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CAN YOU TRUST THE MESSENGER?

If a psychic lady on TV invites you to spend $3.99 per minute so she can tell you some spiritual “truth,” can you rely on what she says? As Christians grow in grace and maturity, will they be more able to discern between true teachings and false ones?

I have a question to ask just those of you who listen pretty regularly to this radio program, and maybe to the Christian broadcasts that our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ air right before or after this 15-minute segment. And maybe I’ll address the same question to you first-timers out there — if you have a record of steady church attendance over the years. In other words, men and women who are really walking with the Lord on a consistent basis. And here’s the question: do you understand things about the faith, about mature Christian faith, that five years ago you didn’t know about? Are you walking around, or driving around on this Tuesday, with spiritual concepts firmly in your mind that you once did not understand?

Well, I hope the answer is yes . . . and we would hope for that on our end too. As we prayerfully get ready with sermons for the radio, are we growing in the Lord, moving from milk to meat, as it says in Hebrews?

Well, today we want to get back into Ephesians 3, and consider this business of growing up through the ranks — kindergarten, first grade, second grade, etc., until we begin thinking about spiritual Ph.D.’s — to the glory of God. But first, let me tell you a delightful story that comes from the bestseller by Dr. Adrian Rogers, entitled Believe in Miracles, But Trust in Jesus. In the very first chapter, entitled “The Possibility of Miracles,” he tells how he once lost his wallet. And of course, that drives a man absolutely nuts. It’s not just the money you’ve kissed goodbye — you have to think about canceling credit cards and getting new ones. Going to the DMV and getting a new drivers license. What a pain! So Rogers, over and over, kept playing the thing out in his mind. Where had he been? He mentally and physically retraced his steps until there was a painful groove in his brain.

Finally, a level of good sense returned, and he admitted to God: “Lord, I have been more concerned about a lost billfold than about lost souls. Forgive me. I will worry no more. I commit it to You.”

Well, that night, before going to sleep, he did come back to the wallet, and ask God in his “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer: “Lord, show me in a dream where my billfold is.”

He felt a little funny doing that; he’d never before — or since — asked God to show him anything in a dream. And actually, it’s his next line I want for us to focus on right here. He admits in his book:

“I generally try to keep a little distance from people who want to tell me about their dreams, if you know what I mean!”

The bottom line is this: that night he had a dream about his wallet. He saw it in a big blue mail box — the kind on a street corner that people drop letters into. The next day, down at the church, the secretary unexpectedly put through a call from the postmaster. And Rogers said to him: “I already know what you’re going to tell me. You found my wallet in a big blue postal box.” The guy couldn’t believe it, because that’s exactly what had happened. True story.

But then in chapter two — and please bear in mind that this entire book is about miracles and how God’s children should relate to them — Pastor Rogers has this warning title: “The Problems With Miracles.” And he writes:

“Someone coined this little gem: ‘A miracle a day keeps the Devil away.’ Oh? It could be that he is the one DOING the miracles!”

So friend, this is our Tuesday question. We want to read our Bibles, and have good visions, and listen to safe preachers on the radio, and expose ourselves to clear biblical teaching at church on Sabbath or Sunday morning. But how can we know that we are moving from a biblical fourth grade to fifth grade in the right university? How can we know our curriculum is a safe one? The Bible tells us to work our way from milk to meat, from pablum to prophecy. But there have been well-meaning believers who ended up dining on poisoned applesauce and spiked grape Kool-aid, if you know what I mean. How can we be protected?

Here in Ephesians 3, Paul has launched right into his favorite subject again: the grace of God, which heaven is using Paul to administer to his friends: both Jew and Gentile. “Given to ME . . . for YOU” is how he puts it.

“That is,” he writes, “the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.” He continues into verse four: “In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.”

So Paul is saying, as have so many people both before and after him: “The Lord revealed this mystery to me. And now I’m telling it to you. Our forefathers didn’t know this, but now God has given it to me to give to you.”
Let’s backtrack for just a moment and read verse three again, this time from The Message paraphrase:

“I got the inside story,” Paul writes, “from God Himself, just as I wrote you in brief.”

Well, as Pastor Rogers just admitted, we tend to steer clear of people who say: “God gave me a dream. I’m the man; God told me thus-and-so.” So what about here?

We’ve been going back and forth between two wonderful commentaries in this Ephesians series: the Tyndale collection, where this particular part was authored by Dr. Francis Foulkes, and then the set often used in my own Adventist denomination, written by an excellent team of good Bible scholars. In Tyndale, we do have some words of assurance immediately, as Dr. Foulkes observes:

“Paul is at pains to emphasize that all his understanding is by the GIFT of God, and only possible as He reveals His truth. The knowledge of the mystery was not a personal discovery upon which he could flatter himself. It was the gift of God by His Spirit.”

That doesn’t solve our question for today, but it does set us in the right direction. How often have you and I listened to so-called wise people who were really just sharing their own lofty opinions? “I think this; pay attention.” It happens to us every day. But Paul is emphatic here that these are NOT his own opinions, first of all . . . and then equally emphatic in not bringing glory to himself. Not flattering himself. “The gospel is a great and beautiful mystery,” he says. “And God is graciously revealing — in His own timetable — bits and pieces and parts of it — through ME . . . for YOU.” Not for Paul’s glory; not for Paul’s financial gain; not for the furthering of Paul’s personal political agenda or kingdom. In fact, Foulkes adds this good P.S.:

“His purpose is not self-glorification but to help men recognize the word of GOD in his teaching, and thus accept its authority.”

And friend, this is our challenge. You say you’ve grown in spiritual knowledge by listening to the radio and by going to church and by attending a small-group fellowship during the week. How can we know that it truly IS God’s voice we’re hearing? How can we differentiate between His voice and David Koresh’s?

One comforting reality is that we have the protection of 66 books the body of Christ has accepted as the Word of God — going from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21. We start there, of course. Friend, that is the court of final appeal. When someone comes along today and says — mirroring the claim of Paul — “I have a message from God, given TO ME . . . FOR YOU,” we can immediately put it up against these 66 books. “The lesser light to lead to the greater light,” as people in my own church community sometimes put it.

And you know, as time goes by and we do walk with the Lord and fill our minds with His word and grow from kindergarten to high school to a spiritual university, we also can have a developing confidence that the Lord will both protect us from error and also give us a quiet wisdom and gift of discernment. The Adventist commentary for verse four says this in conjunction with Paul claiming: “You will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ”:

“Paul is not asserting his own intelligence” — as we already mentioned — “but the fact that God had granted him certain insight that could be verified by the SPIRITUAL-MINDED readers of his letter. He is assuring such readers that he was fully informed on the matters about which he was writing, and thus confidence in him would not be misplaced. Every witness for God may have this conviction that his message is true and valid.”

Friend, I’d like to have that, and I’d like for you to have it too. As you listen to these few words of mine, may God give you the protection of the 66 books, and also a solid wall of protection that comes from you walking with Him daily until you know His voice and can tell it from the counterfeits.