Did God just Say That? Part 2

In my previous blog, I related to you how God had spoken to me and shown me a little favor by providing me nice parking and quick checkout in an otherwise very busy shopping time.  I seem to have gotten some blowback on this testimony from some in the Christian community.  There are those who feel that God does not speak to people in this day and age.  They argue that God no longer speaks to man, but only speaks through the Bible.  In support of their claim, they use Hebrews 1:1-2 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;


Do these verses say anything about how God communicates with man?  Yes, in some ways it does.  It tells us about prophets who were spoken to in different ways.  Does it say this ended?  No.  It only says that in these last days God spoke to us by Jesus.  Some people take that to mean the end times last days, but there is no real reason to think that.  Paul is simply stating that in these last days, meaning the time they were in, not about any future time, or of the end times. 
 

The first verse speaks to how God spoke through men in various ways pointing to the cross of Jesus.  Once Jesus came along, He completed and fulfilled what the prophets spoke of.  After that people spoke back to the cross, and also forward to Jesus’ return in glory.  How many prophecies did Jesus fulfill that were spoken of by the prophets?  Too many to be just a coincidence, that is for sure.  Also in ways that could not have been intentionally fulfilled either.  People today still talk about unfulfilled prophecies; so to say prophecy is dead and over with is obviously wrong.  
 
The entire context of Hebrews first 2 chapters was showing the excellence and superiority of Christ and the necessity to believe based upon the Old testament prophecies that are fulfilled in Jesus.  Then it slides into warnings against doubt and unbelief in chapter 3, then back to Christ’s superiority up into chapter 8, where the new covenant is shown to be superior to the old.  It closes with exhortations to faith and holiness in the closing chapters 11-13.  The book of Hebrews is about glory to Jesus.  Nowhere is it saying that God stopped talking to men in various ways.  
 
We can go to the book of Acts chapter 2 and see that God speaking through people in various ways was not dead or done away with, but was alive and well after Jesus’ day.  ¹⁴ But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:
¹⁵ For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.
¹⁶ But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
¹⁷ And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
¹⁸ And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:
¹⁹ And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:
²⁰ The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come:
²¹ And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

  The writer of First John advises us to, "…test the spirits to see whether they be of God." (I John 4:1). The test is truth. God is the God of truth—all kinds of truth.  This was also the test for a prophet.  If what the prophet said was true, or came to pass as said, then He was truly a prophet.  Jer. 28:9. "The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, [then] shall the prophet be known, that the LORD hath truly sent him."  The fact that what I was told ahead of time came to pass as said passes the biblical standard.  It was truth.