Prophecy, False Prophets & God's True Gift – Sermon Audio 2615

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, Go, therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to Go Teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through Australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter, Dr. Barry Wright. SPEAKER B You know, it would seem that in mankind's continuing quest to discover the answers to the many fundamental questions of life, that both human reason and scientific investigation broke blindly alone in providing an adequate source of understanding. Where did we come from? What is our purpose in life? What does the future hold? You know, a good illustration of this desperate search for answers can be found in the life of the man called Paul Gauguin, the great 19th century French artist. A good illustration of this desperate search for answers can be found in the life of the man called Paul Gauguin, the great 19th century French artist. And towards the end of his life, he'd become a pitiable and a very lonely man. Apart from failing to achieve meaningful success in his own lifetime, he'd also abandoned his wife and children and alienated every friend that he'd ever had. He'd come to the island paradise of Tahiti in order to search for human purity. He wanted to find an authentic life that was seemingly untouched by the poisons of modernity and of conventionality, of greed and of power. However, it's interesting to note that while living in this so-called paradise, he'd taken another wife who'd become a servant for him, a tall dark-haired girl who was only around 13 years of age. Gargan was finally forced to survive on the rare and meagre financial gifts that were to arrive from the mainland. And they were to come mainly in answer to many of his begging and bitter letters written to his family. His children never wrote and his wife only rarely. And now it seemed that his life had come to an end. It was only days before contemplating suicide that he completed his one last painting, which was intended to be his final testament to the world. He described its philosophical intention to a friend as comparable to that of the Gospel. He didn't seem to have the slightest appreciation of that very ridiculous statement, and yet the greatest meaning of the painting was not found in the images depicted, but it was in the title that appeared in the upper left-hand corner. He was to capture three of the most searching questions any human can ponder, and when translated into English, they were similar to the questions we have already stated in our introduction. The title of his painting asks the following: Where do we come from? What are we? And where are we going? You know, like Paul Gauguin, it would seem that we all long for certainty and our minds are constantly reaching out for truth. We want to know if there is a purpose and a plan for our lives. We want to be assured that there is a wisdom greater than our own that is available to guide us into the future. And I'd like to suggest to you this morning, it is only in Christianity that man's need for authority and certainty can be fully met. At the very heart of the Christian faith is a belief in the existence of God, a God who is interested in us and has the ability to carry out his purposes. I know that God is interested in me and I know He is interested in you. And He will guide our lives to their appointed purpose if we will only allow Him to direct the way. But in order to have this certainty, we must know God. In order to have this certainty, we must know God. In the book of Job, chapter 11, verse 7, We need to ponder the question of Zophar, one of Job's so-called friends, when he said, "Canst thou by searching find out God?" Can you find out the deep things of God? Well, history reveals that without divine aid the human mind can no more discover the things of God than it can solve the problems of life, of which we have very many. We only know about the things of God by what He has seen fit to disclose to us. In the book Christian Beliefs, author T.H. Jemison says that God reveals to us as much of His wisdom as is best for us to comprehend. God reveals to us as much of His wisdom as is best for us. To comprehend. However, it does become our responsibility to individually determine how we will use the methods of communication He provides to us. And let me tell you, in this we have not done very well at all. You know, there are many ways that God speaks to us. While God reveals Himself through nature and revelation through His providence, and by the influence of His Spirit. He has used more direct ways of communicating with people, and for our purposes this morning I would like to concentrate on one of those forms of communication that has been often referred to as the prophetic channel, God's special gift. Amos 3:7 tells us that surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets. Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets. You know, it's totally impossible to think about the Bible without immediately thinking of the authors of its 66 books, and we popularly call them prophets. Holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Well, how do we define a prophet and what was to be their role? You know, prophets have generally been defined as supernaturally called and qualified spokesmen for God. They were, in a special sense, God's official representatives. They were chiefly seen as teachers, and preachers not only of righteousness but also of spiritual and ethical conduct. They were moral reformers bearing messages of instruction, counsel, admonition, and warning to both individuals and nations. And often their work included miracles and the prediction of future events. Well, where do we find the first mention of prophets? In the Scriptures. The little book of Jude, verse 14, tells us that a mere 7 generations from Adam, Enoch becomes the first recorded prophet in human history. Until the time of Moses, prophets presented their messages orally. It was because of the longevity of people's lives that there was no need to communicate in any other way. Moses, whose lifespan was only to reach 120 years, now provides an historical watershed by using the written word to share prophetic communication, and hence we have the first 5 books of the Old Testament. The question is often asked, were all prophetic writings to be included in the canon of Scripture. And while we know that many writings were to be preserved and placed in the canon of Scripture, other inspired documents were not included. And of those scripts that were not preserved, the Bible includes such names as Jasher, Gad, Nathan, Jehu, and Elijah. However, according to the Scriptures, all these men fulfilled a prophetic office. You know, it's also important to recognize that God was to give the prophetic gift to women as well as men. In the Old Testament, we read about Miriam, the sister to Moses, Deborah, the judge of Israel, Huldah during the time of Josiah. In the New Testament, we read of Anna during the time of King Herod and the four daughters of an evangelist named Philip. All were considered to be of sufficient importance to be included in the biblical record as prophets of God. You know, in New Testament times we find that prophecy is given a prominent place among the gifts of the Spirit, and the scriptures reveal how this very special gift was to assist in the development of the early Christian Church. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 20 and 21 tells us the Church was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. Acts 13:1 tells us that it was through the prophets that the Holy Spirit selected Paul and Barnabas for their first missionary journey and then gave direction as to where they should work. In 1 Corinthians 4:14, Paul says that he who prophesies edifies. The church or builds up the church. Ephesians 4:14 makes clear that prophets help to bring about unity of the faith by protecting the church against false doctrine. You know, with the closing of the sacred canon, the 66 books of Scripture, what did this mean for the prophetic gift? Well, we need to go back to the Scriptures for for an answer. Let's come back to our Scripture reading that was read to us this morning from Joel 2:28-32. This is what it says: And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh: your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions, and also on my menservants and my maidservants I will pour out my Spirit in those days. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. You know, as far back as 800 years before the coming of Jesus Christ, the prophet Joel looked down that long corridor of time to Jesus' second coming. And this prophet of antiquity saw God honoring the people at the end of time by a special bestowal of the gift of prophecy. Both men and women, young and old, he says, would experience prophetic dreams and visions. The Apostle Paul's doctrine of spiritual gifts provides some of the most striking evidence in favor of prophetic activity after New Testament times. Prophecy, referred to as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, is second only to apostleship in the merit list that he gives. Additionally, the context makes it very clear that all of these ministries, including prophecy, would exist in the Church until the end of time. And consequently, Paul counsels the believers of the early Church in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 to quench not the Spirit, and despise not prophesyings, Instead, the Christian is to do what? Is to prove or test all things and then do what? Hold fast to that which is good. Why? Well, the Apostle John in 1 John 4:1 says that not every spirit comes from God. Not every spirit comes from God. And many false prophets have gone out into the world. However, in spite of all these problematic issues, Paul continually admonishes the church to desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. Here in 1 Corinthians 14:1, Paul makes it clear that the prophetic gift is not only desirable but it is necessary for the Church as we come to the close of earth's history. In saying this, he infers that the gift of prophecy was not to end with the apostolic age. It was not to end with the death of the apostles. However, since New Testament times until the middle of the 19th century, there has been very little evidence to show the existence of God's true prophets throughout that period. Why should this be so? Well, the New International Dictionary of the Christian Church points out that after the death of the apostles, prophets enjoyed respectability in many circles until about 300 AD. Now we know that this is the time of Constantine. After this period, it says, there was a decline in the spirituality of the Church and its resultant apostasy led to a diminishing of both the presence and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, false prophets caused a loss of confidence in the prophetic gift. Now this was to be a very dark period of history for the Christian Church, covering a time span of approximately 1,500 years, of which the 1,260-year prophecy is included. It wasn't until the 19th century that we see a spiritual revival developing throughout many parts of the world, but particularly in North America. And at that time many were to seek biblical truth and look forward to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. And this revival came about because of a renewed interest in the biblical prophecies, leading many to believe that Jesus was coming soon. Christians of all stripes believed that they were on the very edge of the Millennial Kingdom of God. America in the early 19th century was believed by one observer of the day to be suffering millennial fever. Charles Finney, one of the greatest American evangelists of the latter part of that century, believed in 1835 that if the church should do her duty, the millennium, as he understood it, might come to the country in 3 years. That's how strong they were in their desire for this to happen. What were the major world events that were to affect their thinking at this time? With the French Revolution of 1790 still fresh in their minds, the destructive Lisbon earthquake of 1755, and the social and political upheavals taking place around them as a result of the Industrial Revolution, Many were reminded of the biblical descriptions of the end of the world, and as such, their minds were being turned to the Bible and to spiritual things. With the coming of the mid-1800s and the great disappointment in that Jesus had not returned, it was again time for the Spirit of God to direct His fledgling Church. And it was through this trying time that God was to give much-needed instruction and counsel to those sincere seekers of truth as they looked to the scriptures for their answers. It was now time for God to resurrect His direct line of communication through the prophetic channel. And just as the early Church needed direction to establish itself in the world, God's Church at the end of time was seen also to require this support if it was to survive. It was again time for the people of God to contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the Saints. In 1842, William Ellis Foy, a young black minister in his early 20s, received two visions several weeks apart in Boston, Massachusetts. Foy was a Millerite in that he believed in the nearness of the Second Coming of Jesus. And while he did not advocate a specific date as did many of the Millerite preachers, he believed that the return of Christ was near at hand, and this was being supported by his visions. And thousands gladly accepted and listened to his preaching, whether they were Baptist, Methodist, or Episcopalian, or of other persuasions. It would seem that God chose him to bring messages for the Millerite Adventists prior to the great disappointment of October 22, 1844. And while there was an initial reluctance on his part to tell others because of his Negro heritage, and the fact that there was an element of suspicion against any person who claimed divine revelations, he eventually related the things that he had seen. And because of hardship and little material gain, it was not unusual for true prophets to be slow in taking up the task. After 1844, he disappeared from the public eye but continued to work in his first Free Will Baptist Church until his death 50 years later. His visions of the new earth, the reward of the righteous, and the judgment were endorsed by later prophetic views and are rich with meaning for all of us today. From the historical evidence available, there is no doubt that God used William Ellis Foy for a period of 2 and a half years. On his tombstone in the Birch Tree Cemetery in Maine, USA, is an inscription from 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 7 and 8, and you ought to know it very well: I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but to all them also that love his appearing. By the summer of 1844, shortly before the Great Disappointment, God was to call another man living in Portland, Maine, by the name of Hazen Foss. Now, Foss was described as a young man, well educated, well-spoken and of fine appearance, and being white, he was not to face the racial prejudice that Foy was previously exposed to. He was a Millerite who believed that the Second Advent of Christ would take place on October 22, 1844. His visions would seem to indicate otherwise, and after receiving his first vision just before this time, he refused to relate it for a number of weeks, by which time October 22 had already passed. And it's interesting to note that this vision supported what William Foy had previously been given. In short, Foss, after being told by the Lord to relate the vision again, refused his commission, and that was seen to be inexcusable. The disappointment of October 22, 1844 had left him feeling that he had been deceived and, in his own words, he was too proud to speak of it to the people. One day, after hearing a voice speak to him saying, "You have grieved away the Spirit of the Lord," he was horrified at what he had done. He then said he would relate the vision, but when the time came, his mind could not recall it. And in great distress he called out, "I am a lost man." For those that were in there listening in that terrible meeting, they believed it was the worst that they had ever been in. He was told by God that if he would not relate what was shown to him, the burden would be taken from him and given to one of the weakest of the weak. Who would do the Lord's bidding. Well, where was God to go from here? Ellen Harmon, a girl of 17, was among those who were bitterly disappointed when the Lord did not return as expected. About 50 days later she received her first vision, the first of more than 2,000 visions during her lifetime. In relating what she had seen some months later, Hazen Foss was invited to hear what she had to say. And as he listened outside the door and heard her account, he recognised it as the vision given to him many months previous. And the next day he made the following statement to her. He said, I heard you talk last night I believe the visions are taken from me and given to you. Do not refuse to obey God, for it will be at the peril of your soul. I am a lost man. You are chosen of God. Be faithful in doing your work, and the crown I might have had, you will receive. Hazen Foss lived until 1893. But from the time he refused to relate his visions we are told he had no further interest in religion. Ellen Harmon, 17 years of age, a woman in a man's world in the mid-1800s, suffering ill health and weighing approximately 36 kilograms or 6 stone, became God's third choice. The weakest of the weak, later to become Mrs Ellen G. White. She bore every mark of a true prophet. She was to become, as she called herself, God's messenger from December 1844 until her death in 1915, just over 110 years ago. By voice and pen she continually sought to uphold the word of God and lead men and women to accept Jesus as their personal saviour from sin and from death. You know, the network of educational, medical, and publishing institutions found around the globe today can be largely credited to the divine counsel given her through her visions. John Harvey Kellogg, surgeon, and director of the huge world-renowned Battle Creek Sanitarium that reached its peak around the turn of the century, made it clear that he was able to keep 5 years ahead of the medical profession through his reading of the God-given writings of Ellen White. However, like the Bible prophets of old, she was also called upon to correct and reprove these same individuals and the institutions, and these messages of reproof were not always very popular. And as a consequence, the world has never been very good to many of its prophets. We need to be reminded that Jeremiah spent a lot of time in a dungeon because of his unpleasant predictions, and Jesus called Jerusalem the city that killed the prophets. However, rising above all these issues, Prophets were to bring a unifying effect upon the beliefs of the church. And therefore, I believe it is no accident that the Adventist Church around the world remains generally united in its presentation of Bible truth. And these doctrines were arrived through long sessions of Bible study and prayer by the early pioneers. And it was only when they reached an impasse in their understanding of certain scriptures that God's messenger would confirm their conclusions or give information that would point them in a new direction. In all of this, the Bible was still seen to be the great standard by which every prophet was to be measured. However, the devil was not to be idle. At the exact time that God chose to work through the prophetic channel to strengthen His last-day Church during this period of spiritual revival, another force was also to be at work. It commenced on March 31, 1848, and this power was to manifest itself and mysterious rappings or knockings on the humble Methodist home of the Fox sisters located in Hydesville, New York, and became known as the Raps of Hydesville. 15-year-old Margarita and 12-year-old Katie Fox developed a code of communication with an unseen intelligence that indicated it was the spirit of a dead peddler whose body was buried in their cellar. This simple knock on the wall of this lowly wooden shack created a religion that was to embrace the world before the end of that century. Spiritualism, as we call it, was born and by 1854 had extended to every part of the United States and was active in Europe. Its phenomenal growth in the next decade saw the claimed number of psychics and mediums practicing in the US reached 30,000 persons. By the 20th century, spiritualism had reputedly spread over the entire surface of the earth and was described in the 11th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica as being similar to an epidemic. One of the most well-known of these 20th century psychics was a woman by the name of Jeanne Dixon. She was born Jean Pinkett on January 3, 1918, in Medford, Wisconsin, but her parents later moved the family to California on the west coast of the continent where they were to make their fortune in timber. It was at the age of 8 her mother took her to an Egyptian fortune-teller who, after reading her palm, predicted that later in life she would become a famous seer. Who would advise the most powerful people in the world. And after receiving a crystal ball from this woman, Jean Dixon, by the age of 9, was already looking into the future. In 1939, she married James L. Dixon, a California auto dealer who later became a real estate executive in Washington, D.C. She worked with him in the business for many years. While developing a local reputation as a psychic giving readings to servicemen and government officials during World War II. And it was during this terrible time that she was twice invited to the White House to give consultations to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the most powerful man in the world at that time. In 1952, She predicted the assassination of a young Democrat who would die in office after being inaugurated in 1960 as the President of the United States. At the time of this prediction, John F. Kennedy was still the Senator for Massachusetts, and as the United States President in 1963, Kennedy was riding in an open car through Dallas, Texas on November 22, when an unknown assailant took his life. Other astounding claims about her ability to foretell the future were to involve the death of Nehru, that China would embrace communism, the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, Russia's first launching of the world's first satellite, and as an advisor to Ronald and Nancy Reagan, she also predicted this former movie star would be president one day. However, it was to be in September 1965 in the Swedish edition of Reader's Digest that she prophesied about the return of Jesus Christ before the end of the 20th century. While many predictions were seen to be accurate, there were also many not listed that were far from being true. She was later to declare in her autobiography that she had a 70 to 80% accuracy quotient in her predictions. As a devout Roman Catholic, Jean Dixon attributed her prophetic ability to God and in her biography, My Life and Prophecies by Rean Norbergen in 1969, she claims that the same spirit that worked through Isaiah and John the Baptist also works through me. Jean Dixon died on January 26, 1997, at the age of 79. Was Jean Dixon a true prophet of God as she was to claim? Well, Norbergen's conclusions make it very clear that while Jean Dixon claimed to be the equal of the biblical prophets, it was on biblical grounds that she could not be regarded as a true prophet of God. Inasmuch as she violated almost every prophetic test spelled out in the Bible. You know, if we are to understand the difference between the false and the true, it would be helpful to know what these tests are. And the Scriptures summarise them as follows, and you listen very carefully. Jeremiah 28:9: A true prophet does not lie, Their predictions will be fulfilled unless they are conditional. 2 Peter 1:21. A true prophet prophesies in the name of the Lord, not in their own name. 2 Peter 1:20. A true prophet does not give their own private interpretation of prophecy. Isaiah 58:1. A true prophet points out the sins and transgressions of the people against God. Revelation 14:6-7. A true prophet is to warn the people of God's coming judgments. You know, these first 5 tests, Norbergen points out, were already sufficient to damage the reputation of most people claiming to be prophets. But crowned with the next group of 5, they were to be truly devastating. 1 Corinthians 14:3-4. A true prophet edifies the church. Remember what we said that was? To build up the church. Counsels and advises it in religious matters. Isaiah 8:20. A true prophet's words will be in absolute harmony with the words of the prophets that have preceded them. 1 John 4:1-3. They recognize the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Matthew 7:16-20. They can be recognized by the results of their works. By their fruits you shall know them. Their lives will be always in harmony with the Scriptures. You know, after further applying these tests to the person of Ellen White, Norbergen in his book Ellen G. White: Prophet of Destiny concludes she was indeed a prophet of God. In a further endorsement Of this prophetic gift was to come from another unexpected source. William Foxwell Albright lived from 1891 to 1971, was America's and perhaps the world's most foremost archaeologist in the 20th century. He earned his PhD from Johns Hopkins University at the age of 25, and during the next 50 years he received 25 honorary doctorates, from colleges, universities, and seminaries of Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish faiths. He wrote more than 800 publications on archaeology, the Bible, and Oriental subjects. However, it was in the 1950s that one of his doctoral candidates was to introduce him to the writings of Ellen White. His curiosity aroused, this famous archaeologist undertook his own independent investigation of the life, the work and the claims of this very special woman of history. And in his book, From the Stone Age to Christianity, Dr. Albright names her as one of 5 individuals whom he considered to be an authentic prophet during the last 250 years. Well, what challenge do these endorsements present to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and its members, you and I? Second Chronicles 20:20 tells us, "Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established: believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper." In other words, you put your trust in the Lord your God and you'll stand firm. Believe what His prophets tell you and you will succeed. You know, when Ellen White died on July 16, 1915, she was to receive considerable unsolicited editorial comment in the secular American press. And I share the following testimonials with you not to necessarily inspire faith but rather to confirm it. The editor of the Toledo, Ohio Blade newspaper in America wrote this: Mrs. White early manifested some of the gifts of prophecy. These gifts were given to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, allowing it to prosper and grow until it has now spread through many lands. Remember, this was 1915. Mrs. White was a remarkable woman. Had she lived in an earlier period of Christianity, and escaped the bigots and the fire, she would most surely have been canonised. She was of the flesh of which saints are made. The New York City Independent newspaper, August 23, 1915, commenting on her accomplishment, concluded that here is a noble record, and she deserves great honour. She showed no spiritual pride, and sought no filthy lucre. She lived the life and did the work of a worthy prophetess, the most admirable of the American succession. We need to remember these comments were to be found in the secular press of the day. You know, as a Church, God has seen fit to give us a very special gift. And while we recognise the Church is still not perfected, still not come into the unity of the faith and has not grown unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, we need to make use of this gift which Christ gave unto men. We need to make sure that we do not place ourselves in the same position as Israel of old in their rejection of what God had given. And as suggested by author Morris Fenden, if you accept the prophets, you listen to them and follow their counsel, you will more likely accept Jesus and listen to him and follow him. If you reject the prophets and ignore their messages, you will eventually reject and ignore the Lord of Heaven in the person of Jesus Christ. The people of Israel were not unique in their problems with the prophets, and we are invited to learn from their experience. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 11 tells us that all these things happened to them as examples for others, and they were written down as a warning for us, for we live at a time when the end is about to come. And it's my prayer this morning that we take full advantage of God's special gift to His Church. A wonderful gift that provides us with the opportunity to come into a closer relationship with Jesus as our personal Saviour and continues to prepare us for His soon coming. And may God grant the privilege for us all is my special prayer for you all this morning. Our dear Heavenly Father, we want to thank you again for the privilege we have in this country of freedom that we have, that we can come into this church this morning to worship you. We want to thank you, Lord, for the wonderful promises that you give to us and this special gift that as a church we have been given. Help us to understand more fully the needs and the wants that we should have as we bring you more completely and fully into our lives. Be with each and every one here this morning, Lord, as we go our separate ways this morning. Help us to make those decisions of what will one day see us in your kingdom. And we ask and pray this in thy holy and precious name this morning. Amen. SPEAKER A This message was made available by the Dora Creek Seventh-day Adventist Church. For more resources like this, visit doracreek.church. Missed part of an Australian program? Listen anytime on demand at 3abnaustralia.org.au and click on the listen button.