Sunday, April 24, 2016

Deuteronomy 13

“If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder,  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,’  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." vv.1-3

Read chapter 13
You see a miraculous event and give God the glory, but did you know that Satan can do miraculous events too?  "The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders," (2 Thessalonians 2:9).
Now this chapter isn't necessarily saying that the prophet or dreamer of dreams was of Satan, although could be a false prophet, but how this man that had a God-given task as a mediator and spoke of things that would happen and it did, then turned away from the Lord and could possibly take a following of others.  Why would a prophet give a true message followed by an invitation to worship idols?  Did pride get to them, did they desire to have their own following, greed for money and power?  This is a lot of ways we see cults created where a religious leader breaks away from their organization and brings a following that have been caught up in signs and wonders than truth.  Who are these followers?  Lazy people that want to base off of feelings than put in the effort to seek answers, unstable people who blindly follow others.  There will always be lazy and unstable people who will not test things according to God's word.  "We don't test the message by supernatural events, we test the message by God's word" (Warren Wiersbe).  Moses had warned the Israelites to not follow false gods of the Canaanites in the land they were about to enter, but in this chapter he is warning them against their own people that will try to get them to follow idols.  God allows these things to happen to test us (not tempt us).  
How have you seen a highly respected Christian leader turn a following away to idols?  How can you test the eye and mind of supernatural events with God's truth?

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