Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of faith. And today, I want to challenge you with the issue for life and faith of a pagan impulse for prophets. A pagan impulse for prophets. And that's P-R-O-P-H-E-T-S, the biblical idea of prophet, not prophets in terms of Wall Street, although there's a pagan impulse for that kind of prophet, too.

But today, being a pastor and being a minister of the Word of God, I certainly want to warn you and caution you against what beats in the breast of every fallen man, and that is a pagan impulse prophecy, too, for prophets and prophecy. And it doesn't escape the Christian either, because we still have those tendencies. And I see it all the time. I'm going to be taking up and preaching the book of Revelation here in the new year, beginning in January, midst of Advent now. But I will be taking up the preaching of the book of Revelation.

And prior to that, I want to also address a couple of issues that plague us, especially in this modern day and time, with the Revelation Red Heifer Rapture ruses that are all around us, and the Revelation Red Heifer Rapture rants that we hear constantly from radio and television and megachurch preachers. So we need to be cautious when we are drawn to them, because there is, as I maintain, as the Scripture holds out for us, there is, beating within the breast of every man, a pagan impulse for prophecy. We are drawn to it. We are drawn to it because we want to know the future.

We think that maybe perhaps a little wiser, we're a little smarter than the next guy. We are perhaps in more control of our future because we know the future. We know when the rapture's coming. We know who the Antichrist might be. We know how long the great tribulation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum, a pagan impulse for prophets and for prophecy.

Well, let me tell you a little bit about a man who was perhaps one of the greatest geniuses that the human race has ever produced. But few people know that not only was he a mathematical and scientific genius, but he was also a man who was drawn to Revelation, the book of Revelation, the book of Daniel, and he was drawn to end times prophecy. And he was drawn, he had a pagan impulse for prophecy. Who was that man? It may surprise you.

It was indeed Sir Isaac Newton, who was born in the 17th century in December of 1642. And of course, Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician. And he was a man who not only developed and formulated the law of universal gravitation, but also in mathematics, he helped to develop the essential theories of calculus. Along with von Leibniz, Gottfried von Leibniz, and Newton's Principia Mathematica was one of the most important single works in the history of modern science. Sir Isaac Newton.

Now, every high school student learns these basic facts about Newton as they learn these various disciplines. But how many also that Sir Isaac Newton was obsessed with biblical prophecy? Yes, Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest geniuses in history, was obsessed with biblical prophecy. When he matriculated at the University of Cambridge, he wanted to take up mathematics to do what? Sir Isaac Newton wanted to take up mathematics to build bridges and buildings, maybe solve the naughtiest problems of the universe?

No. Sir Isaac Newton wanted to take up mathematics because in his own words, he says, I wish to test judicial astrology. Oh, my goodness, Sir Isaac Newton, you want to test judicial astrology with mathematics? Now, judicial astrology in that day was another name for predicting the future, predicting the future by the stars. In his day, there was not a clear demarcation between science and astrology.

And these kinds of things. And almost all the great minds were dabblers in this. They called themselves natural philosophers rather than scientists, per se. Well, now Newton would bring his mathematical skills to bear on books of the Bible like Daniel or Ezekiel, and most especially revelation. Yes, Sir Isaac Newton had a pagan impulse for prophecy.

And one of his modern biographers, in studying his works on biblical prophecy, which he thought were quite boring, and Newton called his book on prophecy, Thoughts on the Apocalypse. This biographer says, and I quote, Newton devoted much of his life. Computations and histories and counts designed to correct contemporary understanding of biblical chronology. Sir Isaac Newton himself tried to work out the time of the second coming. Oh, how many people in the past have done this?

But one of the greatest minds of modern history, the 17th, 18th century history, a long sweep of things. He tried to work out the time of the second coming, which he felt could not be far away since, as he says, 1,200 of Daniel's 1,290 years had run out already. Da-da-da! Unquote. That da-da-da was mine, not his, too.

But Sir Isaac Newton fell prey, great mind in history, great scientific mind fell prey to the pagan impulse for prophecy. Have you, dear listener, have you fallen prey to what beats in the heart of every lost man a pagan impulse for prophecy? Well, even though the greatest mind in recent history set his skills to trying to find out the date of Christ's return, all of his predictions, and he made many, many predictions, all of them were wrong. They were absolutely and fatalistically wrong. The mathematical skills of Sir Isaac Newton, they were perfect.

The prophetic calculations? Terribly flawed. Right, so his math calculus was perfect, but his prophetic calculations were flawed. His grasp of the onset of universal gravity? A universal hit for science, but his grasp of the end of human depravity?

Oh, universally wrong. Yes, dear. Now, Newton's biographers estimate that Sir Isaac Newton wrote almost a million words on prophecy, almost as much as he did on scientific matters. He was prolific, even as president of the Royal Society, that prestigious society of science. Newton fervently believed that history was drawing to a close, because men like himself were expounding and clarifying some prophetic revelations just prior to the impending apocalypse, when the contents of John's revelation would be unfolded before their very eyes.

Wherever you heard that book, as many a tin-horned preacher predicts the unfolding of revelation before our very eyes. Very soon, too, right? Revelation red heifer rapture rants, yes, they are. Sir Isaac Newton was, in many ways, the Hal Lindsey of his day, only Newton was a lot smarter than Lindsey. Lindsey might have calculated a generation from the founding of Israel in 1948 to predict Christ's return in 1988, but the development of calculus was far beyond his calculations.

Hal Lindsey could speculate that universal television would broadcast Christ's return, but the theory of universal gravitation was far beyond him. Nevertheless, both men, Lindsey and Newton, shared a common impulse, a pagan impulse for prophecy. Do you share that same pagan impulse for prophecy, dear listener? There is beats within the heart of every lost man, this impulse for prophecy, and it's pagan, and it has overtaken the Christian church in many fields, many respects today. Dear listener, prophecy was given so that we might know the Lord of destiny, not that we might be lords of destiny.

Let's look briefly at this a little closer today, because the Bible speaks of it. Many places it speaks of it, but I want to turn to Isaiah chapter 8, verses 19 and 20, because Isaiah, to the lost generation of his day, Judah, had a pagan impulse. And about these Israelites who had a pagan impulse for prophecy, which many Christians today have the same kind of spirit, he says to them in Isaiah chapter 8, verses 19 and 20, he says, When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?

Consult God's instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Unquote. Prophet Isaiah was speaking to his own generation who had a pagan impulse for prophecy. Even as many Christians today go chasing their tails like a dog, looking for the time of the rapture, or exactly who the Antichrist may be, or when the seven-year Great Tribulation will begin, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, this pagan impulse for prophecy.

Dear listener, first of all, let's look at verse 19, where we see that, utterly oblivious to human nature's pagan impulse, prophets. Israel's generation, as well as many Christians today, chase after the next Revelation red hat for a rapture ruse, following this pagan impulse for prophecy. Yes. Verse 19. The context for our text today, that is Isaiah chapter 8, verses 19 and 20.

The context for these verses is the complete surrender of Israel's distinctiveness from the nations around her. Yes. Instead of the text of Scripture, people look to the pagan impulse for prophecy. Israel's holiness or separation from unclean things was non-existent by this time, with the exception of Isaiah and his children. In fact, the verses before he said, look, here am I with my children.

Here am I in the children the Lord has given me, Isaiah says. We are signs and symbols from the Lord Almighty. In contrast to those who seek amongst the mediums and spiritists, prophecy and insight into the future, pagan impulse for prophecy. Many of you out there have it as you chase your prophetic tales looking for, amongst the Tim LaHays and the Hal Lindsey's of the earth, the next thread of prophecy that you think is going to come true and these magical insights, they're modern day prophets, are they not? I don't think so.

In his own day, Isaiah lamented Israel's pursuit of paganism. He says, for you have rejected your people, God, the house of Jacob, because they are full of things from the east and of fortune tellers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with the children of foreigners, the state indeed of Israel and America for that matter in our own day as we embrace religions from the east. And because of Israel's complete reliance upon these kinds of things, God would confuse, confound, and remove the even these false prophets. Isaiah mentions this in chapter 3.

He says, for behold, the Lord God of hosts is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah support and supply, all support of bread, all support of water, the mighty man and the soldier, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder, captain of 50 and the man of rank, counselor and the skillful magician, the expert in charms. Unquote. All of these things, Isaiah says, God is taking away from you. You, Israel, with that pagan impulse for prophecy.

You, American, with your pagan impulse for prophecy, even though you consult the Bible and ostensibly baptize it and say it's holy, lurking underneath the thin surface of your supposed biblical pursuit of Jesus and prophecy, you have a pagan impulse for prophecy with your obsession with it. The situation in Israel had become desperate by Isaiah's day. God had already begun to judge them with famine and pestilence war. The people of Israel were bewildered and they were frightened. They were desperate to know what was coming next.

This is a pagan impulse for prophecy. Americans, many Americans are desperate for knowing what is coming next. It is a pagan impulse for prophecy like to that of Israel. In the very beginning of time, dear listener, the desire to know the future in order to be Lord of the future has driven the fallen heart of man and it's driving the heart of many Christians today. And Isaiah laments nothing.

This has been a pagan impulse from the beginning, a pagan impulse for prophecy. And some of you have been overcome by it. Nimrod, for example, the first of the mighty men, that is, he was a Nephilim, an offspring of the sons of God who made it men. Nimrod, this Nephilim was the reputed founder of the city of Babel, which would cast its shadow all the way into the book of Revelation. And the author, the historian Josephus, who recounted fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, this same historian, Jewish historian, Josephus reports, the understanding of the rabbis of his day, that Nimrod directed the building of the Tower of Babel.

And he did it, built the Tower of Babel, that is, in part, to both reach into the heavens to avenge himself on God for destroying his ancestors, the Nephilim, of which he was a survivor, but also Nimrod built the Tower of Babel to ensure that no future flood would destroy himself and his descendants ever again. Nimrod practiced divination, in part, to discern when God was going to send another great flood. So Nimrod indeed provided this impulse for pagan, pagan impulse for prophecy, very early in man's history. Nimrod had succumbed completely to the pagan impulse for prophets. Or we have the example of Balak, too, in the book of Numbers.

Balak summoned Balaam to put a curse on Israel in order to forestall what he saw coming in the future. Indeed, he saw in the future Israel's conquering of him as he had the peoples around him, as they were coming out of the desert wilderness, right? And Balak was attempting to be a lord of the future, and he was attempting to turn the curse that was on his seed of the serpent, that is, Moab, he was attempting to turn that curse back upon the seed of the woman, which was Israel. The promise was that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent and the seed of the serpent.

Balak had succumbed completely to the pagan impulse for prophets in seeking Balaam. And then we have the example, too, of poor, pathetic Saul. All through biblical history, we have these examples of the pagan impulse for prophecy, don't we? We have it in poor, pathetic Saul. Desperate to know his fate against the Philistines, as Saul drew up his army of Israel against the Philistines, Saul consulted the witch of Endor because God no longer spoke to him, all right?

The text tells us that God no longer spoke to Saul, either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets, unquote. And so Saul sought the counsel of the witch of Endor. He had a pagan impulse for prophecy. Saul succumbed completely to the pagan impulse for prophecy. And so it was.

Israel and the day of Isaiah had succumbed completely to the pagan impulse for prophecy. Even as many Americans and Christians have fallen prey to this pagan impulse for prophecy in our own day, we try and baptize it with the veneer of Christianity, but nevertheless lurking, beating under the heart, in the heart of that impulse for prophecy is a pagan impulse for it. Instead of the sober consultation of the will of God in the Urim or the Thummim or the prophets of God, instead we have this pagan impulse for prophecy. This would all be done, of course, was godly.

It would have been done at the entrance to the tent of meeting, for example, and presided over by a priest of God. Instead, they sought the pagan impulse for prophecy. They sought the witches and the mediums and the spiritists. And when you did, you sat at the mouth of a dark cave to hear a pale, haggard witch, chirp and mutter. And thus you have texts.

Why consult mediums and spiritists who chirp and mutter? But if you went to consult one of these in the days of Israel, as it is today for that matter, when you go to consult mediums and spiritists, they sit in dark rooms. At the time, they sat in dark caves in Isaiah's day. And you would go to join this medium or spiritist, and you would sit at the mouth of this dark cave to hear a pale, haggard witch chirp and mutter. And these necromancers and soothsayers and mediums and spiritists would have the bones of the dead strewn around their caves.

And they would imitate the voices of bats. Reputedly, these bats coming from the entrance of hell itself, fresh with knowledge of the future. And thus you have this chirping and muttering. That's the idea. Chirping and muttering.

You were imitating the sound, the voice of a bat who had come from hell to tell you the future. This is what Israel had sunk to. Instead of the clear word of God, Israel had descended to following, as one of the study Bibles puts it, occult gibberish. Occult gibberish. And much so-called biblical prophecy today, with all of its false claims, its false predictions has descended into occult gibberish.

How do you recognize false prophets? By the way, whether it be John Hagee or Hal Lindsey or Tim LaHaye, how do you recognize false prophets? Because their prophecies do not come true. And that's precisely what happens with these men. Have you been following the pagan impulse for prophecy, dear listener?

Because it is extant today. It exists in the church. As it has been, so it will be, and so it is today. It is why today, in a so-called scientific age, we have astrologers that flourish. They make good livings.

We have many of them where I live in the Teton Valley. We have mediums and witches in our valley, too, in Teton Valley. And they vie, they compete with each other to cast spells and to foretell the future and to contact the dead. Even Christians sometimes lapse into the whole ethos of a pagan impulse for prophecy. I can remember very early when I was a young man, we had Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who was famous in the 60s.

Some of you gray hairs may remember him. Episcopal Bishop James Pike, famous in the 60s for consulting with mediums in a desperate effort to make contact with his deceased son, whom he had lost in a tragic sudden death. Bishop Pike quickly lost his way. Christian ministry to a pagan impulse for prophecy and prophets. He was attempting to foresee the future in order to cure war and racism, which were all big themes of the 60s, too.

Or, for example, in the life of the church, the World Council of Churches. The World Council of Churches has sunk today to embarrassing levels. World Council of Churches, in an effort to broaden their ecumenical spirit and base and be inclusive of all religions, the World Council of Churches has participated in things like tribal rituals with Australian Aborigines or Native American tribes and even Wiccans, that is, modern-day witches. And they foresee, the World Council of Churches does, a day when all of us will live under one god of consensus. A god we can all agree upon and finally live under in peace, ostensibly.

I think you can see where that will lead us. A pagan impulse for prophecy has not escaped the evangelical world either. Many of you are caught up in it. Unwittingly, naively, many well-meaning Christians have ended up following a pagan impulse for prophecy in becoming obsessed with end times, with last things, with what I call Revelation red heifer rapture ruses. Entire churches and websites and ministries have been dedicated to sifting the minutiae of biblical prophecy to predict the rapture.

Oh, the Antichrist. Who is it? Is it Hillary Clinton? Oh, and the Great Tribulation? Many have lost their way and no longer study prophecy to glorify the Lord of the future, but rather to be lords of the future, that is, their own future.

Many obsessed Christians have succumbed to the pagan impulse for prophecy. Many of the shills of prophetic ministry as well may not chirp and mutter, but they certainly do bark and hawk their predictions, their visions, and their books, and their videos, and their websites. Oh, one luminous example of this false prophet prophecy is John Hagee, pastor of Cornerstone Church, which is a mega church in San Antonio, Texas. He's a well-known proponent of end times ministry, isn't he? For example, his book Four Blood Moons.

How many of you suckers bought that? Four Blood Moons. Something is about to change. Oh, isn't that? Very specific in particular.

Something is about to change. That leaves enough wiggle room and elbow room for just about anything, including a change in the weather. Well, in his book, Four Blood Moons, false prophet John Hagee asserted that the concurrence of four blood moons in one year, and I think that was 2016, was a prophetic portent, and that a significant fulfillment of end times prophecy would occur, and it would be on a par with the formation of Israel, or the retaking of Jerusalem by the Jews, for example. And then, all through 2016, when no such thing happened, nothing of the magnitude and scope of these things happened.

When nothing like this happened, his book went from 1995, a copy, to a dollar and a half. False prophet John Hagee, false prophet, you determine a false prophet by whether his prophecies come true or not. And none of John Hagee's prophecies have come true. And Hagee suddenly fell silent on his Four Blood Moons. He said nothing more about them.

He didn't admit to their being wrong. And no one on his board challenged him. And no one has held him accountable for his false prophecies. Ah, to this day, church and ministry and website is humming along. John Hagee continues to bark and hawk his predictions, his visions, and his books and his videos.

And people gobble it up. Have you gobbled it up, dear listener? There is indeed many a false prophet, many a false prophecy out there. Whether it's Tim LaHaye in his Left So Blind book in his series, right? Or Hal Lindsey in the late Great Planet of the Apes, as I call it.

I wouldn't recognize that planet that he describes. Dear listener, there is indeed a pagan impulse for prophecy. And I hope that you do not fall prey to it. Rather, do what Isaiah exhorts. That is, consult God's instruction and his testimony of warning.

If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. This is where we go, brothers and sisters, to the word of God, not to false prophets, not to obsessions with end times prophecy. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In Idaho Falls, we'll be beginning a series on Revelation once we address a couple of these issues. But I encourage you to consult the word of God, consult our website, come and join us for worship for that matter.

New Geneva worships on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Give me some feedback. Call me. I'm sure many of you would like to give me some feedback. Area code 208-523-0196.

For further feedback, we worship on Sunday, 10 a.m., 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And call me for feedback and more information perhaps at area code 208-523-0196.