Deuteronomy 13:6-11 Bible Study | Episode 893

March 12, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy 13:6-11  Bible Study | Episode #893

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Deuteronomy, chapter 13. Now this is dealing with being led astray, led away from God's word. That's, that's basically what it's about. If you're, if you're looking at it in one of your Bibles, it might say something about punishing the apostates or apostasy or something like that. And what is apostasy? That means apostate is. Apohistamite, means to turn away. Turn away from God, turn away from what God's doing. Now in this passage, it's going to deal with people who come and tell you stuff that are against God's word. And it's going to use these phrases that you kind of get an understanding of. And I'm going to just give you a little primer on this. And, and, and this is about prophecy. Now when I say the word prophecy to you, you think of foretelling the future. Thus saith the Lord, meaning God says, this is what's going to happen. And let me say this in the Bible. The Bible is the book of the. Is the only spiritual book that God gives his signature. Other gods aren't able to do it like God can. God gives his signature and that he could say things that are going to happen thousands of years from now and they come true. He says, you know, this is going to happen in five or six hundred years later it happens. That's, that's, that's the sign of God. That is a real sign of God. Now the issue with the prophet is, is that they're not there anymore. And so nobody can go up to them and say, oh, you were right. And so in, in, in times like we live in today, you'll have the idea of prophecy coming from people and they'll say, thus saith the Lord. This is going to happen at this point in time, down the road, in the future. That is a form of prophecy. Okay, but prophecy is more the, the word prophecy. And in seminary they really had a hard time explaining this, and I don't know why they did. But maybe I wasn't even listening. Maybe I, maybe I just didn't have spiritual ears to hear in the sense of I was not in the place to understand this. But prophecy is the telling of spiritual truths to other people that can only be discerned, meaning the truth is discerned by the Holy Spirit, meaning it's discerned by us by using our spiritual relationship with God. That's the best way for me to describe it. And so the word prophecy is, is more broad an idea than just the idea of thus saith the Lord, you know, this is going to happen. And when this takes place and this takes place, then this, this and this is going to happen. That. It's, it's far more than that. Even though that is an important part of scripture. You know, Jesus. All the predictions about Jesus in the Old Testament, which was written at least 500 years, some of them as many as 1500 years before they happened, those foretellings, we've got the Book of the Revelation that was written over 2000 years ago. And many of the things that are in the Book of the Revelation are, are so clearly able to happen by the nations and nations that we didn't even know existed. And so those things are so important because God's saying, look, I'm telling you, I'm, I'm the author of time and space. I know how, I know how all this is going to happen. I, I planned this. I put this together. This is, this is a part of my divine conscious and my divine will. And so understanding that about God is important. But understand what prophecy is is really important. Okay? And so prophecy also comes. And there's going to be this other term that's used. Prophecy also comes in two different kind of forms. When you're saying this is going to happen in the future, you have prophet prophecies and you have dreams. And by the way, one of the great Old Testament prophets, Daniel, he has dreams or visions, and then he also has direct prophecies. And so understanding the difference between the two is really important. A prophet says, God said this is going to happen. Jeremiah is a great one, Elijah is a great one, that you, God comes out and he goes, these, this is going to take place. This is how it's going to take place. And it may even take place immediately Especially with Elijah, immediately after he says, immediately after what he says happens, happens. And so that's a, that's a direct prophecy. Thus saith the Lord, these things are going to happen, and they happen. A dreamer or a vision might be in, and especially in, in regard to the revelation, a vision may be that the person who God gives that information or understanding to, he, he, he, he, he sees it and he does the best way he can to explain what he sees, okay? And so that might be a situation where, you know, God gives, and by the way, in the New Testament, clearly in Scripture, God gives dreams. He gives, he gives people. He gives, he gives us the dreams. He allows us to, he allows us to see the dreams that people have. And you may, you may see a dream, you may, may come to the place where you actually see the dream. And, and you, you, you now know what's going on. You now know what's happening. And, and you, and you, you as you're, as you're seeing that dream, you're explaining it, but it just doesn't make sense. It just doesn't come about, you're sitting there going, I, I don't know what this is about. I, I, I'm not getting it, okay? And my, you might even be saying that about me right now. And so you, you just don't, you don't know. And the only way for that happen is the drink for time and, and, and history take place. And then you look back and go, oh, that makes perfect sense with what he said. And so a, a dream is different. Now. Jesus is called the prophet in, in the New Testament. And that, that is a reference to Jesus being, well, it's, it's, it's a reference to Jesus being the, the one who was to come in place of Moses. And you go, well, was Moses a prophet? Yeah, he's a prophet. And did he do some prophesying? Sure he did. But, but the main thing Moses did was he gave us spiritual truths that were only able to be discerned by God, spiritually giving them to us. And so when you stand up and you give truth to someone and it's spiritually understood and it spiritually changes who they are, that is called prophecy also. Okay? And that is one of the methods of prophecy in the New Testament. So you have dreams, you have thus saith the Lord, and then you have someone who gets up and they give you God's word in such a way that it opens your mind up to the big things. You're able to see things about God through His word. That is very important. Now you go, Pastor, you went through a whole lot there. Well, I did because I wanted you to understand what was going on in this passage. Because it says, if there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer. Now he's using the term, the terminology here of prophet to mean someone who says, thus saith the Lord, this is going to happen. Or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, meaning he tells you something that's going to happen and it happens, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass. That's what he says 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 the prophet or the dreamer, dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. Now you're going, what is he talking about? Well, what he's saying is, is if someone comes to you and says that. That thus saith the Lord, or, I've had this dream and that dream, or that thus saith the Lord is clearly out of line with what Moses has already told him. Okay? It's out of line with God's word. If that happens and there's something somebody comes and says to you that's clearly out of line with God's word. Even if it were to come true, still don't follow them, in fact, have nothing to do with them. In fact, he says, you shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him, and keep his commandments and obey his voice. You shall serve to him and hold fast. And you shall hold fast to what I'm telling you. But the prophet of the dreamer of the dream shall be put to death because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage to entice you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. You shall put away the evil from your midst. What he's saying is there is a possibility that people could come along and tell you certain things. And you go, well, how do you know that? Well, remember, we live in a physical world, that there's a spiritual aspect to it. I hate to say a spiritual aspect, that the spiritual world is the dominant world. And remember, there's spiritual things are going on all around you, and they're evil forces. There's the demonic and the fallen angels and Those demons and fallen angels, they know things. They know things way more than you do, and they've been around a whole lot more than you do. And they watch and they're able to see and, and let me tell you something. You can know a whole lot about a person just by watching them and how they interact with things. And so there's a lot of situations that happen that you could foretell if you just watch somebody enough. Like, you might say, like somebody might go to a palm reader, a divine. A divine. Or someone who is, you know, involved in the dark arts. And, and they, they look at your palm and you know you've been flirting with someone that's not your spouse. And, and they know that. And they say you've got a new relationship. And that new relationship is going to blossom into the most important relationship of your life. And what are they doing? They're telling you something they've been watching you do for the last, you know, three, four months. And they realize that your, your, your interest in that relationship is growing, growing, growing, and they're pushing you toward it. And you think, well, they're just, they're, they're. They must be speaking from God because I, what they said is actually coming true. And what they're doing is. They're just, they're, they're just figuring out the direction you're heading in and then putting, putting their emphasis on it to let you believe that they, they know the future. And what they're telling you to do is clearly out of line with God's word. Because, you know, obviously we're, we're to stay in that covenant relationship, that covenant marriage relationship with our spouse, if at all possible. There's, there's, there's. The Bible speaks about some things that, you know, are reasons why you might not stay in that relationship, but all of it is, is not from God. The reasons why you might not stay in the relationship are not godly reasons. They're not good things. They're terrible things. And so you're being led astray from God's word by a diviner or a dreamer or a prophet. And where are the prophecies coming from? Where? They're coming from the enemy. They're not coming from God. They're coming from the enemy. And so understanding this is an important idea, okay. Because there's lots of things going on out there. And so how do we deal with this? How do we work this out in our head? Well, it's kind of easy. It's not real hard. First of all, whenever you have a prophet or a dreamer, you got to marry up what they say with God's word. If it's not in line with God's word, if it's clearly out of line with God's word, you have nothing to do with them. In fact, in the Old Testament, they would have killed him. If it's clearly out of line with what God has already given us, then we move away from it. And then you go, well, then what do you do later? Well, with a prophet, meaning somebody who's saying that thus saith the Lord, this is going to happen. If that doesn't happen, happen, have nothing to do with them. They say this is going to happen, you know, next week or in the next year, this is going to go on. And it doesn't exactly happen because God said that this is exactly what's going to happen and you got nothing to do with them. Then if you have a dreamer and they see a dream and they give you what they understood the dream was, they just describe it to you. And the dream is kind of like what happened. But there's some clear problems, there's some clear conflicts with what they say they saw and what actually took place. We have nothing to do with them either. Now you have somebody says, thus saith the Lord, and it's quite clearly in line with God's will. They say, you know, this is going on in your life and God's taking you through this struggle and he's going to. These things are going to happen down the road for you and they're signs that God is at work in your life and that you should serve him and you should do this. And those things happen. Well, they probably are operating in profit in the thus sayeth the Lord prophet mode. Or if somebody has a dream and the dream clearly came true exactly like they said, and that's the source of encouragement or leads you to see God's Word from a new and powerful way. And it encourages to walk by faith. Well, that's probably someone who got a dream from God. Or if somebody speaks from God's word and it opens your eyes to things that are going on in your life and it changes the way you view the world, change the way you see things. Well, they're probably giving you prophecy too. And, and you should hear what God says from His Word and make it a part of your life. So if you really think about it, if you really kind of consider these things and work them out in your head, before you know it, you're watching them and you're Looking at him and you're going, oh, that's how that works. And it takes a lot of the mystery out of it. It's not mystical, by the way. God's not into mystical, okay? He's not into hiding things. If he had some. He just directly tells you, I'm not telling you that right now. Jesus did that. God did that in Revelation, chapter nine. I mean, he does that. I'm not telling you that right now. I'll tell you that in the future. Or that's not for you to know right now. God's not into mysteries. God's into revelation. He's in the revelation revealing himself to you. And so if you have somebody come with a prophecy and it's clearly from God, then boom, get into it. And if you have somebody has a dream and it's clearly from God, then, you know, you need to listen to that person. And if you have somebody come to you and brings you anything that's clearly out of line with God's word, whether it be them speaking spiritual truths, are they giving you a thus saith the Lord, or they're telling you a dream or vision, and it's clearly out of line with God's word, have nothing to do with them. Don't let those things lead you astray. And that's how you handle it. It's kind of how you deal with it. And that's a great way to deal with it. And it's a godly way to deal with it. And it is the biblical way.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.