ESOCS Devotional 27 July 2024 – God’s Word As Superior to the Prophets
MEMORY VERSE: “You must not listen to the words of that prophet or that diviner of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to make known whether or not you’ll continue to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.” Deuteronomy 13:3 ISV
TEXT: DEUTERONOMY 13:1-5
“If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst.
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This passage begins with the assumption that the prophet does foretell the future accurately or perform some other, humanly impossible work. Nevertheless, if that prophet’s central message is to follow after a different god or to take a spiritual path that the true God has not said to take, that person is a false prophet. God states unequivocally that misrepresenting Him incurs the death penalty, and Revelation 19:20 says that this is exactly what happens to the False Prophet: He is thrown into the Lake of Fire.
A real false prophet is a person who speaks in the name of the true God but who twists, misuses, and misrepresents what the true God has revealed. This may be for his own personal gain or exaltation. False prophets also speak in the name of false gods to turn people away from the true God. They are out there, they have their own agenda, and they use the lack of understanding of God’s people concerning what is going on in the world around them in relation to what He has presented. When one is uninformed, unschooled, or misdirected concerning the word of God, that person is open to whatever false teaching comes his way.
The message of the false prophet is contrasted in Deuteronomy 13:3-4 with loving the true God with all of our heart and soul (life), walking after Him, fearing Him, keeping His commandments, obeying His voice, serving Him, and holding fast to Him. These elements indicate what God wants His people to be focused on, helping to define whether a man claiming to speak for God is truly doing so or not.
Obeying God’s voice and keeping His commandments are regular themes with God’s true prophets: They always have God’s law undergirding their messages. When the Old Testament prophets were sent to warn or inform Israel and Judah, they always pointed out the grievous ways in which the people had transgressed God’s law.
False prophets, on the other hand, will not hold the moral line that God requires (Lam. 2:14). False prophets will not connect the dots between the sinfulness of a nation and national calamity. They instead focus on something other than God’s standard of righteousness (2 Peter 2:1-3). This same principle appears in Isaiah 8:19-20. Both houses of Israel were guilty of seeking out mediums and wizards for spiritual guidance.
God gives us a standard by which to measure the words of a prophet: the law and testimony – His Word. If the prophet’s message contradicts what is already established as God’s Word, law and testimony it is evidence that he lacks spiritual understanding and is not speaking the truth.
In summary, the hallmark of a true prophet is his upholding of the law of God, while false prophets dodge moral teaching and instead preach a message that appeals to the masses. God’s truth – and His law in particular – is abhorrent to the natural mind (Romans 8:7).
- How fast do you hold on to that precious word in the face of prophecy?
- Lord God, speak to us through your word today and give us understanding to your glory.
Further Reading: Ezekiel 43:1-9; Luke 1:26-38; Acts 11:1-18
ESOCS Devotional 27 July 2024
