How Do I Know If God is Giving Me a Sign?

I feel as though I receive signs from God, but I'm not sure if they're from Him or not.

What should I do? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts, and you can also email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. Well, first up today, Adriel, let's go to Lori who is calling in from Akron, New York. Lori, welcome to Core Christianity.

Thank you, thank you for taking my call. I have a question from Revelation 22 verse 2, and in it, it says, it talks about the tree of life which bears fruit every month, which to me indicates time, and also the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, which is healing. So I'm wondering if we're, this is a vision being shown to John, if we're in heaven, how could there be time and also healing if we are glorified?

I was wondering if you could shed some light on this passage for me, please. Yeah, Lori, a really beautiful text of scripture, I mean the end of the story, if you will. If you go back a little bit in Revelation chapter 21, John begins to describe this particular vision that he had in the book of Revelation. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more, and I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. What John is seeing is basically the merging of heaven and earth, the new creation, and so our eternal existence for all time, we're not just going to be floating around in heaven, remember we believe in the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. We're going to have, as you said, glorified bodies in the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth, and I think we're going to experience time in one sense.

I mean obviously things are going to be very different. We're talking about the new creation, there's no more decay, we're not going to age in the same way or at all, we're going to be perfected, glorified, and so it's really important that we understand that and it's also really important that we understand just the genre of the book of Revelation. I mean we're looking here at apocalyptic literature and what John is getting is these visions and a lot of times the imagery that you have in the visions is highly symbolic.

Now I'm not saying that there is no tree of life or that kind of a thing, but what are these things symbols of, the leaves on the tree and so on and so forth. John says in verse two, the verse we're referring to of chapter 22, through the middle of the street of the city, also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month, the leaves of the tree of life were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything a curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it and his servants will worship him. Again, such a beautiful picture and by the way, this text is really echoing a lot of what you see in the Old Testament. In particular, in the book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel chapter 47 verses one through twelve, where Ezekiel had this vision of the temple of God, if you will, with the river flowing from the temple into the whole world. Really what this is, is the restoration of Eden but even better than Eden.

If you remember back in the beginning of the book of Genesis, in the garden of Eden, you had the river of life flowing from the garden into the whole world. Well here, you have the throne of God and the river of life going from the throne of God, filling the whole world, the tree of life and the leaves of the tree of life for the healing of the nations. I think the symbol there, what we're supposed to gather from this is the fact that there's peace now. The tension that we experience, that we hear about day in and day out when we turn on the news, that's going to be no more in the new creation. We have so much to look forward to and one of the things we have to look forward to is peace, healing between nations that are now at war through the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's, I think, what we can say about this passage of scripture. We want to remember that we're looking at apocalyptic literature here. We're not just thinking about heaven, but about the new creation and about the fact that in the new creation, there is no more decay, there is no more sin, there is no more war between the nations. Now, there is perfect peace. Thank you for your question, Laurie.

Thank you, Laurie. Great question and, boy, Revelation, an interesting book to tackle. I know you've tackled that in your sermon series before and it's an exciting book to get into as well, isn't it? Yeah, you know, it's one of those books that's really intimidating, I think, for a lot of Christians because they just think, okay, there's, you know, dragons and beasts and all these things going on.

How do I interpret this? And, again, we have to understand the genre that we're looking at, apocalyptic literature, but we also need to understand the purpose of the book and, ultimately, the purpose of the book was, you know, John is writing for the benefit of the churches, especially the churches there in the first century that were experiencing intense persecution. He's comforting them so that they might persevere and hold fast to the faith. And so the book of Revelation was actually written as a comfort for persecuted believers, for believers who were struggling with engagement with the world.

And so it's a really important book for us, I think, to read, to study, to meditate upon as Christians, and so it's great to get that question from Laurie. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you have a question, here's the number to call right now. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Ellie in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Ellie, welcome to Core Christianity. Hi. Hi, Ellie. Thanks for calling into the Core.

What's your question? So I have a family member who is very, like, only believes in science, like evolution and all that stuff, and I know that there's scientific things that have been proven that back up Christianity and especially the resurrection of Jesus, because I know that that is what backs up Christianity, is the resurrection. So what are some of those scientific things?

Yeah, this is an excellent question. And I think sometimes, you know, when we have these discussions, I mean, we're thinking primarily here, Ellie, about apologetics defending the Christian faith, and people will say, well, prove to me that Jesus rose from the dead scientifically. Well, it's not something that we can look at under a microscope. So we don't prove it scientifically in the same way that we prove other things scientifically. What we're looking at is history. We have the facts of history, the evidence of history, and we're sort of weighing what took place historically, and we're determining whether or not the account that we have in the scriptures and really that you see in the later centuries, whether that fits with what essentially the apostles preached. They preached that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, that he died, and that he rose again from the grave. Now, here are the facts, if you will, of the resurrection.

Number one, Jesus was crucified. All the gospels agree with this. Even the Jewish historian Josephus talks about this. Another Roman historian named Tacitus refers to this.

That's a fact, right? Like Jesus was crucified. You don't find historians typically denying that. Whether they're Christians or not Christians, we just have so much historical evidence. Number two, there was an empty tomb. Jesus was not in the tomb after his burial. You know, three days later, we believe he rose again. That's what the disciples preached. And you had this just amazing impact that this event had on the early followers of Jesus. You think of people like Saul of Tarsus, who was converted, transformed, once a persecutor of the church, and now preaching the very gospel that he had tried to squelch.

And so you have all of these events that took place. And at the end of the day, what I oftentimes point to, Ellie, this is what I think is so compelling about the claim of the resurrection, the fact of the resurrection, is the very people who were preaching the resurrection were willing to die for what they were teaching. You know, a lot of people say, how do you know that this wasn't just the idea of a group of people that came together, and they want power, they want money, they want control, and so they come up with this fanciful story, and then they get people to believe it, and then they have all of those things, power, money, and control.

But the reality is, the early followers of Jesus who preached the resurrection of the dead, who said we were eyewitnesses of this, you know what they got? They didn't get power. They certainly didn't get money, and they didn't get control. They got persecution. Most of them were killed for what they believed. Many of them lost everything, including money, homes, family. They laid it all down.

Why? Because they weren't willing to give up what they knew to be true, and that was that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And if they knew what they were preaching was a lie, that it really didn't happen, well then why in the world would they have continued to proclaim it even to the point of their own death? And so what we have, Elliot, we have the history, what's given to us in scripture and even outside of scripture, and we have essentially what took place, this shift, this shift through the preaching of the gospel, people laying down their lives for the message of the Christian faith because they knew it really happened. You wouldn't lay down your life for something that you knew was a lie, that you knew didn't take place, and yet the very people who claimed to see the risen Lord, they laid down their lives for him. One passage of scripture that I think is really good for us to go to is Paul's words in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, beginning in verse 3, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. And so he's saying look, these eyewitnesses to the resurrection, some of them are still around, you can go and talk to them, this really happened.

They believed it and they realized that it, I mean this is true, they knew that it was true and that's why they were willing to give up their lives for it, Ellie. Thank you for your question, I'm so grateful to hear also that you're having these conversations with friends and family members and wanting them to know the Lord and the power of his resurrection as well. A recommendation for Ellie and for all of our listeners who would like to learn more about Defending the Faith, Christian Worldview, and Apologetics is a book that we've mentioned before, it's called The Story of Reality by Greg Kochel, and boy oh boy that would really be helpful for you, Ellie, to read that book when you're having these discussions. This is Core Christianity, by the way, some of the radio stations that air Core Christianity air our program at a delayed time, so if you want to talk to Pastor Adriel live, here are the times to call, 1130 AM Pacific, 1230 Mountain, 130 Central, and 230 Eastern Time.

If you call our number, 833 THE CORE, at that time you can talk to Pastor Adriel, again it's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Judy who's calling in from Arkansas. Judy, welcome to Core Christianity. Hi Judy, you there?

Yes. Hey, welcome to the broadcast, Judy, what's your question? I want to know why the Holy Spirit was to not let me have some idea that he was going to take my daughter and then several years later my husband, and it's like my heart was like, you know, just hardened and I just went on with my life and just like... and I realized after I lost them, it's so evident that, you know, they were reaching out to me and they needed me and I'm just oblivious and it seems like I've been away all my life. I just let people down when they need me and I just kind of go, you know, just like, why doesn't the Holy Spirit draw me when I need to be there? Because it's so tormenting and so heartbreaking to think of all the memories I could have made and just you know that I hurt them by not staying close to them and I just was oblivious to just like I'm just watching things happen and then it just... Yeah.

Well Judy, one, thank you for calling and I can hear the grief and even a great sense of regret, burden that you bury that you bear and I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter and your husband. I can't tell you why the Holy Spirit didn't do this or that. I think we can look back on our lives and say, gosh God, why didn't I know better in that moment? And we have to be careful with that, sister, because the reality is, you know, we can look back at difficult things that have taken place and blame ourselves or blame God and sometimes God is not to blame and sometimes we're not to blame.

We don't know. You didn't know what was going to happen and so what do you do in a situation like this? Well, the only thing that you can do is cast yourself upon the Lord and seek His face and let me tell you this, sister, that God is a comfort to us when we turn to Him, when we cling to Him. I think about what the apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 beginning in verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. It sounds like you've experienced a lot of loss and that you maybe even feel guilty yourself for how things turned out and I just want to say, look, sister, that's a burden that you cannot bear. Ultimately, you know, there are things when we look back on our lives we say, I wish I would have done this differently or I wish I would have done that differently and there are even instances where we know we've sinned, where we failed. Well, you take all of that to God to the foot of the cross and you say, God, forgive me and ultimately, Lord, I trust in you and I need. It sounds like what you need, Judy, is the comfort of the Lord, the peace that only He can give and so what I would say to you is we don't have those answers, specific answers as to why this or that happened or why we responded in one way or not another. We can look back and think about it all day long.

What we need to do is look up. Look up to the God who does know all things, trust in Him, lean on Him and receive the comfort that He gives us through His Son, Jesus and one thing that I love about Jesus is that He's able to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, in the pain that we experience, even the pain of death. He is the eternal Son of God who assumed humanity so that He might bear our punishment, our death in His body. He knows what it is to experience death. You can go to Him. You can trust in Him. You can lean on Him and so, Judy, may the Lord give you His comfort and His peace and thank you for calling into Core Christianity. Amen and Judy, we will be praying for you in your situation.

We appreciate so much the fact that you're listening. We pray that what Adriel shared offered you some comfort. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Here's the number to call if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life.

It's 833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. For the last week or so, we've been offering a really cool resource. If you're new to Core Christianity, we'd like to offer this to you for free. It's called our Core Kit.

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It's absolutely free. You can also call us for that resource or any one of our resources at 833-843-2673. 833-THE-CORE. Well, let's go to a voicemail that we received from Rachel. Hi, my name is Rachel, and I was wondering about signs. Like, I feel like the signs that I get, I don't know if they're from God or if it's a sign from something else. I just don't know.

Thanks. Oh, thank you for that. And I think, Rachel, that there are a lot of believers who really wrestle with this. Even the question of, should I ask for a sign? Should I ask for God to guide me, to lead me directly? Now, first, I'll just say, I think that we can sincerely pray to the Lord and say, God, I need your guidance. I don't think that every time we ask for a quote-unquote sign, that it's sinful. I know that many of us, many of you, as you seek the Lord, as you're trying to serve Him and honor Him in your daily life and make those decisions which are going to honor Him the most, you want His guidance.

So you say, God, help me. And throughout the pages of the Bible, the people of God have done this. I think of Gideon, for example, in the book of Judges, in Judges chapter six. Listen to what Judges chapter six says, beginning in verse 36. Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said. He's essentially saying, God, give me a sign. Help me to know for sure that you're with me, that you're going to save Israel by my hand. And I don't think he was being sinful there.

I think that this was sincere, honest. But there are instances where we can look for signs, we can ask for signs in a manner that is sinful. We're testing the Lord sinfully. I think of the book of Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew, what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 16.

The very beginning there, he says in verse one, the Pharisees came and said to him to test him. They asked him to show them a sign from heaven. And Jesus answered them, when it is evening, you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red.

And in the morning it will be stormy today for the sky is red and threatening. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. And so Jesus left them and departed. So you have these sort of two examples of seeking a sign from the Lord sincerely, just asking God for his guidance in our daily lives, and then sinfully testing the Lord and saying, God, you show me.

And if you don't, then I'm just not going to follow you that kind of a thing. Now, how do we sort of parse all of this out? And how do we know when God is actually giving us a sign when he really is leading us? Well, I would say first and foremost, so often when God guides us, it's just through ordinary providential ways.

You think of, you know, God opening up doors to an opportunity or maybe giving you wise counselors, people in your life who can encourage you and point you in the right direction. You know, not everything is sort of black and white. You know, some issues God has really clearly revealed in his word. And so we don't ask God for signs related to should I or should I not do this? Because God has already said, don't do that.

Let me give you an example of this. I years ago had a dear friend whose parents were going through a divorce and essentially the mother just left the husband. And it was tragic. I mean, my friend was just crushed and there was really no reason for her to leave her husband. And yet she was sort of approaching it in this pious way saying, I was asking God for a sign.

I was laying a fleece out there. And what essentially ended up happening was God revealed to me that this was okay. Well, that's not how God gives us signs. God has already spoken very clearly in his word. And so we trust God's word where he's spoken. But when it's a gray area issue and it's not a matter of sin, we go to the Lord and say, Lord, guide me. And so often the way he does it is just through ordinary means, through people, through, you know, circumstances, that kind of a thing. It's not always this voice from heaven.

In fact, it never is really. I mean, God can do that, but typically he uses people, he uses circumstances to lead and to guide you. And so as you pray to the Lord, asking him for guidance, you know, be open to the wisdom of other brothers and sisters in the Lord who are encouraging and who can speak into your life and trust that God is going to guide you and lead you, maybe not by saying, you know, this is the way you should go do it, but just through circumstances and through people.

And I found that that's typically how God works in my life and in the lives of so many. And as you do seek the Lord, remember, there are two ways to do it, right? We can sinfully ask God for guidance, for a sign testing the Lord, or we do it with humility, saying, Lord, give me direction. Help me to know how to best serve you. And as you pray that prayer, sister, the Lord will guide you. He will lead you.

Laura, thanks so much for your call. Great question. And I think all of us at times are seeking God's wisdom, seeking his direction. And yet the answer may be right in front of us in his word, as long as we're obedient. That is the key, isn't it?

I think that that's the case. Well, and it's not even as, I mean, it's just there, as you said, Bill, in his word. And our job is to obey the word of God, to listen to what God has said. And that's how we follow him. God has revealed his will to us in Scripture.

We need to know it. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar, or call us at 1-833-843-2673. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.