“Why the Phonies?” FBC Morning Light (3/5/2024)

Well, a good Tuesday morning. Hope your week got off to a good start yesterday, and your month of March as well. How quickly time is flying, and speaking of time, of course, this Sunday already we spring ahead with our clocks and lose that precious hour of sleep Saturday night.

Oh, boy.

The Lord’s Requirements for Life

Well, anyway, today we're reading in our Bible reading, Deuteronomy chapters 12 through 14. I want to focus on the opening of chapter 13. Now, let's review a little bit from what we considered yesterday regarding the basic requirements that the Lord has for life.

What does the Lord require of you? Back in chapter 10 we saw, and we saw those five infinitives, these five things the Lord says to do, to fear Him, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve Him with all your heart and soul, and to keep His commandments.

Why God Allows False Prophets

All right? Now, keep that in mind, because we come to chapter 13, and the Lord talks about the arriving of a prophet or a dreamer of dreams. Have you ever wondered why there are so many looney-tune preachers out there?

The plethora of false teachers is just mind-boggling sometimes, and it can be very, very frustrating, because it's like every time you turn around there's some new person that comes on the scene that is spouting off some prophetic thing or some way of interpreting the Bible that you have to deal with.

Well, you ever wonder, why does God let these people exist? Why does He let them get a platform? Why is it that they become so popular and they get such a following? It just bothers you, doesn't it, sometimes?

When those who faithfully preach and teach God's Word and are true to it, they don't have these big mega-churches and big mega-followers of people, you say, well, why does God allow.

That?

God’s Test of Faithfulness in Deuteronomy 13

Well, here we get an answer in chapter 13 of Deuteronomy. So Moses says from the Lord, 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, and that's a little unsettling sometimes, isn't it?

Some prophet gives a sign or does some wonder, and you know his theology's off, but then this thing happens, and you're like, am I wrong? Is he right? Well, it goes on to say that the Lord says, you shall not, in verse 3, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing.

You.

He's putting you to the test. And here's the test. Will you meet those basic requirements that he established back in chapter 10? He says, you shall not listen to that, because the Lord is testing you to know whether you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, you shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice.

You shall serve him and hold fast to him. So there it is, there it is, this is why you have some of these prosperity gospel preachers and those who claim to have the gift of prophecy and can tell you what's going to happen in the next 10 years, and so on and so forth.

And this is why sometimes these false teachers and prophets and so forth, what they say actually comes to pass. The Lord's testing us. Are we going to hold to him? Are we going to hold fast to him? Are we going to serve him?

Are we going to obey him? Are we going to walk in his ways? Are we going to love him? Or are we going to follow after error? The Lord's putting us to a test. Let's make sure that, you know, when we're bombarded with all of the false teaching and the false prophecy and so on and so forth, that we, well, we pass the test.

A Prayer to Remain Faithful and Not Be Led Astray

Let's ask God to help us to do that. So our Father and our God, we do get frustrated sometimes by how many false teachers and prophets and so forth there are that confuse people and can lead so many people astray.

Lord, I pray that we would pass the test with these people and just be faithful to you, to love you, to serve you, to walk in your ways, to obey you, and not to be led astray. We pray in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen.

All right, well, listen, have a wonderful Tuesday. May the Lord bless you.

Good day.