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CORE Evangelism School

A God Worth Knowing

Dee Casper

01 The God Who Hears and Knows

I'd like to start with a word of prayer, and then we will begin with our message this evening.

Welcome to those who are watching and seeing this later.

And let's start with a word of prayer, and then we'll begin.

Oh, sweet Jesus, Thank you for this privilege to know you and that you long for us to know you more.

And so you heard us sing that this evening and Lord, we want that to become a reality.

This evening's message is entitled The God Who Hears and Knows.

Our whole series over the course of the next series of meetings that we're gonna have together is called A God Worth Knowing.

We live in a world in which, unfortunately, some of the people who claim to know God are making God even less desirable.

We've heard of instances of abuse, just horrific pictures of God that doesn't seem to line up.

And in the midst of that confusion and difficulty, you see hypocrisy, public evangelists who, you know, claim to be 1 thing, but there's something else behind doors.

All of this stuff is difficult, is disenfranchising, it's discouraging.

And so we want to kind of re-examine for ourselves from the Bible, from Scripture, what does God have to say about Himself and is He truly a God worth knowing?

And I believe the answer is absolutely yes.

I've committed my life to that truth and I trust and pray that God will bless you in seeing that as well.

So we're gonna look this evening at the claims that the Word of God makes about itself and the claims that God makes about Himself.

Our goal is to show that there is something in this world that we can trust whenever misinformation is at an all-time high and we don't know who to trust anymore.

You hear 1 thing in the news and you hear something else in the news.

You turn to this channel, they say this is what's happening.

You turn to this channel, that's what's happening.

I don't know what to believe on some of these difficult topics Because of how confusing the public narrative can be, but the good news is, beloved, the Word of God has clear and simple answers for the needs of humanity.

There's no political biases, there's no bargaining for people's affections just to get them to like you or give your money.

This is the simple revealed will of God through His Word.

So I'm gonna go ahead and start this evening.

Our first text is found in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 beginning of verse 14 and going through verse 17.

All the verses we'll be using are from the New King James Version.

If you've got whatever version of Bible with you, we're totally glad.

There's a few Bible in front of you, you can use that, but all the texts will be on the screen for your benefit if you don't have access to them.

So you're happy to look just what's on the screen here.

Beginning in verse 14 of 2 Timothy 3, he says, "'But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

That's the first claim we're seeing from scripture, can make you wise for salvation.

Verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

The original language actually reads, it is God breathed.

All scripture is God breathed and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.

And here's why, so that the man and woman of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." So the Bible here is making some amazing claims about itself.

It says that it can make you wise for salvation, to understand how to be saved, and it was given under the breath of God.

Literally, the Bible's claiming that this word comes directly from God Himself, as if He opened His mouth and spoke to us.

We literally have that level of access through the Word of God to know the thoughts of God, to know the intentions and will of God.

This is what the Bible says about itself.

Peter picks up on this idea in 2 Peter 1 verses 19-21.

He says, And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed, as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

So another claim the Word of God is making here is that it doesn't again have its origins with man.

That the people who wrote the books of the Bible, Peter in this instance, or Paul in the previous instance, or Isaiah in the next text we're going to look at, all of these men were moved by the spirit of God and that's what prompted them to write what they did.

So it wasn't just a bunch of religious guys sitting in a room looking at how to control people or tell them what to do or what to think.

The Bible is literally claiming that God was behind the entire process.

He inspired them in with thoughts, profound thoughts of God that they then put into human language for our benefit.

This is the claim the Word of God makes about itself.

God's Spirit moved them along in the path of truth and guided them on what God's people needed to know.

Just some simple claims the Word of God is making about itself.

Now we go to the book of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament.

This is what he says in Isaiah chapter 46 beginning in verse 9.

Now he's speaking, the Lord Himself is speaking through the prophet Isaiah here.

He says, Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other.

I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning.

So he's making a very bold claim here that I am God and there is no other, and here's how I'll prove it to you.

I will declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done.

I'm declaring to you before something happens what will happen and when it does that will give you reasons to believe in me, saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure." So these are some of the reasons that God gives us for taking his word seriously.

I'm God, there's none like me, I know the future, I can tell you what's going to happen and God is not showing off here He's showing us that we can trust our lives into his hands, right?

Generally, like if you're getting in a vehicle You kind of want to know that the person you're riding with knows where they're going and they're gonna be a safe driver, right?

Because you're putting your life at risk here.

I hope this person knows what they're doing.

What God is trying to do through the prophetic gift is to teach us, you can trust me.

I'm acquainted with your story in your past, yes, but I also am acquainted with your future.

You can trust your life into my hands." And he gives some other reasons for this.

Go to the book of John, or you can find it here in the slides up above.

In the Gospel of John, this is Jesus speaking, John chapter 14 and verse 29.

Jesus says something very similar to what we just saw in the book of Isaiah.

John 14, verse 29, it says, "'And now I have told you before it comes, so that when it does come to pass, you may believe.'" Jesus is warning the disciples of some circumstances that are going to happen later and he's telling them, I'm telling you before this happens so that when you do encounter what I've told you is going to take place, you're gonna believe in me.

You have ample reason to believe in me and to trust me with your life." This is what Jesus himself is saying here, that he keeps his promises or fulfills his word and he gives us reasons to believe in him to prove his trustworthiness.

Now again, This idea of telling what is to come is what many people would refer to as prophecy.

And so for the majority of our time together this evening, we're going to be looking at 1 of the most amazing prophecies in the Bible.

Prophecy is a powerful and beautiful gift that God has given to man, because again, we're struggling to trust.

We're struggling to kind of find certainty and assurance.

And what prophecy does is let us know that there truly is a God who's in control, who we can trust our lives to.

And the book of Daniel, particularly chapter 2, gives an amazing picture of this.

We're actually going to look at some other prophecies in the book of Daniel in future meetings, but tonight we're going to look at Daniel chapter 2.

Okay, 1 of the most amazing prophecies in the Bible.

Now some background leading into Daniel chapter 2.

2, 600 years ago, 600 years before the time of Christ, there was a king named Nebuchadnezzar who's the king of Babylon.

He attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the city and he took many of the people of Israel captive to his land.

1 of the group that he first took with him were the brightest minds of the nation of Israel.

Some of the young leadership, like the princes and so forth, people who were being groomed for leadership, very intelligent, well-educated, and he brought them to Babylon, and they were basically going to train them in the ways and teachings of Babylon.

Kind of go through this whole process of forget what you believe.

We're going to educate you now on our culture, our beliefs, our customs, our deities, the whole situation.

And they make them march a thousand miles through the desert.

They're not going to be able to reproduce children and have any desires for women, so there's no threat to the kingdom.

This is a humiliating and difficult circumstance for the prophet Daniel, because he's 1 of these people that are taken in that first wave from Jerusalem.

02 The Problem of Evil: Does God Care?

It's a blessing to have you in our roof here.

And I believe the Lord has a blessing in store for us again this evening.

For those who were here last night, God did not leave us as orphans.

And I believe he'll do it again this evening.

So what I'd like to do is begin with a word of prayer, and then we'll start this evening's message.

Again, we're addressing the topic of the problem of evil.

We've always needed you, but we definitely need you this evening in tackling a topic that is difficult.

But I thank you that you're not intimidated by the world's problems or by our questions.

So we pray that you would speak to us and give us your perspective now.

I will preface this evening's message by saying this is technically a part 1 and part 2 will be our second to last meeting of this whole series.

As you exit this evening, we're going to give you a schedule to let you know what nights the meetings are happening, what the titles of those meetings are, and when they will conclude, when the last meeting will be, and the second to last meeting is entitled, Why God Won't Leave, and it's actually kind of a part 2 to this topic this evening.

But we're gonna be addressing the issue of the existence of evil.

And if God knows the future, as we talked about last night, and created everything good, good, very good, then why do people suffer today?

And what role does God play in all of this?

Well, the Bible gives us the origin of this problem.

If you brought 1 of those Bibles they gave you at the counter out there, I've got page numbers for you tonight.

This is in the book of Revelation, Revelation chapter 12, but it's page 1182.

So if you grabbed 1 of those black Bibles on the table as you came in, then that's the page number for you, 1182.

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought, but the evil angels did not prevail nor is a place found for them in heaven any longer.

So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.

He was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

So there was a battle that took place in heaven, and we'll see what that was about here in just a moment.

And there were casualties as a result of this, that people were displaced.

There were angels that were in heaven who lost their place in heaven.

But heaven is not a place where you would think that war would occur, is it?

Just doesn't seem to make sense, but it did happen.

If you go a few verses previous to this in verses 3 and 4, it says, and another sign appeared in heaven.

Behold a great fiery red dragon, previously we saw that was the devil himself, having 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 diadems, that's crowns on his heads.

His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.

Now in verses 7 to 9 it talks about the angels being cast to the earth and in prophecy that's what's being said here.

A third of the angels ended up losing their place in heaven in this battle.

The devil himself, who we'll see here in a moment, used to be, you know, an angel, glorious in heaven, and a third of the angelic population that he convinced to join him in this rebellion are now displaced from heaven.

And so this word war that's used here in this text is the word polemos.

And It's the root word for where we get the words polemics and politics.

Both of those you can equate with arguing, right?

The art of polemics is debating or arguing and politics is politics.

I'm not going to get political because it makes me sick at my stomach.

So anyway, but it was primarily a war of words is what's being implied here.

Now that's not to say there wasn't a need for physical intervention, but what scripture is portraying here is that there's a war of ideas.

There's a war of worldviews that took place and eventually a third of the angels lost their place in heaven over this war.

Now Ezekiel chapter 28 gives us some more insight into this.

Page 830 the book of Ezekiel chapter 28 beginning of verse 11.

It says, Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation, a song of weeping for the king of Tyre and say to him, thus says the Lord God, you are the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

The Sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold, a beautiful being.

The workmanships of your timbrels and pipes were prepared for you on the day you were created." This was a created being.

Now it's telling a story that cannot directly apply to the King of Tyre, though it's directed to him, and it's because it's speaking about the force of darkness behind the man.

There's a man behind the curtain, behind these dastardly deeds of the king of Tyre, and it's talking about Lucifer, it's talking about Satan.

They continue, you were the anointed cherub who covers.

Now if you have any familiarity of the Old Testament services, or maybe you just saw like Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark, right?

There are these 2 angels over the top of the Ark of the Covenant, portraying what's been told in scripture of what happened in heaven, right?

There were 2 ministering angels standing on either side of the very presence of God.

So when this person is referred to as the anointed cherubic covers, that means they were in the immediate presence of God in heaven.

You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.

You were perfect in your ways again from the day you were created.

They were perfect, but then sin was found in them and that tension's meant to be there.

They continue in verse 16, by the abundance of your trading, you became filled with violence within and you sinned.

Therefore, I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones.

Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor." So, there was this form of arrogance and pride welling up in the heart of this being.

"'I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings that they may gaze at you.'" Verse 18, "'You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude again of your iniquities and again It says by the iniquity of your trading.

That's the second time they've used sin and trading together.

We'll come back to that Therefore I brought fire from your midst it devoured you and I turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who saw you.

All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you, and you became a horror and shall be no more forever." Now this word trading that's used here is the word rikula in Hebrew which means to sell or to merchandise, and also could be an implication of gossip.

Lucifer, at this stage in heaven, was his actual proper name.

He was trafficking ideas about God that were not true.

He felt that what's going on here and how things are being ruled and led is not okay.

03 The Faith of Jesus

Let's pray and then we'll begin our message.

Sweet Jesus, thank you for blessing us for the last 2 evenings, and I'm praying for a double portion of your spirit this evening.

I don't have what they need, but you can.

I pray that you'd bind all the forces of darkness.

And I pray that you would speak with power, conviction, and clarity.

What is it that gives us hope as a human race?

How is God going to make all things right?

And tonight we're also going to look at the provision of man after they fell.

We alluded to this Last night, if you remember from Genesis chapter 3, the fact that whenever Adam and Eve sinned, they were separated from God and they also were separated even from each other.

The first instance of marital strife happened in the Garden of Eden at the fall.

His wife is deflecting and blaming the serpents.

Sin does that, it drives wedges of separation.

And Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah speaks into this space.

In Isaiah 59, verse 2, says, "'But your iniquities have separated you from your God.'" And what's implied here is the fact that sin causes the separation.

Now, some people on a cursor reading this may think that God runs from us when we sin, but that's not what happens.

When we sin, we are pushing ourselves away from God.

And we saw that even in Genesis 3 last night, that when Adam and Eve sinned and God came to greet them in the garden, what did Adam and Eve do?

When we sinned, we separated ourselves from God, and since God is our true source of life, we are doomed for death.

But God is not happy with the current state of things, and He addresses this in just a moment.

A wage is what you deserve as a result of the works that you have performed.

In fact, in Isaiah we're told that all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

We bring nothing to the table in our broken and fallen state, but yet God still sees something of value in us, which is what's, I think that's just so amazing.

So what is due and owed because of the works that we perform is death, and that's the logical result of separation from God.

But God's had enough of that by the time we get to the book of Exodus.

In Exodus chapter 25 and verse 8, God says to let them build me a sanctuary.

Now, do you think that addresses the separation problem?

Absolutely, if God wants to dwell among us, that implies he's trying to get rid of the separation.

And so God wants to be restored to fellowship with his people, and the first step is to give them something that will show them what it's going to cost to achieve that reunion, and to help them see what their role is going to be as well.

So there's something that happens, there are multiple things that happen in the sanctuary service, right, in the rites and ceremonies of the sanctuary service that will prepare the people to be reunited with God.

It's going to teach us lessons on what God Himself is going to have to do to be reunited with His people.

We're told this in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 9 that you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness, speaking of Jesus.

Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions.

So the Bible says that Jesus does have hatred for something, and it's sin.

He hates sin because sin is what separates him from the people he loves so much.

And beloved, God has a big problem on his hands.

The very thing that God hates the most is living inside of the people that He loves the most.

What I hate the most is living inside of what I love the most.

I want them to be free from that so that when I deal with sin it's not going to touch them.

How do we separate the object of His love from the object of His hatred?

It's going to require very careful surgery and that surgery happens in the sanctuary.

There are things that are taught and observed and done in the sanctuary that are going to help to cause the separation from sin, to eliminate the separation between God and man.

So the very place that God asked to be built so that he could be reunited with his people, right?

God said, let them build me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them, and the surgery is going to happen in the very place that God said, build this so I can be with you once again.

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Series

A God Worth Knowing

17 A Voice of Reason

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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Ellen White Under Fire

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Prophetic Movement at End Time

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How to Introduce Ellen White to New Believers

04 Tests of a Prophet

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iShare 2012 Seminar: Cutting Edge 2 - The Sequel

Ellen White Outside Adventism. Honored Outside the Church

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IMPACT Scandinavia 2012: Workshop B

The Most Essential and Attacked Gift of God’s Remnant Church, Part 1

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By a Prophet - God is Still Leading His People

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Eyes of the Church

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