Sermon Tone Analysis

Introducing myself

I’m excited to be here with you!

My name is Ross Knight, This is not my first time to Colorado, but it is my first time to southwest Colorado.

My experience is primarily up at Copper Mountain.

My family had several ski and snowboard trips growing up!

I hope some of you church members have convinced Pastor Mike to go sometime.

In Seminary where, he and I became friends, He told me he’d never do it, and then God brought him to Colorado, so I find that a little bit funny.

:) I am coming to you from some mountains myself, quite a bit smaller, the appalachian mountains from a little college town of Boone, NC.

I’ve been married for a little bit more than a year.

My wife Meggan and our dog Riley are currently back home, where she works as an elementary school teacher.

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It’s hard to be away from her, but I believe whole heartedly in what Pastor Mike and I are presenting.

I believe in the word of God, which is written in the Bible.

I also believe in prophecies found in the Bible.

Those that have already been fulfilled and those which have yet to be.

Today’s message is Prophecy and History.

I’ve had to wrestle with belief in prophecy.

It kind of seems spooky, without a core belief in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the center of everything.

Jesus is sewn into the entire Bible.

Prophecies concerning Jesus are also found throughout the Bible, starting with Genesis as we learned last night with Pastor Michael’s presentation of God’s covenant with mankind.

People often get skeptical when they hear the word prophecy, but covenant they are generally okay with.

I want to explain that prophecy is tied to God’s covenant.

His covenant is incomplete with out fulfilling prophecy.

Covenant is promise.

Prophecy sounds like a prediction.

My friends, man makes predictions, God makes solemn oaths and promises which are true.

Prophecies are studied to better understand and see God’s covenant loving relationship with His people.

Prophecy is also a way of better understanding who Jesus is, because it is through the gift of prophecy do we also see much of what Christ has revealed to us about himself.

We would not know much of anything about God, if He had not revealed himself to us.

But God, in His mercy chose to make himself known.

He reveals himself in several ways, to some extent through nature, how we enjoy His creation as a general revelation, but more specifically through the Bible, Jesus Christ, the son of God living as a human, the appearance of angels, through true prophets, and personal experiences.

God’s adversary tries to imitate and distort these forms of divine revelation.

He does this through, attempting to discredit the Bible, attempting to destroy people’s faith, by raising up false prophets.

False prophets can be very damaging, especially to new Christians and also to secular people.

For new Christians, trying to discern truth from alternative and artificial can be difficult because of a lack of spiritual foundation, and for the secular people hearing false prophets setting dates for the world’s demise or maybe saying they are the Christ reincarnate, they either draw some eccentric followers, yet still claim the name Christian.

To many secular people, they may lump all Christians into one bubble of eccentric misguided followers.

These are all tactics God’s adversary uses prevent listening ears to hearing the truths the Bible has for us.

If we are going to find any confidence in Bible Prophecy, we are going to have to answer a few questions about what is real Bible prophecy and then look at some examples of prophecy which has already been fulfilled.

To have confidence in prophecy, we have to know a little bit about what genuine prophets actually are?

What responsibility did/do prophets have?

How did God communicate to prophets?

How can I tell if a prophet is genuine or not?

Lets start with the first one.

What is a genuine prophet?

In the Old Testament book Ezekial chapter 33 verse 7, the prophet Ezekial writes down what God had him say, calling Him a “watchman” for the House of Israel, His role as watchman/prophet was to be a vessel of God communicating to God’s people special warning and instruction.

Prophets were to faithfully communicate the message of God without adding their own ideas or deleting what they did not like (; ).

God then acknowledged the message of the prophets as His own message.

That in itself is a daunting task, as often the prophets of the Bible had to communicate to ill-tempored Kings who had the power to kill them, messages that they would not like to hear, such as famine, or coming destruction, due to their own wickedness.

It was often very dangerous to be a faithful obedient prophet.

We see examples of God using prophets from the very beginning.

Communicating a prophecy/promise of a coming savior to Adam and Eve and giving the prophetic gift to as early as to Enoch only 7 generations down from Adam.

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God communicated with prophets in a variety of ways.

He let them hear either His own voice or the voice of a messenger of his audibly especially in His first contact with them, as we find in 1 Samuel, where God reached out to Samuel as a small child.

(,) These encounters are known as auditions.

He would reveal himself in dreams and visions (; ) These experiences could lead to the prophets experiencing astonishing phenomena.

(seeing another reality (,) seeing physically angelic beings (; ) loss of strength or gaining great strength, or even losing breath ()

What were the responsibilities of the prophets?

What did they do?

As was mentioned.

Prophets were communicators of the will of God and His judgments, or events that would transpire.

Prophets saw and recognized:

Events of the past (Ez.

16—the origins of God’s people; the birth of the Messiah)

Events of the present (--- the Assyrian threat and Hezekiah’s illness; ---the condition of the church)

Events of the Future ( and 11--- the coming of the messiah; Rev. ---Jesus coming again, this time in the clouds)

Sometimes the prophets themselves didn’t even understand the prophecy they were delivering, but still communicated it faithfully.

This was the case for Daniel, as he communicated prophecies in and 12:4) The main task of prophets spiritual instruction, teaching, and bringing about reformation, being advisors, and among other tasks communicated a future that had been revealed to them by God.

In case the people of God did not obey the voice of God through the prophets, they faced God’s judgment, however they also communicated the great mercy of God as well.

Whether they communicated orally, in writing, or in action, their duty was to communicate information as was given by God.

Expressions such as “thus says the Lord” or “and I saw” show they were convinced they were talking in the name of God.

As I had mentioned God’s adversary, the devil, seeks to discredit, distort, and even impersonate the prophetic word, with his own false prophets.

How can we distinguish the between genuine and counterfeit?

Well in the art world, experts who are trying to protect genuine works of art, by knowing how to spot fakes art against counterfeiters, don’t study the forgers work, they study the genuine works so they can know it well.

Throughout history there have not only been genuine prophets, but false prophets as well.

So God provided criteria for us to be able to distinguish between true and false prophets .

In case one of the following points is not met, the respective prophet is a false prophet.

Here are distinguishing marks of genuine prophets:

Full agreement with scripture (; )

Recognition of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and savior of Humanity.

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Personal conduct, living an exemplary Christian life as a witness, performing effective ministry.

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No materialistic attitude.

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Proclaiming of God’s message, not pandering for what people only want to hear.

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If someone claiming to be a prophet of God does not pass this honorable test, you can be sure they are an imposter.

The Bible is the ultimate test.

The scriptures surpasses the ministry of true prophets in so far that it is the yardstick by which prophecy is being evaluated.

However, both the message of scripture as well as the message of a genuine prophet come from the same source, the Holy Spirit, and call for obedience.

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Essentially, all scripture came about through the gift of prophecy.

I am extremely grateful to have access to a book that reveals to us truths from our creator.

I’ve mentioned prophecies in the Bible coming true.

Some Bible skeptics might reasonably wonder, does the Biblical record and history line up?

Lets go to the book of Daniel and look at a story many of you may have heard before, some maybe your hearing it for the first time.

If you want to follow in your bibles or smart phones.

What I am going to share is found in Daniel chapter 2.

Chapter 2 begins with the mighty conquering king Nebuchadnezzar, of Babylon being shaken by dreams.

What is even more troubling, is he cannot seem to remember the dreams.

The verse says Nebuchadnezzar’s spirit was troubled.

In other words he is anxious.

He’s possibly now experiencing insomnia because he can’t get it out of his head, these dreams had meant something.

Now if you are like me when you have an intense dream, its common not be able to remember the dream anymore, but when we wake we just go about our day.