Does God Really Know Everything?

Introduction If God knows everything, do we really have the freedom to make our own choices?

I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve been a pastor for 2 decades--thinking about the mysteries of God, the Bible, and the Christian faith.  So in this series, I’ll do my best to share something that will help you grow and be fruitful.  

Post your questions in the comments and I may answer them in future articles.

In this post, I want to answer the question:

If God knows everything, do we really have the freedom to make our own choices?

So let’s get into it.

This question deals with 2 Christian teachings that seem to contradict each other. One is God’s omniscience:  which is a fancy way to say God knows everything.

The other teaching is free will: the idea that God gives people the freedom to make their own choices.

But…  If God knows everything (is “omniscient”) how can people really have free will to make their own choices?

This is a question Christians have debated for thousands of years.  I’m not going to solve this mystery in one short blog. Sorry. I can, however, give you the major ways people deal with this delimah and share some of the ramifications of each school of thought. Finally, I will share the way I personally think about this problem.

The first school of thought is predestination.

Predestination says God knows everything that’s going to happen because, 

He has already planned it and predetermined it. This is the way someone is thinking when they say something like, “God gives everyone a certain number of days to live and when it’s your time to go, it’s just your time. You can’t do anything about it.”

Predestination is pretty straightforward and easy to understand, and it also preserves a view of God as all-knowing and all-powerful. However, it also creates quite a lot of problems.  For instance: What do you do with terrible tragedies like natural disasters, earthquakes, and tornadoes?  And even more troubling, what about school shootings and genocide? Did God purposefully plan and cause all these evils to occur? What kind of God causes a mass murderer to shoot up an elementary school?

People who reject predestination would say: "That’s not any kind of God who can truly be called “good” or “holy” or “loving”.  That’s more like an evil devil than a good God."

Now, there are indeed places in the Bible where God causes disasters. However, it is in response to people’s bad behavior.  People are being evil and God is punishing people’s evil behavior. So the people are the ones responsible for the disaster, not God.

There are even more problems with predestination. If a person can’t change their predetermined fate, then God has already decided if they will spend eternity in Heaven or Hell. There’s nothing people can do to change their eternal destination. That would mean God created some people to burn in hell for eternity knowing they can’t do anything to change their tortuous eternal fate.

People have no responsibility for their punishment.  Only God is responsible.

So why should Christians even try to evangelize? It doesn't do any good.

And if predestination is true, why should we worry about eating right, exercising, or wearing a seatbelt? Why should we go to the doctor? If God has already determined how long you will live and nothing you do can change it, why should we take any responsibility for our own personal health and  safety?  And why should we help others?

Predestination also cripples a person’s freedom to love God. You can’t force someone to love you. Coercion negates authentic love. Under a scheme of predestination, people are more like computers or robots that are pre-programed to either obey or disobey God.  There is no free choice or responsibility and thus no real love.

The opposite view of predestination is Free Will, which says, 

“God gives everyone the freedom to choose what they do”.  According to the Free Will viewpoint, our fate is not predetermined.  We determine our own future by our own choices. This view takes the ultimate responsibility for evil off the shoulders of God and puts it squarely on our shoulders.  If bad things happen, it’s because people do bad things. Either their personal bad behavior causes bad consequences orthe collective bad behavior of humanity corrupts God’s perfect world and leads to bad consequences God didn’t intend--like murder, school shootings, cancer, destructive tornadoes, etc.

Some will argue, “Yeah, but if God knows what choices we’re going to make, then isn’t it still predetermined? God can’t be surprised by our choices or else He isn’t omniscient.” So free will seems to weaken the notion of an all-knowing God even though the Bible clearly teaches God is all-knowing.

Is your head hurting yet?  Hang in there!

You can deal with problems caused by free will in a few ways.  The first idea is Self-Limiting Omniscience:  God limits His foreknowledge. This means God doesn’t allow Himself to know what choices you will make. (Or maybe He lets Himself know some of it but not all of it.) In this way, God limits His interference with people's free will. God may drop hints or impart grace to help people make the right choices--even nudge them right to the very edge of making the right choice--but ultimately, God let’s people make their own final decision.

In this way, God self-limits His sovereignty to allow space for free will.  This makes real love possible--since real love must be a free choice. This also means God does not plan or cause all things, but rather He uses all things for His purposes.  God did not necessarily cause a madman to shoot up a school. That kind of evil happens because we live in a broken world.  However, God can and does use bad things for His own good purposes.  This view doesn’t mean God can’t cause all things, but He chooses in some cases not to cause things and to leave them up to people’s free choices.

Another answer to problems brought on by a belief in free will is Molinism. Molinism says God can see what I will freely choose.  God doesn’t force me to choose, but He knows what I will choose given a certain set of circumstances.  

Therefore, God’s foreknowledge doesn’t cause our decision; He only knows what will happen and then when we make our choice, God uses it for His purpose. But maybe you say, “God thinks He knows me.  But I’m gonna change it up today just to surprise Him!”  But God knows you so well, He even knows if you tried to surprise Him.

None of these arguments is a perfect answer for the contradiction between omniscience and free will.  (This is why people haven’t solved this problem yet & probably never will.)

I think the truth of God’s omniscience is very complex and requires a combination of more than just one simple explanation.  All of these ideas have some truth that can be useful.

For me, Predestination is too simple--in addition to making God out to be an evil tyrant. God said in Isaiah 55:9, “For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

I think we misunderstand God and do injustice to His character when we try to simplify Him into a one neat, tidy explanation that makes us feel comfortable. 

God is not simple and His Holy Presence should make us uncomfortable.

Thinking about the infinite, unknowable nature of God should make you stretch beyond your finite, little-minded ways of thinking.

Now, I want to add one more theory about the character of God that tries to address the apparent contradiction between God knowing everything beforehand and people having the freedom to make their own choices.

(Get ready to really cook your noodle!)

This theory helps me think about God and this issue. I call this view present timelessness, but I’m not the first person to come up with this theory. In researching for this video, I found out this view was first proposed by a Christian philosopher named Boethius in the 6th century.

Present timelessness (or the Boethian solution) says: Only the present actually exists; (sorry Back to the Future movie fans & proponents of time travel…) If God created time, God is not bound by the laws of time. Remember, God created light and darkness and the sun and moon and stars and days and all the ways we mark time. God is sovereign--even over time!

Evidence from the Bible suggests God is timeless.  He is the Great “I Am”. When Moses asked God in the burning bush in Exodus 3, “What is your name?”  God replied, “I Am” or “I AM WHO I AM.” (The ancient Hebrew word is YHWH 

and is not fully translatable into human language.) God said, “This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.”

God’s name seems to indicate God exists outside of time and is always in the present.  Such a view is mind-boggling for humans since we have always existed in a past, present, future reality.  However, if God exists outside of time, it wouldn’t make any sense to say God believed something yesterday that will turn out to be untrue tomorrow.  “Yesterday” and “tomorrow” do not exist in God’s timeless reality.  

Though this way of thinking may seem incredibly foreign to most people, I think it comes close to the truth.  If we can bring ourselves to suspend our dependence 

on human thinking of life in terms of past, present, and future, we might realize that it is really only the present that actually exists.  We cannot go back into the past.  It no longer exists. We cannot go forward into the future; the future doesn’t exist either.  Only “right now” truly exists.  What you’re doing right now this very moment is the only reality that is actually real.

By the way, think for a moment how this timelessness concept might relate to: forgiveness, healing from past trauma, and worries about future. Remember how Jesus commanded us to forgive what happened in the past and not worry about the future? It makes a lot of sense to me if the past and future are only human concepts and not true in God’s ultimate reality.

The only thing we are absolutely sure exists is right now. And God knows us right now.  He sees us completely and absolutely.  We cannot hide anything from God at this moment.  Therefore, He is absolutely omniscient in this present moment. And somehow, mysteriously, what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow is swallowed up in (or somehow incorporated into) what is actually happening right now at this very moment.

(Hey, I warned you this was going to bake your noodle!)

Now, I don’t claim this solves all our problems and apparent contradictions between God’s Omniscience and our Free Will either. But I do thing it’s a helpful concept to get us thinking and acting right.

So what’s the final answer?

Haven’t you been listening!  There is no answer!  

Well, there’s no final, conclusive answer anyway.

If you just want a simple answer, Predestination is the simplest answer, but it brings all kinds of serious problems along with it. And I believe predestination does injustice to our understanding of God.

On the other hand, Free Will arguments create problems too, problems that lead to all kinds of questions for which we only have partial answers.

But there’s something else really important and practical to consider in this debate. Consider the consequences of each school of thought because

what we think about God and human nature has serious ramifications on the way we choose to live.  For instance:

If God has already predestined everything to happen according to His predetermined plan, then we can’t do anything to change it. Why should we try to tell people about Jesus?  God has already willed some people to be saved and they will be saved.  And God has already predestined other people for hell 

and nothing we do can change it. So why waste our time trying?  In fact, if we do try, we might actually be fighting against God's predestined plan.

And if predestination is true, we can’t do anything to make the world any better or worse than it already is. God has already determined how it will all turn out.

That means, you can’t do anything to fight racism, end oppression, alleviate suffering, find a cure for cancer, stop domestic violence, help the poor, etc.

Under a scheme of predestination, people have no power and no choice whatsoever to do anything contrary to God’s predetermined plan. Not only does that paint a very dark picture of God, it also destroys people’s motivation to be the hands and feet of Jesus who said His purpose (and the purpose of His followers) is to bring Good News to the poor, release captives, make the blind see, end oppression (See Luke 4) and save souls for eternal life (see John 3:16).

As Jesus’ followers, Christians clearly are supposed to work to make the world a better place and save as many for eternal life as possible. Predestination excuses Christians from this responsibility and is contrary to God’s clearly stated mission for His people. On the other hand, if God has given people the free will 

to choose their own actions, then we have a serious responsibility to do our very best.

Yes, it might mean God has relinquished some of His power But in doing so He made it possible for a true relationship of love to exist between God and people.  We can freely choose to love God. This also means God is not sending anyone to hell. People get to choose their eternal destination based on whether or not they trust Jesus and follow Him as Lord. And it also means Christians must do everything in our power to spread the Good News about Jesus Christ so as many people as possible are saved from Hell into eternal life with God in the Kingdom of Heaven. Our effort matters and is essential.

Furthermore, our efforts to make the world around us a better place make a real difference.  And we have a serious responsibility to change our world in this life for the better.  It’s not all up to us--God is helping us, but--we can’t shrug off our responsibility either.

So which of these viewpoints do you think is more useful? Which one leads us to a better world and a more fruitful relationship with God and each other?

For me, the clear answer is Free Will.

Believing God gives people the freedom to make their own choices doesn’t necessarily mean God is not still all-knowing and all-powerful. However, I believe it is essential to emphasis Free Will over God’s omniscience. And I also believe clinging to an uncompromising belief in predestination is a fatalistic detriment to our relationship with God, eachother, and our Christian mission.

I could be wrong.

What are your thoughts?  Post them in the comments.

And also share any other questions you have about the Christian faith.

If you post a good question I can address I may answer it in a future post.

The Sacraments: Baptism and Holy Communion

Introduction
Today, we will receive the Ewton family as new members of our church and we have the privilege today of celebrating two sacraments—baptism and holy communion.  Chris Ewton will be baptized along with his infant son Ben.  Ashley will be transfering her membership to Pleasant Grove from another church.  Then we will celebrate Holy Communion.  So I thought it appropriate to teach about these sacraments today.

A sacrament is a sacred ceremony officially decreed by Christ that imparts God’s divine grace.

Grace is God’s unearned and undeserved divine help (or favor). In many ways, Grace is a mystery.  We don’t deserve it.  We don’t fully understand it. But we know we desperately need it.  And God’s grace (His divine favor) helps us in a variety of ways—always drawing us into a closer relationship with God.

One form of grace is God’s forgiveness and salvation.  When we were lost in our sin and unable to save ourselves, God graciously sent Jesus to atone for our sin on the cross. God graciously saves us when we put our faith in Jesus. We call this salvation by various names: conversion, getting saved, saying the sinners prayer, or making a profession of faith.  This is one form of God’s grace.

However, God graciously helps us in many other ways besides salvation.  Salvation is only the beginning.  Then we have to grow, mature, and endure.  Birth, growth, salvation, nurturing, healing, help, wisdom, and many others blessings are imparted by God's grace.

Before we are even able to think about God, God is already thinking about us and helping us.  Jeremiah 1:5 tells us God knows us before we are even formed in our mother’s womb.  And God helps us throughout our childhood, pulling us closer and closer to Him, in hopes that one day we will become aware of His gracious love and choose to love Him.  God also helps our parents to love and nurture us.  And God places others in our live—grandparents, teachers, friends—who can be instruments of God’s grace in our lives as well.  Of course, people are independent and make their own choices and sometimes make the wrong choices.  Parents and people who seek God’s help are better equipped to love and nurture than those who try to do it on their own. 

We can experience God’s grace in many, many ways.  People often tell me (apologetically) the music at church is more meaningful to them than the sermon.  There’s no need to apologize.  I understand.  I really didn't like attending church as a child.  It was boring and it was over my head.  But one day, when I was only in the second grade, a lady got up to sing and for the very first time I enjoyed being at church.  Her music gave me chills and warmed my heart.  And every Sunday after that day, I always had the thought and the hope that the music might stir me and inspire me (even if the sermon was still out of my reach).  

Music sometimes stirs our hearts in ways words cannot.  For me, it was the music in worship that helped me fall in love with God and then later it was the sermons and teachings and reading the Bible that helped me understand the God music helped me love and to make a deliberate choice to follow Jesus and stick it with it in good times and bad times.

We can experience God’s gracious help through music, art, preaching, teaching, the beauty of nature, reading a good book and many other ways.  These can be ways we receive God's grace.  There are even special and sacred ceremonies God uses to impart grace--like a wedding or a funeral.

However, there are two special ceremonies where we experience God’s grace that Jesus specifically taught us to practice in the Scriptures. We call these two special ceremonies the sacraments.  They are Baptism and Holy Communion.

The first of these two biblical sacraments is Baptism.

In Matthew 28:19, Jesus said,
¹⁹ Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Baptism
Jesus commanded his disciples to baptize people.  Christians today are Jesus' disciples and we are to baptize people.  Baptism marks the beginning of a person’s journey of Christians faith.  Jesus himself is an example.  Jesus was baptized by His cousin, John, in the Jordan River.  

Baptism recalls the saving work of God—going all the way back to the Old Testament.  In the story of Noah, God began His salvation of the world through the waters of a flood.  A wicked world was destroyed, but God saved Noah and his family and the animals in the ark.

In the Exodus, God saved the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  When the Egyptian army pursued them,
God saved the Israelites by parting the waters of the Red Sea.  The Israelites crossed over on dry ground, but the evil Egyptians were swallowed up & drowned.

Water was again an important part of the story when the Israelites entered the Promised Land.  God caused the water of the Jordan River to stop flowing so the Israelites could again cross over into the Promised land on dry ground.  (See Joshua chapter 3)

Then, in the New Testament when Jesus official began his ministry, He was baptized in the same Jordan River.  Jesus symbolically re-enacted the Israelite's entering into the Promised Land as God's chosen people.  The Israelites failed to fulfill God's plan to represent Him to the nations.  Jesus would not fail. Jesus would perfectly represent God so that all the world can know God.  Baptism marked the beginning of Jesus' public ministry.

Baptism marks the beginning.  A person begins their journey faith with Jesus with baptism.
They don’t walk this journey alone.  Jesus walks with them.  As Matthew 28:20 says, “Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Baptism can be done in three primary ways.  It can be full emersion where a person is dunked completely below the surface of the water.  Emersion recalls dying and being buried and rising to new life.  We can also baptize people through pouring, where a ladle or pitcher is used to pour water over the initiate.  Pouring reminds us of the out pouring of the Holy Spirit on the church in Acts 2.  A third method (and the method we usually use at my church) is sprinkling, where water is sprinkled on the initiate.  Sprinkling recalls the purification rituals of the Old Testament when priest would sprinkle blood or water on the congregation as a purification ritual.

It does not matter which method you use for baptism.  The amount of water in not important. Remember, the grace we receive in baptism is a free gift of God.  It is not something we earn or achieve by doing the ritual the right way or even a certain way.  God can and does impart grace freely regardless of the methods we use and he works in all three of the common methods of baptism when we baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Baptism is an outward sign of an inward and spiritual grace.  It symbolizes the cleansing power of God, cleansing us from sin and creating us anew.  Baptism does not save us.  Only God’s grace when we have faith in Jesus can save us. It is not that baptism actually cleans us.  Christ’s blood shed on the cross cleanses our sin.  Baptism is only a sign to the person being baptized and to everyone who sees it that this person is a child of God when they put their faith in Jesus and profess Jesus as Lord.  And in baptism, God grants His helping grace.

Baptism marks a person as a child of God.  God treats His children with special favor.  He teaches them, guides them, blesses them, and also disciplines them from time to time to help them become better people.  I have heard it said (and it is a wise saying):  “It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.”  Knowing the right people who will help you or put in a good word for you goes a long way.
Knowing the God of the universe who is all powerful, all knowing, and loves you unconditionally and is pulling for you in life is a very powerful thing.

Baptism also marks a person as a member of the Family of God—the Church.  And so, not only is God pulling for you, so are all the members of the Christian church.  The members of your Church congregation are your brothers and sisters.  Their help is also a powerful means of God’s grace in your life.

Methodist—along with the majority of other Christian traditions—practice baptism in two ways.  One is believer’s baptism—where a person old enough to understand their decision makes a conscious choice to follow Jesus Christ as their Lord. The other form of baptism is infant baptism—which marks a person who is not yet old enough to understand as a child of God in preparation.  Infant baptism begins before the child is old enough to understand and is not complete until the child grows up and understands and chooses to confirm that Christ is indeed their Lord.  In the meantime, their parents promise—with the help of the church—to raise the child in the Christian faith so that they might accept Christ for themselves when they are ready and able.

The second sacrament Jesus taught us to practice in the Bible is Holy Communion

Luke 22:19-20
¹⁹ He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

²⁰ After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.

Holy Communion
Holy Communion, also known as the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist, is the a sacred ceremony that recalls the last meal Jesus shared with His disciples before He was arrested and crucified.

At a traditional Jewish Passover meal—which was itself a sacred religious rite for Jews that recalled God saving the Israelites from slavery in Egypt—Jesus changed things up to show His disciples and the world that Jesus was the divine Passover Lamb of God whose sacrifice would atone for the sins of the whole world.

In the meal, Jesus took two ordinary elements, bread and wine—things that were part of everyday life for people—and He used them in an extraordinary way.  He said, “This bread is my body given for you.”  And “This cup of wine is my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you to confirm a new covenant between God and His people.”  In the Old Covenant, people followed rules and laws to stay in a relationship with God, but they always fell short.  In this New Covenant, God’s grace and forgiveness maintain our relationship when we have faith in Jesus Christ.  Despite out sins, God's forgiveness and grace keep us holy.

But what happens in Holy Communion? 
Are we actually eating Jesus body and drinking His blood. No! The bread and the wine are symbols that remind us of what Jesus has done.  Jesus gave his life for us completely.  The bread and the wine are also symbols of Jesus presence with us now.  Just as the bread and wine are here (and the wine is actually not wine, but grape juice, but just as the bread and wine are here), Jesus is also here with us right now as we take Holy Communion.  Jesus is not dead.  He is not in the grave.  Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is at this table with us as we take communion just as He was at the table with His Disciples at the last supper.

Our awareness of Jesus’ loving sacrifice and presence with us right now nourishes and strengthens our soul.  How this works is a mystery of God’s grace, but Jesus commanded His followers to celebrate this sacrament in remembrance of Him and generations of Christians have cherished this nourishment for 2,000 years as an essential practice of the Christians faith.  And so we celebrate Holy communion in obedience and anticipation of God’s grace to nourish and help us today.

Who can take holy communion?  
In the Methodist church, anyone can take holy communion as long as you sincerely repent of you r sins and want to receive the gift of God’s grace to you.  It doesn’t matter how old or young you are.  It doesn’t matter if you a member of the church or not.  Anyone can come and receive so long as you do it with a sincere heart.  Jesus welcomes everyone to His table.  Remember, Jesus was known for something special that caused people to either love him or hate him.  Jesus was very fond of eating with sinners.

Conclusion
Baptism and Holy Communion do not save us. However, they are a special means to receive God’s grace that Jesus told us to practice that nourish and help us live the Christian life of faith.

Biblical Ghost Stories

Introduction
For Halloween, I want to share some ghost stories from the Bible.  Halloween is the abbreviated word for what was originally All Hallows Eve.  Halloween is the night before All Hallows Day, what we call All Saints Day.  Therefore, tomorrow is All Saint’s Day.  And next Sunday, we will celebrate Homecoming and All Saints Sunday (the first Sunday in November).  I hope you will come.  All Saints Day is the day Christians remember and celebrate the lives of the saints who have died and gone to be with the Lord.  Since Methodists believe all Christians, believers are saints, “the saints” includes your friends and loved one’s who have “died”.  I use the word “died”, because it is the customary word people use to describe what happens when our earthly body stops living.  However, Christians do not believe people really die when our heart stops beating.  We believe Christians have eternal life through Jesus.  Therefore, we believe when the body dies, the spirit leaves the body and goes to be with Jesus.  2 Corinthians 5:8 says, “…to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”

All the saints—Christians who’s earthly bodies have died—are now with Jesus, cheering us on as we live this life (Hebrews 12:1).  One Day, Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead and give us all a new, perfect body.  We will not be spirits or ghosts.  We will be real people, with a physical body, only it will be perfect—without sin or sickness or suffering or death.  It will be an eternally living body, just like Jesus had.  We will be like the resurrected Jesus.  Listen to this story about the resurrected Jesus and his physical body.  After Jesus had died on the cross, he rose from the grave and appeared to his disciples in a physical body.

Luke 24:36-40
And just as they were telling about it, Jesus himself was suddenly standing there among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. ³⁷ But the whole group was startled and frightened, thinking they were seeing a ghost!

³⁸ “Why are you frightened?” he asked. “Why are your hearts filled with doubt? ³⁹ Look at my hands. Look at my feet. You can see that it’s really me. Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don’t have bodies, as you see that I do.” ⁴⁰ As he spoke, he showed them his hands and his feet.

The Resurrected Jesus Was Not A Ghost
So we see in this, that the resurrected Jesus is not a ghost.  He has a body.  They can touch him.  He can walk.  He can even eat.  Verse 42-43 say, “They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he ate it as they watched.”

Aren’t you glad to know that we will not be ghosts in eternal life?  We will be living people with a perfect body.  We are incredibly blessed indeed by what Jesus did for us on the cross.  His death and ressurection changed everything.  He truly defeated death.  For all who put their faith in Jesus have eternal life.

We are so incredibly blessed by what Jesus did for us on the cross.  Because of His death and resurrection, we can have eternal life.  And we can know this directly from God.  God speaks His unchanging truth to us in His Holy Bible.  Not only that, but God also came to us personally in the flesh as Jesus Christ to live on earth and teach the way to life.  Jesus left the glory of Heaven and came to earth to call everyone to repentance and salvation.  Everything we need to know God and how to be saved is written in the Bible.  But if that wasn’t enough, Jesus even died and came back to life and showed himself to His disciples to prove He is the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the father, but by Him. (John 14:6)

In ancient times, people tried to hear the voice of God through witchcraft and sorcery.  They used black magic to try and conjure up the dead. God told His people, “Do not defile yourselves by turning to mediums or to those who consult the spirits of the dead. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:31).  God didn’t want His people to rely on witchcraft and frauds who take money, put on a spooky show, and pretend to hear ghosts.  If some spirit did speak to the living from the dead, how would you know if you could trust it?

God said, “I am the Lord Your God.”  God speaks to His people directly through the prophets and priest He has authorized to speak for Him.  They don't speak for money; they serve the Lord.  In the Bible, we see that if ever these priest or prophets were unfaithful, they were punished by God.  Therefore, we can depend upon the Word of God.

1 Samuel 28:5-7
In 1 Samuel 28, King Saul broke God’s command and consulted a medium to conjure up the ghost of Samuel.  Saul was desperate because God rejected him and was tearing the Kingdom from Saul to give it to his rival, David.  1 Samuel 28:5-7 says, “⁵ When Saul saw the vast Philistine army, he became frantic with fear. ⁶ He asked the Lord what he should do, but the Lord refused to answer him, either by dreams or by sacred lots or by the prophets. ⁷ Saul then said to his advisers, “Find a woman who is a medium, so I can go and ask her what to do.”

So God played along and allowed Samuel’s ghost to speak to Saul and the ghost said, “The Lord has done just as he said he would. He has torn the kingdom from you and given it to your rival, David.” (1 Samuel 28:17).  God had already told this to Saul when the Samuel was alive.  God already spoke, but Saul didn’t like the message.  Isn’t that just like people?  When we hear a truth we don’t like, we go looking for someone else to tell us something different.

Well, you don’t have to consult a ghost to tell you what you need to know.  God has already told you in the Bible.  And if there’s anything else you need to know, God gives us His own Holy Spirit to be our guide.  However, it requires you to put your faith in Christ, that you follow Him as Lord, and give Him your full allegience.

Jesus told a parable to teach that everything we need to know the truth about God and the way to eternal life is written in the Bible, but many people still will not listen. 

Luke 16:19-26
¹⁹ Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen and who lived each day in luxury. ²⁰ At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores. ²¹ As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.

²² “Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the heavenly banquet. The rich man also died and was buried, ²³ and he went to the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side.

²⁴ “The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’

²⁵ “But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. ²⁶ And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’

“There Is A Great Chasm Separating Us”
We see in this a description of the afterlife.  Those who are faithful find grace, forgiveness, and salvation in Jesus Christ and are rewarded with peace and comfort in the presence of God.  These are the saints we remember and celebrate on All Saints Day.  Those who reject God in this life suffer eternal torment and separation from God.  And there is a great chasm in the afterlife that cannot be traversed that separates the faithful from the unfaithful.

Luke 16:27-29
²⁷ “Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home. ²⁸ For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’

²⁹ “But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’

The Bible is Sufficient
Here we see an important truth.  Everything we need to know to find eternal life with God in Heaven is already written in the Bible.  “Moses and the prophets” are the books of the Old Testament.  Are you reading and studying this Book? Are you listening and living accordingly?

Luke 16:30-31
³⁰ “The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’

³¹ “But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Jesus Rose From the Grave
“If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.”

And yet, just in case, as an extra measure of abundant mercy and grace, God did indeed send someone back from the dead in order to make sure we get the message.  What did Jesus say?  What was His message?  He said, repent of your sins and be forgiven.  “Unless you repent, you will perish.” (Luke 13:5).  And He said, “Follow me and be my disciple.” (Luke 5:27).  And He also said, “Go and make disciples of all the nations…” (Matthew 28:19).

In the parable, rich man was concerned after he died and was in torment about his five brothers who were still alive.  He wanted someone to warn them.  Who do you have in your life you want to be saved?  You better tell them about Jesus now while you still can.

Closing
So, in closing, what do you need to do today?
Do you need to hear Jesus message, while you are still alive, saying, “Repent of your sins and return to God”?  Do not delay.  Get your heart right with God today.

Do you need to make a commitment to Read God’s Word, the Bible, more faithfully?  If you want to hear God speaking to you, if you want to know what you should do and how you should live, it is all written here.  You don’t have to consult a ghost from the past.  You don’t need a fortune teller to tell you the future.  You need to read and listen to the Word of God in the Bible and obey.  God will be your guide and you can trust Him and Him alone.

The saints are in glory with God cheering you on (Hebrews 12:1).  They want you to succeed.  But you must decide how you will live your life today.  Only you can choose. 
So make your choice.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.