HOW THE PROPHETS AND APOSTLES WERE APPOINTED
Hi, I’m Jeffrey G. Part of the premise of Caring Survival Preparedness is that Jesus Christ will be there to help believers through the disasters of life, however they may come. Jesus promised that we would not escape troubles, but He gave us hope that He would give us peace to deal with them when they arrive at our doorstep (John 16:33). My hope is that you also will believe in Jesus to get you through the tough times in life. But you must first believe the Bible in order to believe in Jesus Christ. I personally researched every verse I’ll be presenting, organized, and wrote “Why Do People Believe The Bible.” Please read through the different posts on this subject so that you can gain the confidence needed of how the Bible is true, or gain a stronger assurance in what you have already believed.
If we were to believe the Bible, how were spokesmen of the Bible appointed? We already read that the prophets and apostles were the people that God used to reveal His words to humanity. How do we know that we can trust the Bible as God’s words and not just the personal perceptions, philosophies, beliefs, impressions, or even deceptions of the writers of Scripture…or later fiction novelists?
All we have is their supposed testimonies and recordings. We each choose to believe it or not. Can we believe parts of the Bible and not other portions? Can we accept 75% or 50% or 25% of the Bible as truth and discard the rest? If so, how do we know which percentage is true and which is false? How could we possibly believe that we need to believe in Jesus in order to have a relationship with God if only an unknown part of the Bible is true? The prophets and apostles gave us proof that the Bible is real by sharing with us specific points in time that God appointed them to be His leaders and spokesmen.
Appointments of Old Testament Prophets
Who were the prophets in Israel? Moses, the first primary prophet of the Old Testament, shared the experience which he had on the mountain of Horeb, when God spoke to him out of a burning bush to appoint himas the leader to bring Israel out of bondage to Egypt (Exodus 3:1-10). When Moses kept disagreeing with God about his own ability to carry out the things which God desired of Him, the Lord assured Him that His power would rest upon him with miracles to prove he’s speaking for God (Exodus 4:1-9). Furthermore, God promised Moses that He would give him the words he was required to speak…
Then Moses said to the LORD, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” So the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.” – Exodus 4:10-12, NKJV
After Moses died, God called Joshua to succeed him to lead the children of Israel into the promised land.
After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying: “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. …as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. – Joshua 1:1,2,5,6, NKJV
God called Samuel when he was just a child. His mother had dedicated him to be a servant of God, so he lived in the Temple with Eli the priest. God called out to Samuel when he was sleeping by the ark of God:
Then the LORD called Samuel. “Here I am,” Samuel responded. …Samuel grew up. The LORD was with him and didn’t let any of his words go unfulfilled. All Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew Samuel was the LORD’S appointed prophet. – I Samuel 3:4,19,20, GW
Isaiah was ordained as a prophet when he received a vision of God sitting on His throne surrounded by angels. “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me”’ (Isaiah 6:8, NKJV).
When Jeremiah revealed how God selected him as a prophet, he shared a powerful (or surreal) truth about how God makes plans for our lives even before we are born. At least he did for Jeremiah anyway. The following quotation has been a great source of comfort for people seeking to understand their own purpose in life, as well as expressing the value of every child yet in the mother’s womb.
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Then said I: “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.” But the LORD said to me: “Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ For you shall go to all to whom I send you, And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, For I am with you to deliver you,” says the LORD. Then the LORD put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. – Jeremiah 1:4-9, NKJV
Then we have Ezekiel, who first described how the word of the LORD came to him after “the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God” (Ezekiel 1:1-3, KJV). In the second chapter, he recorded that “the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, …I send thee to the children of Israel, …and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God” (Ezekiel 2:1-4, KJV).
Amos said he was just a shepherd, “Then the LORD took me as I followed the flock, And the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to My people Israel’” (Amos 7:15, NKJV).
Those are a few examples from the words of the prophets themselves revealing how God appointed them to be His spokesmen to mankind, even though they did not feel at all qualified. That’s why there’s a saying, “God qualifies the unqualified.”
Next, we’ll take a look at how God appointed the apostles of the New Testament. We are simply investigating in this whole study why we should believe the Bible in the first place, what gives us a reason to believe that what the writers wrote came from God, if we keep an open mind. Let’s continue.
Appointments of New Testament Apostles
First, in Jesus final prayer to God before His death on the cross, He spoke to God regarding His chosen apostles. “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world” (John 17:18, NKJV). That is what an apostle literally is-one who is sent out on a mission.
Forty days after Jesus was raised from the dead, He was talking with his closest disciples just before He would ascend into heaven. He Himself appointed them as God’s spokesmen for the New Testament. He told them, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8, NKJV).
The apostles were appointed to be witnesses for Jesus in the purest form. Most of them had been eye witnesses of His ministry, death, and resurrection (John 15:27; Acts 2:32; 3:15; II Peter 1:16-18; I John 1:1-3). Paul is the exception. Christ appeared to him in a vision a few years later, after His resurrection. So, the original apostles not only spoke God’s Word by revelation, but also by remembrance of the things which Jesus taught in their very presence. Jesus had also promised that they would remember His teachings with help from the Holy Spirit (John 14:25,26; 16:13).
Getting back to Paul, he was not one of Christ’s early disciples. In fact, he persecuted the early Christians after Jesus’ death. But Jesus miraculously appeared to him to prove Himself as the Messiah and to appoint Paul (formerly known as Saul) to represent Him as probably the most influential of all the apostles. Paul wrote half of the books of the New Testament during the rest of his life (Acts 9:1-18).
As Paul was defending himself from possible imprisonment and death for preaching the gospel, he told the following story to King Agrippa of how Jesus appointed him to be one of his apostles:
At midday, O king, along the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ So I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. – Acts 26:13-16, NKJV
Lastly, God had a method of proving that the apostles were true appointees to carry the message of the gospel and His Will to humanity. Many times, when the apostles preached God’s Word to a gathering of people, the Holy Spirit confirmed to those listening that they were God’s spokesmen by showing the people signs and wonders at the hands of the apostles (Acts 14:3; II Corinthians 12:12; Hebrews 2:3,4). That is another reason why we know how the Bible is true.
If the Bible isn’t God’s Word, then both the prophets and apostles, over hundreds of years, lied when they said that God appointed them as His spokesmen. They created perfectly orchestrated self-fulfilling prophecies. Or else other liars wrote the Bible altogether, making up all these perfectly devised fables, and making the Bible seem like it was written over many centuries, when it was actually written like a novel over a short period of time. But if one doesn’t believe the Bible, it doesn’t matter to them why they don’t believe it.
However, it is a very important issue to settle in one’s mind if indeed believing the Bible leads us to faith In Jesus Christ, whom the Bible declares is the only way to gain eternal life. Or will you trust the Global Elitists who literally try to tell us that we can become trans-humanized and live forever as we are blended together with Artificial Intelligence through a brain-to-machine interface? True story!
When you have time, look into Chapter 5 – The Spokesmen Credited God As Their Source.
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