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Thursday 4 August 2011

Deuteronomy 18 - Priests, Occult and Prophets

The priests were to be wholly devoted to God and utterly dependent upon Him. Therefore they did not have an allotment or inheritance in Israel. The Lord Himself was to be their inheritance. How does this apply to us? We believe in the priesthood of all believers. We share in an inheritance with Christ. But we are also the true Israel. In the present time we kind of straddle the two. So there will be times when we are utterly dependent upon God, when His only provision to us will be Himself, but these times will not be continuous. There will be times when we do have goods and provision in a more normal form (still provided by God, but in a more tangible way). The rest of the people were to provide for the Levites. In the same way, the congregations should provide for the "full time" Christian workers.
They were to having nothing at all to do with any occult practices. Verse 10 shows us one of the reasons for this, these things were often associated with child sacrifice. Indeed, these things were one of the reasons that the Lord was driving out the current inhabitants of the land. Now someone might say that these practices are no longer associated with child sacrifice. However, they do no good at all. Horoscopes, fortune telling, mediums etc will not do you any good.
Moses knew that a prophet would come who was like him, but greater. He is the one we must listen to. The instruction "you must listen to him" adds poignancy to the words from God to Jesus, "this is my Son, listen to Him".
Earlier we had a test of a prophet was that if he tempted people away from the Lord he was not a true prophet, even if what he predicted came true. We now get a second test. If he speaks in the name of the Lord , then the test is whether or not what he says comes true.
So a prophet must have two key features:
1. Devotion to Christ
2. Accuracy.

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