Life of Paul Part 9 - The God who sees the Future

Let's open a Bible together, Acts chapter 11, and we're going to continue in our study of the life of the great man, the apostle Paul. And while you're turning, let me tell you about a guy that lives right here in Alexander. His name is Mr. Sumter Priddy, P-R-I-D-D-Y. He's an art collector, and there was an article in the paper about him that was very interesting. Mr. Priddy, when he was in college, was studying, among other things, the works of an artist named John Lewis Crimmel.

John Lewis Crimmel was an artist during the colonial period here in the United States, and his works have become very desired by art historians because of their depictions of everyday life here in America during the colonial period. Well, anyway, Mr. Priddy was just leafing through a catalog from an upcoming auction down in New Orleans, or as they would say down there, Nollans. Well, down in Nollans, they were going to have an auction, and in this auction, as he was reading through the book, he thought he saw and recognized the description of one of John Lewis Crimmel's most famous paintings called Pepper Pot that had disappeared from view, dropped out of sight years ago.

Nobody knew where it went. So on a hunch, he hopped on an airplane and flew down to Nollans, and in the hour that they gave him right before the auction to view the different things, he went up and saw this painting and became convinced it was the long-missing Pepper Pot. Well, he also realized that the auctioneers had no idea what they had. So they were thrilled, the auctioneers were, when he bought the thing for $1,200, because they only expected it to go for $300 or $400.

They were thrilled to death. Well, he brought it back up here to Alexandria and marketed it for $385,000, and the auctioneers sued him. They filed suit, and they said in their suit that he, Mr. Pretty, had swindled them, quoting now, due to his superior knowledge of art, and that he had had a responsibility under Louisiana law to tell them in advance that this piece was worth more than they realized it. Mr.

Pretty, in response, said, and I quote, it would have been absurd to expect me to stand up in the middle of an auction and announce to everyone there that this painting was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, a judge just ruled down in Louisiana this week. Let's take a little survey. How many of you think that the judge ruled in favor of Mr.

Pretty? Raise your hand. How many of you all think he ruled in favor of the auctioneers?

Raise your hand. Well, I'm happy to announce that, thank God, there's a judge somewhere with some sense left because he ruled in favor of Mr. Pretty. Yeah.

All right. He threw the suit out. He said the suit was preposterous, and he said, and I'm quoting from his ruling now, he said it reminded him of some of the outrageously hypothetical cases found only in law school classrooms. Well, yeah, you say, Lon, that's a wonderful story. Does it have any connection with anything? Well, yeah, it does because what we see from that story is when a person has superior knowledge of the facts, they can make better decisions and better choices in life like Mr.

Pretty did. Well, we're going to talk today about how God has superior knowledge of the events of the future than you and I do and how as a result of that, he can make better choices and better decisions about our life and the plan for our life than we can make. But before we talk about that, let's talk about the passage out of which this discussion grows, Acts chapter 11. And if you remember a little bit of background here, remember earlier we saw that here in Acts chapter 11, in Antioch, a brand new kind of church develops, never happened before, a church where Jewish believers and Gentile believers mixed together and became brothers and sisters in the Lord. And we also saw that Barnabas came to this church and became the senior pastor of this church, that he went to Tarsus and found Paul and brought Paul back to be the associate pastor of this church.

And they stayed there. Look at this, Acts chapter 11, verse 26. For a whole year, Barnabas and Paul met with the church in Antioch and taught great numbers of people. Can you imagine this as your pastoral team, Barnabas and Paul?

Holy smokes, what a team that must have been. Well, let's go on now. What happened next? Verse 27. During this time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them was named Agabus. We're going to finish the passage.

Just stop here for a second, though. This is the first time we meet this guy named Agabus. We're going to see him again in Acts chapter 21. And the Bible says he was a prophet, and he came down with several other prophets to Antioch to pay a visit. Now, what about this thing called prophets? If you've been a follower of Jesus Christ for any period of time, you've heard these words, prophets, prophecy. Maybe you've been in a setting where somebody had a prophetic word for you or somebody else, or where they had a word of prophecy for you or someone else. What about all of this? I mean, what are prophets?

What do they do? And is the gift of prophecy around today? What about this word of prophetic knowledge and all this stuff?

Well, while we're on the subject, let's talk about that for a minute. All of our questions is found back in the Old Testament, so keep a bulletin or something here in Acts 11. We're coming back. And flip back with me, if you would, to Deuteronomy chapter 18, the fifth book in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy chapter 18. And here in Deuteronomy 18, God gives us the initial creation. He tells us about the initial creation of the office of prophets, what they do, and how you can tell whether you got the real McCoy or not.

Let's look at it. Forgive me, Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 16. Moses, speaking to the Israelites, here's what he said. He said, "'For this is what you ask of the Lord at Horeb, at Mount Sinai, on the day you assembled there, when you said, Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God again, or see this great fire of His anymore, or we will die.'" Now, what's Moses talking about? In Exodus chapter 20, when the Israelites first arrived at Mount Sinai, God spoke to them directly out of a pillar of fire and scared the living daylights out of them.

I mean, they didn't know what to do with this. So they all came to Moses and said, Moses, we don't ever want this to happen again. Don't you ever let God speak to us straight up like this again. You go talk to God and you come tell us what He says, but we're not doing this again. So Moses said, okay. And God said, okay. Verse 17, the Lord said to me, what they say is good. I like this idea of a go-between. I will raise up for them a prophet like you, Moses, from their brothers in every generation.

So here's the point. What are prophets? Prophets were go-betweens.

They were people who went into the presence of God, got direct information, direct revelation from God Himself, and then brought it back and communicated it to the human race. That's a prophet. Number one, what does this tell us about prophets? Prophets were people who received direct revelation, direct information from God Himself. Now, could a prophet teach the Bible? I'm sure they could. Could a prophet preach well?

I'm sure they could. But prophets weren't made or created to preach or teach. They were created, their unique function was to go into the presence of God, get direct information from God, and bring it back and communicate it to the human race. Because of this, I hope you understand, prophets just didn't quote Scripture. Prophets wrote the Scripture. All the Scripture is, is thus saith the Lord, written down. And so this book was written by prophets who went into the presence of God, heard thus saith the Lord, came out and wrote it down for us. You say, well, Lon, if I understand what you're saying correctly, then prophets were people that had enormous spiritual authority, right? Oh, you bet. Friends, if a prophet walked in here today, a true biblical prophet, walked right down this center aisle, stood right here in the front, pointed up at me and said, Lon, thus saith the Lord, I am sick of hearing, so what? Knock it off.

We would have to retire, so what, here forever, or we'd be in disobedience to God. I mean, that's the kind of authority a prophet has when they pronounce something in the name of God. So you say, well, Lon, if that's true, then we better be pretty careful who we put that mantle on of being a prophet, huh?

You bet. How do we tell a real one from a false one? How do we know when we're dealing with a real biblical prophet?

Well, the passage goes on to answer the question. Verse 21, you may say to yourselves, how can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord? How do we know the real prophet from a false prophet?

Here's the answer, verse 22. If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, if they don't predict the future and get it right every time, then that person, that message is one the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously.

Do not worry about him or her. They're not a real prophet. The test that God gave whereby people could validate and vindicate that they were a true biblical prophet, the litmus test is that prophets had to be able to predict the future supernaturally and flawlessly. They had to be able to foretell the future with precise accuracy. And if they could not do this, they are not a biblical prophet, period, period, period, exclamation point. And we're not talking about just some kind of vague general prediction like real estate costs in Washington are going to go up.

Well, any nincompoop in the world knows that. It doesn't take a prophet to tell us that. We're talking about telling us something supernatural that there's no way any human being could know or predict unless they had heard it directly from Almighty God and predicting it in such a way that it's verifiable, that it's specific enough that anybody and everybody can check it out and say, man, this person obviously heard this from God. It's important for us to recognize every biblical prophet had the ability to do this. Samuel, for example, 1 Samuel chapter 3, the Bible says the Lord was with Samuel and God let none of Samuel's words fail to come true. As a result, all Israel knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord. Now, how did all the Israelites know Samuel was confirmed as a true prophet?

What does it say? The Lord let none of Samuel's predictions fail to come true. And this is the same we're going to see with Agabus who was a true biblical prophet in just a minute. You say, well, now what about these people like Gene Dickson, Lon, and all these other people? I mean, they get it right every once in a while. Well, that's true, but you know what? Even a blind squirrel can find an acorn every once in a while. I mean, it had nothing to do with getting one or two right.

This has to do with never ever getting one wrong. A biblical prophet never got one wrong. You say, well, are they around today? I mean, do people have prophetic word today? Are there prophets around today? Not in my opinion. I don't think there's been any around for centuries and centuries.

And I'll give you three reasons why. Number one, there's no new scripture needing to be written. There's no new revelation God's going to give us. God has given us all the direct revelation He's planning on giving us right here in this book called the Bible. And if there's no new revelation going to be given us, why in the world do you need someone whose that's their primary function?

It's illogical. God doesn't do illogical things. Number two, there's never been any person that has or can that I know of fulfill the test of being a prophet. Tell me five things in the future that we can check out that nobody could possibly know. And maybe if they all happen, we'll talk about you being a prophet.

I've never met anybody can meet that test. And third and finally, you say, yeah, well, but, you know, prophets didn't just foretell law and they forth told. They went into the Bible. They taught the Bible.

We need them for that, don't we? We've got a perfectly good gift that's operating in the church today called the gift of teaching, where people go into the scripture, figure out what's there, communicated to people. But you see, that's not what prophets did. Prophets weren't created to teach.

They were created to bring new biblical information. And that's not happening anymore. People come up to me all the time and say, oh, you're such a wonderful prophet of God. And I go, no, I'm not. No, I'm not.

Not at all. If I was a real prophet, I would have known that the Ravens were going to win the Super Bowl. I don't know that.

I don't want every poll in Fairfax County because I would have bet on the Ravens and known they were going to win. I didn't know that. I'm not a prophet. I just go into what the Bible says and try to pull it out and teach people. God has never communicated to me one piece of divine information in my life, and I don't ever plan on Him doing it.

I don't have that gift, and I don't believe anybody else does today. So we here at McLean Bible Church do not grant any spiritual authority at all to prophetic word or people who claim to be prophets. About every week I have somebody come up to me and say, I have a word from God for you. And I go, okay, what is it? They tell me. They say, now, what are you going to do with that? I say, I'm going to pray about it. And when God tells me what you think He told you, I'll do it. But they said, but this is thus saith the Lord. And I said, no, I'm sorry.

You don't understand. I don't grant any authority to that. I don't believe there is any prophecy around anymore. And I'm going to pray about it. As far as I'm concerned, it's just advice. And that's how we see it. Now, if you want more information on this, we've got a whole tape by the same name called prophets 55 minutes.

I'll talk to you about this. You can go right down to our bookstore and get it. It's got a lot more information, but this is the bottom line. Now, we have a real prophet that we're dealing here with Agabus, right? He was the real McCoy. So let's go back to Acts chapter 11 and let's see what he did.

Okay. Acts chapter 11. Here we go. In Acts chapter 11, the rest of verse 28 says this, and Agabus came down there and through the Spirit, he predicted. Well, of course he did. He's a real prophet.

This is what he's supposed to do is predict the future. He predicted that there was going to be a severe famine that would spread over the entire Roman world. And the disciples, verse 29, each according to their ability, they're in Antioch, took up an offering to help the brothers living in Jerusalem, the Christians there, and they sent it to Jerusalem to help with this upcoming famine, believing it was going to happen because Agabus said it was. They sent it by the hand of Barnabas and Paul. They said, what's wrong with the people in Jerusalem? How come the believers in Jerusalem couldn't take up their own offering? How come they couldn't pay for themselves?

What is the deal here? Well, that's a wonderful question and we're going to answer it next time. Okay. We're going to stop right now because we have a really important question to ask.

And thank God there haven't been any prophets that come in here and told us we can't do this. So we're going to do this. Everybody get loaded up. Here we go. Deep breath.

One, two, three. So what? Right. So what? You say, Lon, I appreciate all this information.

It's really good. You haven't told me one single thing, though, that affects my daily life at all. Well, let's see if we can help with that. Agabus predicted this famine. Did it happen? I mean, did he tell the truth?

Did he get it right? Well, yeah. Look, the Bible says that this happened, verse 28, this famine happened during the reign of Claudius.

You say, Lon, you're such a nice guy, but you are such a dimwit. Of course the Bible is going to say that. Of course the Bible is going to make sure that it validates its own story. I mean, we live in Washington. We're used to this kind of stuff.

We understand how this works. That's no proof of anything. Well, all right. I think the Bible is not going to spin it on you.

But if you need external proof, I've got it. I've got the fact that this famine is mentioned during the reign of Suetonius Claudius. Suetonius Claudius was the Roman emperor from 41 A.D. to 54 A.D. And during his reign, we have five independent sources from the Bible that mention this famine.

The Roman historian Tacitus, the Roman writer Orosius, the Jewish historian Josephus, the church historian Eusebius. And in the annals of Tacitus, I mean of Claudius himself, he records that in his fifth to seventh year, that is between 46 and 48 A.D., there was a horrible famine, he writes. And it was particularly bad in the Middle East in the land of Palestine.

Oh, very interesting. Just like Agabus said. In fact, Josephus actually writes that many Jews died for want of food during this famine.

So Agabus prophesied that this famine was coming. And we have evidence from outside of the Bible that says it happened just the way the man said it did. Now, how could he do that? How in the world could he know that?

Well, we know the answer. It's because he was in contact with the living God who knows the future as clearly as we know the past. Psalm 90 verse 2 says, Before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the earth from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. The Bible invites us to look as far back in the everlasting past as we could ever look and then to turn and look as far forward in the everlasting future as we could ever look. And the Bible says at both of those terminus points, God is there at the same time simultaneously, equally God at both times at both points and at every point in between. He's equally God all at the same time. Now, that's mind boggling.

But if that's true, then you know what? The word time has no meaning for God. God doesn't live in time. If that's true, then words like yesterday, today and tomorrow are meaningless for God. For God, it's all one big now.

And that's why informing Agabus that there was going to be a famine was no problemo, no problemo at all. Did you read in the paper this week about Lucent Technologies? Did you see that? It's in USA Today. It was in the Wall Street Journal. Lucent Technologies began in 1996, just in case you don't know.

It was hatched from AT&T. And when it did its initial public offering in 1996, it was $6 a share. Now, that rose in two and a half years to $67.50 a share. Lucent became one of the darlings of Wall Street. In fact, it's one of the most widely held stocks in America. If you own stock, you very probably own Lucent Technologies stock. At the end of this past week, Lucent stock was worth $6.75 a share, falling 92% in the last two years.

If you're here and you own Lucent Technologies stock, I'm not going to increase your pain by asking you to raise your hand. But I want to know from you, why didn't you sell it when it was $67 a share? You say, Lon, why didn't I sell it? I'll tell you why I didn't sell it. Because I can't see the future. That's why. Do you understand that? And if you keep asking questions like that, I'm going to come up there and strangle you with my own bare hands.

This is not the right time to ask those kind of questions about stocks. Okay, okay. I understand that. The point is, I know you can't see the future, but God can. Hey friends, if God had owned Lucent, He'd have sold it in 1999.

Because He knew what was coming. Now if you're here and you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, let me say to you, one of the greatest proofs anywhere that God is real and who He says He is, is this whole issue of fulfilled prophecy. Do you realize there are over 30 prophecies in the Bible about just the life, the death, and the ministry of Jesus Christ? And they're very specific and Jesus fulfilled every single one of them. They were all written a minimum of 400 years before Jesus was born. Some of them more than a thousand years before Jesus was born. And why did God go to the trouble to write all these things down hundreds of years before they happened? So that they could come true and you could see it.

Why did God do that? Friends, because He wanted to convince us that He's up there. He's real, that this is not a hoax. There is a living God who sees the future and sees the end from the beginning. And how better to prove it to us?

I had one mathematician tell me the probability of this happening was one with 100 zeros after it. Shoot, you say it takes faith to believe in God. I say it takes a whole lot more faith in light of those numbers not to believe in God. And God went to that trouble to convince you if you give your life to Jesus Christ, you are not making a mistake.

You are not buying into a hoax. There is a living God up there who's running this universe and you can trust Him. Something to think about. Now for those of us who are already followers of Christ, let's close it up and say what difference does this make to us? Well I think the fact that we've got a God who can see tomorrow as clearly as we can see yesterday has enormous ramifications for us because God has made us some promises about the future as followers of Christ. Jeremiah 29 verse 11, I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Plans for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. Romans 8 28, for all things work together for good God says. I've already orchestrated them like that in your life for those who love God. And friends, if God is who He says He is, if He can really see the future the way we see the past, if He never makes a mistake, never discovers anything new, never miscalculates and never says, Oops, if this is God, then my dear friends, when He put the plan together for your life, He did it with an utter and absolute knowledge of the future that you and I don't have and He did not make any mistakes.

None. So when tragedy hits your life, when disappointment strikes your life, when things come into your life that you don't understand and you can't explain, things you don't like, things you don't want, things for the life of you that you can't figure out how they could be part of any plan for good. Hey, having this information about God's important because we need to look at those things through the lens of the scripture, which tells us that even though you and I can't see how they can be any part of a good plan for our life, that God can see how. In fact, God already has seen how. In fact, God has already made sure how and that God is not asking us to evaluate His plan for our life.

He's asking us to trust His plan for our life. You know, I've been a pastor 21 years, almost. And if you were to ask me, Lon, what is the most difficult part of your job?

I mean, what is the toughest thing you do as a pastor? I wonder what you think I would say. It might surprise you, the answer.

I would say, what is the most difficult thing I do? Weddings. Say, what? That's stupid.

That's the stupidest answer I've ever heard of. I mean, I thought it would be counseling sessions where people throw chairs and paperweights and stuff at each other, you know, threaten to poke one another's eyes out with paperclips and that kind of stuff. I mean, weddings, everybody's happy at a wedding. Everybody's having fun at a wedding. I mean, how could a wedding be the toughest part of your job?

Well, let me explain to you how. When I stand in the front of a church or in the front of wherever it is that it's happening and I look up that aisle and I see that father, oh, he's so excited and happy. And I see this daughter on his arm with her veil and she's beaming and she's so thrilled about coming down the aisle and the music wells up and down they start. I stand at the front of that aisle and I'm reminded of the fact that I will never do this for my daughter.

Never. I have a nine-year-old little girl, many of you know, who's severely brain damaged, severely retarded. She actually lives at about a nine-month age. She can't eat. She can't feed herself. Can't dress herself. She can't speak.

She's not potty trained. And apart from an incredible miracle of God, I will never walk my daughter down an aisle. I will never see her become a wife.

I will never see her become a mother. And as I watch this excited father walking his daughter down the aisle, I stand there in the front and I tell you, sometimes the pain of that is almost more than I can handle. That's the most difficult thing I do. You say, well, Lon, so how does all this fit in with Jeremiah 29, 11 and this wonderful plan God has for your life? So how does all this fit in with Romans 8, 28 and all things work together for good? Well, the truth is, I don't know.

I don't know. But can I tell you what I believe? What I believe is that God knows what He's doing. What I believe is that God has a plan for my good, my family's good and my daughter's good. What I believe is that God sees the future and has not made any mistakes.

And what I believe is that the day I stand in heaven with the Lord Jesus and He shows me my life to end from the beginning and I can see it in a way I can't see it now, but He can see it now. I believe I'm going to shake my head in the affirmative and I'm going to say yes, God. I didn't understand it.

I couldn't see it. But knowing what you know, God, you're absolutely right. I'd have done that very same thing, God. You're right. I believe that.

And it's because Brenda and I believe that that we've been able to make it the last nine years. Now, why did your parents divorce? Why did your dad desert you? I don't know. Why did your marriage break up? I don't know.

Why did your boyfriend or your girlfriend, your ex-husband or your ex-wife do all the dirty things they did to you? I can't answer that question. Why did you lose your job? I don't know.

Why do you still have a job that you hate? I don't know. I don't know. And why have you been hurt so badly by so many people?

And why did you lose that person to death that you love so much? I don't know. I can't answer those questions.

I can't even answer my own questions. But I can tell you something. I can tell you that there is an eternal God. And I can tell you that He assures you He's got your life completely under control. I can tell you that He promises you that He knows everything about everything, that He guarantees you that He's weaving the events of your life together into a beautiful quilt, that He's given you His Word, that you're going to love that quilt when He's done.

And I can tell you that what He's asking from you is not for you to evaluate past judgment or decide if you like His plan for your life, but just to trust Him. This is why Paul says, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 7, we walk by faith, not by sight. We don't trust God because we can understand it all, because we see how it all fits in, because we've got it all figured out.

No, no, no. We trust God because we believe what He tells us in Scripture. We walk by faith. You say, well, Lon, this is hard to do this. Well, I know.

Believe me, I know. But let me tell you what Brendan and I have learned in closing. Number one, we have learned if we really believe what God tells us. And number two, if we will call on the Spirit of God to give us the strength to trust God even when we don't have the strength to trust God, if we'll do those two things, you and I, we can live this way. We can live by faith.

It can be done. If we'll focus on what God says about Himself, and if we'll ask God for the strength to rise above our human feelings of confusion and anger and pain and resentment and trust God, we can do this. And you know what we've learned is that when we rise up to that level, God takes away the confusion, the pain, the heartache and the anger, and He replaces it with the sweet peace of God. That's a wonderful trade.

It's a fabulous trade. And that peace of God works no matter how bad it gets. It works. So if you're here today, as I know so many of you are, you've got things in your life that don't make any sense. You've got things in your life that have happened that you can't fit into some kind of good plan of God no matter what.

It doesn't work. I'm here to tell you God knows what He's doing, and what He's asking you to do is trust Him. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, you know that we live in a world where lots of things happen we can't explain. Painful things, confusing things, things that we look at and we go, well now, how does that make any sense?

How does that fit in? God, what are you doing to me? What is this all about? Lord, thanks for giving us information today. We need to be able to handle these things. Thanks for reminding us today that we don't have the perspective to pass judgment on your plan.

We can't see the future the way you can. And Lord, our job is to trust you. Make us like Job who said, even though the Lord slay me, I will still trust Him because I believe He's got a plan. Lord, help us rise above our human feelings of anger and confusion and resentment and pain and help us be able to live by faith, not by sight. Take away these human things and replace them with the sweet peace of God that passes understanding. Change our lives because we were here today, I pray, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.