Deuteronomy 13 - False Prophets and Idolaters | Bible Podcast, David Alley, Peace Christian Church

In this video listen to Deuteronomy 13 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer.In Deuteronomy 13 this whole chapter is about things which try to lead the Israelites away from God. Firstly a false prophet giving signs. It's not remarkable that a false prophet performs a sign. This is not just an OT thing, because we see it in the NT too, as part of the warnings in Matt 24 and elsewhere.The truth is the truth regardless of signs. THen relatives who try to lead you astray. It was the death penalty in all these situations. Clearly this is serious. From an eternal perspective, this is exactly what happens to those who advocate turning away from God. As shocking as it seems to some today, it's a window into reality.Finally on a more corporate level, if a city has turned away, the entire city had to be removed. The entire chapter is very strong about destroying the source that tries to lead you away from Christ. Jesus figuratively said as much in the NT when he said, “if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” If there is an obvious source of apostasy in our lives, we need to remove ourselves from it.Is this chapter advice to attack our enemies? No Christ taught us to love them? How do we reconcile these differences? These types of chapters were in a context of an entire nation where God was the king. These were instructions as to the rule in a country. But it was also to teach us how seriously we must treat things which cause apostasy.Without this very firm boundary in place, we could never have come to the positions of grace and kindness which we have now. The truth is that without a firm commitment to God which is unshaking, we would never be able to love our enemies anyway.