Stop Waiting for a Sign - Peti Szabad

We're doing a series this fall called Beyond the Blueprint Wisdom for Everyday Choices.

And uh our introductory sermon was last week, so we're getting more and more into the details of what this means.

How do we make decisions for our lives?

What does God want from us?

What is God's will for our lives?

Does God have a blueprint that is a very detailed and individualistically specified idea, a roadmap for you that you've got to figure out because if you don't, you're off the map.

You're out of God's will.

Is that how it works?

We talked about a couple different types of God's moral will, which which God defines by commands and instructions in the Bible.

Like, you know, we we shouldn't murder people.

That's not true.

Yeah.

I know that's pretty most everybody agrees about that.

You know, yet yet it still happens.

But as followers, you know, as followers of Jesus, we want to res we want to be living within those those those uh those boundaries.

Uh and and there's there's a lot of other things that the Bible talks about.

Some of them are very challenging.

One of those is what Sam was sharing about is humility, considering others higher above you.

Wow.

Talk about a challenge, right?

So that's God's moral will.

But some the some of the religious circles have kind of came up with this idea that God has this individual feel.

God figured out a plan for everybody's life, and and you better figure that out.

Do I need to be a doctor or do I need to need to be a uh a baker?

Do I need to be, you know, what do I do for my for my job?

Then do I do I do I marry this girl or do I marry that girl?

Or do I stay single?

Or you know, or or or this boy, or or you know, those some of those are big decisions.

Or as I shared last week, do I put on this checkered blue shirt or the other one that I had last week?

They look a lot alike, but you know, which one is god which one does God want me to put on?

The clean one.

So that that would be God's moral or or sensitive, sensitive will is the clean one.

The specific one is God's individual will.

And and we and you know last week we talked about what is there is no dot in the middle, this this very specific way of you making decisions every time something needs to happen.

What if God takes that dot out and and we have a little bit of freedom of choice within that moral will and figure things out?

Uh so that's what we're gonna talk about today.

Okay.

The title of today's sermon is stop.

Um what's the title?

How did I phrase it?

Looking for a sign.

Stop waiting for a sign.

Alright?

So one of the ways that this this religious theology has come about is figuring out God's individual will, is that some people believe, maybe some of us, that God's gonna give us some signs and give direction to figuring out that middle of the dot thing through different signs.

Uh, can you guys give me an illustration, an example, anybody?

What are some people, some type of signs that people are looking for these days?

Anyone?

Yes, Anthony?

I'm looking for the right place to move to.

A right place to move to how you know, and you're looking for signs like, well, how does God do that, right?

Ivan?

Looking for blessings.

If you know, that's kind of a little bit of a tricky one because if it if it works out, then it was God's will.

You can have that retroactive idea, right?

Ozzy.

Like a confirmation, like some some some higher, you know, some ways it again it works out.

Uh coming that way, Rich.

Uh which car should I buy?

Which car should I buy?

Oh, that the color of this car is the same color as my wife's eye.

That's a sign.

And I forget to look under and how rusty it is, right?

Wendy?

On a career change.

Uh, you know, this I'm having a hard time with my boss, this gotta be a sign from God.

And I've got to move on, right, Angel?

I was gonna say that the same thing, like the right job offer comes along.

Yeah, right.

Especially if you haven't looked for it, it just comes to you.

It's 20% more income.

I'm sure this is God's will, right?

Uh Oscar?

Where do invest my money?

Where do you invest my money?

Yeah, people you know get money.

What is it?

Relationships.

Relationships.

You know, you know, that's that's one of the the the you know, somebody who's in love, you see signs everywhere.

Oh, she she looked at me.

I'm sure she likes me too.

You guys remember that?

Right?

V Dog.

I think sometimes we ask very specific things from God, and then when we get, we think that, oh, this is a sign that I got that.

Yes.

But the first place we didn't think that all this specific thing was really okay by the Bible or things.

Yes, sometimes we actually even even uh ask for prayers and different things and hoping that God will give us a sign uh without ever checking with the Bible, right?

Mike?

If God gives you an opportunity, you go, Oh, look at that, that's a sign from God.

I've got to take it.

So uh you know, we're uh a couple of the books that I I I read and kind of recommended on the topic.

Uh uh I showed this last week, Decision Making Canon Will of God.

And I want to read the subtitle of the other book, uh, Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will, or How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Impressions, Open Doors, Random Bible verses, casting lots, liver shivers, writing in the sky, etc.

Liver shivers.

Yeah, you gotta read the book to know what liver shivers are.

Uh uh I'm not gonna, it might come from liver disease, by the way, but that's so so you know, which way?

We all have that question, God.

What do I do in this situation?

Because some of these situations God doesn't cover in the Bible.

Right?

So, what do we do?

We're trying to find some signs because if we have to make these decisions, we know ourselves, we might make a mistake here.

We might decide wrong.

And uh, but if God makes decisions for us, I mean He's God, He He cannot make it, he cannot be wrong.

So if we can just figure out how God is going to make this decision for us, we can just find the right signs that all point in the same direction, we can confidently walk through that follow those signs and feel like we are in God's will.

That's how that's that's the appeal of this theology.

And I get it.

Because where does our confidence come from?

If it, if it, if, if we can make, you know, if I bought this car because God wanted me to buy this car, I talked to somebody who said the car had a fish symbol on the back, and I knew God, I'm a Christian, so I knew I had to buy this car.

And the person paid about$4,000 more for it than should have.

And that only found out when they were about to sell the car.

And they're like, oh, it doesn't.

I paid this much, and it's it's only worth this much, right?

So sometimes we we're like, was that what was God's will in that situation?

The worst is when actually it works out because then we're then we're hooked, then we're addicted, then we're like, look, I made this decision, that was the sign, I made the decision, God blessed it, I just gotta keep doing this.

And and the bigger the fall might be.

So I got a couple quotes from the book, uh, the from the the first book by Gary Fries, and he says, if the source of our knowledge is subjective, then the knowledge will also be subjective and therefore uncertain.

All the signs that we can come up with, if those are only signs in our own interpretation, then they're subjective.

If if if somebody else looked at the same thing and they don't see the same sign, then it's a subjective thing.

Objective means everybody looks, everybody sees it the same way.

It's clear.

It's it's its source is beyond you.

But if you're coming up with the sign and you're interpreting the sign, is as subjective as it gets.

So that's a problem.

The subjectivity of this way of following God is a serious, serious theological and philosophical problem.

Uh the other the other book mentions this this he calls it the conventional approach of trying to find signs as God is leading us with.

He says the conventional approach enslaves us in the chains of hopeless subjectivism.

You know, hopelessness is one of the worst feelings and states of being there are.

But that's if if we're if if this is where we're going, this is how we're living our lives.

It's a hopeless way of living.

That's what that's what these callers that studied this out realized.

You know, because it is this like the the you know, it depends on which one do you cover from these five signs.

And you know, you you might cover the middle three and then this way, that you know, then we're then we're going that way, and you feel great about it, but you just covered it up subjectively, you ignored some signs.

Uh there's a there's a way of that there's something called a reticular activation system that that that's uh that's I know that's a big word, but it's the idea that when uh, for example, you get pregnant, all of a sudden you leave you see all these pregnant women on the on on in the in the in the world.

Right?

Or when you start looking to buy a certain type of a car, you notice that car everywhere.

That's so true.

Right?

Or uh when when you're considering retirement, retirement comes up in almost every conversation.

All of a sudden, everybody's talking about this?

Right?

That's that's just because our brain automatically filters out things that our brain considers not important.

But when you have something that's important to you, your brain goes, let's let's make sure we notice every one of those.

That's how even even subconsciously, our brain is incredibly subjective.

So we're really not to be trusted.

I already knew that.

Okay, I'm glad.

I'm glad.

So God did use some signs in the Bible, and we're gonna look at some of those today.

And how he did it and why he did it.

But one thing is clear that's not how he's working today.

And Jesus teaches about this in Luke chapter 11.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

Let's read this.

This is uh this is Jesus having been confronted with a larger and larger crowd.

And do you know what these people want?

Bread and circuses.

Jesus just fed them not long before this, 5,000 people miraculously.

And he's also done some amazing miracles, healing a p a man paralyzed, a man born blind, you know, things that that that just don't happen.

So as the crowds increased, Jesus said, This is a wicked generation.

And he didn't use the word wicked in a Bostonian sense, just to let you know.

He actually used it in a literal sense.

It means that they're full of wickedness and sin.

It asks for a miraculous sign.

See, that desire to have these miraculous signs for us, Jesus included that desire with wickedness.

That's Jesus, that's his teaching.

But he goes, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.

What was the sign of Jonah?

Do you guys remember the story of Jonah?

God asked Jonah to, and I've got to stay on time.

I'm not gonna tell the story of Jonah, but he he sent Jonah to a foreign nation to preach repentance to the city of Nineveh and called this enemies of Israel to repent and honor God with their lives.

So Jonah said, I'm not doing this, and he started out the other way, and then God gets thrown into the sea, swallowed by a large fish, spit out after three days of spending three days in the belly of the fish.

You guys get that little get the reference where that is going, where is that is going to?

The sign of Jonah, Jesus spending three days in the grave.

And ends up going to the Ninevehites, and this foreign nation that doesn't follow God, that is as wicked as it gets, they repent and change.

And Jonah is upset.

He says, I knew you were gonna do this.

You're such a gracious God.

I can't believe that you let these people change and not destroy them.

Come on.

Sometimes we feel that way, honestly.

Then he goes to so for as Jonah was assigned to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be away to this generation.

The queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the man of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom.

And now one greater than Solomon is here.

So there was this woman, this uh this queen from the south, uh, probably somewhere from uh uh Central Africa that came to Solomon to let to to you know because she heard about how God blessed Solomon with wisdom in ruling his kingdom.

And she listened and she was in awe and believed in God.

Jesus is telling stories where no miracle happened.

Jonah just showed up in Nineveh and preached.

Solomon did not perform one miracle, yet this woman came and listened to him.

And he says, Someone greater than Jonah is here.

No, someone greater than Solomon is here.

You know, if we don't listen to Jesus, we're doomed.

There's no miraculous sign that will do better than Jesus.

When we're not listening to Jesus but asking for these miraculous signs, we're actually lumped together with wicked people.

That's what the Bible says.

The man of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it.

For they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.

Do we repent at the preaching of Jesus or do we need more signs?

Right?

Paul was uh confronting people through the message of preaching Jesus in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and he tells how people are not following this message of the preached Jesus and his crucifixion.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

That's what he's focused on.

Because he says the Jews demand miraculous signs.

This is in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 22.

1 Corinthians 1:22

And the Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

You know, the Jews were looking for signs.

They were, they were, they were, they were really hooked on these signs and miracles because their history had a number of those.

And we're gonna look at look at a few of those and and what God was doing, that some of them, unfortunately, people even today kind of hold on to.

But Paul said, no, that's not what I'm doing.

I'm preaching Jesus and his death and resurrection and call people to repent and follow him.

And if that's not enough, that's on you.

Because this is what God has for us.

So please stop looking for a sign.

But let's uh let's look at some of these Old Testament signs that God used to for for his specific purposes.

These are all supernatural.

Actually, the first one, it might be just coincidental.

We don't know because God never speaks about confirming some of these things.

He never says, Yep, that was that was me.

We don't know that.

Uh, I'm gonna we're gonna look at three stories from the Old Testament.

The first one is uh, and and I I gotta give you, I'm gonna use this this slide before every one of them.

Warning! This is a sign.

Okay?

It's it's not, these are not everyday occurrences even in the story of the Bible.

These are unique, specific situations that that God somehow used to keep directing people in his movement to bring about Jesus.

All right, the first one is the blind date of Genesis 24.

Actually, a blind marriage.

Uh yeah.

Uh I'm not sure if anybody really wants to use this sign today, but sometimes people do.

So this is when Abraham decides to send his servant to get a wife for his son Isaac.

Alright, so he sends his servant back to his relatives, uh, and because he doesn't want, and this he knows this from probably from God, that he God doesn't want them to intermarry with the wicked nations of the Canaanites that Abraham is living amongst at this point.

God wants them to him to be separate from them.

So he sends his servant, Abraham sends his servant back to get a wife for his son from his relatives.

He gives the servant a lot of gifts.

That's how wife getting was working back in those days.

He almost paid for one.

So the servant gets to gets to uh back to where Abraham was from, and then he says a prayer in Genesis 24, verse 12 to 14.

Genesis 24:12–14

And this is the servant.

It says, Then he prayed, O Lord, God of my master Abraham, give me success today.

Now I like that prayer personally.

You know, sometimes I'm praying for success today.

There's nothing wrong with that, alright?

And show kindness to my master Abraham.

See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water.

May it be that when I say to a girl, please let down your jar that I may have a drink.

And she says, Drink and I'll water your camels too.

Let her to be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac.

By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.

Alright, so he's asking God a sign.

He's actually putting out a scenario and says, God, I want this scenario to play out.

Now is God obligated to do this for his servant?

Does would it, if if this happened, would that confirm that this was God's will?

Maybe.

Would that confirm?

We don't know.

But here's how the story goes.

Verse 15.

Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder.

She was the daughter of Bethuel, son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham's brother Nahor.

Now, the servant doesn't know any of this stuff.

Okay, so may Abraham had one condition that it would be a relative.

It wouldn't be a stranger, a pagan, so to speak.

The girl was very beautiful.

Now that helps, right?

But can you imagine if the story went like the girl was ugly?

That just doesn't right?

That doesn't, that doesn't, all of a sudden, all of a sudden you're like, you're looking for signs why this isn't from God.

You're like, uh right?

A virgin, no man has ever lain with her.

She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came up again.

The servant hurried to meet her and said, Please give me a little the servant hurried to meet her.

I'm like, he didn't.

Go up to any of the other girls, but to this really beautiful woman.

Maybe that was all God orchestrating thinks.

Please give me a little water from your jar.

Drink, my lord, she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink.

After she had given him a drink, she said, I'll draw water for your camels too, until they have finished drinking.

So she quickly emptied her jar into the thrall, ran back to the well, drove more, drew more, draw more to draw more water, and drew enough for all his camels.

Without saying a word, the man watched her closely to learn whether or not the Lord had made his journey successful.

So he was watching for this to play out.

Now then he gets invited by, he gives all these gifts to this woman.

She's overwhelmed.

She invites him to her father's house.

He gets to his father's house, tells him the whole story.

And the dad, his name is Laban.

His name is Bethuel, and Laban is his uh the oldest brother in the family.

Uh they they they uh they have a conversation and they answer, he says, This is the servant saying still, now if you will show kindness and faithfulness to my master, tell me, and if not, tell me so I know which way to turn.

He see he he he still respected these people that they have free will.

He tell them the story, and he thought, This, I think this is from God, but the Bible never confirms that this actually is God.

Never speaks that, yes, I've picked Rebecca.

He he prayed a prayer, and it seems like it's working out.

And uh this family actually decides to bless it, Laban and Bethuel, and so this is from the Lord.

We can say nothing to you one way or the other.

They believe that this is from God.

That doesn't mean, again, that necessarily this is from God.

We don't know that.

Sometimes we connect things in the Bible that are not connected in the Bible.

The Bible just tells us the story.

Here is Rebekah, take her and go let her become the wife of your master's son, as the Lord had directed.

They believed that this was directed by God.

We don't know if this was directed by God.

It fulfilled the requirement that Abraham had because Isaac is now marrying a woman who's a relative of his and not uh a Canaanite woman who worships other gods.

So idolatry does not enter into the family.

That that was that was mainly God's goal.

But even if this was orchestrated by God, the warning, this is a sign.

Do you know another time when the same story happens?

After it happens to this woman, Rebecca, and uh it happens again with Rachel, uh, Laban's daughter, and Isaac's son, Jacob.

But is there another case where this would happen in the entire Bible?

I don't I I've not read it, have you?

This isn't the normative way of how God provides wives for us.

Okay?

Or helps us make some of those very hard romantic decisions about our lives, whether that's wives or husbands.

So this is a sign, but it's not a sign for everyone.

If you go, Lord, I'm gonna go through this drive-thru, and if the woman smiles at the door, at the window, that will be it.

I'll ask her to be my wife.

You know, you can try.

Are you sure you're following God's will?

Just because you put out a prayer like that, God is not obligated to answer that prayer in a way that He did in this particular situation.

Amen?

Next story.

I've got to move on with these stories.

This is the story of Gideon and the fleece.

I'm sure you guys are familiar with this.

Uh yes.

So uh this is this is this is a this is a funny story, and this is from the time of the judges, a little later than uh the story we just read.

In Judges chapter 6, verse 11, the story starts out by the angel of the Lord coming in a physical form uh and having a communic a conversation with this young man named Gideon.

Judges 6:11

So the angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash, the Abizrite, where his son Gideon was trashing wheat in the wine press to keep it from the Midianites.

When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.

And uh they have a conversation.

Gideon is very skeptical that the Lord is with him.

Uh and that goes on and on.

But let's stop there.

We look at this story.

When was the last time the angel of the Lord sat down on your front porch or under the tree in your backyard?

It's not God's so warning, this is a sign, but it's not God's normative way of communicating with us.

It happened from time to time with certain individuals in the Bible.

So they're having a conversation, and God tells uh Gideon what he wants in verse 16.

He says, The Lord answered, I will be with you and you will strike down all the Minnites together.

Now, if God said this, what would be the faithful response to this?

What do you think?

Okay, let's do it.

Okay, like, you know, when God has a conversation with Mary, Jesus' mother, I am your servant, I'm here to do this, even though it looked really challenging to become pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

But she was willing, she was ready, she had a very faithful reaction.

Gideon is everything but faithful.

So if you want to follow in the footsteps of Gideon, you're not following a faithful man, you're actually following a faithless person that God still wants to use.

So Gideon replied, if now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that this it is really you talking to me.

I mean, come on, Gideon.

Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.

And the Lord said, I will wait until you return.

Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephaw of flour, he made bread without yeast, putting it the meat in the basket and its broth in the pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.

The angel of the Lord, the angel of the God said to him, Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.

And Gideon did so.

With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread, fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread, and the angel of the Lord disappeared.

When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, Oh, sovereign Lord, I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.

So, this was a sign.

When was the last time you had some food put out and fire just came out of your table and shh, you know, hopefully it doesn't happen because that might mean that your house is on fire.

If you leave the oil on the stove a little too long, that might just happen.

But it doesn't happen.

This is not a regular occurrence.

But then now you think, okay, Gideon now, he he knows he talked to the angel of the Lord.

He's convinced.

He's gonna be have the courage to lead God's armies.

Let's go, Gideon.

Well, no.

Verse 36.

Gideon said to God, If you will save Israel by my hands, as you have promised.

Now, God promised it already.

What's going on with Gideon?

He's still faithless.

You know, how many signs do you need?

Right?

Sometimes Jesus calls you to do something, and we're still, I'm waiting for a sign from God.

But just do what Jesus asks you to do.

Come on.

Okay.

If you will save my hand by save Israel by my hand as you have promised, look, I will place a wool fee on the trashing floor.

If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hands, as you said.

Well, didn't you already got confirmed about that?

But that's what happens.

If you need signs, you will keep looking for signs until they actually say what you want them to say.

And that is what happened.

Gideon rose early the next day, he squeezed the fleece and rang out of the dew about a bowl full of water.

Alright, let's go and conquer Midian now.

Well, no.

Verse 39.

Then Gideon said to God, do not be angry with me.

He knows.

He knows he is in trouble.

He knows he is not, he's he's refusing to follow God's command.

So he knows, don't be angry with me.

Let me make just one more request.

Allow me one more test with the fleece.

You know, don't test God.

He's he's and God is God is so patient and gracious with Gideon.

But this is not how God wants us to go about things with him at all.

This time, make the fleece dry and the ground cover with dew.

That night God did so.

Only the feast rows died, and all the ground was covered with dew.

Alright.

Warning.

This is a sign.

This is a very popular over the last about 80 years, this the f this idea of fleecing, putting out a sign before God and asking God to perform that uh for you in order to confirm a decision that you have in mind, it's become a very popular way of figuring out the will of God.

But this is not biblical.

God did this with Gideon, but he's he's he wasn't happy.

He was getting angry with Gideon.

And when you read the rest of the Bible, it doesn't really happen again.

I got one more story.

King Hezekiah's prayer.

Uh King Hezekiah was a uh a ruler uh that uh in Judah, and his contemporary was a prophet, Isaiah.

Now, prophets are a special, God-selected and ordained human beings that God actually communicates.

Some people that believe that there are prophets today.

The Bible talks about it that in the negative.

No, we do not have prophets, but in those days there were prophets.

So God talks to these prophets, and in 2 Kings chapter 20, we read that in those days Hezekiah, Hezekiah is by the way, a good guy.

2 Kings 20 · chapter mention

He he he trusts God and God uh delivers a miraculous uh way of uh relieving Jerusalem from uh invading armies in during Hezekiah's time.

But in those days, Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death.

The prophet Isaiah, son of Amos, went to him and said, This is what the Lord says.

Put your house in order because you're going to die, you will not recover.

Thank you, God, for that very clear sign.

I appreciate it.

That wasn't what I was hoping for, right?

But that was that was the message from God.

Now at this point, verse 2 says, Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord.

Remember, O Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, and have done what is good in your eyes.

And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him.

Again, the word of the Lord, you know, God talks to his prophets and to the humanity through these prophets in this time.

And God says, Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people.

This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says.

I have heard your prayer and seen your tears.

I will heal you.

On the third day from now, you will go up to the temple of the Lord.

I will add 15 years to your life, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria.

I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.

Wouldn't you be happy?

Wouldn't you go, oh, that's awesome.

Was that what Hezekiah's response was?

No.

You know what Hezekiah does?

Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, what will be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the temple of the Lord on the third day from now?

He wanted confirmation.

Just because the Lord communicated even through his prophet, that wasn't enough for Hezekiah.

He wanted a sign.

So Isaiah answered, This is the Lord's sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised.

Not that God needs any kind of a proof that he does what he promises.

He is a God who is trustworthy.

When he says something, that goes.

Now, he is able to change his mind.

As you see in this story when we pray, there is power in prayer.

Keep praying for things that seem impossible.

Amen.

This is a sign, this is the Lord's sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised.

Shall the shadow go forward ten steps or shall it go back ten steps?

It's a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps.

As somebody who studied physics, I would disagree big time with Hezekiah.

Rather than have it go back ten steps, then the prophet Isaiah called upon the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back ten steps.

It had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.

So I mean, has that ever happened to you?

The shadow going back or going forward real quick.

That doesn't happen.

That doesn't happen.

Like these situations are supernatural.

God intervenes in the course of history through these things because he is guiding people along a path that he is determining, not for them individually necessarily, but for his plan of humanity that he's bringing about, especially through Jesus.

Again, this is a sign, but it isn't a sign that God grants to anybody.

It was a unique time that granted this to Isaiah.

What was the purpose of the signs and the miracles in the Bible?

The Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 2, verse 1 and 4.

Hebrews 2:1

It says, and this is the book of Hebrews is a sermon contrasting the Old Testament with the New Testament.

The law of Moses and the prophets' calling with following Jesus and believing in him and entering the new covenant through him.

He says, we must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.

For if the message spoken by angels was binding, remember Gideon, and every violation and disobedience received is just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?

This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, referring to Jesus, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.

God also testified to it by signs, wonders, and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

So the signs, the miracles, these gifts were given to testify to the message that we heard from Jesus.

Those things don't matter, the message matters.

All these signs that we read in the Bible were there to prove that whoever is speaking, whoever that message is coming from, is actually from God.

That's what they were.

You know, when you read through the Bible, you find that the miracles were actually concentrated in three periods.

Moses and Joshua, uh, and some of the time of the judges.

And then you see them more again when you read through the middle of your Bible and through the prophets, Elijah and Elisha especially, performed lots of miracles.

Uh and then when Jesus comes on the scene, Jesus performs miracles that nobody ever done before.

And then his apostles follow in his footsteps doing the very same things.

So let me explain this.

The miracles and signs that God that we read in the Bible are unique to certain periods in history.

If I put a timeline on, uh they happened around the time of Moses and Joshua, which is around 1500 BC.

They happened around the time of the prophets, around 700 BC, which is Elijah and Elisha and some of the other prophets.

And they happened through the time of Jesus, the apostles, and then a few others that the apostles laid their hands on.

This is when these things happened.

What was the goal?

Is to confirm the message coming from God.

What was the message?

During the time of Moses, this message was the law.

The first five books of Moses, the book of Joshua, judges that you read in your Old Testament.

Then you had the prophetic books during the times of the prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel, uh, uh, first, second Kings, and uh, and Chronicles, stories of Ajah and Elisha, they were all written about this time uh and about these events.

And of course, there's the New Testament that the apostles and people connected to the apostles wrote down, and the message was confirmed through these signs, miracles, and wonders.

When you think about that, what do we have up there?

When you add the the law and the prophetic books, and you actually add in some wisdom and pop and poetry books that are in the Bible, you get the Old Testament.

Right?

And when you add the New Testament, you get your entire Bible.

So all these things happen so we would actually read our Bibles and follow it.

Period.

Don't stop looking for a sign.

To finish, my last scripture is in Hebrews 1, verse 1 through 4.

Hebrews 1:1–4

It says, In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times in various ways.

Sometimes it was through a fit a fleece, sometimes it was through a shadow, sometimes it was maybe through a woman doing exactly what you were hoping to see her do.

You know, and there's lots and lots of stories of miracles and signs in those times.

But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.

So he became as much superior to the angels, even the one that made the fleece wet, as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

Do you want a sign?

Here's one.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Nobody goes to the water except through me.

There's your sign.

Stop waiting for other signs.

Amen.

A few questions to contemplate or discuss.

Have I looked for and trusted in signs as direction from God?

And, you know, Christianity today is so confusing, there's no shame if that's if that's how you've made decisions in the past.

It's okay.

But let's look into the Bible and what is what is the what does the Bible have to teach about this?

What do I make of the passages in the New Testament that call this wicked or a stumbling block or something that will make me stumble, actually?

What would happen if I really trusted God and He's revealed larger will in the Bible instead of trying to find specific instructions related to my personal individual life?

Can I follow Jesus more closely without additional signs?

I like that question.

I write these questions as I think about this message.

What would I ask of myself?

Well, what's the challenge for me here?

Are there things that about Jesus that I'm maybe not following because I'm not pushed in that direction that I can and should.

But thank you very much.