{"id":18495,"date":"2018-09-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-09T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/ecclesiology-036-q-and-a\/"},"modified":"2018-09-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T05:00:00","slug":"ecclesiology-036-q-and-a","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/ecclesiology-036-q-and-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecclesiology 036: Q and A"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[91],"series_event":[484],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18495","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-1-corinthians","series_event-ecclesiology","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Ecclesiology 036: Q and A","sermon_date":"20180909","sermon_month":"9","sermon_year":"2018","sermon_notes":"","sermon_slides":"","sermon_mp3":6035,"sermon_id":"991890394","series_or_event":484,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":91,"chapter_and_verse":"10:32","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nEcclesiology 36, Q & A\n\n9-13-2018\n\nFather, we just come before You this morning praising You for who you are, what You\u2019ve done for us and thanking You for a chance to fellowship together today.\u00a0 I specifically ask you\u2019ll be with this session and the worship service that follows.\u00a0 I pray that things would be spoken of that would build\u00a0 up and edify your people in\u00a0 Your truth and make us good stewards of these things.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen.\n\nWe\u2019ve been working our way through Ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church and spent probably more time than I thought we would on the charismatic movement. So I thought this would be a good time, since we\u2019ve completed the charismatic movement, I thought this would be a good time to stop and pause and allow folks to ask questions.\u00a0 Of course, we try to do that almost every week but we\u2019ve never done a whole session just on Q & A so that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to try to do today.\u00a0 And next week, just a general reminder, is a congregational meeting so we won\u2019t be having the regular adult sanctuary Sunday School class, so when we reconvene I\u2019m going to be continuing on with spiritual gifts, this time not trying to talk about the charismatic movement as much but talking about the remaining gifts and what they are and how you can discover what your spiritual gifts are, what\u00a0 your gift mix is.\n\nSo this is a good time to stop and do Q & A so if you have a question what I\u2019ll try to do, for the benefit of people that might be listening online is I\u2019ll try to rephrase your question into the microphone then I\u2019ll try to give an answer to it.\u00a0 If I can\u2019t answer it I\u2019ll just say I don\u2019t know and I\u2019ll do some research on that.\u00a0 How\u2019s that for a politician\u2019s answer?\u00a0 [Laughter]\u00a0 It\u2019s not like I\u2019m running for anything but that\u2019s what they do on TV so I thought it might work in the world of the church.\u00a0 So having sad all that, anybody have a question they want to ask.\u00a0 Preferably if you can do it I don\u2019t know we envision this as being open line Sunday where you can just ask anything like what about space aliens and things like that.\u00a0 My preference would be the questions relate to the subject matter but if you still have some burning question that you want answered you can ask that as well but our preference is for questions to relate to things we\u2019ve talked about.\u00a0 Who wants to go first.\n\n[It\u2019s quiet for a bit]\u00a0 This is an east Q&A session, this is the time to do Q&A sessions when nobody is awake yet.\n\nJanet: \u201cYou [can't understand word] one of the tests of the prophets was that they had full control over their\u2026[Andy: faculties] but\u00a0 yet [can't hear]\n\nAndy: She\u2019s asking about, I think it\u2019s 1 Corinthians 14:29 if I remember right, the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets and then she\u2019s talking about another teaching we did on Ezekiel where God basically made Ezekiel moot, in chapter 3, and allowed him to only speak when God allowed it and opened his mouth again in Ezekiel 33.\u00a0 I guess what she\u2019s asking (correct me if I\u2019m wrong) is in the Book of Ezekiel it seems like God has more control over the prophetic gifts but in 1 Corinthians 14:29 it seems to indicate that the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets so how do I reconcile that contradiction?\u00a0 I guess I would say that in 1 Corinthians 14:29 we\u2019re dealing with the age of the church so one of the key things to understand is God\u2019s dealings with Israel and God\u2019s dealings with the church are under a different set of rules. For example, just as one example, the Holy Spirit could come on people and leave them in Old Testament times, that happened with Saul if I remember right, and Samson if I remember right as well, and others.\u00a0 And that doesn\u2019t happen in the church age.\u00a0 So I guess I would say the Ezekiel passage is really different rules where God is working with Israel and 1 Corinthians 14:29 Paul is not laying out principles for all time; he\u2019s just saying this is how it works in the church age.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know of that helps at all.\n\nAnybody else have any questions.\u00a0 You guys need to ask something because I don\u2019t have anything prepared, unless\u00a0 you want to hear my Revelation sermon early and\u00a0 you can get out in time to beat the Baptist to the cafeteria.\u00a0 I say that tongue in cheek of course.\n\nEllen [can\u2019t hear question] Okay, she\u2019s basically asking when did the church age start and why do we start it in Acts 2 when the church is very Jewish, at least up until Acts 10, you\u2019ve got your first Gentile convert and then finally in Acts 13 is when Paul launches off into his first missionary journey in Southern Galatia and then the Gentiles come in, in droves!\u00a0 So she\u2019s asking if that\u2019s true why are we starting the church in Acts 2 rather than Acts 13.\n\nThe short answer to that is we follow what\u2019s called normative dispensationalism as distinguished from hyper-dispensationalism.\u00a0 Hyper-dispensationalism starts the church at some point after Acts 2 for reasons like you\u2019re describing.\u00a0 But by our way of thinking the dominant\u2026 you figure out the dominant change of rules now when the population of the church changes but when the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit started.\u00a0 That\u2019s the definitive marker.\u00a0 And when you look at all of the Scriptures, you know, Jesus saying you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now and in Acts 11 when I think it was Peter who says these Gentiles were baptized in the Holy Spirit as we were from the beginning.\u00a0 The only place between those two that it could ever fit is Acts 2.\n\nSo the ethnic complexion of the church is not the definitive marker as to when the church age started.\u00a0 It\u2019s when the body of Christ started and you can identify the beginning of the body of Christ when the Holy Spirit started to take people and baptize them into the body of Christ.\u00a0 So 1 Corinthians 12:13 tells us that we have been all baptized into Christ, into Christ\u2019s body and so the key question is if you can figure out when that baptizing ministry started you can figure out when the church age began and when the body of Christ began.\u00a0 And it gets a little tricky because there is no verse in Acts 2 that says \u201cthus saith the Lord, the baptizing work of the Spirit just started.\u201d\u00a0 So you have to look at what Christ says in Acts 1, it\u2019s going to start \u201c not many days from now,\u201d \u00a0[Acts 1:5, \u201cfor John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.\u201d]\u00a0 Acts 11, looking backward these Gentiles were baptized in the Holy Spirit as we were from the beginning, and so the only place between Acts 11 and Acts 1 that it fits is Acts 2. \u00a0So that\u2019s the big change of rules; that\u2019s what a dispensation is, it\u2019s a change of rules.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the big change and that\u2019s when it started.\u00a0 And certainly the church has gone through a lot of development and one of the areas of development is the transition of the ethnic complexion of the church.\u00a0 I mean, that\u2019s been going on not just back then but that\u2019s been going on for 2,000 years as people from all nations have been brought in.\u00a0 But you don\u2019t figure out when the change of rules started based on when the church ethnically started changing.\u00a0 You figure it out based on when the baptizing ministry of the Spirit started. And we\u2019re convinced it started in Acts 2.\u00a0 That\u2019s the key change right there, so that\u2019s why Acts 2 is sort of a big deal.\u00a0 This is why we disagree with the hyper-dispensationalist that will say well, no, the church really started in Acts 13 or Acts 9 with Paul or if you get into the hyper-hyper dispensationalist they\u2019ll say the church started in Acts 28 because that\u2019s when Paul revealed the mystery of the church.\u00a0 But you see, Paul\u2026 the thing they don\u2019t understand is Paul didn\u2019t start the mystery; Paul explained a mystery that already started.\u00a0 Anyway, that\u2019s a big discussion between normative dispensationalists and hyper dispensationalists.\n\nYou had a question, I can\u2019t remember what you e-mailed me about but can you say it again.\u00a0 [can\u2019t hear question]\u00a0\u00a0 Just real quick I would say you can\u2019t hear unless someone is speaking so there has to be speaking for there to be hearing and what I think the miracle that was happening, and this probably goes over stuff you already know well, but all of these Jews from the surrounding area, in fact, if you go down to verses 5-12 really, actually starting in verse 9, [Acts 2] look at all these places, Parthians, Medes, Persians, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, which would be in Babylon, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, and it says both Jews and proselytes, Cretans, Arabs, we hear them in our own tongues of the mighty deeds of God. [Acts 2:9, \u201cParthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, [10] Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome [11] both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs\u2014we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!\u201d [12] Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, \u201cWhat does this mean?\u201d]\n\nAnd Leviticus 23 basically tells all of these Jews that you need to assemble on the day of Pentecost and that\u2019s what they\u2019re all doing there in Jerusalem.\u00a0 Some have estimated there could be as many as a million Jews at this time period in the Jerusalem area and then all of a sudden the apostles broke out in a dialect that those people spoke but the apostles apparently hadn\u2019t learned and so that was a key sign that God gave that the dispensation of the church was starting.\u00a0 So I don\u2019t think it was just some kind of miracle with hearing, it think it was a miracle with speaking and they were hearing something that they should have never heard, people breaking out into their language perfectly without having learned it and I think that was really the miracle and that\u2019s how God testified to this change of rules through a sign.\u00a0 And this was needed because you have to under\u00adstand that the nation of Israel was under the Law for 1500 years; I mean, that\u2019s a long time to be under a system.\u00a0 And so there had to be a miracle to testify that God was now changing the rules.\u00a0 I think it was hearing but the real miracle was in the speaking because you can\u2019t have hearing without speaking.\u00a0 Does that help at all.\u00a0 [same person says something, can\u2019t hear, something about you wouldn\u2019t need a translator]\n\nAndy:\u00a0 Okay, we\u2019ll the translator is different, that\u2019s within the church because that comes from\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 Corinthians 14 which is talking about within the church.\u00a0 So that\u2019s a slightly different usage of tongues than what we\u2019re talking about here.\n\nSomeone says something, can\u2019t hear.\n\nAndy, Yeah, it happened in Acts 2 and I think there\u2019s a few other times in Acts it happened as well but I understand that as a onetime occurrence in Acts, early Acts to testify that everything was changing from a 1500 year system to something brand new involving the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what I think Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 14:21-22 where he says tongues, at least the way I\u2019m describing it here, is a sign not for the believer but for the unbeliever.\u00a0 That\u2019s what he\u2019s talking about there.\u00a0 But then verses 26-27 he starts to talk about a use within the church involving a translator.\u00a0 So that\u2019s my current understanding of it.\u00a0 I hope that helps some.\n\nAnybody else\u2026 yeah, Bill.\u00a0 [can\u2019t hear]\n\nAndy:\u00a0 Did every believer receive the Holy Spirit in Acts 2?\u00a0 Well, there are some issues in the Book of Acts that I would call transitional problems so you\u2019ve got some holdovers from, I think there\u2019s some folks in Acts 19, if I remember right, they had believed under John the Baptist and Paul have you received the Holy Spirit and they said we haven\u2019t even heard there is a Holy Spirit.\u00a0 So there\u2019s some folks that are sort of holdovers from the prior age, they believed in the message of John the Baptist pointing to Christ as the Messiah but they hadn\u2019t received the full package yet because they weren\u2019t there on the day of Pentecost.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course the New Testament hadn\u2019t been written yet so they had to have further education.\u00a0 So I believe that those sort of transitional figures, if I\u2019m understanding it right, Acts 19, received the Holy Spirit when they heard the complete message.\u00a0 So I wouldn\u2019t make it an ironclad rule that everybody received the Holy Spirit right then and there; there\u2019s a few transitional holdover things going on in the Book of Acts.\n\nA great book on this whole thing is J. Dwight Pentecost\u2019s book, it\u2019s called New Wine: A Study of Transition in the Book of Acts<\/em>.\u00a0 And some would even put\u2026 who was that silver tongued orator, Apollos in that category as well.\u00a0 So I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d make it an iron clad rule that they all received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost because you\u2019ve got these transitional figures.\n\nJudy asks question, can\u2019t hear.\n\nAndy:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 She\u2019s asking about the Samaritans, how they received the Holy Spirit later but the Samaritans are a little different because they had never believed yet.\u00a0 And real quickly, on the Samaritans, because the Charismatic movement will use the Samaritan example in Acts 8 as sort of an example of people not getting the Holy Spirit until later, because first they believed and then they received the Holy Spirit later when the apostles, like Peter from Jerusalem, came to lay hands on the Samaritans.\n\nAnd you didn\u2019t really ask about this but let me just sort of interject this, and I think I\u2019ve done this other times, giving you this explanation.\u00a0 One of the things that\u2019s happening there in Acts 8 in Samaria is the ancient conflict between the Jews and the Samaritans.\u00a0 The Jews and the Samaritans hated each other\u2019s guts going back almost seven hundred years.\u00a0 And when\u00a0 you study John 4 and Christ\u2019s ministering to the Samaritan woman, the disciples can\u2019t believe He\u2019s talking, first of all to a Samaritan, secondly to a female because women in that culture weren\u2019t treated well.\n\nAnd the Jews hated the Samaritans and the Samaritans hated the Jews.\u00a0 The Samaritans went and built their own religious system on Mount Gerizim, remember the two mountains, when the Joshua generation\u2026 actually the elderly Joshua and the new generation entered the land, remember the two mountains, Ebal and Gerizim, go to Ebal to read the curses of the Law, go to Gerizim to read the blessings of the Law, Deuteronomy 27, Deuteronomy 28, because Gerizim was the mountain of blessings, the Samaritans, who were a half-breed race and they said we\u2019re not going to follow Judaism any more, we\u2019re just going to go set up our shop on Mount Gerizim.\u00a0 So they had a different race, they had a rival religious system and you\u2019ve got to understand\u2026\n\nYou know, today everybody is talking about racial reconciliation; the fact of the matter is we\u2019ve got the best book on racial reconciliation ever written, because how in the world are these two groups going to be coalesced into one body?\u00a0 So what happens is Philip, the deacon, if I remember right, goes and evangelizes in Samaria.\u00a0 The Samaritans believe but unlike today (this is another example of the transitional problem in the book of Acts) unlike today they don\u2019t receive the Holy Spirit immediately.\u00a0 And what happened is the disciples, the apostles, like Peter, had to travel from Jerusalem to Samaria to lay hands on the Samaritan believers who are now Christians so that they could receive the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 And so it\u2019s a transitional problem in the Book of Acts because why didn\u2019t these folks receive the Holy Spirit immediately (the Samaritans)?\n\nAnd people will go to that passage and they\u2019ll build a whole doctrine on it today of the second blessing.\u00a0 At first you trust in Christ and then you receive the Holy Spirit later.\u00a0 No, that\u2019s not the way it works. \u00a0Romans 8:9 says is you do \u201cnot have the Spirit of Christ\u201d or the Holy Spirit, then\u00a0 you don\u2019t have Christ. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0[Romans 8:9, \u201cHowever, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.\u201d]\n\nSo why the delay?\u00a0 Because if the Samaritans had received the Holy Spirit immediately before the apostles came and laid hands on them do you know what you would have had right out of the gate in Christendom?\u00a0 You would have had two churches because that ancient seven hundred year religious and racial conflict between those two groups would have just carried over into the church age.\u00a0 And that\u2019s antithetical to the nature of the church because within the church, the body of Christ,\u00a0 \u201cThere is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 [Galatians 3:28]\u00a0 And the dividing wall has been broken down.\u00a0 [Ephesians 2:14, \u201cFor He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall\u201d]\n\nSo you don\u2019t have Paul on the scene yet explaining these things in Galatians and Ephesians, etc.\u00a0 So God had to do something in the Book of Acts that\u2019s abnormal, sort of like the questions Bill asked.\u00a0 God was doing something abnormal in the Book of Acts regarding those transitional Old Testament saint-type figures, He did something with them that\u2019s not normative today where He delayed the giving of the Holy Spirit because the Samaritans, when this was done, realized that they didn\u2019t receive the Spirit until the Jerusalem apostles laid hands on them.\u00a0 So Samaria now recognized that they belonged to Jerusalem and Jerusalem now recognized that they belonged to Samaria because we are all one in Christ.\n\nAnd so that was an intentional delaying so a point could be communicated that racial conflicts may have existed in the old covenant but it\u2019s not to continue on into the church age.\u00a0 Remember when Jesus, James and John, who were the sons of thunder, end of Luke 9, came to a Samaritan village.\u00a0 Remember that, and the Samaritans didn\u2019t receive the message of Christ?\u00a0 Remember what James and John, the sons of thunder said?\u00a0 Should we not call down fire from heaven people and devour these people, like Elijah did in the Old Testament, who called down fire on the prophets of Baal.\u00a0 [Luke 9:54, \u201cWhen His disciples James and John saw this, they said, \u2018Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?\u201d\u2019]\n\nAnd why did James and John say that?\u00a0 Because they\u2019re dealing with a 700 year conflict, racial conflict.\u00a0 And so God delayed the Spirit in that particular instance so that racial conflict wouldn\u2019t continue into the age of the church and if it had continued into the age of the church you would have had two churches right out of the gate.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 And that\u2019s a good Bible study method to follow; you\u2019ve got to be very careful about building doctrine in the Book of Acts totally because there are all kinds of transitional things happening in the Book of Acts that are not normative today.\n\nAnd this is our difference of opinion with Pentecostal or charismatic theology; a lot of their beliefs, the second blessing, all of these kind of things come from the Book of Acts, and we praise God for the Book of Acts but we treat it as a historical book, not as primarily a theological book.\u00a0 So if you\u2019re finding a practice in the Book of Acts, in order for it to be normative today you also have to find it in the epistolary literature.\u00a0 That\u2019s kind of a rabbit trail on Acts 8 but again a really good book on this is J. Dwight Pentecost\u2019s book, Transitional Problems in the Book of Acts<\/em>.\u00a0 So I hope that helps a little bit.\n\n[Someone asks a question]\u00a0 The question is what do you do with people that say I\u2019m a prophet because I\u2019ve graduated from the school of the prophets?\u00a0 Well, the first answer to that is there are no prophets today because the canon of Scripture is shut.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve gone through great lengths to explain that apostles and prophets are foundational gifts given at the foundation of the church.\u00a0 So when someone says they\u2019re a prophet it always makes me nervous.\u00a0 I mean, what exactly are they talking about?\u00a0 I mean, at best what we have today are preachers in churches who are not functioning as prophets receive direct revelation from God but they\u2019re proclaiming a closed canon.\u00a0 That\u2019s as close as you have to prophets today, as we\u2019ve tried to unpack in our series.\n\nAnd beyond that, a school does not give a spiritual gift.\u00a0 As we\u2019ve studied\u2026 some verses that come to mind, 1 Corinthians 12:11, Hebrews 2:1-4, that the Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts according to what?\u00a0 His will.\u00a0 [1 Corinthians 12:11, \u201cBut one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.\u201d\u00a0 Hebrews 2:1-4, \u201cFor this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.\u00a0 [2] For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, [3] how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, [4] God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.\u201d]\n\nSo whether someone has a particular gift or not is not dependent upon a school.\u00a0 No school can bequeath any spiritual gift.\u00a0 The only thing a school can do is to help you kind of develop in an area of giftedness that\u00a0 you already have.\u00a0 But who has what gift totally depends upon what the Holy Spirit wants to do in and through a person.\u00a0 So (A) I don\u2019t think there are prophets today, and (B)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t think a school can give a spiritual gift so when someone says I\u2019m a prophet because I graduated from the school\u2019s supernatural, those premises I don\u2019t really think are valid.\u00a0 Let\u2019s do it like they do it on TV, can we do that, we can kind of shift back and forth between the audience and the online folks so anybody else have a question before we shift back to online?\n\n[Someone asks a question, can\u2019t hear]\u00a0 Yeah, the question was what is the response to a person that says they are an apostle or prophet because they graduated from the school of the supernatural?\u00a0 I would say two responses, what do you mean by prophets because I don\u2019t think there are prophets today, as we\u2019ve tried to explain in the series.\n\nAnd my second response, and maybe other folks can think of others but I don\u2019t think a school can give you a spiritual gift.\u00a0 I mean, I can be Charles Swindoll all I want but the reality is just because I graduated from a school that he\u2019s the President of doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m a Charles Swindoll.\u00a0 Maybe I wouldn\u2019t want to be Charles Swindoll, I don\u2019t know but see, people don\u2019t leave room for the Holy Spirit to make His determination when they start saying you have a gift because you went to X school.\u00a0 That\u2019s kind of the world\u2019s way of thinking, by the way, I\u2019m a doctor because I went to get my M.D.\u00a0 My M.D. makes me a doctor so people kind of drag that into Christianity. Well, I went to a school that\u2019s the school of the prophets, therefore I\u2019m a doctor or lawyer because I have a degree and they\u2019re not understanding that a degree is not the same thing as a decree.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit gives the decree; it\u2019s irrelevant whether someone has a degree.\u00a0 I know a lot of people that are very, very gifted and very effective in their ministries that don\u2019t have any degrees.\u00a0 I sometimes wonder, though, if they had taken the time to sharpen their skills could they be a little more effective and maybe spare themselves from erroneous statements that they can sometimes make, that we can all make.\u00a0 But a degree doesn\u2019t give you any\u2026 it\u2019s the Holy Spirit that makes that determination.\u00a0 Does that help?\n\n[Someone asks a question, can\u2019t hear]\u00a0 Okay, could tongues exist even though I don\u2019t believe in the gift of tongues?\u00a0 I guess God can do anything He wants whether I believe in it or not.\u00a0 I\u2019m sort of the mindset of Phillip Schaff, who wrote the big volumes on church history, and he has a section in there where he talks about all these missionaries that claim to be leading all of these people to Christ through the gift of tongues on the mission field and he basically goes through all of that and says there\u2019s a lot of claims made but the evidence people produce is kind of lacking.\u00a0 So I\u2019m more of the Phillip Schaff mindset on that.\u00a0 I think there\u2019s a lot of things people claim to do that really there\u2019s not a lot of proof for.\u00a0 I think what God wants to do today is to translate the Bible into the languages of every people group so they can have access to it. That to me is really the work of the Holy Spirit which is an outworking of what we would call tongues in the Bible.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if that helps.\n\n[Someone says something, can\u2019t hear]\u00a0 Okay, is it possible, I guess I would say yes, anything is possible if God\u2026 all things are possible if God\u2026 God works outside of my understanding of things quite frequently.\u00a0 Is that a good answer?\u00a0 When someone claims that I usually, like Phillip Schaff, want to see the proof.\u00a0 Can I put it this way?\u00a0 I have a healthy skepticism.\u00a0 [Someone asks a question]\u00a0 The question is did God give signs to the Jews and I think the answer to that is\u00a0 yes, He did give signs to the Jews.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s largely what languages or tongues was in Acts 2.\u00a0 And when you look at the teachings and the ministry of Jesus Christ you\u2019ll see very early on, particularly Matthew 1-12, the turning point is chapter 12:24 where He gave a plethora of signs to the Jews. \u00a0[Matthew 12:24, \u201cBut when the Pharisees heard this, they said, \u2018This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.\u2019\u201d]\n\nAnd one of the reasons He gave signs to the Jews concerning the truth of who He was is (A) prophecy demanded it. I think there\u2019s a prophecy around Isaiah 35:5-6 which says when the Messiah comes He will heal the lame and the blind and loose the mouth of the dumb and all those kinds of things.\u00a0 [Isaiah 35:5-6, \u201cThen the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.\u00a0\u00a0 [6] Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.\u00a0 For waters will break forth in the wilderness and streams in the Arabah.\u201d]\n\nAnd secondly it was part of their worldview where they were looking for signs. So clearly He did give signs to the Jews up until a point; once the leaders attributed, Matthew 12:24.\u00a0 The miracles of Jesus to Beelzebub the signs stopped and that\u2019s when Jesus said no further sign is going to be given except the sign of Jonah, which you know Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights and came out and in the same way the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth and will come out.\u00a0 In other words, no further sign is going to be given except the resurrection.\n\nSo yeah, Jesus did give multiple signs to the Jews to fulfill prophecy and part of it was their worldview.\u00a0\u00a0 But the signs stopped at a point when unbelief amongst the leaders was obvious.\u00a0 And part of that question is did God deal differently with the Greeks who were seeking wisdom.\u00a0 And the answer is\u00a0 yes, God dealt differently with the Greeks through Paul on Aeropagus when he started quoting their poets and philosophers and interacting with their arguments. So God deals differently with different people groups based on their presuppositions and preunderstandings.\u00a0 So I think God deal slightly different with the Jews than He did the Greeks because God is interested in reaching everybody.\u00a0 He\u2019s interested in accommodating His message to everybody.\u00a0 But you\u2019ll notice that with God He does it to a point but He doesn\u2019t let the accommodators take over.\u00a0 So the Jews kept saying well, we want another sign, and we want another sign, and we want another sign and finally God said no more signs.\n\nAnd with Paul on the Aeropagus, Mars Hill, he got philosophical, quoted their poets but Paul wouldn\u2019t allow the accommodators to control his message because at some point he started talking about resurrection and that\u2019s when people started to sneer.\u00a0 You know, some believed at the end of Acts 17; some sneered, some said we want to hear you further on this.\u00a0 Why did they start to sneer?\u00a0 Because resurrection went against their worldview which was basically Gnostic dualism that the spiritual world is good and the physical world is evil.\u00a0 And obviously you can\u2019t have a God resurrecting in a human body if the physical world is evil.\u00a0 So with both groups it\u2019s true, the Lord accommodates them to a point; He deals differently with different groups but eventually gets to the point where God is making clear that I\u2019m the boss here, not\u00a0 your preexisting\u00a0 presuppositions.\u00a0 I mean, He\u2019ll use the preexisting presuppositions as an inroad but they\u2019re not the final say.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if that helps but that\u2019s my response to that.\n\nAnybody else have anything?\u00a0 [Someone asks]\u00a0 Is the Book in Revelation 3:5 the same one in chapter 20, verse 12, even though they\u2019re called different names?\u00a0 [Revelation 3:5, \u201c'He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.\u201d\u00a0 Revelation 20:12, \u201cAnd I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.\u201d]\n\nThe general rule of thumb that I follow on this is I let the Book of Revelation interpret itself so I think what the Holy Spirit wants us to do is go over to Revelation 20 to figure out what the Book of Life is and when you do that you see that the Book of Live is the Lamb\u2019s Book of Life, it adds a little bit more detail and it\u2019s a record of everyone who has trusted in Christ.\u00a0 And everyone whose name is not found written in that book is thrown into the Lake of Fire.\u00a0 So it\u2019s a book that\u2019s a record of people that have received the gift of eternal life by faith alone.\n\nSo I think it\u2019s the same book, however one of the points I tried to make last week, and I didn\u2019t have my flashy PowerPoint stuff and charts to\u00a0 show you, which bummed me out because we worked real hard on those PowerPoints, is that there\u2019s a different book in the Old Testament, I think we used Exodus 32:32, Psalm 69:28 where people\u2019s names could actually be taken out of that book.\u00a0 [Exodus 32:32, \u201cBut now, if You will, forgive their sin-- and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!\u201d\u00a0 Psalm 69:28, \u201cMay they be blotted out of the book of life And may they not be recorded with the righteous.\u201d]\n\nSo people say well, how come your name can\u2019t be taken out of the Lamb\u2019s Book of Life but it can be taken out of this other book in the Old Testament.\u00a0\u00a0 And I think the Old Testament book is a different book, it\u2019s a book of physical life so when a person is conceived, which is when life begins, their name is recorded in the book that the Old Testament is referencing.\u00a0 And when a person trusts Christ their name is recorded in a different book, the Lamb\u2019s Book of Life which is a book of regeneration.\u00a0 So you have to sort of distinguish these two books or else it looks like the Bible contradicts itself.\u00a0 Revelation 3:5 says my name can\u2019t be taken out of the Book.\u00a0 [Revelation 3:5, \u201c'He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.\u201d\u00a0 Psalm 65:28 says it can.\u00a0 [Psalm 69:28, \u201cMay they be blotted out of the book of life and may they not be recorded with the righteous.\u201d]\n\nHow do you explain that difference?\u00a0 And the difference is those are two different books.\u00a0\u00a0 So when the Psalmist, I think it was David if I remember right, says blot them out of the book he\u2019s not saying take their salvation away; he\u2019s saying kill them. And when Moses prays the same thing in Exodus 32:32, [Exodus 32:32, \u201cBut now, if You will, forgive their sin, and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!\u201d] because God, remember, was going to wipe out that whole generation of golden calf builders, Moses says well wipe me out too because remember when God said I\u2019ll just start everything over with you, Moses. And Moses says well kill me too.\u00a0 So he\u2019s not praying for his salvation to be taken away, he\u2019s praying for physical death.\n\nAnd I think a general good rule of thumb to follow is when you\u2019re in the Old Testament it\u2019s dealing with the book of physical life and when\u00a0 you\u2019re in the New Testament it\u2019s dealing with the Lamb\u2019s Book of Life. So that\u2019s the best I can do with that.\u00a0 I hope that helps some.\n\n[Someone asks a question, can\u2019t hear] He\u2019s asking how do you explain in Acts 8 it looks like a transition is going on there between the Samaritans not receiving the Holy Spirit right away so the apostles laid hands on them and then the Holy Spirit taking Philip to heaven (if I remember right) and also dealing with the Ethiopian eunuch.\u00a0 Is that basically your question.\u00a0 [Same person says something, can\u2019t hear]\u00a0 I guess my answer to that is I\u2019d have to study Acts 8 a little more; did the Ethiopian eunuch receive the Holy Spirit or not, I don\u2019t remember comments on that directly.\u00a0 [same person says more, can\u2019t hear]\u00a0 Yeah, he would be a proselyte, a God-fearer.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t say\u2026 Acts doesn\u2019t tell me everything I want to know; I would assume\u00a0 this, that the Holy Spirit came upon the Ethiopian eunuch immediately because you have to remember that Luke is very selective; he\u2019s covering a 30 or 40 year period, he doesn\u2019t tell us every little thing, he\u2019s just giving the high points that contribute to his argument.\u00a0 So I would assume, without real proof, that the Ethiopian eunuch received the Spirit immediately but there was, as we tried to explain earlier, there was an intentional delay in the Samaritans receiving the Spirit or to resolve the Jew\/Samaritan conflict.\n\nThat\u2019s another case where I\u2019d look at that and I\u2019d say that interesting stuff, I would sort of just say well, but what doctrines am I going to build from this?\u00a0 I would then go over to Romans 8:9 [Romans 8:9, \u201cHowever, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.\u201d] which tells us that\u2019s what normative for us is you believe and receive the Holy Spirit, regardless of what happened with the Ethiopian eunuch and the Samaritans, just because we have a recognition that there\u2019s all kinds of transitional issues going on in the Book of Acts.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if that helps.\n\n[Someone else asks a question, can\u2019t hear]\u00a0 The question is, tell me if I\u2019m rephrasing it correctly, what happens to children at the rapture, underage children and also what happens to pregnant women at the rapture, what happens to their children?\u00a0 Again, can I give you my favorite answer, I don\u2019t know exactly because the Bible doesn\u2019t tell me, it doesn\u2019t have a book in it that says okay, look at this section to figure out what\u2019s going to happen to children at the rapture.\u00a0 I can sort of make a guess.\u00a0 Over in, I think it\u2019s 2 Samuel 12, around verse 23, 24, right in there, remember when David\u2019s son died, remember that child that he had through the illicit relationship with David and Bathsheba?\u00a0 David was mourning and then all of a sudden he stops mourning when the child died and everybody wants to know why aren\u2019t you mourning any more, and he says well, he cannot come to me but I will go to him.\u00a0 Remember that passage.\u00a0 [2 Samuel 12:23, \u201cBut now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.\u201d]\n\nSo there\u2019s a doctrine in Calvinism that says children go to hell if they\u2019re not one of the elect.\u00a0 I have a very difficult time with that because why would David stop mourning if the child wasn\u2019t one of the elect and maybe went to hell.\u00a0 I mean, to me that wouldn\u2019t be a comfort, would it?\u00a0 To me David was comforted by the death of this very young child.\n\nSo what I believe is children are covered by the grace of God when they are below a certain age, before they can make a decision.\u00a0 And everybody asks well what age is that?\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t really know what the age is.\u00a0 And a really good book on all of this is the book by Robert Lightner, Safe in the Arms of Jesus: God's Provision for the Death of Those Who Cannot Believe<\/em>.\u00a0 Robert Lightner who\u2019s with the Lord not wrote a book called, you can probably find it easily by just typing in Robert Lightner and the age of accountability or safe and secure in the arms of Christ, he deals with all of these kinds of subjects.\u00a0 I\u2019m of the belief that if someone is below a certain age, before they have an ability to make a decision, that they\u2019re covered by the grace of God, which would mean that people that are below that age would participate in the rapture.\u00a0 Do I have a verse that says that?\u00a0 No, it\u2019s just\u00a0 kind of a deduction and so I believe that children would be covered by the rapture if they\u2019re below a certain age of accountability.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have a verse on it that tells me one way or the other but it\u2019s just kind of a deduction.\n\nAnd then\u00a0 you ask the question, well what about a woman that\u2019s pregnant when the rapture happens what happens to her child, does God do an immediate C-section or what.\u00a0 And the answer is I don\u2019t know, you\u2019ll just have to wait and see.\u00a0 I have a feeling I won\u2019t be disappointed with the results given what I know about the grace of God.\n\nThe problem with some of these questions is we just don\u2019t have a lot of data to work with and so we\u2019re having to make deductions from the few pieces that we have. \u00a0But I really do not agree with the Calvinist view that some would say all children that die in the womb go to hell.\u00a0 Some would say some do.\u00a0 First of all it doesn\u2019t fit right with what I know about God\u2019s grace who desires all to be saved and all to come to a knowledge of Him.\u00a0 And it really doesn\u2019t fit well with David all of a sudden being comforted with the death of that child.\u00a0 I mean, what would a child possibly being one of the non-elect and on their way to hell or in hell, how could that be a comfort to anybody.\u00a0 I hope that helps.\n\nJim has a question.\u00a0 [can\u2019t hear the question]\u00a0 Okay, a good book on it by Robert P. Lightner is Safe in the Arms of Jesus, the subtitle is God's Provision for the Death of Those Who Cannot Believe.\u00a0 And Robert Lightner is the real deal, I mean, he\u2019s like the real systematic theologian, for years and years and years at DTS.\u00a0 And that book and anything else he writes will be really good.\n\n[someone else asks a question, can\u2019t hear the question]\u00a0 The first part of his question relates to the closing of the Canon, and my view of it is God decides when the Canon is closed.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a decision man can make.\u00a0 I believe the Canon closed when John penned the very last book of the Bible, chapter 22, the very last verse, the Canon shut.\u00a0 Jude says truth has been once and for all,\u00a0 you know, delivered to the saints.\u00a0 Now whether some bishops figured it out at the Council of Nicaea or whether or not they figured it out it really doesn\u2019t matter, it\u2019s a decision God made.\n\nI think the Council of Nicaea was sort of recognizing something God had already done and to my understanding the real contribution of the Council of Nicaea was the refutation of Arianism where Arius was going around, A.D. 325 something like that, the Council of Nicaea where he was saying things concerning Christ, he even had a song about it allegedly.\u00a0 There was a time in which He was not, so he was trying to say that Jesus was a created being, that\u2019s what he was trying to say and this is an example where majority opinion doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re right, he got almost everybody within Christendom to agree and there was one fellow that stood up against him named Athanasius, if I remember right, and people criticized Athanasius because he said Jesus is not a created being, Jesus has always been.\u00a0 And people said well, Athanasius don\u2019t you understand that the world is against you?\u00a0 He says it\u2019s not a matter of the world being against Athanasius, it\u2019s a matter of Athanasius being against the world.\n\nSo there was a big brouhaha about that and this is how doctrine kind of finally gets settled, not in terms of God\u2019s revelation but man\u2019s understanding of it.\u00a0 And so the contribution of the Council of Nicaea was basically saying that Athanasius has it right. \u00a0And that\u2019s why there\u2019s a line in the Nicaean Creed that says \u201cbegotten\u201d and not made.\u00a0 Jesus is the unique one, but He was not created.\n\nSo not if, but when the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses come to your house they\u2019re basically going to try to tell you that Jesus was a created being and they\u2019re going against the Nicaean Creed.\u00a0 That issue has been settled a long time.\u00a0 So this is sort of how doctrine.... we take a lot of doctrines for granted and we don\u2019t understand the debates that went on to kind of crystallize our thinking about the Bible.\u00a0 That, to my knowledge, is a great contribution of the Creed of Nicaea.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t studied it enough to figure out what they said about the closing of the Canon but God Himself laid down the standard because He indicates that the Books of the Bible had to have been written by apostles or by someone who knew an apostle, like in the case of Mark, so that the apostle could authenticate what was said.\n\nAnd Paul came along later but you have to understand that Paul\u2019s writing are testified to by Peter.\u00a0 Peter in 2 Peter 3:15-16 says some of these things Paul says are hard to understand but he wrote with divine wisdom.\u00a0 [2 Peter 3:15-16, \u201cand regard the patience of our Lord as<\/em> salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, [16] as also in all his<\/em> letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do<\/em> also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.\u201d]\n\nSo the process of canonization is apostolicity, was it written by an apostle or someone who knew an apostle.\u00a0 So since the apostles have all been dead since the first century you can\u2019t have an open canon by God\u2019s definition, whether a bunch of Bishops figure that out or not is sort of irrelevant.\u00a0 But historical theology, particularly the Creed of Nicaea, has a huge value in terms of crystalizing doctrines like the eternal existence of Jesus Christ that we sort of take for granted.\u00a0\u00a0 And so historical theology sort of shows us how we\u2019ve come to our understanding of our current beliefs.\n\nAnd then you asked something about Babylon and I didn\u2019t quite catch it, can you say that again.\u00a0 [Can\u2019t hear what is said]\u00a0 So what did I mean by the Babylonian priesthood?\u00a0 Probable what I meant by that is at one time, at the tower of Babel, there was only one language and there was the worship, and I think you could put this together through extra Babylonian tradition, the worship of the child and the mother because Nimrod, whose name is mentioned in the biblical text, is married to Semiramis, and the two of them have a child named Tammuz, killed by a wild animal and miraculously brought back to life under Satanic power, according to Babylonian tradition.\u00a0 And so when God confounded the language and all the new cultures started everybody took a piece of that with them into their new culture.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why God has to start the nation of Israel, in chapter 12, with the calling of Abram from the Ur of the Chaldeans because in chapter 11 we learn that no other nation could bring forth his son because they\u2019d all been contaminated by this idolatry.\n\nAnd that, by the way, is why God is so angry (when you go to Jeremiah 44, Ezekiel 8 and Ezekiel 44, (if I remember right) God is so angry about that mother child system coming into the borders of Israel because they were the only nation started independent of the mother child system, because they had a calling on their lives to bring forth the Messiah.\u00a0 So probably when I made reference to the Babylonian priesthood it was probably in reference to the fact that this mother child system has contaminated everything, including Roman Catholicism.\n\nAnd the book that I get some of this from, although a lot of people don\u2019t like this particular writer, the Catholics really don\u2019t like him, don\u2019t bring up his name in the presence of devout Catholics, is Alexander Hislop and The Two Babylon\u2019s, <\/em>because his basic point is Roman Catholicism doesn\u2019t come from the Scripture, it comes from this mother child system and everywhere this mother child system went they just changed the names of the child and the mother.\u00a0 In Roman Catholicism the child is Jesus and the mother is Mary.\n\nAnd part of it is I\u2019m open to his view because we had a Protestant Reformation, that was the whole point of the Protestant Reformation, that the doctrines of Roman Catholicism are not found in the Word of God.\u00a0 I mean, the Catholics belief on Mary is that she remained a perpetual virgin her whole life.\u00a0 Well, just read the Scripture, where did Jesus half-brothers come from?\u00a0 So Jesus was virgin conceived, virgin born but Joseph and Mary had a normal sexual relationship subsequent to that and that\u2019s where the half-brothers of Christ come from.\u00a0 So you start to figure out that the Mary of Roman Catholicism is not the Mary of the Bible.\u00a0 And in Roman Catholicism Mary is actually a Co-Redemptress or someone that you pray to.\n\nNow we as Protestants trying to follow the Bible the best we can want to give Mary her place in the Son in terms of honor but we don\u2019t pray to her at all because [1 Timothy 2:5] \u00a0\u201cthere is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 And some would even say that Mary was sinless. Well how can that be when Romans 3:23 says, \u201cFor all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,\u201d which would include Mary.\u00a0 So Mary and Jesus of Roman Catholicism is very different than Mary and Jesus of the Bible.\u00a0 And that\u2019s been recognized through the Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 And Alexander Hislop is saying the reason for that is Roman Catholicism has been infiltrated, like every culture has, with the mother child system.\u00a0 So I believe that the mother child system spread everywhere because there was only one language and God confounded the language and everybody took with them their piece of the mother child system into their own culture.\u00a0 And that would influence everything, including Roman Catholicism. \u00a0So Alexander Hislop is almost like a cussword around Roman Catholics.\u00a0 So that may be what I was talking about with Babylonian priesthood.\n\nWell, we\u2019re out of time.\u00a0 I feel like that lady, what\u2019s her name, Sarah Sanders, that gets all the questions thrown at her, I always feel happy for her when Q & A time is over but you guys are a little nicer than the White House Press Corps.\u00a0 Did you guys enjoy this, we\u2019ll have to do something like this again in the not too distant future.\u00a0 \u00a0Let\u2019s pray.\n\nFather, we\u2019re grateful for Your people and their attentiveness and the wonderful questions they ask about Your Word and I just ask You\u2019ll be with us in the main service that follows. We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 names and God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t