Worshipping other gods.
When I was growing up my dad would take me sea fishing, I can still remember the first time asking how I would know if I had caught a fish, and my dad’s response was ‘you will know’. Sure enough when a fish took the bait it was a totally different feel to the false alarms of the weight dragging on the sea bed, or the waves giving a slow rhythmical pull. The bang and tug left no room for doubt.
It is easy to skip over sections such as Deuteronomy 13 and dismiss what is being recorded as no longer relevant today., The passage speaks about the danger of being deceived and following other gods. In 2 Thessalonians 2 Paul gives a similar warning to his readers, not to be deceived by the ‘man of lawlessness’ Today we still come across claims of new insight or revelation which if listened to will lead us away from Christ.
When prophecy is shared its eventual fulfilment is only one small test of whether or not it is true. The more stringent rule given in Deut 13:1-5 is to guard against intelligent foresight masquerading as prophecy and then being used to take us to other gods. How will we know if a prophetic word is true? If we are rooted in scripture it should be like catching a fish, we will know that the tug is false, it is not the clear tug of the truth we know.
When this happens we need to choose to hold fast to the Word and test what we are told against Scripture. The Message translates 2 Timothy:3 14 as ‘Don’t let it faze you. Stick to what you learned sure of the integrity of your teachers.... there is nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ’.
We are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul all our strength and all our mind Luke 10:27. That is how we ‘keep His commands, obey Him, serve Him and hold fast to Him’. Deut13:4.
Take time to listen to God today and ask him to help you to ‘keep His commands, obey Him, serve him and hold fast to Him in all the challenges of the day.