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All right, let me read part of Jonah to you. Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. Yet Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, and paid its fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh.

You may be seated. This is the Old Testament. This is the first few verses of Jonah. And we've been looking at some things from the first few verses of Jonah that are there that we've been able to pull out and have, I guess you could almost call topical sermons on. and this week what I want to focus on is just the beginning where it says now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah.

We live in a culture and every person who's ever lived has lived in a culture where people are seeking a word from God. Christians, we want a word from God and it's a natural thing non-Christians, they want a word from God might not be the right God but they want to know what the higher power in their life thinks and so knowing that we're getting a word from God is very important in the Bible this is often called prophecy it's often called revelation So Revelation is a book title, but what it really means is revealing. Revelation is the revealing of something that otherwise would have been hidden from you.

So just to start with a quick epistemological lesson, you can't know anything at all unless God reveals it to you. All right, it's just that simple. That doesn't mean that you have to necessarily be sure and understand all about God to actually know something. A lot of people have gone through the world in history and they've known things because God opened their eyes to something and they didn't necessarily acknowledge God with their mouth or with their heart.

But we rely on God to reveal to us his truth and God does that in a number of different ways. There's a lot of truth revealed to us simply through nature. We sang Psalm 19 the last two weeks, and the first six verses of Psalm 19 are simply an exhibition of what most people, theologians, call general revelation. That there's a number of things we can know about God, even, just by looking around us.

There's also special revelation. Special revelation is when God specifically gives somebody information from his mind, somehow, to them. prophecy is very often confused with telling the future it is true that a lot of times when god revealed things to prophets and they wrote them down it was a prediction of the future this is one of the things that's so beautiful about the lord jesus christ and all that he did is he fulfilled the prophecies about him that could not have possibly been predicted by people without God giving them the knowledge. The word prophecy, though, in Christian theology means more than that.

It also simply means God giving revelation through a prophet. Sometimes God tells prophets things to tell us, and those things that the prophets tell us, did it just stop working entirely? So that's what we call providence. So we don't... Quick lesson there. We don't believe that God specially revealed to any of us that he wants me to use this microphone.

But we do believe in his providence that it's pretty clear this is the microphone he wants me to use right now. Which isn't so bad. It's more of the visual for me that bothers me more than anything. And it really doesn't bother me much. so when God tells prophets things that they're to tell the people God may or may not tell them something that's going to happen in the future or he may simply tell them something that he wants the people to know so for example the Proverbs when you read through the Proverbs a lot of the Proverbs are not prophetic in the sense that they're foretelling something in the future But the Proverbs are revealing to us wisdom from God that we desperately need.

And so sometimes people will fall into a habit of thinking prophecy is just telling the future. And that's true sometimes and not always true. I want to give you a brief overview. So we could do 16 weeks on prophecy and the word of God. and I have to trust that to some extent we have a basis of these things because we're confessional and we already understand a lot about the importance of the word of God.

We just sang a song that says, that word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them abideth, but his truth abideth still. God's word will abide regardless of any earthly power, regardless of anything. So some ways that God has revealed himself. Let me just go over these words. You don't have to turn to these. It'll be too fast.

But if you start with the book of Isaiah, and you look at every prophet up to the book of Malachi. So now, these are the ones we call the prophets. Moses was also a prophet. David was a prophet. Everyone who wrote scripture was a prophet in a sense. But these are the ones we call the major and minor prophets Just listen to the truth that we see when we read these Isaiah 1 the vision of Isaiah the son of Amos concerning Judah and Jerusalem which he beheld in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

And then he says, hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for Yahweh speaks. So in Isaiah's case, we see that he beheld something, he saw something, and then when he speaks to the people, this is just in the first verse, he says this is God speaking. This is not just Isaiah's thoughts. One mark of the true prophetic ministry is that the person actually knows they're speaking for God.

So anybody that thinks that they're accidentally prophesying and maybe God just took over, which is common in our day, not so much something that we're evaluating these prophets on, that's not how it worked. You'll hear it. Listen to Jeremiah. The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah. If you're trying to follow along, I've abbreviated some of these. The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of Yahweh came.

Verse 4, Jeremiah says, Now the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, so somehow the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah. Ezekiel. Now it happened in the 30th year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chabar among the exiles, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. The word of Yahweh came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chabar.

And there the hand of Yahweh came upon him. So Ezekiel sees visions. Hosea. the word of Yahweh which came to Hosea. Joel, the word of Yahweh that came to Joel. Amos, the word of Amos, who was among the sheep herders from Tekoa, which he beheld in visions concerning Israel. Obadiah, that starts with the vision of Obadiah.

Thus says Lord Yahweh concerning Edom. We say, thus saith the Lord a lot, because that was the King James way of saying a lot of things in the Old Testament came from God. Thus saith the Lord means it came from God. Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah. The word of Yahweh which came to Micah. The oracle of Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum, the Elkishite.

The oracle which Habakkuk, the prophet, beheld. The word of Yahweh which came to Zephaniah, son of Cushi. in Haggai 1 there's a lot of references just in that chapter to how Yahweh's word came to him the word of Yahweh came by the hand of Haggai thus says Yahweh of hosts this people says the time has not come even the time for the house of Yahweh to be rebuilt he says then the word of Yahweh came by the hand of Haggai the prophet saying, is it time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses while this house lies waste? So now thus says Yahweh of hosts, set your heart to consider your ways.

Verse 13 I thought was particularly interesting. Then Haggai, the messenger of Yahweh, spoke by the commissioned message of Yahweh to the people saying, I am with you, declares Yahweh. he was commissioned to do this when God reveals himself to people and he does it through prophets the prophets are aware of what's going on they're commissioned by God it's a co-mission if you think about the word commission it's cooperative mission in a sense it's not just one there's at least two parties the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah the prophet and the oracle of the word of Yahweh to Israel by the hand of Malachi. The only of the prophets of the Old Testament I didn't mention was Daniel because he's the only one where the book doesn't start with and the word of Yahweh came to me.

He reveals clearly that he's a prophet of God in multiple other places in the book though. And you can go review all those, but what I wanted you to see was in the Old Testament and we don't see this the same way in Paul's letters and in James and Jews they don't write it the same way they don't refer to themselves this way in the Old Testament it was utterly clear to these guys I'm a prophet of God and I am bringing the word of Yahweh to the people and for the people to reject that prophet's message, the people to reject that prophet because of the message was the same as rejecting Yahweh God and as we see in the case of Jonah for the prophet to somehow decide I'm not going to say what I've been told is equally disastrous alright some things to note sometimes These prophecies came in dreams. Sometimes they came in visions.

Sometimes the prophecy wasn't stated exactly how it came. So we really don't know in some cases how God revealed himself to Hosea, let's say. Unless in one portion Hosea was clear how. But these prophets, somehow God revealed himself in a way where they were supposed to go and tell people about him. If you want a quick way in your mind to keep a distinction between prophets and priests, I think everybody knows the difference between a king and the other guys.

But a prophet goes to men and speaks on behalf of God to men A priest goes to God and speaks to God on behalf of the men So the priest goes to God for the men Prophets go to men for God. Not that God needs a prophet. He chooses to use them. In Hebrews 1... Do you want to turn there? we have one of the many nails in the coffin of what we call the continuationist movement in Christianity.

But in Hebrews 1, the Apostle tells us, God having spoken long ago to the fathers in the prophets, he says, in many portions and in many ways. We just saw that. We had visions, dreams, the word coming to them. But then he tells us in these last days. Interesting, if you talk to a dispensationalist, they'll say, oh, we're in the last days now. Right.

But we weren't in the last days before Obama was president. You know what I mean? And if you don't, I can explain after. That's kind of a dig. But according to the apostles, according to the authors of the New Testament, the last days effectively started when Christ ascended. you could say when he rose from the grave they started Hebrews was written in the first century and they're calling it the last days but in these last days how does God speak to us does he keep sending all these new prophets all the time there was some in the first century there were some people that wrote down the things and there was ways that they verified that those were real prophecies but listen, in these last days spoke to us in his son whom he appointed heir of all things through whom also he made the worlds Jesus is the ultimate prophet and Jesus speaks through his word so there's some things that all Christians would agree on, at least theoretically.

And that is that God reveals himself through his word. One of the questions that you have to wrestle with as a Christian is, well, how do we know what his word is? Because if you go to this church or any number of churches that you've maybe gone to before, you've been taught that, well, God's word is the Bible. And that's true. But can you explain why? we're not getting a new book tomorrow of the Bible.

Can you explain to somebody why God, who's omnipotent and can do all things, is not providing a new Bible book tomorrow through maybe a real prophet? I'm not talking about shenanigans. I'm saying, in theory, if somebody asked you, why couldn't God give a new book of the Bible tomorrow? I guess your first answer is, well, he could. but why are you sure he won't?

Do you believe that the New Testament clearly teaches that these gifts of prophecy have ceased? I believe that there's a lot more nails in that coffin, but Jesus being the one God has spoken through in the end is the ultimate reason for this. We have the goal of all prophecy. We have the goal of everything that every prophet ever said. We have the goal of all the rituals, of all the ceremonies, of every little picayune thing that the priests had to do perfectly in order to actually be obeying God in the Old Testament temple.

We have the fulfillment of what every single failure of a king of Israel ever was supposed to be. We have it all in Jesus Christ. We don't need any more. Now for 50, 60 years after Jesus died, God continued to allow apostles and even people that wouldn't technically be apostles to write things that he inspired that were confirmed to be scripture at very early dates by other apostles so that we might know what Jesus did.

But when you read the New Testament, you are reading prophecy. You are reading the truth of the revelation of God. You're reading something that without it you would have no knowledge of. Now whether it's because you're reading it or somebody tells you these things, It's still the word of God. I would say not only the Bible, but the history of the faithful church, our reformed forefathers who we should pay attention to, and our confession are all clear that ongoing new revelation is not how God is working in these, the last days.

This sounds... it may sound like i'm just talking about nothingness to some of you i don't know but we have a epidemic okay you worry about a pandemic an epidemic i don't know which one's right pans worse that's the worst you can get is pan but we have a pandemic of people not knowing god's revelation in our culture. Forget COVID. We have a global problem with people being unable to know what God has said.

And what are some of the reasons? Well, the reason is that people don't believe the Bible has actually sufficiently provided them with what they need to know about God. In 2 Timothy 3.16, we have what should be a memory verse for everybody in this room. If you don't know it, I suggest you memorize that verse, including 17 as well. But in 2 Timothy, you have, we'll say, the second nail in the coffin of continuationism.

Verse 16, all Scripture is God and profitable for teaching for reproof for correction for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be equipped having been thoroughly equipped for every good work I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.

And will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. There is a divide in Christianity and I'm hesitant to always consider both sides Christian, but there's a divide in Christianity whereby there's a group of people that are usually called cessationists. And if you don't remember that word, well, that's what we are. So we're cessationists.

Cessationists, this is very generally speaking, cessationists believe that the sign gifts of the apostles, prophecy, tongues, and miraculous healings or miracles ceased when the apostles finally died. So these were gifts that God gave his church to some people to confirm his revelation he was giving so people would know what to write down and call the canon of scripture or the Bible. Once the scripture was completed, once the canon, the list of books that were really in the Bible had been completed and distributed enough that we would have what we would need for 2,000 years later, these gifts ceased.

God has given a lot of gifts to His church. He's given generosity. He's given the gift of preaching, teaching. He's given the gifts of helps, administration, compassion. He's given a lot of gifts to His church. And they're all necessary.

And they're all necessary from the beginning. but the miraculous healings the tongues and the prophecy were gifts that were given for a temporary time and they had a purpose and the purpose was to authenticate the revelation of God through the prophets who were giving it in the scripture. The people who believe that those things are continuing are called continuationists so these are not very difficult terms One of them says things have ceased. They're cessationists.

The other group are continuationists. They believe these things have continued. Sometimes this group of people gets called charismatic or charismatics. I do not like using that term to describe that group of people because charisma simply means the gifts. In the Holy Scripture, when we talk about the Holy Spirit's gifts that he gives to his church, they are the charisma.

I do believe that God still gives gifts to His church. I believe every person who's a member of a New Testament church has at least one Spirit-given gift that they are to use for the edification of the rest of the body. And so, I'm charismatic! If it makes you feel better, but I'm a cessationist charismatic. And so I usually wouldn't say that term, I wouldn't stand on a street with a, I'm a charismatic sign, because I understand the misconstruing of it.

But as we refine our own language, when we talk about theology, I want to encourage you to call people either continuationists or cessationists in this sense. Because to label the side that believes in the continuationists of gifts, the charismatics, starts to make cessationists look like we're denying all gifts. And that's not true. In fact, I would argue with you that the people who are denying the Holy Spirit the most are the people who get the most credit for having the Holy Spirit.

The continuationists. There's a bunch of little pithy sayings, and some people say, well, you guys have the Bible and we have the Holy Spirit. That's what continuationists say. Well, considering the Holy Spirit reveals His thoughts through the Bible, we have the Holy Spirit too. And in fact, if we're using it rightly, we're the ones not blaspheming him.

So when you read the Bible, even when the Bible doesn't say, Thus says Yahweh, or thus saith the Lord, even when it doesn't say that, the entire Bible is actually one big, Thus says Yahweh. That doesn't mean everything everybody in the Bible ever said is something you need to follow. There's some people in the Bible whose actions and words were recorded because they're true, that happened, or they said it.

It doesn't necessarily mean those are God's thoughts. So sometimes we get a narrative where people do things that aren't necessarily examples for us. God takes his scripture very seriously in Proverbs 30, verse 5 and 6. Another pretty good memory verse. I think we'll read this one next week, right? in Proverbs 29 today already? In Proverbs 30, verses 5 and 6, every word of God is tested.

He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He reprove you and you be proved a liar. In Deuteronomy 4.2, God says, You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. God's word is so serious that to add to it makes you a liar.

And in the case we'll say of Jonah take away from it by not proclaiming what he was tasked to proclaim is a big problem. In Revelation 22, the end of all of scripture, God's warning to us is evident. Revelation 22, 18, I bear witness to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. He says, if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. that sounds pretty serious if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in this book alright well in other words God's saying you're going to hell if you're going to take away from the words of his book he takes it really seriously his word and there's a reason for that God's word reveals to us God for us to mess with it is to mess with God himself back to the sensationist continuationist concept the focus on the extraordinary gifts of the spirit is the problem that people have today.

So remember, this was also the problem of the Pharisees in Matthew 12, which we read about just a few weeks ago. They said, we want to see a sign. What sign will you give us so that we know? Right? And Jesus said, the only sign I'm going to give you is the sign of Jonah. And he also tells them, a wicked and perverse people seek a sign.

They had the word of God standing right in front of them. when you focus on the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, it has the practical result of diminishing the significance of God's Word. Some people say, well, I love the Bible, but I also just want to be able to hear from God because, you know, my pastor said we still can. And so they do all sorts of different meditation exercises and clearing their mind.

There's all sorts of stuff out there, and it all ends up resolving down to Eastern mysticism of some form or another called Christianity. But when people want to hear from God, you know what they end up not doing? Yeah, they don't end up actually reading what God has written to them. The prophets of old who were getting revelation, they still read the Bible.

And in fact, one of the amazing things that you see, if you read the Bible enough, which none of us do, but if we started reading it more and more and more, you start to see how a lot of these Old Testament prophets, they were just in some way plagiarizing each other over and over. They were writing a lot of the same things. Because they all knew Scripture really well.

If you read the Pilgrim's Progress, and I tell you I think it's the greatest book ever written other than the Bible, and you read the Pilgrim's Progress, and you walk away and think, wow, that was a really neat story, but you didn't recognize that it's probably 75% straight up Scripture quotes. That's why it's a great story. We should know the Bible that well.

That was the old, the saying they had about John Bunyan was, if you cut him, he would bleed biblene, they'd say. Like his blood, the Bible was flowing through it. The focus on these extraordinary gifts of the Spirit creates a longing for the extraordinary. And it makes Christians unable to see progress in the faith through the Word and Spirit. So if God has gifted you in one or two or maybe many different ways where He's explained how you've been gifted and you spend all your time trying to figure out how to speak in tongues or how you're going to get an infallible Word and prophesy on His behalf, or maybe you're doing the thing trying to do miracles I don't even understand it that one's harder to fake so you see less of that in our society right you see a lot of fake tongues and prophecy you actually miss the gifts that God has given you and the people around you you're not going to notice the person in church that just comes up to you every week with an encouraging word when you're waiting for you know the sky to split open with new revelation it makes us miss just regular providence you won't see the things God's doing on a regular basis especially the things that we call ordinary if you're always looking for the extraordinary this is exactly what happened when Jesus walked the earth you realize this right? he had a huge following you get that right? and then when the miracles stopped and the free food stopped all of a sudden he didn't have a following is no different today.

One of the results of missing this providence is we lack thankfulness. You will stop seeing the things God is doing on a regular basis because you're looking for the big thing and you'll forget to say thank you for the countless blessings that you're actually receiving every day. Most of which you don't notice anyway, but you'll notice them even less.

Ultimately I think it's blasphemy against God and it diminishes the Spirit's actual work of regeneration and humiliation that He does do. When people say, oh you Baptists or you Reformed guys you don't think God does miracles today if I didn't think God did miracles today I wouldn't go down to Planned Parenthood and Red, White and Boom and preach the gospel. because for God to regenerate a lost sinner and grant them faith in Jesus Christ is the greatest miracle of all And I believe he still does that on whatever regular basis he deems fit I also believe he does it through ordinary means of gospel preaching and people handing out tracts and people going to their neighbor and talking to them. And he even does, I hate, I don't want this to be your only mode of evangelism, he even does it through like a Christian t-shirt.

Or if you post something on Facebook that's just a verse. And maybe the verse isn't even about salvation. God can and will use those kinds of things for his good purposes. Some people would think, unless you're blubbering in an unintelligible language, that we can't acknowledge your faith. There's actual groups of people out there that will tell them, that tell their new converts, well, until you speak in tongues, you're not a Christian. and most of them end up speaking in some kind of tongues, okay?

Because the pressure to end up doing the thing all the other people are doing is so great. God's Word is sufficient for your difficulties, and you need to seek revelation in His Word only, not elsewhere. it's a wicked thing for people to lie about what God expects we have Christian friends who we believe are really truly born again Christians who from their study of scripture have gotten to a point where they have believed that these gifts continue or at least are potentially able to continue and so they're open to it. It's a very difficult line to kind of hold with people to decide where you want to start thinking somebody's not a Christian over all these things and where they are.

We have had some problems on the street with these kinds of people. One of the problems with continuationists is their relative unpredictability because at any moment if they think the Spirit's moving them to open their mouth and say something, and they think it's infallibly coming from God, they can end up saying some pretty bad things. And then you're a bad guy for trying to tell them to stop, because now you're quenching the Spirit in their mind.

So it makes it very difficult to do church with people if they don't agree on these things and even any kind of ministry. But people have been pulled out of these things who were we'll say new Christians, and didn't know the difference, and they got caught up in a group that taught those things. So I guess this is what I'm trying to say. It's like this is really bad stuff.

I'll even call it evil. At the same time, I think we need to recognize that humans are weak. We are frail. We make mistakes. and you will encounter Christians that you love and you do believe they're really Christian who they're going to have some views on this topic that I think are very disagreeable to Scripture and are Reformed things. But we can try to deal with those things in a good way.

At the same time, you're not going to preach in this pulpit if you believe that stuff. You're not going to preach with us on the street. So you can draw lines here and there. One thing that's interesting that we saw at 2 Timothy. I want to go back to 2 Timothy. I meant to stay there a little longer actually.

All scripture is God breathed. So everything comes from God that's in the scripture. And it's profitable for teaching. Verse 16 of chapter 3. And it's good for reproof and correction and training and righteousness. So those are all things you can figure out what they all mean.

Divide them up. But he says so that the man of God may be equipped. It says, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work. I believe this statement is what we call the sufficiency of Scripture. There is not an aspect of your Christian life for which you are expected to grow in godliness or minister to the lost or minister to the saints or do church or do family or whatever it happens to be that's an aspect of your Christian life where the Scripture does not contain the instructions and the wisdom necessary for you to be thoroughly equipped, fully equipped.

In the King James, I think it says perfect, meaning complete. Now, does the Scripture tell you how many eggs to put in your omelet or whether you should cook the onions first or all the different... No, the Scripture is not a book that tells us everything we need to know about every aspect of life, but it's thoroughly able to tell you everything you know about how to do your spiritual life.

So you'll still have to go to school to learn how to fix cars if you want to be a guy that fixes cars. All right, you understand me? We are often very quick to run to worldly wisdom to understand the spiritual things that God has given us all that we need in his word for. A few examples would be when we run to psychological solutions for things and sociological solutions to things.

When people feel like they've suffered some kind of wrong and they need a certain kind of counselor to help them with it. And oftentimes that counselor will come from a worldview that is completely anti-biblical. I won't even say unbiblical. And this stuff can be obviously proven and evaluated. any worldview that doesn't start with the fact that man is hopelessly dead in his sin and trespasses and needs a savior in order to even be forgiven in the first place and is totally redeemed any worldview that doesn start with those things can help you with your difficulties all it can do is maybe put a band on some of your pains that you suffering in this world Maybe make you feel better for a couple of years.

You might be like the guys Asaph resented. You might have a great life for 70 years even because of what this world offers. But wouldn't you rather go to God's Word to find out how to solve your difficulties? Wouldn't you rather rely on God's word to figure out how to raise your children? How to do church? How to become a better person?

That's what God's word promises for you. Final concept. The preaching of the word of God is the word of God. That is reformed teaching. That sounds wrong when you first hear it. the preaching of the word of God is the word of God. Because God values preaching so highly, he told Timothy in verse 2 of chapter 4, preach the word.

Quick side note, just wanted to say this earlier. in verse 3 of chapter 4 he says the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but wanting to have their ears tickled they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires when you see a false teacher on tv when you see when you watch justin peters uh videos where he lists all the false teachers and all their false teachings what you need to remember is the false teacher was heaped up there by sometimes millions of people false teachers don't just appear and then start saying things that are wrong and trick people and give them candy so they follow people heap up the false teachers for themselves because it's what they want to hear but in verse 2 he says preach the word be ready in season and out of season reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and teaching the preaching of the word of God so long as it accords with the truth of God's word is considered the word of God. This is why you come to church and instead of me coming up here and just reading a few chapters that we could say without a doubt, that's God's word. Did you ever think about that?

Why don't we just read the scripture if it's infallible and inerrant and sufficient? Why do we have a guy get up and basically say a bunch of things about scripture in other words and risk all the mistakes and all the errors and all the opinions and all the stuff that that someone can do why do we do that well god has commanded that we do it and god has promised to bless it actually in a special way this is why we put a premium on the preaching of god's word and it's in the reformed uh tradition that we follow if you go back it's one of the first things that was recovered by the reformers was people getting up and actually proclaiming god's word to people through preaching. So you need to take it seriously.

It also needs to be taken seriously by the preacher. And there also needs to be people that are trying to learn how to do it better. But it's one of the things why in the Reformed Confession we have a gifted brother and we have elders. But it's not really a common practice that we just ask everybody to preach. It's just not a thing. In fact women already don't preach.

In Jeremiah 20 verse 9 we're going to look at how a true prophet though a true prophet of God and by that term right now I'm going to talk about not only prophets of old who received direct revelation but even what we call modern day prophets which are his preachers of the word. A true prophet or a preacher cannot avoid proclaiming what God has said. So now after all that, I'm actually trying to round this back to Jonah, who tried to flee the presence of Yahweh when the word of God came to him.

A true prophet cannot avoid proclaiming what God has said. Jeremiah 20 verse 9. Jeremiah says, but if I say I will not remember him or speak anymore in his name. So Jeremiah was tempted. I hope nobody in here has to suffer like Jeremiah, right? he was tempted because he knew if he would just shut up about what Yahweh was saying he'd be left alone and some of you may feel that way sometimes he says if I will not remember him or speak anymore in his name he says then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones he says and I am weary of holding it in for I cannot prevail he can't stop preaching God's word this is one of the marks of a prophet and a preacher 1 Corinthians 9.16 Paul says for if I proclaim the gospel I have nothing to boast he says for I am under compulsion he says for woe is me if I do not proclaim the gospel a lot of people would refer to this verse as one of the verses that affirm the call of a preacher if they ask the guy well could you stop?

And the guy just says, no, I couldn't stop. Some people, they have to preach the gospel. It's in their bones. In Jeremiah 23, we looked at this chapter earlier as well. But back to Jeremiah 23, in verse 18, a little thing about God's word and His counsel. It says, but who has stood in the counsel of Yahweh That he should see and hear his word.

So God knows who his prophets are So this whole section is about the false and the true prophets He says in verse we still in 18 Who has given heed to his word and heard? Behold, now think of Jonah for a moment, the storm of Yahweh has gone forth in wrath, even a whirling storm. It will whirl down on the head of the wicked. The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until he has done and established the purposes of his heart. in the last days you will clearly understand it.

I did not send these prophets, but they ran. He didn't send them, but they still ran and prophesied. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied. So there's false prophets among us. There's people who are going to stand up, just like in the days of Israel, and they're going to say what God has tasked them to say, what they've been commissioned by God to say.

And there's going to be people who get up and they're going to say, Thus saith the Lord. And they're going to tell you their dream. And it's going to happen today too. It's happening all the time all around us. In fact, it's happening all day today. Maybe more than some other days.

What a travesty when you think about it. That God's Sabbath is double blasphemed by the false prophecy. He says, but if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have caused my words to be heard by my people and would have turned them back from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds. Am I a God who is near or back to omnipresence? Declares Yahweh and not a God far off.

Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him? That's what Jonah tried to do, right? Do I not fill the heavens and the earth? Omnipresence, declares Yahweh. I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy a lie in my name saying I had a dream, I had a dream how long is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy a lie even these prophets of the deception of their own heart who intend to make my people forget my name by their dreams which they recount to one another just as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal and he says the prophet who has a dream may recount his dream but let him who has my word speak my word in truth.

And then he asks a really interesting question that just seems out of nowhere. He says, what does straw have in common with grain? His words like a fire. So I found the straw in common with chaff or grain comment to be very interesting. John Calvin describing the straw and the grain the straw is like the chaff that you can't eat and the grain is the good stuff that you can't eat he says for when anyone rejects the wheat because it is covered with chaff he does not deserve or does he not deserve to perish through hunger right so the lamentation is there's false prophets everywhere and they're saying preposterous things that's the lamentation that's the complaint Jeremiah has that's the thing God's angry about but the response is it's up to you to figure out what to eat it says who will pity him who says that he has indeed wheat on his floor but that it is mixed with chaff and therefore not fit for food.

He says, Why then, thou silly man, dost not thou separate the chaff from the wheat? But thou choosest to perish through want rather than to cleanse the wheat that thou mayest have it for thy food. So also in the temple, the wheat is often mixed with the chaff. The pure truth of God is often defiled with many glosses and vain figments. and yet, except it be our own fault, we shall be able to distinguish between the wheat and the chaff.

But if we be negligent and think that it is a sufficient excuse for despising the word of God because Satan brings in his fallacies, we shall perish in our sloth like him who neglects to cleanse his wheat that he might turn it to bread. we have a responsibility. Jonah neglected to preach God's word when he was called to do it at first. He fled from the presence of the Lord.

Jesus, the prophet who came, who Jonah was only a type of, he never failed to say everything that God had tasked him to say while he was on this earth. You have a responsibility. Your mission, whether you choose to accept it or not, is to seek to understand God's thoughts so that you may take each of your thoughts captive to obey Christ. You may know and comprehend God's thoughts by reading them in the Bible, having them preached to you by a preacher, sung to you by your brethren, and hiding his word in your heart through memorization. to accomplish this you must plunge the depths of God's word more diligently than you would dig if you knew there was enough treasure in your backyard to retire for life the Lord Jesus Christ's unfathomable wisdom and knowledge is granted to us for life and godliness but apart from the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit you are hopeless but Paul tells us that we have the Spirit of Christ so that we may know the mind of the Lord.

The Spirit of God uses the ordinary means of the Word of God which has been laid down already in the Bible to impart Spiritual wisdom to all those who seek it. But be warned. The same spirit will withhold his precious pearls from swine. He promises to meet idolaters in their idolatry. You must draw near to God where he may be found. By faith in his promises that are found in his word.

Not through an appetite for the miraculous or extraordinary. but out of a deep love and devotion for his word as the fountain of all life. Christians who have simply laid hold of God's truths and believe them have been used to accomplish some of the greatest reformations of history and you would do well to imitate them as they imitated Christ who was and is faithful in all things. Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit would use your word to illumine our minds to your truth.

I pray that you would cause us to pray this way more often than we do. It is one thing to sit and read your word knowing that there's a treasure trove there. But it's another thing to remember to ask you to help us understand it. So please grant us that humility and that desire. Amen.