Monthly Archives: June 2016

Fulfilled Prophecy

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Dr. Steven J. Lawson gives examples of fulfilled prophecy as evidence of the divine inspiration of Scripture. (Full message here)

Transcript

The fulfilled prophecies of the Bible. We could just believe that the Bible is the Word of God on this one point alone. This is staggering. Say, do you realize that at the time the Bible was written 27% of the Bible was prophetic?

There are some 1,817 prophecies of some nature in the Bible at the time the author wrote the Scripture. A prophecy is pre-written history. Only God knows the future and the reason that God knows the future is because God has foreordained the future. God’s not looking down the tunnel of time to see anything because God already knows everything. And God has already foreordained everything. And He records some of it for us in the Scripture.

And we read all kinds of prophecies regarding individuals—that Abraham would have a son. Did he? In his latter years. That there would be rulers like Cyrus of Persia. 100 years before Cyrus assumed the throne, his name in Isaiah 45 verse 1 is recorded. Would you like to predict who the President of the United States will be 100 years from today? It’s impossible. But here is the Bible giving name and country of these rulers long before they’re even birthed and come onto the scene. Or nations, such as the fall the Northern Kingdom or the length of Judah’s captivity or empires regarding the fall of Babylon or cities such as the destruction Tyre et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

There is a mounting case of evidence that substantiates the perfect truthfulness of the Word of God. There are no other books in the world that are doing this. How about the prophecies concerning the Lord Jesus Christ? The greatest fulfillments of prophecy are found at the first coming of Christ, not even the second coming but at the first coming. It was prophesied in the Old Testament that Jesus would be born of the seed of Abraham, Jesse, and David.

He would be born of a virgin, called Emmanuel, born in Bethlehem. Great persons would come to adore Him, there would be the killing of children in Bethlehem. He would be called out of Egypt. He would be preceded by a forerunner. He would be anointed with the Holy Spirit. He’d be a prophet like Moses, a priest after the order is now Melchizedek. He would be entering into His public ministry in Galilee. He would be entering publicly into Jerusalem and come into the temple. He would live in poverty and meekness, tenderness, and compassion. He would be without the deceit, He’d be full of zeal, preaching with parables, working miracles, bearing reproach. He would be rejected by His own Jewish brethren. The Jews and Gentiles would combined together against Him. He would be betrayed by a friend. His disciples would forsake Him. He would be sold for thirty pieces of silver. At that price would be given for a potter’s field.

He would die with intense suffering yet be silent under that suffering. He would be struck on the cheek, His visage would be marred. He would be spit upon and scarred. His hands and His feet would be nailed to the cross. He would be forsaken by God, He would cry out, “My God My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He would be mocked. Gal and vinegar would be offered to Him. His garments would be parted. Lots would be cast for His clothing. He would be numbered among the transgressors. He would intercede for His murderers. He would die but not a bone of His body would be broken. He would be pierced long before crucifixion would even ever be invented. He would be buried with the rich. His flesh would not see corruption. He would be raised from the dead. He would ascend back to the right hand of God the Father.

All of this recorded hundreds of years before Jesus ever entered this world. And many of these prophecies are fulfilled not by His friends but by His enemies who stand to lose the most with their fulfillment. And many of these prophecies being fulfilled before He was born, while He’s in His mother’s womb, and while He is in the grave.

The Holy Spirit as Seal and Pledge

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by Edward Clowney – servant of Jeroboam.” Recovered from the biblical site of Megiddo, the stamp seal was once the property of an official of Jeroboam II, king of Israel, 785–743 B.C.(2 Kings 14:23– 29). Shema may have been proud of his lion-seal, but for him it was not a decorative gemstone. Rather, he put it to daily use. Pressed on clay or wax it marked his ownership and authority. Wine jars, stoppered with fresh clay, would bear the stamp of his seal. He could seal a deed of purchase or a marriage contract; his stamp could serve as his signature.

Seals and sealing are often spoken of in the Old Testament: Queen Jezebel used Ahab’s seal to order a conspiracy against the life of Naboth (1 Kings 21:8); Queen Esther delivered the Jews when she was permitted to prepare a royal decree and seal it with the king’s ring—“for no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked” (Esther 8:8).

The apostle Paul grasped this image to describe the sealing of the Lord: “Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:13b–14). Continue reading →

The Ultimate Concern

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Beeke1This excerpt is taken from Living for God’s Glory by Joel Beeke. (original source here)

If we had to reduce Calvinism to one concept, we might be safest to echo Warfield, who said that to be Reformed means to be theocentric. The primary interest of Reformed theology is the triune God, for the transcendent-immanent, fatherly God in Jesus Christ is God Himself. Calvinists are people whose theology is dominated by the idea of God. As Mason Pressly says: “Just as the Methodist places in the foreground the idea of the salvation of sinners; the Baptist, the mystery of regeneration; the Lutheran, justification by faith; the Moravian, the wounds of Christ; the Greek Catholic, the mysticism of the Holy Spirit; and the Romanist, the catholicity of the church, so the Calvinist is always placing in the foreground the thought of God.”

To be Reformed is to stress the comprehensive, sovereign, fatherly lordship of God over everything: every area of creation, every creature’s endeavors, and every aspect of the believer’s life. The ruling motif in Calvinism is, “In the beginning God…” (Gen. 1:1).

In His relation to us, God has only rights and powers; He binds Himself to duties sovereignly and graciously only by way of covenant. In covenant, He assumes the duties and responsibilities of being a God unto us, but that does not detract from His being the first cause and the last end of all things. The universe is ruled not by chance or fate, but by the complete, sovereign rule of God. We exist for one purpose: to give Him glory. We have only duties to God, no rights. Any attempt to challenge this truth is doomed. Romans 9:20b asks, “Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” God enacts His laws for every part of our lives and demands unconditional obedience. We are called to serve Him with body and soul, in worship and daily work, every second of every day.

To be Reformed, then, is to be concerned with the complete character of the Creator-creature relationship. It is to view all of life coram Deo, that is, lived before the face of God. As Warfield wrote:

The Calvinist is the man who sees God: God in nature, God in history, God in grace. Everywhere he sees God in His mighty stepping, everywhere he feels the working of His mighty arm, the throbbing of His mighty heart. The Calvinist is the man who sees God behind all phenomena and in all that occurs recognizes the hand of God, working out His will. [The Calvinist] makes the attitude of the soul to God in prayer its permanent attitude in all its life activities; [he] casts himself on the grace of God alone, excluding every trace of dependence on self from the whole work of his salvation.

The doctrine of God—a fatherly, sovereign God in Christ Jesus—is therefore the center of Reformed theology. R. C. Sproul puts it this way: “How we understand the nature and character of God himself influences how we understand the nature of man, who bears God’s image; the nature of Christ, who works to satisfy the Father; the nature of salvation, which is effected by God; the nature of ethics, the norms of which are based on God’s character; and a myriad of other theological considerations, all drawing on our understanding of God.” So Calvinists define all doctrine in a God-centered way. Sin is horrible because it is an affront to God. Salvation is wonderful because it brings glory to God. Heaven is glorious because it is the place where God is all in all. Hell is infernal because it is where God manifests His righteous wrath. God is central to all of those truths. Continue reading →