Sensationalism runs rampant in our society as people are eager to predict what will happen in the future. The difference is made clear between sensationalism and the sure Word of prophecy which God has given His church.

2016 Hartland Summer Campmeeting: Mission and Purpose of the Remnant Church

<p>Sensationalism runs rampant in our society as people are eager to predict what will happen in the future. The difference is made clear between sensationalism and the sure Word of prophecy which God has given His church.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Norbert Restrepo

Prophetic: Message or Speculative Excitement

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much once again for the many blessings you bestow upon us for your word, for prayer, communication with heaven.

And as we open the word this afternoon, we want to invite to the presence of your Holy Spirit and that our hearts, our minds might be impressed with your principles, your truth, that we might be inspired to a life of obedience.

Thank you for all the blessings we have received already and we thank you and pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Now most Human beings have a fascination for knowing what will happen in the future.

It could calm our uncertainty or it could appease our curiosity.

It could perhaps give us some direction so that we can make decisions in the future.

It's amazing how popular you find in almost every culture some type of horoscope or discovering the future whether it's through spiritualistic means or other means that people consider might be valid.

But let me just share with you a few recent events that have to do with predictions and people desiring to know what's happening in the future or assuming that they can predict.

But on November 8, 2012, the Washington Post published an article entitled, Fair Warning.

Bulgarian prophet predicted that Obama would be the last US president.

Her Russian fans believe that Baba Vanga correctly predicted that the 44th president of the United States would be African-American and that he would be the last 1.

And it's interesting that this was an article on the Washington Post on that.

Back in 1881, an astronomer discovered through spectral analysis that comet tails include a deadly gas called cyanogen, related as the name implies to cyanide.

Now this was of only passing interest until someone realized that Earth would pass through the tail of Halley's Comet in 1910.

Would everyone on the planet be bathed in deadly toxic gas?

That was the speculation reprinted on the front pages of the New York Times and other newspapers, resulting in a widespread panic across the United States and abroad.

Finally, even headed scientists explained that there was nothing to fear.

That in 1980, and some of you, a lot of you know of Pat Robertson, televangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson startled and alarmed many when he informed his 700 Club TV show audience around the world that he knew when the world would end.

I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world, Robertson said.

And perhaps closer but not last, Just to mention 1 more example.

As the last century drew to a close, many people grew concerned that computers might bring about doomsday.

The problem first noted in the early 1970s was that many computers would not be able to tell the difference between 2000 and 1900, those dates.

No 1 was really sure that what that would do, but many suggested Catastrophic problems ranging from vast blackouts to nuclear holocaust.

Gun sales jumped and survivalists prepared to live in bunkers.

But the new millennium began with only a few glitches.

But you know God's revelation includes prophecy, predictions and promises of things that will come to pass.

Like we read in 2 Peter 119, we have the more sure word of prophecy.

Through prophecy, God reveals his plans of love for us.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Jeremiah 29, 11.

Through prophecy, types and symbols, God announced the coming of the Son of Man, His mission, His death and resurrection.

So Prophecy does have a very important role to fulfill and Bible prophecy has a specific purpose.

It's not just foretelling future events to satisfy our curiosity.

There is a purpose for the predictions we find in the Bible.

And when this purpose is not, that's not the motive behind the study of Bible prophecy, we can actually twist them as we read in 2 Peter 1.20, when we insert private interpretation into it.

So yes, prophecy also reveals that Jesus will come again soon to bring an end to sin, suffering and death.

The great controversy, the plan of salvation, the triumph of God's love over Satan's selfishness, and the glorious second coming of Christ to the world, these are wonderful truths portrayed through Bible prophecies.

Therefore, Satan continually seeks to subvert God's prophetic revelation because he actually has some very important things to reveal through prophecy.

The plan of redemption, the ultimate eradication of sin, all that is prophesied, his second coming, the millennium, all these are aspects that Satan would like to completely blind people to them or have a twisted understanding of them.

It is a wonderful message that God has given to us.

So let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 3 and I just want to take a look at a few prophecies that are to highlight how Bible prophecies point out the plan of salvation, the second coming of Christ, and they point towards crucial elements, crucial events in the story of redemption.

And they point out and predict crucial events in the unfolding of the great controversy.

So Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, the first prophecy, the gospel prophecy in the Bible, Genesis 3, 15.

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.

It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." There is so much in this prophecy.

And if we wanted another chapter in the Bible that explains this prophecy, where would we go to?

Revelation is the explanation of prophecy.

And which chapter in Revelation, if you want to be very specific about it?

Revelation chapter 12 is speaking of that old history of the enmity between the woman and her seed, the dragon and the seed of the woman.

So from the very beginning, from the onset of Bible prophecy, it is setting the scenario that Bible prophecy is going to deal with the plan of salvation, with the great controversy, and with the ultimate victory of good over evil, Christ over Satan.

That's the focus of Bible prophecy, not just satisfying sheer curiosity, but impressing upon us God's great love, His plan of salvation, and the role that we can actively fulfill not only in our lives, but in reaching others and being his witnesses here on earth.

Turn with me to Isaiah 53, and we will take another look at a significant Bible prophecy that, by the way, was so misunderstood for the first coming of Jesus Christ.

And we, nowadays, we understand through the aid of the spirit of prophecy that Isaiah 53, even though it was there, was not appreciated, was not understood because there was a private interpretation, if we could use that term, that the Jewish nation had where they selectively took the prophecies that referred to the restoration of the temporal kingdom and since this prophecy did not fit that expectation, then they just laid it aside.

And it's interesting, the chapter starts with a question, this prophecy.

Who hath believed our report And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" So from the onset, real prophecy, authentic prophecy requires faith and it produces faith.

So who have believed our report and even more to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed which is a symbol of God's power, God's power, even the gospel power that we read in Romans 1 16 and 17.

If we have faith in His prophetic word, it would have an effect, a transforming effect in our lives.

And keep in mind, as the Apostle Paul says, for we walk by faith and not by sight, that the element in prophecy that produces faith is not sensationalism.

It's believing in God's promises, believing in His promises.

So who have believed our report and to whom is the arm of the law revealed?" And then starts the description, verse 3, he is despised and rejected of men, of man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him.

Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." And notice how this prophecy wraps the gospel message, the plan of salvation with the first coming of Christ, with our response to it all in 1 package.

And as we read through it, this prophecy actually has the power of melting our hearts into admiration for God's love and into a desire to be transformed into the likeness of the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." In fact, this is 1 of the chapters that we are counseled to read frequently.

Let's turn to another Bible prophecy, John 14.

And the language as we start reading the first verse of John 14, This is Jesus Himself speaking.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there ye may be also." What wonderful promises.

Do you see some of the beauty and the depth of Bible prophecy?

It's God's promises of the plan of salvation, God's promises of the great events in the great controversy, God's promises of his power to save us and to use us as his servants, as the remnant of the seed of the woman.

And it always leads to a question as we find it there in verse 4, Jesus is mentioning actually the answer, And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

And Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man cometh unto the Father but through me." Wonderful promises.

And I would like to mention 1 more prophecy, Revelation 1.

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Prophetic: Message or Speculative Excitement

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