Sermon Tone Analysis

Children’s Story

Lost Creek Falls

Obedience is important, and we should obey our parents as long as they are following God and not asking us to disobey God.

But the vast majority of the stories in the Bible aren’t telling us we should obey, they’re telling us that God is trustworthy.

It’s a lot easier to obey someone when you know they love and trust you.

You often come up against trials in your life: it could be the regular stuff like lost toys, disappointments, annoying siblings, or difficulty learning something in school, or it could be really hard stuff like your parents not getting along or your family not having enough to eat all the time.

What you do in those times will depend a lot on what you think about God.

Is He trustworthy?

Does He Love you?

Will He provide in your trial?

If you think God will provide, then you’re much less likely to get angry or disobey and much more likely to go to Jesus and say, “I’m struggling and I need your help right now.”

If God can bring water out of a rock and make that rock follow the Israelites around the wilderness, then God can do whatever you need.

And the promise is that God will “do you good in the end.”

He is always working for your good, even when you feel like you’re in a wilderness.

Before long, you’ll see what God’s plan is, if you trust and wait for Him.

Introduction

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Bernard Elbernard Nelson is a self-proclaimed prophet and runs a ministry called Spiritlife Revival Ministries in Ghana.

In his preaching he often calls someone out of the crowd and begins to tell the congregation about their life.

He tells their parents and siblings names, reveals their financial struggles and gives them promises of blessings.

Sometimes its a miracle baby he promises, sometimes it’s blessings on their business.

He claims that he is in ministry as a “divine mandate of governing the earth from heaven through humanity.”

There are many churches that claim to have he gift of prophecy.

Most charismatic and many evangelical churches believe many of their members receive messages from God, though not all of them would be considered prophets.

The Mormon church began with the belief that most of the members could receive special revelations from God, but soon narrowed that scope to Joseph Smith and those put into authority after his death.

Today they have the office of the president and the quorum of 12 all of whom are considered apostles and prophets.

Mormons elevate their prophets’ writing such as the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants to equality with the writings of prophets from the Bible, even going so far as to call the book of mormon, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”

We need to establish our doctrine, our faith and our practice on the Word of God.

So, what should we do when someone tells us that God gave them a vision or spoke to them in some way?

Should we automatically reject it?

Is it possible that evil spirits can bring us a “revelation” or realization of spiritual things?

Or is it possible that God does still reveal His will through prophets?

How can we know the difference?

Notice these verses that counsel us to beware because there are false prophets.

I would even go so far as to suggest that the majority of prophets are false, and the majority of visions are not from God.

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Matthew 7:15

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

1 John 4:1

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

The fact that there are false prophets suggests that there are also true prophets, and vision that are actually from God. Paul tells us:

1 Thessalonians 5:19-22

“Do not quench the Spirit.

Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.

Abstain from every form of evil.”

What is a prophet?

Let’s explore the idea of a prophet.

What is a prophet and what does a prophet do?

Abimelech king of Gerar had taken Abraham’s wife, though he thought she was his sister, but before he could take her as his own wife God spoke to him in a dream and said,

“…return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live.

But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die…” (Genesis 20:7)

What we know about Abraham is that 1) God spoke to him, and 2) made promises to him, and 3) revealed things in dreams and visions to him.

So, in Abraham’s case a prophet is revealed by the fact that God speaks to them and reveals things to them.

Let’s look at another example:

In Exodus 7:1 God was speaking to Moses in answer to an objection Moses had about not being able to speak well and God said, “Aaron shall be your prophet.”

Aaron was a “prophet” who spoke on behalf of Moses.

So, a prophet of God is one who God speaks to and who speaks on God’s behalf to others.

Let’s look at another example from the Bible:

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Judges 4:4-5

Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time.

5 She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment.

Just a little further in the chapter you’ll find Deborah leading God’s people in a campaign against God’s enemies.

Deborah’s story opens up something new: prophets brought spiritual wisdom to God’s people, and led them into God’s plans.

Lots of prophets in the Bible provided spiritual council to kings about the direction God wanted them to go and sometimes they were put in charge of leading the people.

From Deborah’s story we also find that God gave the gift of prophecy to both men and women.

You might remember that one of God’s prophets, David, was also a king.

And one day the king/prophet committed a huge sin.

In 2 Samuel 12 we read the first person to stand up to David after his sin of adultery and murder was Nathan the prophet.

2 Samuel 12:9-10

Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight?

You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’

In this situation Nathan the prophet was speaking on behalf of God at the peril of his own life in rebuking the sin of one of God’s servants.

Elijah brought God’s judgment on king Ahab, and Jeremiah counseled the king of his time to surrender to the Babylonians because of the many sins of Israel and their king.

For their unpopular advice Elijah was hunted and Jeremiah was tortured and imprisoned.

And finally, one of the most well-known tasks of a prophet is that of future telling.

Not all biblical prophets reveal the future, so this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule of prophecy, but it is the most well-known.

Here are a few examples:

There was an unnamed prophet that predicted that king Josiah would tear down the altar to a false God in Samaria over 100 years before Josiah was born

Jeremiah predicted the 70 years of Israelite captivity in Babylon

Isaiah predicted Cyrus’ overthrow of Babylon 100 years before the event

Daniel predicted over 2,500 years of national and religious events covering the span of history from Babylon through the second coming of Jesus.

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Let’s summarize what we’ve learned so far:

God speaks to prophets directly or through visions and dreams

Prophets speak for God to His people

Prophets give advice to leaders, as well as lead the people themselves—acting on behalf of God.

God uses prophets to reprove His people of sin and error

Prophets sometimes predict the future

The prophetic gift has been given to men and women

Prophets at the end of time

When you examine the Bible timeline you find a repeating pattern with prophets—there is always a prophet at the beginning of a prophecy, and another prophet at the end.

The first prophet reveals God’s plan and the last prophet prepares the way for the plan to be fulfilled.

Here are a few examples:

Enoch prophesied judgment for the wickedness of the people — Noah prepared the way for the judgment of the flood and provided an opportunity for repentance and salvation.

Abraham, Balaam, Micah, Isaiah and many others prophesied about the Messiah’s birth — John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus, the Lamb of God who would save His people from their sins.

Jeremiah prophesied about the exile of Isreal in Babylon for 70 years — Ezra and Nehemiah were there to lead God’s people back to the promised land and fulfill the prophecy that the temple and the city streets and walls would be rebuilt.

Daniel and John both prophesied about long stretches of human history with most of it culminating after a 1,260 year prophecy during which a false-christianity would torment the world and harm God’s people.

At the end of that time the Bible said the false-Christian power would be cut down and removed from power.