Acts 21, we see that Paul is not bound with a belt but with a chain and it was the Romans who bind Paul, not the Jews.

Now, nevertheless, Agabus is identified as a true prophet by Luke. And so, implication must be that the commandment to Israel in the Old Testament regarding perfect accuracy as a requirement for God’s prophets does not apply today. The Holy Spirit apparently works differently in the church age. You can have a word from the Lord that is not as authoritative or as accurate as required in the Old Testament.

This is the argument used or based off of Agabus. But this argument I think is easily answered because well for multiple reasons. Be in this way of verse 11 does not necessitate being bound with a belt as Agabus did but merely being bound hand and foot which ostensibly is what happened to Paul when he was bound in chains. Nevertheless, he may have been bound with a belt. It’s just not mentioned by Luke perhaps. If you are familiar with the narrative that follows, when Paul is in Jerusalem and he goes into the temple, some Jews sees him and start beating him. And it’s easier to beat somebody who can’t defend himself or fight back. And so they may have, as the mob gathered around Paul, they may have actually bound him with a belt.

That would have made it easier. Maybe Luke just doesn’t record it. So either way, we have a way for Paul to be bound hand and foot. And though the Romans do indeed bind Paul, they only do so because of the Jews, because of the behavior of the Jews.

Really, it’s the same principle as when the apostles say the Jews crucified Jesus. Well, did the Jews crucify Jesus?

No, it was the Romans who crucified Jesus. Well, that’s not what the apostles say in Acts two and other places. They say you crucified him. You may have used the Romans as a tool, but it was you.

The same thing here. Though the Romans are the tool of the Jews, the Jews are the ones actually persecuting and in essence seizing and binding Paul. So there are multiple ways that we can multiple plausible ways that we can explain the veracity of Agabus’ prophecy. We don’t have to take him as an example of fallible but inspired prophecy. No, he was 100% correct just like prophets in the Old Testament. And besides, and I alluded to this principle earlier, why would God suddenly change the principle he set down in the law of Moses? Did he suddenly care less about false prophecy? Did he suddenly decide that the holiness of his name and of his word is not as big of a priority in the New Testament age as it was in the Old Testament?

Not to mention the basic practical problem. And again, this is something we’ve already alluded to. If there is such a thing as fallible imperfect prophecy from God’s prophets, then won’t the church be asked be forced to ask the same question which Israel asks in Deuteronomy 18?

How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?

If prophets can sometimes be wrong or sometimes contradict previously revealed scripture, how will you know who is God’s prophet?

The answer is you can’t.

You won’t.

If you can’t assess them by a standard, you’ll never know who’s really God’s prophet.

Moreover, how, if we can have such fallible prophets, how can New Testament believers obey the commands given to them by the apostles to test the words of the prophets?

You know, sometimes continuation to say that the commandments in the New Testament to test the words of the prophets proves that New Testament prophets are imperfect. I mean, if you have to test them, that means that what they say is not true all the time, right? So, this is why we believe that prophets are fallible. They they’re not totally perfect. They’re not totally accurate. But this conclusion does not follow when we actually look at the passages in which New Testament believers are commanded to test the prophets. And for a very clear example, turn to 1 John chapter 4. 1 John 4:1.

I’m just going to take you to one passage where we get this exhortation to test test the words of the prophets.

But notice something very, very important here. 1 John 4:1. Why do we test the prophets?

John the Apostle writes, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Do you see the exhortation that we’re given here is not to distinguish which words from the fallible prophets are true and which are just a mistake. But what is the exhortation? To discern.

It is to discern which prophets are true prophets and which prophets are false prophets.

That’s the reason we have to test the prophets. Not because they’re fallible, but because some are false.

And other scriptures that speak of testing in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 14:es 26-33 and 1 Thessalonians 5:1 19-22, they say the same thing. This is why we test the prophets because it’s the same situation as in the Old Testament. There are false prophets and so they must be subjected to a standard to show who is true and who is false.

New Testament believers are not called to sort through the prophetic statements and pick out what is from God and what is merely from man and should be excused. You know, they are called to discern who’s prophesying God’s perfect revelation and who is a deceitful prophet pretending to declare God’s word.

So all of this is very instructive for us. We are not to be deceived. There is no middle ground when it comes to prophecy. Either it’s true or it’s false. Either it’s from God or it’s not from God. Either it’s good or it’s evil.

There’s no such thing as a mixed prophetic revelation. part God, part man.

We’d be hopelessly lost if if there were. Besides, that’s not the way the New Testament speaks of prophecy.

Really, the New Testament exhortations about testing prophecy are exactly in line with what we’ve previously read in the Old Testament. God did choose to speak through divinely appointed prophets at times, but they were recognizable because they were never wrong in what they said on behalf of God. You know, I’ll put up these.

Oh, no, it’s not this one yet. It comes a little bit later. I I’ll give you the list of the standard. Just three here.

God’s prophets are recognizable because they’re never wrong on what they say on behalf of God. They never contradict previous revelation.

And, and I mentioned this last week, they had accompanying supernatural validation from God. Miraculous signs obvious and verifiable. Sometimes that validation was merely having their prophecies come true. But there was supernatural validation of God’s prophets. So you knew you knew who God’s prophets were or you could know who God’s prophets were in the Old Testament and New Testament. Today’s so-called prophets do not fit this description.

They do not pass God’s standard and therefore they must be recognized as false prophets and those prophesying falsely. Understand what I’m saying to you is about receiving and declaring new revelation from God. I’m not referring to the preaching of scripture. There is a sense in which preachers are like prophets in the Bible and that they declare forth the words of God. But strictly speaking of the prophetic gift, that’s receiving new revelation and having the ability to declare it.

Preaching old revelation requires a different assessment. I’m not saying that preachers can never say anything. that’s um inaccurate. No, they can and they have to be tested. That doesn’t make them a false prophet. But I’m talking about this supernatural gift of prophecy. I’m talking about direct revelation from God that does not need the scriptures and therefore must meet a certain standard with the passing of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament. this supernatural revelation uh this new supernatural revelation of God, this prophetic gift, it does not exist today.

Not only because there’s no need for it, the foundation of doctrine having already been laid by the apostles, but also because those who claim this kind of prophecy do not pass the standards given by God in Deuteronomy 18 and 13.

There are other ways though that those who want to claim prophecy after the New Testament era and even today, there are other ways that they try and get around these standards provided by God in the Bible. We’ve already seen one, and that’s to deny that prophets actually need to be uh 100% accurate. But there are other ways, and I’ve brainstormed a few here.

These are just based on my own observation. These terms are not technical. They’re just the way I label them. But how are how do other modern prophets try to excuse themselves for not meeting the standard of the Bible?

Well, one is vague or high probability prophecy. That is some prophets so-called use deliberately general prophecies because they’re always going to work.

For example, if you say that God is going to judge America in a powerful way this year, your prophecy is going to come true. Why is that?

Is it not because bad things are happening to America all the time?

There’s some sort of terrible event, some sort of disaster that’s going to happen inevitably. And so, you can just link it to your prophecy. Or if you say as a prophet, someone in this congregation needs to repent of sexual sin or prayerlessness.

Well, your prophecy is going to come true. Why? Because those are things that God’s people struggle with many times.

If you’re in a group of Christians, there’s a very high probability that somebody is struggling with one of those things. And so, if you prophesy it, well, your prophecy is going to come true. And some people do that to sort of meet the standard of the Bible.

and boost their own credibility.

Another way is fine print prophecy. What I call fine print prophecy. Some prophets while seeming to claim total accuracy and infallibility in reality only claim infallibility under certain very controlled and narrow circum circumstances. You may have heard of papal infallibility. That is whatever the pope says as Christ’s apostle in the line of Peter, it must be true.

You say, “Uh, but the pope’s wrong all the He obviously has invalidated himself as a prophet, right? Well, not according to Catholic doctrine because the pope is only infallible when he explicitly claims to speak infallibly. That is when he claims the full authority of his papal office when he speaks ex cathedral.

Modern popes seldom speak ex cathedral.

Usually only in rare instances when he a pope wants to further define or explain a particular Roman Catholic doctrine. So he’s never speaking as a prophet and therefore he can never be wrong.

He seems infallible but he seldom speaks infallibly and when he does it’s under very controlled conditions. We got to make sure if you’re going to say something inf and claim infallibility you need to make sure that you’re totally right.

Of course they do that according to their own doctrine contradicts the Bible. But that’s just to show you that there is a certain fine print with certain prophets.

You say, “Oh, you’ve shown yourself to be false.” So we say, “Well, no, I wasn’t speaking prophetically at that time.” This is fine print prophecy. Another is, and this is related, reinterpreted prophecy.

Some prophets will make a prophecy and when it doesn’t come true, they will explain away their error by saying that they had misunderstood what God was telling them.

For example, when the Millerites, those who were the predecessors to the Seventh Day Adventists, they predicted that Jesus would return in his final judgment on October 22nd, 1844.

It didn’t happen. So many of the group’s adherence left the movement. But others, and this would include the one of the the core founders of Seventh Day Adventism, Ellen G. white. Others said, “No, Jesus did come back on October 22nd, 1844.” Or sort of instead of Jesus entering the earth in judgment, he entered the Holy of Holies in heaven and he began his investigative judgment of all men on that date. You see, we weren’t wrong about the prophecy. We just misunderstood it.

By this reinterpretation, the Seventh Day Adventists were able to move forward without admitting that their previous interpretation or without without admitting that their prophecy was incorrect. It was just all a misunderstanding.

Same way prophets today try to excuse their errors by saying they misunderstood God rather than admitting that they didn’t actually speak for God.

One other way, and I think this overlaps a little bit, one other way is unverifiable prophecy. Many prophets will make statements or predictions that are designed to be uncheckable. You can’t hold them to a standard 100% accuracy because you’ll never know whether they were accurate or not.

For example, if a prophet promises something will happen and then it doesn’t happen, he might say, “It’s because you didn’t have enough faith.

you just simply didn’t pray enough or you didn’t give enough. It would have happened. I was totally right, but you just didn’t fulfill your part of the part. God would have done it, but you didn’t have enough faith. Well, what can you say in response to that? How can you ever know whether you did have enough faith or you had prayed enough or you had given enough? No one can check that.

There’s no way to check the prophet statement and hold them to the Bible standard. Another example would be this is something that so many prophets, so-called prophets have done, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, etc. They’ll claim that the Old Testament and the New Testament were mistransated or corrupted and that only corrupted copies of God’s word survive today and therefore you have to listen to them as God’s true prophets who are going to set everything straight.

By making this claim, the prophets present them prevent themselves from being flagged as a false prophet because there’s no way to verify what they’ve said. If you say, “Well, let me let me check the Bible to see if what you say is true.” And they’ll say, “Oh, no, no, no. The Bible’s corrupted. Only corrupted versions of the Bible survive today. You can’t hold me to the Bible standard.

I I have to tell you what the Bible really is supposed to say.” And so, they prevent themselves from or seemingly try to prevent themselves from being held to God’s standard.

So there are many ways that modern prophets try to gain or keep credibility, but we ought to see through these attempts to establish their prophecy. These excuses do not count as passing God’s standard. Rather, again, we have to stand by the test that God has given for recognizing new revelation from him. For God’s prophets, the standard according to the Bible is that they must be 100% accurate and verifiable. We ask, we ask the question, does this prophet ever make false statements or predictions on God’s behalf? And it has to be things you can actually verify or else you still have no reason to listen to him. It must agree with previous revelation. We ask, does he contradict the Bible?

And then it must be validated with obvious and verifiable miracles or some other supernatural clear supernatural affirmation.

This is what we see with prophets in the Bible. We ask does he have modern prophet does he have verifiable supernatural affirmation from God? Again if we can’t verify them or they just say no no no just trust me. I’m sorry.

That’s not what the Bible says. Bible says that we we have a standard to recognize who’s God’s prophet and you don’t meet that standard. So I have to reject you. Really, when we apply these tests to the various cults and religions that have become offshoots of Christianity by proclaiming new revelation, these would include Roman Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, 7th Day Adventism, Christian Science, whatever it is. When we apply these standards, these movements fail.

Their prophets and apostles cannot meet the Bible standard. They all try to change God’s truth.

They ultimately posit a different God and a different gospel and thus they are to be rejected are to be rejected as false.

Along these lines, Paul gives a very important warning to believers in Galatians 1. This is the last passage we’ll turn to. Go over to Galatians 1.

Galatians 1:es 6-9.

I hope that you’ll see from this passage the consistency when it comes to recognizing God’s word in the Bible.

Deuteronomy 13, Deuteronomy 18. They’re going to flow right into the same principles of this passage. Here’s what Paul says in Galatians 1 6 to9.

I am amazed that you are so quickly discerning him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel which is really not another only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed.

As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man preaching or if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you receive, he is to be accursed.

I think this this piece of scripture itself is so key for responding to those who claim that God has said something outside the Bible, which we must use to change the Bible.

Paul, God’s one of God’s specially appointed apostles, he warned that even the most supernatural experience accompanying claims of a different gospel or even if an angel, which is interesting because people like Muhammad and Joseph Smith, they claimed that an angel spoke to them. Even if an angel or even if the Apostle Paul himself shared something that was different than what was originally declared to God’s people and captured in the scriptures, Paul says, “Dismiss that messenger as false and a cursed.” If anything is different than what the Bible declares, the Bible itself warns us, calls us to reject it.

False prophets will inevitably change God’s words in order to advance their own agenda. They have to. If you’re going to be a false prophet, you have no reason to. Unless you’re going to try to secure and gain for yourself, whether it’s money, whether it’s women, whether it’s glory, you’re going to have to change God’s word. You’re going to have to reinterpret it. You’re going to have to add new revelation. And all false prophets do. But as soon as they do so, if we’re paying attention to the standards of scripture, these false prophets show themselves to be false.

The excuse that they give that the Bible is corrupted and over time or corrupted over time and must be supplemented with their own revelation cannot be accepted because the Bible itself warns against believing that claim.

And God designed his prophets to pass a certain standard to be accepted.

In the Bible, God’s prophets, God’s prophets met that standard. You look at people like Elijah. You look at Jesus himself. You look at the apostles. They meet God’s criteria as true prophets, unlike the false prophets that we’ve seen in the world since those days.

Let’s now all let’s tie this all together both what we’re seeing today and what we’ve seen in the past few weeks to answer the question why do we believe that God’s word is complete and that God gives no new supernatural revelation today well first it’s because God specially commissioned and empowered apostles apostles gave the climactic revelation of Christ in the New Testament and then passed away I mean again think about that verse in Jude content for the faith once for all given to the saints or Hebrews chapter 1 uh verses 1 and two God previous times he spoke uh he spoke it many times and in many ways but in these last days he has spoken to us through his son this is the climactic revelation the apostles gave it it’s done and they moreover proclaimed that the Bible in the old testament the new testament is sufficient for the Christians for all of life and godliness. You don’t need any other revelation from God. You’ve got what you need.

The apostles specifically warned against adding to or tampering with the revealed word.

And those who claim new revelation today cannot pass the Bible’s own standard for acceptability because their new word is not 100% accurate or cannot be verified.

Their new word contradicts the old and has no supernatural validation.

So what does this all mean for us? It means that we as Christians are in a both sobering and encouraging situation.

On the one hand, if you’re looking for a fresh word from the Lord today, directly re relevant to your life, you want new revelation to tell you specifically what God wants you to do.

I’m sorry, but you’re not going to get it. I know that’d be attractive, but that’s that’s simply not what God is doing today. God doesn’t give new revelation. Not because he can’t, but because from what God has revealed, he chooses not to.

So don’t look for God to speak to you in a dream or with an audible voice or according to a vague impression. Don’t look to discern God’s will by a sign in the sky, by some prophet giving you a proclamation, or by flipping to a random place in the Bible and plopping your finger down and saying, “This is the word of God to me specifically today.” And don’t even simply look for a feeling of peace in your heart. This is maybe a little less or this is a little more subtle, but you say, “I know this is true because I had peace about it.” Is that the way God communicates? Did he say that that’s the way he was going to communicate to you?

God has not chosen to speak in any of those ways to us today and they can deceive us.

Any of these methods I just mentioned, they have resulted in people affirming things that directly contradict scripture. Yes, even peace in your heart. You may contradict scripture via that peace.

That’s not the way God speaks to us. No new revelation today. So that’s the sobering part. But the encouraging part is on the other hand if you want a fresh word from the Lord today directly relevant to your life you can still have it. In fact you must have it. How?

By opening the scriptures and by hearing the old word that is ever new and relevant for every day and time.

I like what one preacher said. He says, “If you want to hear God speak to you today, just read the Bible out loud.” Brothers and sisters, this is how we know the will of the Lord. It is the Bible. Everything we need to know for life and godliness is in here.

It’s like what Moses said in Deuteronomy 29:29.

The secret things belong to Yahweh our God. But the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever that we may observe all the words of this law. Don’t try and discover the secret and sovereign will of God. He hasn’t revealed that to you because you don’t need to know it. But what he has revealed to you, that’s what you need to know. That’s what you need to apply.

That’s what you need to study. Devote yourselves to God’s word revealed in the scriptures.

It’s what we’re called to do. No, the Bible does not speak directly to every specific issue in your life. Though it does many times you say, “I don’t think the Bible talks about this.” Actually, it does. Nevertheless, even where it does not address something specifically, there are principles in the Bible that will equip you for every decision of your life. Everything you need for living a righteous life before God is there. either directly spelled out in the Bible or there by principle. Even down to what kind of job you should pursue, whom you should marry, how you should raise your kids. Yes, the Bible addresses each one of those things so you’ll know how to act.

We have, and praise God for this, we have God’s complete word to sufficiently reveal God to us and to equip us for every good work.

So then let’s treat the Bible with the difference and reverence it deserves as God’s word.

Let us not accept for a moment those who would change God’s word or set it aside.

Now we’re already talking about application here, but let me give you a few more application questions related to our topic today.

Number one, many followers of cults will affirm statements such as salvation is by grace through faith.

How can we show them though that they nonetheless hold to a different and false gospel?

What do you think?

Here’s something you need to understand. If you haven’t heard this before, you need to understand that those in the cults, those in false religious movements, they will use the same words but with different meanings and contexts.

For example, you may say, “Salvation is by grace through faith.” And they say, “Yes, we need God’s grace to be saved.” You mean the favor that does not that is not based on merit, but they mean by the term grace, for example, they might mean that grace is the God-given ability to do the good works that will save you and satisfy God.

They’re using the same words, but they’re not using them in the same way.

Thus, they believe a different gospel.

So for you and for me, when we’re speaking with people who are caught up in these movements, we need to ask probing questions or point out how what they say and what they believe is different than even the some of the same words that we use. You say, “Oh, well, you’re the way you understand grace is different than the way I do.” And it’s not just, “Okay, tomato, tomato, you have your way, I have my way.” No. What does the Bible actually call us to apply as a definition? What is grace according to the Bible? That’s the definition we want to use. We want to show them that even their use of terms and much more their beliefs, they do not align with what scripture says. But we don’t want to just stop there. We then want to show them what the gospel actually is. Remember, our responsibility, our calling is not simply to tell Jehovah’s Witnesses or those caught up in other cults, you believe a false gospel. We need to tell them what the true gospel is.

I heard something recently kind of encouraging but also a little bit sobering. It was a testimony of a former Jehovah’s Witness and he had been a missionary for that cult for 35 years and someone asked him when did you actually get saved? What caused you to get saved? And he said it’s when someone preached the gospel to me. He said, ‘I went to house after house trying to talk with or trying to talk to people and persuade them of the Jehovah’s Witness movement and every and various people they would slam the door in his face or tell him that what you believe is a lie. Tell him that what you believe is not what the scriptures and that is important, but it was when somebody actually told him what the gospel was that God moved in his heart to save him. So, let’s make sure when we’re talking with these people, we don’t just tell them that they’re wrong or how they’re wrong, but also we want to tell them what is true.

How can they be released from their bondage? How can they be saved?

Another question.

Are continuationists, those who believe in ongoing prophecy, still true Christians?

Well, that depends.

Holding to ongoing revelation is a dangerous error and it often leads to worse errors.

There’s a reason that every Christian cult that I can think of started with someone claiming either new prophecy or an exclusive interpretation of the Bible.

He says, “I am the only authority or I’ve got the new revelation that makes me the only authority.” Holding the door open to new prophecy is an easy way to end up in damning error because you just invite all these man-made ideas or demonically inspired ideas into your religious walk.

Nevertheless, there are some brothers today who advocate ongoing prophecy or supernatural gifts like tongues and who still hold to the sufficiency and authority of scripture. Now, this is weird. You think logically that’s inconsistent. How can you say that there’s new prophecy from God and yet the scriptures are only our only authority and they’re sufficient for life and godliness? I don’t know. I think it is inconsistent. But people like John Piper, Wayne Grudam, they essentially hold that position. And I would say they are true brothers. They have done wonderful things on behalf of the Lord. Even though holding to continuing revelation is truly a dangerous error.

So while it is an error, while it’s unhelpful and I believe really dangerous to God’s church, continuationism in itself is not a heresy. So please don’t regard someone who says, “Oh, I believe that tongue is continued today.” Don’t say, “Oh, he’s not a Christian.” You might not be, but that itself is not the determining factor. We do have bloodbought brethren, brothers and sisters in Christ who who do erroneously believe in the continuation of prophecy.

But understand that even as you hold to the truth, even as you talk about it with other people, have the right attitude. Don’t see them automatically as the enemy.

One other question.

Some today will credit prophecy, dreams, or other supernatural revelation as the way that they or others came to faith in Christ.

How should we respond to this claim?

There’s a couple things we need to realize. First, we must recognize that our beliefs have to come from scriptures ultimately and not experience.

Experience always has to be interpreted by the Bible, not the other way around.

Otherwise, experience is going to lead us to contradict many things that the Bible plainly declares. I mean, this is the point I’ve been emphasizing over the last seven lessons. The Bible is our authority, right? It is the foundation for truth. Everything has to be subjected to the Bible. You may have an experience, but that experience is not it ought not to change the way you interpret the Bible. The Bible is the way you interpret that experience.

That’s the first thing we must recognize. Second, we must recognize that God does sometimes use imperfect means or an imperfect interpretation of means to draw his own unto salvation.

For example, some people get saved by Christians or preachers who later turn away from Christ.

They say, “Oh, does that mean that my salvation is invalid? Did I believe something false?” Well, the fact that that person turned away from God, that doesn’t have anything to do with it. The truth is the truth.

It’s an imperfect means, but God still used it. Your salvation is not affected by that necessarily. Or consider Augustine. I think I mentioned this before in class, one of our Sunday school classes. Augustine, great fourth century theologian. He got saved by reading and applying a scripture out of context.

Now, or just to fill you in on that.

though he he was dealing with a long time of whether he could say goodbye to his life of immorality and he just happened to read a section of the scripture oh now it’s escaping my mind but uh it’s from Romans it says oh I can’t remember the scripture I’ll have to look that up later but basically he he took a he took a scripture out of Romans it sounded directly relevant to his situation technically it was out of context. Not really the meaning that was specifically meant in that passage, but it was what caused him finally to believe, to repent and believe. Again, imperfect means, imperfect interpretation of the means, but there was a good result. The imperfect means do not invalidate the results, but neither does the results, the good result validate the imperfect means or justify the imperfect means. So, keep the second principle in mind. God does sometimes use imperfect means to draw his own. But then one more thing to recognize, we need to recognize the difference between an experience and an interpretation of an experience.

So just to to tabulate these all here, we recognize that our beliefs come from scriptures, ultimately not experience.

We recognize that God uses imperfect means sometimes to draw his own. And third, we recognize the difference between experience and the interpretation of an experience.

If you say you had a dream that led you to Christ, I’m not going to doubt that you had a dream.

You had that experience. I’m pretty sure you had that experience. But I am going to question your interpretation of the experience. I’m going to question whether that dream was a supernatural revelation from God.

You know, it’s interesting, but many people who claim these kinds of experience, oh, this dream led me to Christ or I had this vision and I was drawn to Christ. Many people who claim these kinds of experiences reveal details in their experiences that do not fit with the Bible.

Uh for for example, some have claimed to become saved after seeing Jesus in a dream in which Jesus affirmed his love for them and then called them to follow him. I love you. Follow after me and you’ll be saved.

Again, I’m not doubting they may have had that experience, but this experience is a bit odd because this approach from Jesus in your dream, it contrasts the way that Jesus approached unbelievers in the Bible.

When Jesus met with unbelievers in the Bible, he confronted sin. He called for repentance and faith and he affirmed the need for perseverance through suffering and persecution.

He did not speak of his love for the not yet believing. Oh, he he he did love them, but that’s not the way he tried to draw people and say, “I love you. You need to believe.” No, he said, “You here’s the sin that you’re following and you need to repent.” That was his typical way.

So, this clash is more reason why again, I don’t doubt you had an experience, but I question your interpretation of the experience. Now, God again could providentially use a dream to get one thinking about spiritual things, prepare a person’s heart to hear the gospel. But according to the Bible, I have ample reason, and I believe we all have ample reason to say when someone says they had a dream, it’s not a direct or perfect revelation from God.

It’s not even an imperfect revelation from God. It’s just part of God’s providence. It’s not new revelation.

So, I tried to cover a lot of different things today that I think are relevant to this question, things that we deal specifically with.

Uh, and I I know you might have some questions about it. I tried to leave time for questions, but doesn’t look like we have that much more time left.

So, you do have a question about what we’ve talked about today, please email me. I’d be happy to field your question as best I can related to why we believe the Bible, why we trust the Bible, why the Bible’s authoritative, why we reject new revelation, prophecy, or whatever other means today. I’ I’d love to try and answer that question for you. But that’s all for this week. At this point, we’ve been introduced to fundamental doctrines regarding God and the Bible in our Sunday school curriculum. Next week we’re going to do one actually we have two more introductory lessons but next week we’re going to talk about the central message of the Bible that we must believe in order to be saved and that is the gospel. Next week we’re talking about what is the gospel. Let’s close in prayer.

God, thank you for this instruction from your word. Thank you that you don’t leave us in the dark. You don’t leave us wandering around saying, “Oh, is this from God or is this from God? What is God’s word to me? We know. Praise you, God. Thank you that we know your will.

We know your word because it’s in the scriptures. Thank you, God. Thank you that you’ve you’ve made it clear for us the way to walk. Even the various decisions of our lives, they come back to the Bible’s instruction.

And Lord, this just shows us how much we need to devote ourselves to your scriptures. We need to know your word.

We need to know your mind because we need to know you. Thank you for your word. Lord, I pray that you would bless and guide the people at Calvary and those listening today to apply what we’ve been talking about, to not be swayed by what seems like new revelation, but to hold fast to your word, to recognize it is sufficient that they can trust it.

Thank you for such a word, God.

Oh Lord, I pray that you bless the rest of the worship service and the the teaching at Calvary today. Continue to grow your people and more into the image of Christ in Jesus name. Amen.

All right. Thank you guys. See you next week.