Deuteronomy 18 - Watch Out For Presumptive Prophets
- Chad Werkhoven
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
Does God still speak through prophets?
SINCE WE LAST LEFT OFF... Moses continues to warn Israel not to make any image of the unseen God and urged them to cling to the LORD who redeemed them.
He then called the new generation to covenant faithfulness in the land—pure worship, just leadership, and complete rejection of the idolatry and occult practices of the nations around them.
Deuteronomy 18:14–22 (NIV)
14 The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so. 15 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”
17 The LORD said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”
21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.
Heidelberg Catechism
Q&A 31
Q. Why is Jesus called “Christ,”
meaning “anointed”?
A. Because he has been ordained by God the Father
and has been anointed with the Holy Spirit
to be
our chief prophet and teacher
who perfectly reveals to us
the secret counsel and will of God for our deliverance;
our only high priest
who has set us free by the one sacrifice of his body,
and who continually pleads our cause with the Father;
and our eternal king
who governs us by his Word and Spirit,
and who guards us and keeps us
in the freedom he has won for us.
Summary
Today's Summary and Dig Deeper section are re-posted from February 8, 2024.
One of the key traits God desires from His followers is that they live differently than the people around them - people who are infected by what's known as the noetic effect of sin. This impairs people's ability to reason correctly, redirecting their instinct to worship from God to all sorts of other things. This distortion is particularly evident in the lives of ungodly people, which is why God emphasizes the importance of His people leading lives that visibly differ from the world around them.
So God came directly to His people, and audibly spoke His commands from the mountain, which terrified those who heard it. The people, afraid they would die from the sound of God's voice, asked Moses to go up the mountain and represent them before God, to listen to His voice himself and then come back and tell the people what God had said, thereby representing the voice of God.
This is exactly what a prophet does: he represents God to the people. Moses was the first prophet, but he certainly wasn't the last. In fact, God here promises to raise up a prophet like you [Moses] from among the Israelites. You know the names of many of these prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Elijah, just to name a few. But none of those great men would be like Moses; none of them would lead God's people to the Promised Land.
The Prophet that God was predicting through the voice of Moses would be none other than His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Dig Deeper
Today's Dig Deeper section is re-posted from July 21, 2023
Lots of men have claimed to be a prophet, and to thereby have the authority to proclaim the word of the LORD. False prophets have swayed countless people away from the Truth, and done so with an eloquence and charisma that seemed nothing short of divine.
Moses, this original prophet inspired by the Holy Spirit, anticipates this problem, rhetorically asking, How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD? The proof, Moses goes on to say, is in the pudding (so to speak): If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. Test the word of the Biblical prophets yourself! Have they not all been proven correct?
Most of the Bible was written by prophets, and although they represented the voice of God in all sorts of different ways, they all pointed to one thing: salvation through Jesus Christ (even the eschatological (end times) prophecies that have yet to be fully fulfilled point back to Christ). Paul writes, For all of the promises of God find their Yes in Christ. So God's Word is complete! He's told us everything we need to know about Himself and our salvation through His prophets, perfectly recorded in scripture! We don't have anymore need for additional prophets since Christ fulfills all that the prophets promised.
This means that anyone else who claims to be a prophet by speaking beyond what the Bible says is doing the opposite of what a true prophet would do; they're pointing people away from Christ. But you already knew to steer clear of cult like self appointed prophets. What's more critical to understand is that the corollary must be true then as well: anyone who points people away from Christ in any way is a false prophet. Be careful, because it's this latter group that's far more subtle, pervasive and dangerous!
The world is full of false prophets. Use your redeemed minds to test everything you hear against scripture, and flee from everything that points away from Christ!
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, whose Word, delivered by the prophets of old, points us to salvation through Christ;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray for the discernment to test everything you hear against scripture, and for the courage to live differently than the world around you;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
