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About Jesus Steve Sweetman chapter 13 Worshipping
Other God (ch. 13:1 - 18) Over and over again God
has told Israel
not to worship other gods. This
chapter is just one more time God speaks to this issue. In verses 1 and 2 Moses
says that if a false prophet appears, even if he can do miracles, if he
asks you to follow other gods, don't follow them.
This tells us that false prophets can perform miracles.
Miracles alone are not the sign of a true prophet of God.
What the prophet says tells you if he is a true prophet of God or
not. Anything anyone says in
the name of God must be according to what God says in the Bible, or else
he is not a true prophet of God. Verse 3 is interesting.
It tells us that God Himself will actually allow false prophets to come
our way in order to test us. It
is just another way of testing that God uses in strengthening His
people. If God sends false
prophets to test His people, then His people better know the Word of the
Lord, if not, they will follow the false prophet.
This is happening more and more today in the church, and even the
Evangelical church. The
reason why many false prophets are getting a stronghold on many
Christians today is because many Christians do not know the Word of the
Lord, that is, the Bible. Verse 5 clearly tells us
how God feels about false prophets, even though He allows them to test
His people. Moses tells Moses just addressed what
should be done with a false prophet.
Now, in verses 6 through 11 he elaborates further.
A false prophet may be someone you don't even know, but here
Moses said, even if a family member, a son, daughter, wife, or friend,
tries to lead you astray to worship other gods, he must be killed.
Imagine killing your wife for suggesting you turn from God to
false gods. Again this shows
you how God feels about this issue.
The question is always
asked, "should we be killing such people today"?
In certain Muslim countries, they do just that.
The answer is, "no".
In New Testament times, it is not our place to avenge.
It is God's place, and he will do that at the end of this age.
As Jesus came to earth to show love, grace, and forgiveness of
sins, we are to follow Him in His ministry of reconciliation.
The third aspect to this
chapter is found in verse 12 to the end of the chapter.
Concerning the towns that Israel
would capture. If there were
wicked men there leading people astray, everyone was to be killed,
including livestock. Wickedness
is detestable to the Lord and must be eradicated.
Again, do we do that today? No.
We live in the "age of grace".
God will do this Himself in His own time. One important thing to
understand here is that God views some things as detestable. We should
know what God views as detestable so we can view these things as
detestable too, but that is not always the case.
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