April 27, Ezekiel 13
”Have you not seen a false vision and uttered a lying divination, whenever you have said, 'Declares the LORD,' although I have not spoken?" - Ezekiel 13:7
You probably know of some people in our day who are like the false prophets God addressed through Ezekiel in Chapter 13. Some of them are preachers or religious leaders who tell people what they want to hear. Some politicians will do the same thing to get elected and then repeat the process to stay in office. And you've almost surely seen the signs advertising palm readers and psychics along the roads leading into most cities.Those people are the modern day descendants of the women God charged with prophesying falsehood and practicing the dark arts. They did these things to gain control over others and to profit from people who would pay them for their fabricated powers and messages.
Whether in our day or back in Ezekiel's time, God is displeased and angry at people who presume to speak in his name what he has not spoken. These charlatans led people away from God by their lies and their offers of secret information about the unknown future from sources other than God. The source of their information was wrong; it came from their own imaginations. Their message was wrong; they promised peace when no peace was coming. The outcome of their work was wrong; the lives and divinations led their hearers to unprepared ruin when disaster came. And their motives were wrong; they were not interested in helping people. They told their lies to gain control over people and to rob them of their resources.
The prophetess practiced her dark arts for profit. Their witchcraft disheartened the righteous and encouraged the wicked.
These false prophets made Ezekiel's challenge even more difficult than it already was. It was not easy to tell hardhearted people with closed eyes and ears a message they did not want to hear. The false prophets confused and misled gullible people by stamping their words with a counterfeit "Thus says the LORD." Their deception made it easier for people to listen to what they wanted to hear, and reject what they needed to hear.
Paul warned Timothy about these matters in New Testament days. He told him that people would follow teachers who said what they wanted to hear. In doing so, their teachers would turn them away from the truth.
The situation has not changed in the world today. Truth, especially convicting, rebuking truth is unpopular. So some people are willing to tell others they don't really have to repent (change) to follow Christ. They offer and endorse a variety of ways to eternal life instead of unapologetically proclaiming Jesus as the only Savior. They give their hearers false confidence by telling them that a profession of faith is all God requires to be saved.
People have been curious about the future and the unknown for a long, long time. Witchcraft and divination were already widely practiced when God gave Moses and Israel the law at Mt. Sinai.
God said these misleading leaders left the people unprepared for the disaster that was coming to them because of their disobedience. He said the false teachers' words were like whitewash on an unstable wall that did nothing to strengthen it. When the storm came, the Lord warned that the whitewashed wall and those who had whitewashed it would fall. The lying prophets did nothing to build or strengthen the people. Their lies only pacified and deceived those who listened to them.
None of us are invulnerable to the deceptive messages that still swirl around us today. It's easier to believe a soft lie than hard truth. We are curious about things beyond our understanding. But when we sanctify the Lord in our hearts as God alone and when we will accept no substitutes for God's word as our guide, he will protect us from falsehood that ends in destruction. Like all his laws, the commands to love him supremely and worship him only, are for our good.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—April 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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