God Speaks - Is Anyone Listening?

Last week we celebrated Easter and we talked about how everything has changed. The tomb is empty. Jesus rose from the dead and that changes everything. If you follow the ongoing story fo the Gospel and the book of acts you would know that Jesus continued to make appearances after his death and then he ascended back to heaven.

So the question for us is - Does God still speak? And if so, How?

I firmly believe without a doubt that God continues to speak. God has not ceased to be silent. As we learned two weeks ago as we followed the passion narrative of Jesus entrance into Jerusalem, you may remember that Jesus’ disciples were cheering and saying, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”. A clear pronouncement of his messiahship. Some of the Pharisees said to Jesus to tell his disciples to stop, and he said, “If these were quiet, the very stones would cry out.

When the Sadducees came to him (who say there is no resurrection), oddly they asked him a question about the resurrection. Jesus replied to them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”

Paul in asserting his faith in the Gospel said,

Romans 1:16 ESV

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Yet, sadly many don’t know the gospel anymore. In research done by Gallup, only 37% of teens could identify a quote given four choices from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

In that Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us -

Matthew 5:18 ESV

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

The iota is what we might consider the letter “i” in the greek. It is the smallest letter. The NIV puts it this way.

Matthew 5:18 NIV84

I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

But don’t stop at verse 18, read 19 & 20

Matthew 5:19–20 ESV

Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Now there are many who do not consider the Bible reliable, and they say so demonstrating their own ignorance. Here are just a few ways the Bible not only stands unique but demonstrates its reliability:

Written over a 1500 year period

Written by more than 40 different authors from different walks of life.

Written in different places

Written in different times: war and sacrifice; peace and prosperity

Written in different moods

Written on three continents

Written in different literary styles

And this is what gets me. Despite all of this, the biblical writers treated hundreds of hot topics. Yet from Genesis to Revelation, these writers addressed them with an amazing degree of harmony.

The challenge for so many of us, is that we take it in little snippets. We take one short passage and don’t connect it to the rest of the Bible. Paul wrote in his second letter to Timothy:

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

It doesn’t say, some, it says all. Now I’ve had Christians say to me, yes, but he was referring to the Old Testament. And you know what they’re right. Because the New Testament hadn’t been fully compiled yet. So then the question is, “How well do you know the Old Testament?”

Joshua was commanded,

Joshua 1:8 NIV84

Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

About 10 years ago I read the statistic: “Eighty percent of Americans claim to be Christian, but only ten percent of said Christians have even read through the entire Bible.” Sadly, I can pretty much guarantee that number only continues to drop.

Mark Steiner put it this way:

Biblical illiteracy is the single most significant threat to the viability of the Church in America. Do I really mean that? Yes, I absolutely do — and here’s why — God has established His Word as a cultural watershed. Once the Bible has been removed from the heart and mind of a person or a civilization, collapse is imminent. Our postmodern culture is gravely ignorant of God’s thoughts and the Bible’s wisdom. Our churches are largely impotent. Our society is therefore at risk. The walls of protection are crumbling. It is time to rebuild — brick-by-brick — using the reinforcing precepts found in God’s Word.

IF we as Christians believe the Bible is God’s Word and it is God’s word to us, it is paramount that we live out that belief by our actions.

It’s not just for our sake, it is for future generations. God said to Israel:

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

When we examine this verse we realize that God is not speaking to a person…Israel is a people. When they are commanded “You shall teach them diligently to your children” it’s the communities children. Remember, “It takes a village?” It really does.

I remember as a 9 year old riding my bike with our neighbor Dave down to McDonald’s some 5 miles away. I don’t remember what we did, but I do remember that both our parents knew about it before we got home.

We’re not in that culture anymore. Some for the better as there is always the neighborhood busy body, but also to our detriment.

But how will we have the words God commands on our heart if we’ve never taken God’s Word to heart?

The Bible is also is unique in it’s influence on literature. Cleland McAfee writes:

Evidence for Christianity 6A. Unique in Its Influence on Literature

If every Bible in any considerable city were destroyed, the Book could be restored in all its essential parts from the quotations on the shelves of the city public library. There are works, covering almost all the great literary writers, devoted especially to showing how much the Bible has influenced them

We began with two questions:

Does God still speak? If so, how?

I believe God does still speak. God speaks through his eternal word

John 1:1–5 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Jesus is alive today. And we cannot fully understand what Jesus did on the cross if we don’t understand the Old Testament that lays out for us the need for a Messiah, a Savior, and for God’s intervention. The New Testament is all about God’s intervention in the person of Jesus Christ and our ability to have a relationship with Him.

The relationship with God was severed in the garden when Adam and Eve turned from God. The invitation to a restored relationship was brought by Christ on the cross. An invitation to the Word!