April 2004
Page 1 - How Humility Helps Defuse Adversity By C. Peter Wagner
Page 2 - Momentum of the Spirit By Dan Siemens
Page 3 - Questions & Answers - Equipping Conference Pastors’ Lunch with Jack Deere
Questions & Answers - Equipping Conference Pastors’ Lunch
with Jack DeereQ. We’re not sure if there are prophets in the biblical sense that we understand as prophets. If a prophet in the Old Testament spoke a prophetic word and it didn’t come true, you would stone that person to death as a false prophet. Can you speak to that a little bit?
A. I’m going to take a little bit different view. I used to hold that very view right there, that if a prophet misstepped or misspoke himself he got stoned and, of course, it’s based on Deuteronomy 18: 15-21. But a really careful reading of that passage doesn’t indicate that that prophet is going to be stoned, or that any prophet is going to be stoned for a misstep. Maybe it would be good just to turn there and look at this because I think what this passage is used for sometimes is to disqualify everyone from prophetic ministry. I mean, if that’s what this passage meant, it would be the only ministry, the only gift in all the Bible and all of history where you’re not allowed a single mistake. And who wants to sign up for that? Not anybody with just a modicum of sanity left would want to sign up for a ministry like that. I can’t think of any analogy where any of us could grow or progress in anything if we weren’t permitted to make a mistake.
Deuteronomy 18:15 reads, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me.” And here’s the key to the passage: He’s not speaking about an unbroken line of prophets, some of whom will just be anonymous in the school of prophets in the Old Testament. He’s not talking about every prophet that’s to come. This is a major prophecy: a prophet like me. Moses was not just someone who was prophetically gifted. Moses was a theocratic mediator; he was a figure of Christ. He stood between God and the people when the mountain was smoking that day and the people said, “We can’t approach Him. You go hear what He says and say His words to us.” And the Lord says, “That’s good; what they said is good.” So when we’re talking about a prophet like Moses, we’re talking about a theocratic mediator, the lawgiver. In secular terms, if you’re a historian, you’d say he’s the founder of Israel’s religion. At the end of Deuteronomy, when it comes time to write his obituary in Deuteronomy 34, the author of that obituary is careful to say, “There has no prophet arisen since like Moses.” It was still unfulfilled. They’re thinking this was a prophet about someone of Moses’ stature. And that’s serious because when Miriam gets ticked off at Moses and says, “Who are you? Does the Lord only speak through you?” all of a sudden the Lord comes down and He says, “Miriam, that’s not just your little brother anymore. He is the one guy on the face of the earth I speak with face to face.” And Miriam gets leprosy. You don’t get to challenge Moses. Maybe his opinion about the ballgame or something, but you don’t get to challenge him about what God says, or the core of the earth opens up. So when he says, “a prophet like me,” he’s talking about that kind of prophet. Deut. 18: 15 goes on: “From among your own brothers, you must listen to him.” You don’t get an option. You have to listen to him.
Continuing in Deuteronomy: “For this is what you ask of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said ‘Let us not hear the voice of the Lord, our God, or see this great fire any more or we will die'. Then the Lord said to me: ‘What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; I will put my words in his mouth and he will tell them everything I command.’ ” We’re not talking about an anonymous prophet in the school of prophets or one of the minor prophets. We’re talking about a national leader of God’s people. Verse 19: “If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I Myself will call him to account.” That’s what happened with Moses. “But a prophet who presumes to speak in My name anything I’ve not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death.” I don’t think in this context He’s talking about somebody making a mistake. He’s talking about someone who presumes to this office—the office of theocratic mediator. Verse 21: “You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?’ If what a prophet has spoken in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Don’t be afraid of him.” So he’s kind of giving a general rule about prophets. There is no other text in the Old Testament that says you kill a prophet when he makes a mistake. This is the only candidate for that kind of text. Secondly, there is no example in all of Old Testament history of them ever killing a prophet because he made a mistake. That shows us they didn’t understand the text that way.
Now, we do have an example of a prophet making a mistake. This is in II Samuel 7 where David says to Nathan, “I’m going to build a house for the Lord.” And what does Nathan say? “Go and do all that is in your heart for Yahweh will bless you.” So Nathan starts walking out of the house and the Lord speaks to Nathan. It’s like the Lord says, “Nathan, what did you just say? He can’t build a house. He’s got blood on his hands! You get back in there and tell him he can’t build a house.” So Nathan has to go back and say, “Oops, sorry boss. The Lord says you can’t build a house after all.” Now, he spoke in the name of the Lord and gave a wrong word. He said, “The Lord Yahweh will bless you.” So somebody says, “That was just Nathan’s advice.” Yeah, like David went to Nathan asking him for advice. That’s what you do, right? You go to prophets and ask them for their opinion. No! You go to prophets and ask them for the word of the Lord, right? And he’s speaking in the name of the Lord and telling David to do something that was totally wrong, that the Lord didn’t say. So, what happens? The Lord corrects Nathan. David does not say, “Nathan, it’s been a good ride, but sorry. You know, you’re going to have to go before the stoning squad.” He doesn’t say that. Why? Because Deuteronomy 18 was not written about a prophet who makes a mistake, especially a prophet who’s following the Lord.
Another thing that we ought to learn, or know for sure, a false prophet is not someone who makes a mistake. A false prophet, and this comes out of Jude, II Peter 2, as well as looking at Old Testament prophets: false prophets are unbelievers who use a gift, a real revelatory gift, to lead people after other gods. And in the New Testament, especially, to lead them into sexual immorality. And false prophets always deny cardinal doctrines of the faith. But they have power and they’re so winsome and charming initially at the onset that it is hard to see that denial. They’re very tricky. And that’s why the New Testament says you will discover them by discernment more than by doing a doctrinal questionnaire.
Then when you come to the New Testament, I Corinthians 14:29 says when the prophet gets up and speaks in the church, let the others judge. Let the others discern. And this is a word that doesn’t mean let the others interpret. It means, “Is this from the Lord? How much of this is from the Lord? Is this a mixture, or is this incorrect?” Now, if prophets couldn’t make a mistake, you’d never have anyone saying, “Let others judge the prophetic word.”
The last point to make about this is that in Acts 3 and Acts 7 and John 1 the classic interpretation of this passage in Deuteronomy was that “the prophet” referred to the Messiah. That’s what the Jews say when they come to John the Baptist. They say, “Are you the Prophet?” He says, “No, I’m not.” And when you come to Acts 3 and Acts 7, they all, including Peter and Steven, interpret this as referring to the Messiah. It was a prophecy of the ultimate theocratic mediator. Not a statement about how God is going to treat an unbroken line of prophets until they’re all over.
This is an excerpt transcribed from the “Question and Answer” time with Jack Deere at the Pastors’ Lunch of the Equipping Conference, February 19-20, 2004. To order the complete tape, please use the back page of this newsletter.
