Deuteronomy chapter 13
This chapter was part of the Bible reading schedule for today as set down in Robert Murray M‘Cheyne’s Bible Reading Calendar.
The date of the warnings issued in this chapter is just prior to Israel’s crossing of the Jordon and entering the ‘Promised Land’.
The Lord is frequently given to repeating Himself. He repeated the promise of His blessing upon them, reminding them of His mercy and grace toward their fathers and the generations which followed. They will be brought into the ‘land flowing with milk and honey’. He also repeats His warning about disobedience and straying from His Word. Both of these matters God’s people are prone to forget, especially the latter matter.
Of course, it was not just the Israelites who tended to forget the command that God has issued to us all: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” Exodus 20:3.
The history of the people of God in this New Testament era is just as marked by departure and spiritual delinquency as was any generation of the Old Testament saints.
The professing people of God in the Old Testament ended their era with a total rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ, their Messiah.
Peter made that plain to the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.
“The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses,” Acts 3:13-15.
That age ended in the same manner as will this present age! ‘Christendom’ as the body of professing Christians today are often labelled, will end up rejecting Christ to the same degree as did the Jewish race back in the early years of this epoch.
The spirit of apostasy that gripped and dominated Israel and resulted in the crucifixion of the Saviour, will in like manner grip the ‘professing church of Christ’ in the last days and the Lord Jesus, as He is revealed in Holy Scripture, will be utterly repudiated.
Outbreaks
There have been many ‘outbreaks’ of this foul spiritual disease from the days of the apostle right up until this present day. What Jude had to warn of was not something that was exclusive to the people he addressed in his epistle.
“Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ,” Jude 1:3-4.
All of the apostles, who under God, authored epistles, warned of those who sought to infiltrate the ranks of God’s people and corrupt them and destroy the Gospel witness.
Paul in particular gives us a warning of the great departure of the latter days.
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away,” 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
Repeat
The warning can never be over emphasised and ought to be repeated frequently by God’s faithful servants.
What prominence is given by a supermarket to a warning about an item of food on their shelves that has been discovered to be contaminated!
A warning of the danger of poisoning needs to emphasised and repeated but how much more necessary is the highlighting of that which deceivers have labelled ‘good’ but which in fact will damn the soul in hell of those who embrace and partake of the lie of the devil!
It may be seen in the Bible, that the corrupted system of religion, which today may well be branded ‘Ecumenical Christianity’, will continue to the end of this age and even at the very eve of the termination of this age, foolish believers will still be found within its ranks.
In the close of this age, ‘Babylonism’ will become the title of the religious rebellion against the Lord that today’s ‘Ecumenism’ is the fast developing ‘embryo’!
Consider this ‘last minute’ call to some of His people by the Lord.
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her,”Revelation 18:4-8.
I am always amazed when I read those words and wonder how a true believer can be found in the midst of Babylonian wickedness even on the day when the judgment of God falls upon that rebuilt city of rebellion?
Same spirit
But then we see that same latter-day spirit of stupid obstinacy amongst God’s people today. It is displayed by those Christians who refuse to heed God’s call to separate from that corrupt ‘Christianity’, which has embraced every vile innovation of a society ripening for God’s wrath.
Abortion, sodomy, transgenderism, adultery, thievery and ‘every unclean bird’ is to be found within the ranks of those apostate ‘churches’ which many Christians insist on remaining within.
We see that spirit at work amongst the ranks of those who profess to have obeyed the call of God to separate but who like Lot’s wife of old, ‘look back’ toward that from which God calls His people out of!
It is said of Lot’s wife that she “looked back from behind him,” Genesis 19:26. It was a sneaky, sly look, performed behind her husband’s back with a desire that her longing to be back be hidden from Lot.
There are those in pew and pulpit who are possessed of the same ‘sleekitness’. They profess to be, like Lot’s wife, accompanying those who have separated from that condemned of God, but repeatedly show an inclination and a disposition to mingle with those who are in disobedience to God and who have remained in ’Sodom’!
Only those wilfully blind fail to see them in our midst!
Deter
The fate of Lot’s wife, which we have been commanded by the Saviour to remember — “Remember Lot’s wife,” Luke 17:32 — ought to be more than a deterrent to those foolish enough to entertain desires to join the ranks of disobedient and foolish ‘evangelicals’!
This chapter 9 of Deuteronomy, is divided into three sections in which the warning against straying away from the Lord and His commandments is set in three different scenarios in which the like could happen. Let me highlight them quickly.
I. THE RISING UP OF AN INDIVIDUAL FALSE PROPHET.
“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; 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. Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee,” verses 1-5.
Please note:
- One individual can be a source of great danger and threat to God’s people.
- Such an individual can put on an impressive display which may greatly impress the naive.
- The Lord permits such deceivers to arise in order to test His people’s obedience and love of Him and His Word.
- Such a deceiver is to be utterly rejected. In the days of the Old Testament theocracy, that meant death. Today, we are not command to execute such but to SEPARATE from them.
“Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them,” Ephesians 5:6-11.
II. THE SECRET ENTICEMENT OF A FAMILY MEMBER
Please note:
“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you,” verses 6-11.
- Our nearest and dearest can be a source of error and sin!
- Such attempts bear all the likeness of the devil’s methods of corrupting believers.
“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works,” 2 Corinthians 11:13-15.
- Temptations to depart from God’s Word, which come from sources such as these, will test our love for God whether or not it is our chief love!
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me,” Matthew 10:34-37.
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple,” Luke 14:26.
The Lord must come first in our lives, as difficult asthat is at times!
- Again, the rejection of such a deceiver was to be complete. The crime is very great in the eyes of the Lord!
“But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage,” verses 9-10.
- Such obedience of God’s Word will have a most beneficial impact on all who hear.
“And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you,” verse 11.
III. A LARGER REBELLION IS TO BE LIKEWISE OPPOSED.
“If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying, Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known; Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you; thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again. And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers; When thou shalt 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,” verses 12-18.
Please note:
- Rumours of wrong-doing are not to be ignored! “If thou shalt hear . . . ,” verse 12.
- Rather, they are to be thoroughly investigated. “Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently,” verse 14.
It is not to be ignored by the leaders and ‘the matter swept under the carpet’, as is often the case in churches when the offender is a prominent person, or a friend or a neighbour of those charged with the task of enquiring and searching!
- Again, the matter was so serious a threat to the wellbeing of the nation, there had to be no sparing of the offenders! “Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword,” verse 15.
- Nothing of those who were guilty of rebellion against the Lord was to remain. “And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again. And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers; When thou shalt 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,” verses 16-18.
- The future wellbeing of the Gospel cause depends upon such diligent obedience to the Lord. “That the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers; when thou shalt 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,” verses 17-18.
This is the Law which was taught by the Saviour and His apostles to the first generation of Christians. If we today would enjoy 1st Century Pentecostal power and blessing, then these same truths must be embraced and preached and obeyed without fear or favour within our Free Presbyterian Church.
May the Lord grant that there will be a returning to such submission and heeding of God’s blessed Word for the sake of this and the next generation.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
Wednesday 10th June, 2026