Of Visions And "Thus Sayest The Lord"

Usually, when I get into "disagreements" with people about their "revelations" or visions or tongues or healing or doctrines or some other thing, this is normally what I hear back...

"Well, I speak in tongues and I'm closer to God. God gave me this gift. I want every thing that the Lord wants to give to me."

Or "The Lord has revealed this to me and it's between me and Him."

And then when I try to point out from scripture my reasons for disagreeing with them about what they're doing I sometimes get scriptural reasons why they feel they're right. I've looked at what they're saying and I still haven't found any reason to believe tongues or healing for everyone are for today. When I say the reasons why usually they respond with...

"Friend. God is bigger than a book".

And it's true. God is bigger than a book. But His revelation to us is in a book. And this book says... No where else.
Why? If I'm right, why does God limit His revelation to one book?
Because it's a standard. It's a point of reference for all of us who claim Christ as Lord can go to and know right from wrong.

Being without this point of reference has caused problems before....

Lemme tell you a story.
Turn in your Bibles to 1 Kings, chapter 13…

1 Kings 13:1-32
1 NOW behold, there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word of the LORD, while Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense.
2 He cried against the altar by the word of the LORD, and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the LORD, "Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.'“

This is the story of a prophet in Judah who was called up to cry out against the evil king of Israel, Jeroboam, and against his pagan alter.
1 Kings 13:3-6 contains the dialog between them.

Jeroboam gets mad and points his finger, "Seize him!" And the king's arm immediately freezes up on the spot! The alter he was praying at also cracks in half and all the ashes fall out. The king gets the message and apologizes and his arm goes back to normal....

1 Kings 13:7-10
7 Then the king said to the man of God, “Come home with me and refresh yourself, and I will give you a reward.
8 But the man of God said to the king, “If you were to give me half your house I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water in this place.
9 “For so it was commanded me by the word of the LORD, saying, "You shall eat no bread, nor drink water, nor return by the way which you came.'“
10 So he went another way and did not return by the way which he came to Bethel.

This prophet was told in no uncertain terms what he was to do. He said this to Jeroboam and then he left for home.
There was an old prophet living in Bethel. His sons came to him and told him all about what had happened.
The old prophet got his sons to saddle up his donkey and he rode off to find this prophet from Judah...

1 Kings 13:14-24
14 So he went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak; and he said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, “I am.
15 Then he said to him, ”Come home with me and eat bread.
16 He said, “I cannot return with you, nor go with you, nor will I eat bread or drink water with you in this place.
17 “For a command came to me by the word of the LORD, "You shall eat no bread, nor drink water there; do not return by going the way which you came.'“
18 He said to him, “I also am a prophet like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, "Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water.'“ But he lied to him.
19 So he went back with him, and ate bread in his house and drank water.
20 Now it came about, as they were sitting down at the table, that the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back;
21 and he cried to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, "Because you have disobeyed the command of the LORD, and have not observed the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you,
22 but have returned and eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which He said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water your body shall not come to the grave of your fathers.'“
23 It came about after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, for the prophet whom he had brought back.
24 Now when he had gone, a lion met him on the way and killed him, and his body was thrown on the road, with the donkey standing beside it; the lion also was standing beside the body.

So this poor prophet died for disobeying the command that he was told.

And immediately you think, "Wow. That's hard core! Well, how was this guy supposed to know the difference? Another guy comes up and tells him he's a prophet too..."
(And the Bible even says the old guy was a prophet too.)
"How was he supposed to be able to tell that this was a lie?"

That's my point. God will not give another word that contradicts His first word. (No matter how miraculous the new word comes to us.)
This prophet of Judah knew what he was told and if God had new marching orders for Him He would have told him Himself.

He should've been highly skeptical of a new command regardless of where it came from. And we should be too.

Have we been told what the Lord wants us to do?
Have we been told the ways to obey?

Yes. In the Bible.

And when somebody comes along and says, "Thus sayest the Lord..." we need to be discerning.

We absolutely need to step back and look at what has been said and compare it to what we've already been told by the scriptures.
And no amount of intimidation brought on by the phrase, "Well. God is bigger than a book." should compel us to back down from our responsibilities of obedience to the words we know are from God.

To Be Continued...

Evolution = Bad Theology (My hack at it.)

Now I’m not a scientist and really haven’t put much study into geology or paleo-zoology or what ever but the beef have with one day being a thousand years or a million years, (in regards to the creation), is really a theological one…

Romans 5
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam .…

(And notice not before him)

…until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
16 The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.
17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

So…
If I’m supposed to understand that a day was longer than a literal day, i.e. many many years, then I'm supposed to believe that death was in the world long before an event called “The Fall”.

I can’t buy off and that and remain doctrinally sound.

I’m told the world before the Fall was judged by God as, “…It is good.” (Gen. 1:31)
Not so after the Fall…

Genesis 3
17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field;
19 By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."

Things changed.
What? I’m supposed to believe that before this, in a world pronounced by God was “good”, had dinosaurs and sauropods and Jurassic fish…stuff…things… dying and eating each other and getting caught in the La Brea tar pits?

Well, I don’t think a world like that is good and I don’t think you do either and I don’t think God does either.

What kind of a world does God think is “good”?
Well, first thing, He’ll get rid of one bothersome nuisance…

1 Corinthians 15:26
The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

Revelation 20:14
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

No dying. No T-Rexes chowing on some Brachiosaur or even Bengal Tigers mauling anything.
The whole animal kingdom will be vegetarian (Isa 6:11).
If a world pronounced “good” by God had no death before why would He set it up to have none in the Millennium?
(Well, within parameters, [Isaiah 65:20]. But that can be a whole different topic. "The Millennium".)

Anyway…
I have no idea if evolution is good science or not.
I got friends that say it isn’t.

But I know it’s bad theology.

And that’s why Christians shouldn’t believe in “Theistic Evolution”.

Who Wrote Hebrews?

The author of Hebrews doesn't give his name anywhere in the book.
But there are many commentators who feel that author could have been none other than the apostle Paul.
What I see as very “Pauline” is many of the same “object lessons” in Hebrews that Paul used in the past.
For example…

1 Corinthians 9
24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.
25 Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

This is very Paul.
I figure Paul for a jock. A guy who loved sports. He talks about racing and boxing and competition.

Galatians 2:2
because of a revelation that I went up; and I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but I did so in private to those who were of reputation, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain.

2 Timothy 4:7
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith;

Now compare that to what the writer of Hebrews says…

Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

It’s stuff like that that makes you wanna go, “Paul? Is that you?”

There’s a couple more…

Ephesians 6:17
And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

The Word Of God is a sword.
The author of Hebrews agrees…

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Then there’s my other clues from Hebrews 13.
In verse 19 he talks about being “restored to you the sooner”. Was he restrained?
In verse 23 the author was good buddies with Timothy.
Verse 24 the author was either writing from Italy, (where Paul was imprisoned in Rome), or was coveying greetings from the brothers in Italy. (I say that because the author doesn’t say, “I’m writing from Italy.”)

So, you see there is some heavy things to consider when suggesting Paul wrote Hebrews.
But, those who think Paul wrote it have to answer a question.
Paul says in Galatians…

Galatians 1:12
For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

But the author of Hebrews says…

Hebrews 2:3
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,

It begs the question, “Was the author given the gospel by someone who heard first hand from Jesus? Well that rules out Paul then because he didn’t get the gospel from somebody else.”

It doesn’t take much stretching to say that the verse doesn’t necessarily mean that the author learned his/her total knowledge of the gospel from information second hand.
Just that it was confirmed by eye witnesses.

Ah well.

I’m thinking about somebody that, at least, knew Paul personally. (Pauls same examples are used in several places.)
Was a Jew, (perhaps a Levite with good knowledge of the Temple rites).
Personally knew Timothy.
Was “restrained” in some way to need to be “restored”.
Well educated. The good Greek for example.

I’m wondering if Barnabbas is our author.