Deuteronomy 13:3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul
No one likes a snitch, whether you are talking about a third-grader or someone at the office. No one likes someone who is a tattletale. However, if I am governed and guided by my fear of violating some unwritten code about snitches and tattletales, then what might happen is that I might let something that is wrong go unchecked.
At some point, the only counter to deceit is action. There is an entire chapter in Deuteronomy that basically addresses what you might call the snitch. The problem with using that word is that it automatically has a connotation. Any necessity or virtue can be turned on its head and be made a cartoon character of what it should be so that sometimes we allow wrong or evil because we don’t want to be the snitch. What is God’s ethic about this kind of thing?
Deuteronomy 13:1-2 says, “If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them…” He says, “Here is a prophet who gives a prediction that comes true.” The tendency would be to make the standard whether what he foretold happened or not when the real test is if he is speaking the truth about Jehovah. It goes on to say that he is to be treated very severely.
You absorb what you allow. This was a singular community in a land full of people who hated Jehovah, and they were doing what was wrong. What follows is Jewish civil law. I don’t think the takeaway is that we are to stone someone for speaking falsehood. However, you absorb what you allow. Your bias should be for God.
The entire point of Deuteronomy 13 is that we are to love God, walk after God, fear Him, keep His commandments, obey His voice, serve Him, and cleave unto Him. There is no difference between loving God and obeying Him. It is not one or the other, it is both/and. One indicates the other. If I love God, I am going to serve Him. If I serve God, I don’t want to do so without some heart for Him. So, your bias should be for God.
There are three examples of people who might turn your heart from God. First, there is a false prophet. It is easy to say, “Did what he say come true or not? The answer is that the metric should be your bias for God. Did he speak the truth of God or not? The reason God may even allow something to come to pass that a false prophet said is to prove and test you to know whether you love Him with all your heart and soul.
Second, there is a loved one, a brother or someone close. The ethic for us might be, “I like him.” Verse 6 says this is someone “which is as thine own soul,” yet the ethic is to be “thou shalt not consent…nor hearken unto him.” The right ethic is about whether what he says about God is true or not. It is not about if you love the person or if the prophecy came true. No, the ethic is if he speaks the truth about God.
Third, there are strangers, someone you don’t know, but who has gotten a following. The ethic might be to have bias either for or against him based on your ignorance. No, you are to inquire and make certain diligently and “behold, if it be truth.”
In each case, whether it is a prophet, someone you like, or someone you don’t know, the ethic is to be the same, “Is what they are saying about God true?” because God is concerned that we love Him and have a heart for Him. The bottom line is that you absorb what you allow. Any kind of social or moral change in a society follows the timeworn path where you allow, then you accept, then you are compelled to celebrate. Here is a society that is against something; they believe it is wrong. Then, over time, they allow it, then slowly they accept it, and then celebrate it, and then take a hammer to those who are against it because the whole ethic has changed.
The question for us ought to be, “What am I allowing in my heart and life?” What have I allowed this last week in the things that I hear, watch, and allowed myself to absorb? God is a merciful God, and the point is that we should “hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all His commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD thy God.”
What about you? What about your thoughts? It is easy to hear content and say, “That makes sense to me; that seems to work.” Even a broken clock is right twice a day. There are people who hate God and also say things that are true. If they say things that are true, all truth is God’s, and the reason that what they say is true is because in that particular instance it happens to agree with the Creator who made this universe. The universe works as it was created to work by God’s design. So, what am I allowing and therefore absorbing as to the way I think?
What about attitudes? Isn’t it amazing what offends us? Someone can blaspheme God and we don’t make any objection, but in Deuteronomy 13 God talks about dealing severely with such. We think, “What right does God have to do that?” Well, you are going to give somebody the right and there is no right or wrong if there is no God. So, you absorb what you allow.
What are your loyalties? The Israelites were coming into a land as a nation with their families and with a common God. At which point does your loyalty lie? It is wonderful when all these loyalties align; your land, your nation, your family, and your God. The point of Deuteronomy 13 is that God is to be our highest priority as to what we allow and absorb.
What about your ethics? The governing principle was to hearken to God and keep His commandments. Love Him and do what is right “in the eyes of the LORD thy God.” If I am doing what is right in my own eyes, that is chaos. If I am doing right in the eyes of the majority of the day, that may be cowardice, and it is not honestly following God. God is the one who created the universe and established right and wrong. God’s ethic is to be the ethic that governs me in my life. So, when things come up that are wrong, who speaks up? We should love as God loves us, and have the mind of Christ and the courage to speak up when something is going on that is not right, whether in your home, church, or work. Ask God to give you wisdom to know what is right and courage to do something about it because you will absorb what you allow.