What Is Prophetic? - Part 1 — Art Katz

Prophetic Obedience and Dependence on God

Lord, you see what I have here from two o 'clock in the morning and come and just put it together on the spot as only you can and will and demonstrate to this people what prophetic obedience is and the tension in which the prophetic person lives and serves, always a dependency and a casting himself upon God in the moment, never a complete sense or confidence that we have it all nailed down and know where to go and what to say, always something tremulous, uncertain in which you are our dependency, our high tower, our trust, our confidence.

So we bless you Lord that not only will you verbally set forth your thoughts but demonstrate them. In fact that is the very function of the prophet, he is the thing in himself, he is the demonstration as well as the propagator of the word, what he is in himself is what you are calling the church to be, that's why he is the foundation.

So it's no small thing my God, in fact it's a holy ghost masterpiece and you take your sweet old time about it too, it's not an overnight quickie, it's a process over time and through experience and all of the things through which such men are sifted and formed, shaped, meeting in the context of the church as the church even for their own formation and even ultimately for the ascending.

So we bless you Lord and we love to call upon you as the Alpha and the Omega, you're the one who knows how to begin. To begin is excruciatingly painful, you don't know how to begin, what first thing? But you know Lord, you know why you know the first thing?

Because you know the last thing and there needs to be a congruence between what begins and what ends and only you know the end from the beginning. So give us the beginning Lord, appropriate to the end, not only these immediate days but to the end of the end of all of our days and we thank and give you praise for the privilege in Jesus' name and God's people said, Amen.

A brother has suggested that the article from which we read last night ought to be in our website, good idea I hadn't thought of it, of course it's not our article but we can ask the author if he wouldn't mind that I think it would be a blessing for many and then he said the books that you were quoting and citing need to be listed also so we hope to do that as we go along and acquaint you with some of the sources that we employ and enjoy.

Here's something that has recently come into my hand from an Indian woman from Canada, a little daily devotional reading, Using the Prophets. Have you, do you know the name Eugene Peterson who has paraphrased the Bible in idiomatic current American English, it's a very fresh work, also has a little devotional book called Praying with the Prophets and this is very much like it.

Amos, Social Injustice, and the Prophetic Word

Here's today's selection from Amos from a verse in chapter 8, Hear this you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, of course invariably the prophets are always citing Israel's moral failure in the areas of social neglect and injustice for which reason they are often misunderstood as if they are social reformers, they're not pointing to failures in society as being the thing in itself but the symptom of the much greater failure which is the failure of right relationship with God which will always manifest itself as injustice to men.

Are you taking notes? You got that one? Wow, nice statement. So he writes, In these piercing words, and the prophetic word is always a piercing word, Amos exposes the thoughts of the people as they gather in the temple on the Sabbath, which is today by the way, they are singing the hymns and saying the prayers but in their hearts they can't wait to get back to the business of making money, though they are entering into the ritualism of the worship, they are anxious to return to the marketplace where they can get a buzz by exploiting others.

That's an interesting statement, that exploitation is not just an issue of economic greed but of psychic satisfaction. Only a prophet would see that because if you only deal with it at the level of economics you're not really yet dealing with the root of it, the root of greed is more than just accumulating wealth but getting a buzz, a kind of satisfaction which is the alternative to the gratification that should be obtained only and exclusively through God.

The prophet sees right through the appearance of things to the truth of the condition in its deeps. That's why his word has got to be piercing, it's not just an issue of social justice. Now why don't you guys shape up and clean up your act?

Why don't you act better toward your underprivileged kinsmen and not exploit them? That would not be propheticness, that would be a parody, that would be a popularization of the prophet. The prophet pierces through to the deeps and the truth of the situation of which the social condition is only the manifestation.

But it's interesting how Jews like to talk of the prophets in that way and even then they'll throw in Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud as being Jewish prophets. They don't understand the genius of propheticness itself and it would be a caricature to say that the prophets are only campaigners for social justice.

The green dealers used false weights so they could overcharge their customers and the result was that the poor were having to sell themselves as slaves in order to live or to pay their debts. What would Amos make of Christians in the West whose goal is to maintain their standard of living and have a good life, which I think is the unspoken premise of our world and our society and even commended as being the highest statement of faith is one's prosperity.

What would the prophet have to say about believers who go to church on Sunday, apparently enter into everything that is going on, but deep down are longing to get back to the office on Monday to do another deal?

And what would he say about those believers who celebrate feast days but bemoan the bank holidays because they can't occupy their minds with what they enjoy most, checking on the price of their shares?

Worldly Gamesmanship and the Destruction of Human Life

This guy's insightful himself and if you'll forgive one more speculation, but I don't want to leave that. What they enjoy most, checking on the price of their shares. Do you ever get a sense that the world is a kind of gamesmanship?

There's a play-acting that is just older men playing with more expensive toys and the whole thing of stock market or even military expenditures and military build-up and politics running for office is a remarkable gamesmanship and it's unbecoming to those that are made in God's image and that the whole thing is false and has to do with the kind of childish thing that the kids enjoy, but what is played out at an adult level, it becomes tragic and it has consequence.

Would there have been World War I, of which World War II was a continuation and World War III is likely to be a consummation, if there were not Caesar's chancellors, what do they call them, Kaisers, playing with tin soldiers on big tables like this and planning out strategies and building up navies and in competition with Great Britain and France as to national supremacy as if it were some kind of a game, but when the game starts to get played, it goes from tin soldiers to flesh and blood men.

How many potential Beethovens and Karl Barthes and philosophers and geniuses of kinds that God has birthed to enrich mankind had their lives wiped out on a three or four kilometer piece of ground called no man's land in World War I, for which today you can visit in Verdun the ossiary, that is to say the place where the bones are kept, it's larger than a football stadium, the bones of an entire generation wiped out on a little piece of turf called no man's land for a war that had its origin in the ambition of men playing with tin soldiers and loving the grandeur of the battlefield and having Napoleonic revelry and a games playing mentality, that's the world, that's the lie, that's what Satan loves, he loves destruction, chaos and devastation and he will egg men on to play their games knowing what the consequence will be.

What about those men that blow up in tanks and their flesh is impaled on the steel bulkhead of that coffin on treads, I'm not trying to be grotesque or bizarre, but we need to know that what starts as a game ends in terrible devastation, not only the death of men who might have enriched mankind, but their progeny, they shall never have children and their children that would have come will not themselves have children, there's a blood letting and it's an attack against God, against what is creative, what is life giving in war that has to do with economics, that has to do with politics, that has to do with power, that has to do with ambition, that has to do with men play acting, their game needs to be revealed, a whistle needs to be blown to bring it to a halt and the function of the prophet is to do that, of course that's not going to make him popular, men don't want their games interrupted or even brought into criticism, if you'll forgive one more speculation, what would he say about those church leaders who make their feelings known when it comes to sexual morals but stay silent on the rampant consumerism and materialism which is blithely assumed to be a sign of God's blessing, what was I reading, at least a third of this nation is obese and that it afflicts children, teenagers are already grossly overweight in fast foods, in snack foods, in stuffing their mouths with all the kinds of things that will inflate their bodies which run, if you knew the figures of sales for Fritos and the makers of those snack foods, your head would spin, we're not talking about millions, we are talking about billions, we have a whole economy predicated on profit that does not give any regard to the consequence that comes to its victims in their bodies, in their minds and in their souls, so how we need in the contemporary Christian church more straight-talking prophets and fewer smooth-tongued preachers, for when there is a fog in the pulpit there will inevitably be a mist in the pews, that's copyrighted, praise the Lord for this man who sees so acutely and writes so well, praise so also the people, yes we need more straight-talking prophets but where are the congregations or the pastors who will admit straight-talking prophets onto their platforms and into their pulpits, that is probably one of the critical problems of our time, is that nothing is held with greater suspicion and reserve than the admission of prophetic men onto the platforms of successful churches, so here is how we are going to end or what we are going to consider in these days, after we have a little preliminary assessment of what is prophetic, is to take my most recent speaking engagement before these days have commenced and critique it, because it ended with being beaten on my chest by the founder of the conference who is an internationally recognized author and has been a blessing to me and to our own fellowship, meeting me outside the building and striking me on the chest with his Bibles and books in like a fit of rage and anger that is totally out of keeping with the quiet demure makeup of that man, he was totally out of character, he was pushed to a place of great provocation by me and hitting me with his Bibles cried out, you and your Jewish flesh and your Jewish pride, I am giving you the end and later on I will give you the beginning, I might just review the three messages that I gave, their culmination and the invitation to the congregation to which this same brother came up on the platform and took the microphone and nullified or negated my invitation and because I am hard of hearing and was several steps back from him, I knew that he was taking issue with what was being said, I did not know he was nullifying the invitation and as the Lord would have it, the first words that I spoke when I got the microphone back was, the invitation is still valid, so he not knowing that I was speaking out of an ignorance of what he said, thought it was an act of defiance but that he would think that it is an act of Jewish defiance is a remarkable revelation in itself because the whole tenure of what I had to say to the church was the issue of the Jew and of Israel and our failure to be rightly related to them, so it would be a remarkable exercise for us to review the entire experience as being an episode of a prophetic kind containing all the constituent elements of prophetic discernment, prophetic obedience, prophetic proclamation, prophetic consequence, prophetic rejection, it is all there and it would be a very rich thing, the thought has come to me that we would profit greatly to examine that with a right spirit, so let's see if the Lord will give us that liberty, but just to let you know what I think the Lord may want included in these days, what would it have as the prophetic discernment, prophetic proclamation, prophetic obedience, prophetic proclamation, prophetic consequence, prophetic rejection, that all of the constituent elements that make up the phenomenon of propheticness were somehow revealed and expressed in that recent episode and while it is yet fresh and while I am at a place to speak of it because my memory will soon fade and other newer things will crowd it out, it might be very profitable for us to examine, on top of that I am already receiving emails and a few letters of people who were there and so you can hear the comment of those who felt disposed to write me who observed this thing and factor in their comments on what was taking place, I wrote some notes and here it is, Prophecy in Israel, a series of articles on the prophetic phenomenon and I made a note to myself for our present class school to dissect, critique and evaluate this propheticness, use the recent experience as a model of prophetic reality and requirement, review the text, get the sense of the messages that were actually spoken, what does it reveal about the genius of propheticness, when I say genius and it is a word I use often, I am not talking about high IQ, genius means the essential nature and makeup of a given thing, what does obedience mean, what constitutes obedience, inspiration, authority, consequence, character, intercession and prayer, responsibility before God for what takes place, where do you get that word and where do you have the audacity to speak it, are remarkable questions, knowing that you are accountable to God for what issues from you and yet obliged to speak and never with a complete confidence that you have the mind of the Lord and that even if you have it in substance, can it be contradicted by something that issues from you that is elapsed and goes back into your own humanity or your own flesh, so there is a remarkable tension of prophetic obedience knowing that even when you think yourself obedient and you have prayed and there is always the tension of the prospect of failure, of missing the mind of the Lord entirely because that is the accusation and the indictment that you are likely to hear, in fact after the first message I was brought aside for the leaders of that conference and critiqued or interrogated by them and accused after only one message of lacking anointing, of needing a deeper circumcision of the heart and a deeper brokenness that was just from the first message, how do you go on after that and if you are not in a place of brokenness and the speaking of the first message will you be in it with the speaking of the second or the third, so it is not what you speak in that moment that is the issue but all the moments that have preceded that moment, if you have not been under the hand of the Lord in dealings and the breakings of God prior to the meetings will you obtain it at the meeting, but that you could be accused of that or charged with that is not only a statement of your own deficiency but of the mentality of the men who are charging you and when you will hear the first message you will have an opportunity to discern whether the word itself was wanting or the word itself was of a kind so offensive to men that they received it as lacking anointing and then it raises the question of what is anointing and does it always take the same form, is it necessarily riveting or electric, could it be that God's anointing is yet present even in a quiet and calm presentation which in fact the first message was, what I am suggesting or willing to submit is that because of their objection to the content that they expressed it as the wanting of anointing but the content itself was the point of offense.

Prophetic Formation Through Israel and the Church

I had just come from Spokane, Washington on my way up to Canada with an overnight stay and as my disposition is I asked is there a synagogue locally, I am always looking for the Jew and yes there is so the lady at whose home we stayed drove us up there and she drives into the parking lot and around the building and she is ready to leave, she wants to show us the architecture and I said why don't we go in, that hadn't occurred to her to actually go in so we went in and we came out two hours later and what an experience it was, the rabbi was absent but the secretary was there, Janice you can pray for her who is now reading Ben Israel.

I left a copy of the holocaust book for the rabbi, you can pray for him also, Rabbi Isaacson because my last word to her before departing was I would like to leave you a copy of my book of my encounter with God as a Jewish atheist, oh she said I would love to read that, I said okay, I know she will need to be prayed for but while we were there the architecture and the decoration inside was resplendent, it was aesthetically powerful I mean stained glass windows of a kind you don't find in churches, real precious art and the sanctuary and the Torah where the Torah is kept was all engraved, there were actually copper panels on the doors and entry into this sanctuary, it was remarkably impressive that makes churches as we understand them to be eclipsed in aesthetic beauty with a real spiritual sense, of course they've got everything going for them, Hebrew language, liturgy, the Torah, hand written on parchment, some of them have come from Europe and they will have three or four behind that panel and then we walked through the hallways and the hallways were full of photographs of the history of the congregation going back to the late 19th century and the Hadassah women's group meeting for a luncheon in 1906 or whatever it was of 21 or the class with the rabbi of the candidates for Bar Mitzvah and the Purim party, the feast of Esther and they wear costumes, you just walk through the halls and you get such a sense of their history, of their life, of their community that moves you to jealousy as a Christian that would to God we would have an equivalent reality in our own life and so I came to Canada still resonating that visit and that visit was timed of God because the experience of the prophetic man is totally orchestrated by God, it has nothing to do with happenstance, we weren't even scheduled to be overnight in Spokane, I had learned of this lady who had once been with us in a tour to Israel so many years ago I had hardly forgotten what she looked like but we were reminded about her as we passed through the state of Washington and people knowing that we would have to go through Spokane to get to our destination mentioned her name and we called and she was willing to have us so even the events of the day and of the life are orchestrated of God in view of what he knows will affect the disposition of the man and the word that will be proclaimed.

Do you see life like that? Or do you just think your days are days, mere things that take place without prophetic significance, we need to esteem our days and to see in them the hand of the Lord orchestrating, shaping, molding, affecting, giving a certain disposition of heart and spirit because it's not only a word that needs to be proclaimed but a word spoken with a certain disposition of heart and spirit very much affected by what touched me in that synagogue.

In fact my part of the message as you'll hear it was that all of us as Christians need so to be touched and if we're not touched there how shall we be touched anywhere if we have not a disposition for pathos and we have yet to define that word to what will we then be sympathetic and empathetic and be disposed in a way that saves us from being tin horns because the prophet whose word is piercing is not piercing because he's loud, it's piercing because it's true but it's spoken out of a compassion and empathy for those whom he is addressing or else it'll be a dull blunt word, it'll be a machete rather than the sword of the Lord.

So the disposition of our souls, our emotion and frame of mind is as critical perhaps as the word itself that we bear and the Lord himself is continually molding and forming and affecting that mood and often you'll find the mood that the Lord has affected is different from that which your congregation is enjoying.

In fact you're the only one in the one mood and all the others are in quite another and you have to insist that your mood is God's. That's why we are often jarred and in conflict with worship teams who seem to be totally out of it, totally unaware of what the mood of the Lord is and the kind of word that is to issue from it because they're off in another thing with a series of choruses that are full of razzmatazz and getting the atmosphere livened up and not at all in keeping with what is to come.

In fact often, if this has not been your experience, the worship will rob you of life. The so-called worship is so innovating and so contrary to both the mood and the word that is welling up to be spoken that when it's time to speak you're depleted.

Preparation, Anointing, and Prophetic Rejection

And that in fact was my experience in those days. When it came to the third and final message which was the payoff, the clincher of make it or break it in this controversial atmosphere that had already been established from the first speaking, I prayed that the worship leader would not come up on the platform, that I would not have to bear hearing another medley of his selections in which there was nothing musically to be criticized but something about the man, something about the way in which it issues from him that was painful for me to hear.

And I was depleted by the brother who preceded me in the speaking who was the host of the entire conference and took almost two hours to speak a kind of summary of all of the things that were dear to him over the years and are dear.

Precious points of truth about the Lord, about the scripture, about the church, and with every word of truth there is an appropriate anointing, a kind of a high, and yet strangely I myself was depleted by that speaking.

I was drained. But praise God that a brother who had come from California, from Arizona, who was a worshipful man with his guitar, I invited up to the platform and he sang two selections and after that I was able to speak.

So all of this needs to be factored in because these elements are profoundly present in all of the encounters that we will be experiencing. So what preparation to bear the word in situations of that kind, which I think as the age goes on will become yet more controversial, yet more critical, yet more opposed.

There will be yet more clashes, there will be yet more, what's the word, confrontations and accusations. Wouldn't it be a remarkable paradox that the moments of greatest prophetic obedience are the moments of greatest offense to those who hear them and give rise to the greatest indictment about your anointing, about your faithfulness, about your obedience, about your person, and that we need to expect that and bear that.

And that's what makes the word an event. It's not just a message. It's an event. It's an event for those who receive it and it's an event for those who reject it. In fact the rejection itself is likely to be costly because what did we say in the prayer time in the last remarks?

The last expression of God's grace for apostasy before judgment falls is the sending of the prophetic word. And it's not only the word that is rejected, it's the man who bears the word. The way in which the word is rejected is by rejecting the man.

Finding fault with the man, with the messenger, so that you are justified in rejecting of him, in rejecting the word. So your own person comes up for grabs. You're not some antiseptic conveyor of a word.

What you are in yourself is totally one with the word itself. And if the word suffers rejection, you will suffer rejection. Can you bear that? If you can't bear that, you're not likely to be obedient to bring a word that will occasion that rejection.

So all of us want to be approved, especially with those whom we love and whom we have known over a length of years, as was true in this case with this brother. So there's a remarkable tension when there's a tear between personal affection and obedience to God.

To whom and to what will you defer in the critical moment is the issue of your prophetic character out of a school of obedience, knowing that it will not be understood and that it will be looked upon scandalously as being, I'm trying to find the word, arrogance, that's the word.

Your Jewish pride, your Jewish flesh, well that's the way it will appear. And maybe it will take the day of eternity to reveal the truth of that situation. And I'm not saying that my perspective is that truth, but it's worth putting out for us to examine.

And I'm willing to be corrected where, in fact, I may well have missed it. Because the possibility of having missed it is always with us in every situation. And that's the tension that we have to bear on every occasion.

The Weight and Significance of the Prophetic Word

You're called to speak. The moment has come. You're on the spot. So there's no question. And you know it, of course, in your own prayer, in your own preparation. I mean, where did that word come from?

You've been looking to the Lord, because you have a prophetic fancy that this is a once and for all time that will not be given again. That the stakes are enormous, not only for the immediate congregation before you, but the word that will go out through the taping of that, or the publication of that word, will have a circulation to the church at large.

So the heightened moment is enormous. This is not an exaggeration where you're pumping yourself up to think that you are so significant, that this word is just the nature of the thing. It doesn't exalt you, it humbles you.

If this is more than just the immediate congregation, and it's an issue of the word on time for the church, is it that word? Where did you find it? How did you obtain it? How did the invitation come? How was the occasion itself given?

There's a remarkable heightened sense of significance, which is common to both prophets and apostles, who look upon every act as being an act of ultimate consequence. And that's the way in which the church itself should perceive its own life.

That every act, every obedience, every coming together like these very days, a Sunday service, a Bible study, there's no such thing as ordinary or routine, but everything is heightened because of the enormous significance in perceiving that reality as once and for all, not to be given again, and the effect of it.

And that's why Paul says frequently, who is sufficient for these things? The fact that we don't say it indicates that we have not prophetic seeing. We have not an apostolic and prophetic consciousness and mindset that sees the enormous significance of all of our days and of our acts.

So that needs to be restored to the church, because to see life like that is really to see. That's what makes life significant, and it's for the want of significance that men are dying and finding spurious alternatives that will crunch them and kill them.

God has made us for significance, and our failure in the church is to see it for ourselves. How shall we communicate it to the world? So true prophetic and apostolic men, and a church of that kind, sees everything in that heightened way.

It's not an exaggeration, because that's the way that God sees it. And those who have heard this before from me, it's worth repeating. Reading on an airplane one day, time loose, we've got to figure out what magazine, an article on economics, where the economist, the secular worldly man says, we have come to a point in the world where anything that happens anywhere affects everything everywhere.

He was speaking about economics. I thought, wow. I don't know if I had my seatbelt on, I would have gone right through the floor. If a secular worldly man sees that about the world and economics, how ought we to see the reality of the spiritual world?

If anything that happens anywhere, in Timbuktu or La Porte, Minnesota, affects everything everywhere. Even if that were not so, it would do us well to believe that it's so. Because that means then, the deepest kind of prayer, intercession, preparation, attention to our character and our life, the willingness to be exhorted, rebuked, corrected, because we know that what issues from us is so critical.

Are you following me? Okay. Let's look in Deuteronomy 13 at the significance of the prophet to an Israel coming into Canaan civilization and culture that had its false prophets, its diviners, its occultic practices, which were powerful and enticing and seductive, that Israel not be sucked into that vortex and be corrupted by it, and that God's alternative to diviners and men who traffic in dark spirits is prophetic truth, the prophetic word.

So from verse 29 of Deuteronomy 12,. And the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in the land, take heed to thyself, that thou be not snared, and follow them, after that they be destroyed from before thee, and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods?

Even so will I do likewise. Because the serving of their gods was the issue of fertility, fruitfulness, productivity from the soil, the increase of their livestock. They bowed to the gods of fertility.

And one of the great idols was the Asher, which is the symbol or the picture of a penis, the object of fertility. And the goddesses, the whole sexual knit of pagan practice is the appeal to the gods of fertility to bless their fields and bless their livestock, that they might prosper by condescending to these gods with fear and to placate them, and listening very much to their fortune tellers and diviners, so as not to offend these gods, so as to enjoy the blessing of fruitfulness.

That's the context into which Israel is brought. And it's a powerful temptation. God is saying, even though you have physically judged them, you've been the rod of my judgment, don't take up their practice.

You'll be very much tempted to do so and worship false gods. Later on, we read a false prophet is one who induces you to turn from the God of Israel to other gods, to false gods. And by the way, that can be done even with the name of Jesus.

In fact, that may be the most subtle form of idolatry and false gods. When we are induced to some deity that is coined out of the imagination of a man or out of his soul and out of his ambition and is labeled with the name Jesus.

The unwary and the undiscerning can be sucked into another god that would bears that name. So thou shall not do so unto the Lord thy God for every abomination to the Lord, which he hates. Have they done unto their gods for even their sons and their daughters, they have burned in the fire to their gods.

One of the great later judgments of Israel is going into temple prostitutes and activating again. Canaanite pagan practice and worship that employs temple prostitutes, both male and female. That Israelites were doing so was a great offense to God and brought down judgments of an ultimate kind.

After they had been warned by the prophets against it. So what thing soever I command you in verse 32 observe to do, thou shalt not add to, thereto nor diminish from it. And then chapter 13, of course, is a continuation.

We know that other gods, which thou hast not known and let us serve them. Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God proves you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Let's just pause there and ponder this timeless admonition. It's remarkable that God will even allow false prophets to promote false gods. So as to test the people of God as to whether or not they love the Lord their God with all their heart and all their soul.

And if that was true then, is it true now? It doesn't mean that they are apparently false. It means that they seem to have all the marvels, all the cards. They're making accurate prediction in many cases and it's accompanied by signs and wonders.

So if you want to be easily impressed, there it is. But the object of their conduct is to move Israel from the worship of its own God to that of false deities. And it may well be that the false prophet does not even know that he's false and does not even know that that is the consequence of his influence.

And that makes the issue yet more complicated. It's not good guys and bad guys. It's guys who don't even know what they are affecting. And if that was true then, it raises the question, is it equally true now?

And are there men who purport to be prophets, think themselves so, are applauded as such, are speaking in compelling ways, even making predictions that give every impression of fulfillment and indeed perhaps may be fulfilled, because there are certain things that you can predict without being a prophet.

As for example, the collapse of the American economy, or a Middle East war, or the rise of Islam. You don't have to be a prophet. Commentators in the world have more acute observation and understanding of those things, often than the church.

So the fact that one can recite that is not an authorization of his prophetic credential. But that God will allow the entire phenomenon to test his people, to see whether they will be attracted and run after such, is a remarkable provision from God.

Tony, how does loving the Lord with all your heart and all your soul constitute a provision against being influenced or seduced by false prophets? That's what the text implies. I'm giving you this test to see whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.

Because if you don't, you'll be drawn off and be attracted to follow after those that are false, who are saying ostensibly the right thing, but the ultimate end of it is to be drawn away from the God who is God, to a God who is not.

Answer me that. I've never before considered this text. I've never before gone so far back in the origin of the prophetic call as God's provision against Canaanite-ish false influences as I'm doing now.

This is what I got from getting up at midnight to shut the windows from the rain coming in, and then finding myself awake and alert and looking at certain things which we are now sharing. So I'm asking the question, not to tease you, but because I myself don't know.

Look at that here. Thou shalt not hearken unto the words in verse 3 of chapter 13 of that prophet or that dreamer who dreams. For the Lord your God proves you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

You shall walk after the Lord your God, walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice. You shall serve him and cleave unto him. That raises the whole question of why a false god would even be desirable when there's access and availability to the God who is true.

What is it about false gods that could be a seductive draw even to the people of Israel? A false god serves the interest of man and a true god requires the service of himself. A false god is for man's own bidding.

To make a name for oneself and to gratify oneself is to create a deity that placates and serves your ends. To make a name for yourself and to serve yourself. But the true God requires the service to him.

Remember the cry of Moses to the Pharaoh, let my people go that they might serve me. Worship is service. It's not a mere acknowledgement of a deity in a respectful way. It's the totality of one's life for another who is God and deserves the full total recognition and submission of what he has created unto himself.

False gods are for the purposes of man. The true God is for his own purpose. So men will create deities that serve their purpose. Can you do that with Jesus or that word and make of him an errand boy serving your purpose and bringing your security and seeing to your marriage, to your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your health.