Speaker 1: Four hundred men spoke in the name of God on
Speaker 1: the same day. All of them lied except one. Picture
Speaker 1: the scene. The gates of the city of Samaria are
Speaker 1: flung wide open. There is a threshing floor of packed
Speaker 1: earth right at the entrance, and there, on two thrones,
Speaker 1: raised side by side, sit two kings dressed in their
Speaker 1: royal robes. The sun catches the gold embroidery on their garments,
Speaker 1: and in front of them, in a semicircle, stand four
Speaker 1: hundred prophets, four hundred men who claim to hear the
Speaker 1: voice of Heaven, and they all say the same thing.
Speaker 1: They all promise victory. One of them has made with
Speaker 1: his own hands a pair of iron horns, and he
Speaker 1: lifts them over his head, and he shouts that with
Speaker 1: those horns the king will gore his enemies until they
Speaker 1: are finished. The crowd roars back. The air smells of
Speaker 1: sweat and certainty. Four hundred voices pushing in one direction,
Speaker 1: and then they bring in, almost by force, one more man,
Speaker 1: a prophet who had been locked away, a man the
Speaker 1: king hates, because in his own words, that man never
Speaker 1: announces anything good to him, only disasters. They set him
Speaker 1: before the thrones and this man alone, facing the four hundred,
Speaker 1: says exactly the opposite. He says, he sees the army
Speaker 1: scattered across the hills like sheep without a shepherd. He says,
Speaker 1: the king will not come back alive. The prophet with
Speaker 1: the iron horns steps up and slaps him across the
Speaker 1: face in front of every one, and the King orders
Speaker 1: that he be taken back to prison and fed bread
Speaker 1: of affliction and water of affliction until he the king,
Speaker 1: returns safe and sound from the war. Hold this scene
Speaker 1: in your hand for the next few minutes, because we
Speaker 1: are going to come back to this gate, to these
Speaker 1: two thrones, and to a single man locked in a cell.
Speaker 1: And I want to leave a question driven into you.
Speaker 1: If you had been standing there that day among the crowd,
Speaker 1: listening to four hundred confident men shout victory, and to
Speaker 1: a single one, beaten and hated announce death, whom would
Speaker 1: you have believed? How do you tell apart the one
Speaker 1: who speaks for God from the one who only says
Speaker 1: what you want to hear. Because this is not an
Speaker 1: ancient problem. The Bible warns about false prophets more often
Speaker 1: than most people imagine. It is in the law of Moses,
Speaker 1: it is in the prophets, it is on the lips
Speaker 1: of Jesus, it is in the letters of the Apostles.
Speaker 1: And against what many believe, Scripture does not ask us
Speaker 1: to place blind faith in any one who says, thus
Speaker 1: says the Lord. On the contrary, it gives us tools
Speaker 1: to test it. It gives us concrete criteria. To day.
Speaker 1: We are going to look at five of those criteria,
Speaker 1: and I want to be honest with you from the
Speaker 1: very first minute, because that is part of doing this right.
Speaker 1: The Bible does not can a chapter titled the Five
Speaker 1: Signs of the False Prophet like a numbered list. That
Speaker 1: arrangement into five points is mine a way of ordering
Speaker 1: for you what is scattered throughout the text. But each
Speaker 1: of the five signs, taken separately, comes straight from the
Speaker 1: pages of Scripture, with chapter and verse, and you will
Speaker 1: be able to check it for yourself. What we are
Speaker 1: about to do is honest. We are going to look
Speaker 1: the text in the eye, and let me give you
Speaker 1: three things in advance so you don't leave. The first
Speaker 1: one of these criteria completely contradicts what you probably believe
Speaker 1: about miracles. The second, we are going to meet a
Speaker 1: prophet whose prophecy did not come true, and who even
Speaker 1: so was not false, and understand why this is one
Speaker 1: of the finest and most overlooked points in the whole subject.
Speaker 1: And the third. At the end, we will return to
Speaker 1: that gate of Samaria, where a single arrow fired at random,
Speaker 1: without aim, without intention, will decide which of the prophets
Speaker 1: was right. Before we go on one thing. If this
Speaker 1: channel helps you read the Bible honestly, leave your like
Speaker 1: it tells YouTube to show this to more people who
Speaker 1: are looking for the truth. If this is your first time, welcome.
Speaker 1: If you keep coming back, thank you for trusting. And
Speaker 1: if in the end it wasn't worth it, you take
Speaker 1: it back, and that's that. Let's continue. The first sign
Speaker 1: is the most obvious, and for that very reason, the
Speaker 1: most misunderstood. The first sign is fulfillment. In the Book
Speaker 1: of Deuteronomy, in chapter eighteen, Moses faces a question the
Speaker 1: people were going to ask sooner or later. The question
Speaker 1: appears almost in these words, how will we know the
Speaker 1: word that the Lord has not spoken? How do we
Speaker 1: tell the true from the false? When someone stands before
Speaker 1: us and claims to speak for God? And the answer
Speaker 1: the text gives in verses twenty one and twenty two
Speaker 1: is brutally simple. If the prophet speaks in the name
Speaker 1: of the Lord, and what he said does not happen,
Speaker 1: does not come true, then that word did not come
Speaker 1: from God. The prophet spoke it out of arrogance. Stop
Speaker 1: on that last word, because it is the first of
Speaker 1: our words in the original language, and we are going
Speaker 1: to use several today, since the text in Hebrew and
Speaker 1: in Greek says things that translations sometimes soften. The Hebrew
Speaker 1: word behind arrogance or presumption is zaydon. Zaydan is not
Speaker 1: an innocent mistake. It is not someone who got it
Speaker 1: wrong in good faith. Zadan is arrogance, boldness, the nerve
Speaker 1: to place the name of God on top of your
Speaker 1: own words to give them weight. The impostor Deuteronomy speaks of,
Speaker 1: is not the one who is mistaken. He is the
Speaker 1: one who uses the name of God as a tool.
Speaker 1: And we have the perfect example because the Bible doesn't
Speaker 1: only give us the rule, it also so tells us
Speaker 1: the story where the rule is applied with chilling precision.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the Book of Jeremiah, chapter twenty eight.
Speaker 1: The people of Judah are under the shadow of Babylon.
Speaker 1: The Empire has already carried off captives, has already carried
Speaker 1: off treasures from the temple, and the threat of total
Speaker 1: destruction hangs in the air. In the middle of this, Jeremiah,
Speaker 1: the prophet, walks through Jerusalem with something strange on his shoulders,
Speaker 1: a wooden yoke, the kind put on oxen. He wears
Speaker 1: it as a living sign. The message is harsh. Submit
Speaker 1: to Babylon because God has decided this as judgment, and
Speaker 1: resisting will only make everything worse. It is a message
Speaker 1: no one wants to hear. And then another prophet appears
Speaker 1: named Hannaniah. Hannaniah also speaks in the name of the Lord,
Speaker 1: and his message is the exact opposite the message everyone wants.
Speaker 1: Within two years, he says, God will break the yoke
Speaker 1: of Babylon. The treasures will return, the captives will return,
Speaker 1: everything will be set right. And to make it clear,
Speaker 1: Hannanaiah grabs the wooden yoke off Jeremiah's neck and breaks
Speaker 1: it to pieces in front of all the people, and
Speaker 1: he says, this is how God will break the yoke
Speaker 1: of Babylon. Picture the moment the popular prophet has just
Speaker 1: broken with his own hands, the symbol of the uncomfortable message.
Speaker 1: The crowd must have roared. And notice what Jeremiah does.
Speaker 1: He does not shout, he does not defend himself. The
Speaker 1: text says that Jeremiah the prophet went his way, he left,
Speaker 1: he let time do the talking. Only later does he return.
Speaker 1: And then he pronounces the sentence you broke a wooden yoke,
Speaker 1: but God will put an iron one in its place.
Speaker 1: And he says to Hannanaiah, a sentence that pleases the blood.
Speaker 1: The Lord has not sent you, and you have made
Speaker 1: this people trust in a lie for that this very
Speaker 1: year you will die. And the text closes with a
Speaker 1: single line without ornament. And Hannanaiah the Prophet died that
Speaker 1: same year, in the seventh month, two months later. The
Speaker 1: word that does not come true exposes the liar. The
Speaker 1: word that comes true, even when it is a word
Speaker 1: of death, confirms the true one. But fulfillment on its
Speaker 1: own is a more complicated criterion than it seems. And
Speaker 1: here comes the first twist. I promised you, because there
Speaker 1: is a case that breaks the simple rule. What do
Speaker 1: we do with a prophet who announces something in the
Speaker 1: name of God and it does not happen, and yet
Speaker 1: he is not an impostor. Think of Jonah God sends
Speaker 1: him to the city of Nineveh with a one line message,
Speaker 1: in forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed, no conditions, no
Speaker 1: unless a sentence. And Nineveh was not destroyed. So, by
Speaker 1: the simple rule of Deuteronomy, was Jonah a false prophet?
Speaker 1: His word did not come true, And yet the Bible
Speaker 1: presents him as a true prophet, and Jesus himself cites
Speaker 1: him as a sign. The answer is a few chapters earlier,
Speaker 1: in Jeremiah chapter eighteen, in the image of the potter,
Speaker 1: God says he is like a potter with clay in
Speaker 1: his hands. If he announces disaster against a nation and
Speaker 1: that nation repents, he turns back from the harm he
Speaker 1: meant to do it. And if he announces good over
Speaker 1: a nation and that nation does evil, he also turns
Speaker 1: back from the good. In other words, most prophecies of
Speaker 1: judgment carry a silent condition inside them. They are not
Speaker 1: mechanical predictions of the future. They are warnings. They are
Speaker 1: an open door to repentance. Nineveh repented and the s
Speaker 1: entence was suspended, and that does not make Joanah false.
Speaker 1: It means the warning worked. And this is not an
Speaker 1: idea that came from outside the Bible. It is planted
Speaker 1: in Jeremiah's own text. In that very confrontation with Hannanaiah.
Speaker 1: A few verses earlier, Jeremiah had said something precise. The
Speaker 1: prophets of old, the ones who came before him, almost
Speaker 1: always announced war, calamity, judgment. But the prophet who announces peace,
Speaker 1: that one is recognized as truly sent only when his
Speaker 1: word of peace comes true. In other words, the promise
Speaker 1: of good is the one that is really put to
Speaker 1: the test. Hannaniah announced peace, and his peace never came.
Speaker 1: Centuries later, a Jewish sage named my Monodes put this
Speaker 1: into very clear words, and it is worth knowing because
Speaker 1: it sharpens the whole first criterion. He said, in short,
Speaker 1: that there is an asymmetry. When the prophet announces disaster
Speaker 1: and the disaster does not come, that does not disprove him,
Speaker 1: because God may have shown mercy on account of repentance.
Speaker 1: But when a prophet announces blessing, prosperity, peace and it
Speaker 1: does not come, then he is exposed. Because the promises
Speaker 1: of good that come from God are not canceled. On
Speaker 1: a whim. Look at the trap Hannaniah falls into. In
Speaker 1: this light, Hannanaiah promised good, promised liberation, promised peace, and
Speaker 1: it did not come by the stricter rule he stood
Speaker 1: stripped bare. That is why the first criterion is not
Speaker 1: everything he said happened to the letter. It is sutler.
Speaker 1: His promises of blessing from God hold up, and his
Speaker 1: warnings always leave open the door of repentance. Keep this
Speaker 1: because we have just discovered something important. Fulfillment helps, but
Speaker 1: it is not enough, and sometimes it is slow. What
Speaker 1: do we do in the meantime? We need a criterion
Speaker 1: that works, to do without waiting to see what happens.
Speaker 1: And that is the second and it is, without a doubt,
Speaker 1: the most uncomfortable of the five. The second sign is
Speaker 1: faithfulness to God, and the discomfort is this, According to
Speaker 1: the Bible, a fulfilled miracle, a sign that really happens,
Speaker 1: does not prove the prophet is true. Read it again,
Speaker 1: because I know it clashes with everything we tend to think.
Speaker 1: We are trained to believe that if someone does something supernatural,
Speaker 1: if they predict something and it comes true, if something
Speaker 1: inexplicable happens, then it comes from God, the Bible says,
Speaker 1: not necessarily, and it says so in a text few
Speaker 1: people know, the very chapter before the one about fulfillment, Deuteronomy,
Speaker 1: chapter thirteen. The text deliberately lays out an extreme case.
Speaker 1: It says, if a prophet rises up among you and
Speaker 1: announces a sign or a wonder to you, and the
Speaker 1: sign or the wonder comes true, really happens exactly as
Speaker 1: he said. But then he tells you, let us go
Speaker 1: after other gods to serve them. Do not listen to
Speaker 1: the words of that prophet. Do you realize what the
Speaker 1: text has just done. It has just said that the
Speaker 1: miracle may be real, that the prediction may be right,
Speaker 1: and that even so, if it pulls you away from
Speaker 1: the true God, he is false. The criterion is not power.
Speaker 1: The criterion is direction. Where is it taking you? And
Speaker 1: the text goes further and explains why God would allow
Speaker 1: such a thing. It says, it is a test to
Speaker 1: know whether you love the Lord your God with all
Speaker 1: your heart and with all your soul. The wonder that
Speaker 1: pulls you away from God is not a glitch in
Speaker 1: the system. It is part of the test. The dazzle
Speaker 1: of the supernatural is sometimes the bate. This, which in
Speaker 1: the Old Testament is a rule, becomes in the New
Speaker 1: Testant something even more concrete and more sharply edged. Because
Speaker 1: after Christ, faithfulness to God has a face and a name.
Speaker 1: Here comes our second word in the original language. In Greek,
Speaker 1: the term the New Testament uses for false prophet is
Speaker 1: pseudo prophets. The part prophets means the one who speaks
Speaker 1: for another, the spokesman, and pseudo means false lying. The
Speaker 1: false prophet is literally a lying spokesman, someone who claims
Speaker 1: to speak for God and speaks for himself or for
Speaker 1: another spirit. And how is that spokesman tested? In the
Speaker 1: New Testament. The apostle John says it in the most
Speaker 1: direct way in his First Letter, Chapter four. He begins
Speaker 1: with an order that ought to be engraved in the
Speaker 1: mind of every believer. Beloved, do not believe every spirit,
Speaker 1: but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,
Speaker 1: because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Speaker 1: Do not believe everyone test, and then he gives the
Speaker 1: concrete exam. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has
Speaker 1: come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit
Speaker 1: that does not confess Jesus is not from God, that
Speaker 1: is the spirit of the Antichrist. The test is no
Speaker 1: longer only did it come true? The test is what
Speaker 1: does it say about Christ? Toward whom does it lead you?
Speaker 1: The apostle Paul takes it to the extreme in his
Speaker 1: Letter to the Galatians chapter one, with one of the
Speaker 1: strongest sentences in the whole New Testament. He says, even
Speaker 1: if we or an angel from heaven should preach to
Speaker 1: you any other gospel than the one we preach to you,
Speaker 1: let him be accursed. Let him be damned. Read it carefully,
Speaker 1: Even an angel from heaven. Even if a luminous, glorious,
Speaker 1: supernatural apparition comes from Heaven itself and preaches a different gospel,
Speaker 1: Paul's an is, do not believe it. Let it be cursed,
Speaker 1: because the apparent origin does not validate the message. The
Speaker 1: message validates the messenger. This completely destroys the argument that
Speaker 1: he had a vision, a being of light appeared to him,
Speaker 1: he did things that can't be explained. The Bible already
Speaker 1: answered that not even an angel from heaven has the
Speaker 1: authority to change your gospel, and the danger, according to
Speaker 1: the New Testament, almost never comes head on the apostle.
Speaker 1: Peter warns in his second letter that false teachers introduce
Speaker 1: their errors in a covert way, slipping them in little
Speaker 1: by little, mixed with truth, until the poison is already inside.
Speaker 1: No one announces I have come to pull you away
Speaker 1: from God. No one would buy that, so they disguise it.
Speaker 1: And that is why doctrine has to be examined careful,
Speaker 1: sentence by sentence, and not swallowed whole just because it
Speaker 1: comes wrapped in spiritual language. Hold on to this twist
Speaker 1: because we are going to come back to it at
Speaker 1: the end with a story that will give you chills.
Speaker 1: In the Bible, false prophets can perform real signs. We
Speaker 1: leave it planted. But if the miracle is not enough
Speaker 1: and doctrine has to be examined, is there any mark
Speaker 1: you can see simply by looking at how the person lives? Yes,
Speaker 1: it is the third criterion, and Jesus said it with
Speaker 1: an image no one forgets. The third sign is the fruit,
Speaker 1: that is the character, the life, what the person actually
Speaker 1: produces when no one is applauding. We are in the
Speaker 1: Gospel of Matthew, chapter seven, within the Sermon on the
Speaker 1: Mount Jesus is finishing, and suddenly he drops a warning
Speaker 1: that breaks the tone. He says, beware of false prophets
Speaker 1: who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are
Speaker 1: ravenous wolves. Stop on the image because it is perfect.
Speaker 1: The impostor does not arrive with horns or with obvious evil.
Speaker 1: He arrives disguised as a sheep, gentle, harmless, spiritual. On
Speaker 1: the outside, the skin is a lamb's. The inside is
Speaker 1: a predator's, and that means something terrible. At first glance,
Speaker 1: it doesn't show the disguise works, So how do you
Speaker 1: see what the disguise covers? Jesus gives the answer immediately,
Speaker 1: and our next word in the original appears. He says,
Speaker 1: by their fruits, you will know them. The Greek word
Speaker 1: is carpos, which means fruit what a tree produces, and
Speaker 1: Jesus develops the image are grapes gathered from thorns or
Speaker 1: figs from thistles. Every good tree bears good fruit, but
Speaker 1: the bad tree bears bad fruit. And he closes a
Speaker 1: good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree
Speaker 1: good fruit. Don't look at the leaves, which are the
Speaker 1: pretty words. Don't look at the height of the tree,
Speaker 1: which is the fame. Look at the fruit, what actually
Speaker 1: grows around this person. And the Bible is very concrete
Speaker 1: about what the rotten fruit is. Go back to Jeremiah
Speaker 1: chapter twenty three, which is practically a composite portrait of
Speaker 1: the false prophet, and which we will return to several times.
Speaker 1: In verse fourteen, God describes the prophets of Jerusalem with
Speaker 1: very harsh words. He says, they commit adultery, They walk
Speaker 1: in lies. They strengthen the hands of evil doers, so
Speaker 1: that no one turns from his wickedness. Rid that last
Speaker 1: part again, because it is the key. They strengthen the
Speaker 1: hands of those who do evil. The impostor does not
Speaker 1: make the sinner uncomfortable. He calms him, He gives him permission.
Speaker 1: He tells him everything is fine, keep going. God understands,
Speaker 1: don't change anything, and so no one repents. The fruit
Speaker 1: of the false prophet is a community that feels holly
Speaker 1: while it rots inside. And a note of honesty is
Speaker 1: in order, because I don't want to sell you a
Speaker 1: mechanical rule. Fruit is not measured in a single day,
Speaker 1: nor by judging an isolated fall. The true prophets also
Speaker 1: had crises. They also doubted Elijah wanted to die under
Speaker 1: a tree. Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth. The
Speaker 1: mark of the fruit is not this person is perfect.
Speaker 1: It is the sustained pattern of a life. Where does
Speaker 1: it point, what does it build? Does it leave people
Speaker 1: closer to God and more repentant or more comfortable in sin?
Speaker 1: That is what time reveals. And this leads us almost
Speaker 1: by the hand to the fourth criterion. Because there is
Speaker 1: one particular fruit, one mark, that appears again and again
Speaker 1: when the Bible speaks of false prophets, and it is
Speaker 1: perhaps the one that hurts most to recognize. I ask
Speaker 1: you to pay special attention. The fourth sign is the
Speaker 1: content of the message, and it boils down to a
Speaker 1: single tension. The false prophet says what people want to hear.
Speaker 1: The true one says what people need to hear. Let's
Speaker 1: go back to Jeremiah twenty three to verses sixteen and seventeen.
Speaker 1: God warns the people do not listen to the words
Speaker 1: of the prophets who prophesy to you. They fill you
Speaker 1: with empty hopes. They speak a vision from their own heart,
Speaker 1: not from the mouth of the Lord. And then he
Speaker 1: describes exactly what those prophets keep saying. To those who
Speaker 1: despise God, they say, you will have peace. And to
Speaker 1: everyone who follows the stubbornness of his heart, they say
Speaker 1: no harm will come upon you. Do you see the pattern.
Speaker 1: The impostor is the professional of cheap comfort. He says
Speaker 1: peace to the one walking toward disaster. He says relaxed
Speaker 1: to the one who ought to be trembling. Not because
Speaker 1: it is true, but because that is what sells, That
Speaker 1: is what keeps the crowd happy, that is what fills
Speaker 1: the threshing floor with people who applaud. And we come
Speaker 1: to one of the best known and most devastating sentences
Speaker 1: in all of Scripture, which appears twice in Jeremiah, in
Speaker 1: chapter six and in chapter eight. Speaking of these prophets
Speaker 1: and priests, God says, they heal the wound of his
Speaker 1: people lightly, saying peace, peace, And there is no peace, peace, peace,
Speaker 1: when there is no peace. It is the image of
Speaker 1: a doctor who sees a tumor and tells the patient
Speaker 1: it's nothing, go home. It is the cruelest betrayal disguised
Speaker 1: as the kindest news. Here comes another word in the original,
Speaker 1: because there is a bitter irony hidden inside. The Hebrew
Speaker 1: word for peace is shalom, and shalam does not mean
Speaker 1: only the absence of war. It means fullness, wholeness, that
Speaker 1: everything is healthy, complete in its place, right with God.
Speaker 1: The false prophet shouts shalom, fullness, all is well over
Speaker 1: a people that is falling apart inside. He uses the
Speaker 1: most beautiful word in the language to cover the worst
Speaker 1: of realities. And it is worth seeing the price of
Speaker 1: telling the opposite truth. Jeremiah, for insisting on his uncomfortable message,
Speaker 1: was not given applause. They lowered him with ropes into
Speaker 1: an empty cistern, a well with no water, only mud
Speaker 1: at the bottom, and there they left him sinking so
Speaker 1: he would shut up. The man who said there will
Speaker 1: be no peace ended up in the mud of a pit.
Speaker 1: The ones who shouted peace piece had the favor of
Speaker 1: the king and the affection of the crowd. It is
Speaker 1: almost always like this. The comfortable lie pays better and
Speaker 1: faster than the difficult truth. The prophet Ezekiel, in his
Speaker 1: chapter thirteen gives this an image you never forget. Picture
Speaker 1: a threatened city and its people hurriedly building a defensive wall.
Speaker 1: But the wall is badly made the stones poorly. It
Speaker 1: is going to fall at the first serious push, And
Speaker 1: instead of warning, some men show up with buckets of
Speaker 1: whitewash and paint it white on the outside. They leave
Speaker 1: it beautiful, gleaming, and they tell the people, look, what
Speaker 1: a firm wall protects us. That, says Ezekiel, is what
Speaker 1: the false prophets do. They coat a condemned wall with whitewash.
Speaker 1: The text calls it daubing with loose mud, with worthless
Speaker 1: mortar on the outside, A flawless wall, white, beautiful on
Speaker 1: the inside, about to collapse. And God says, the rain
Speaker 1: will come, the hail will come, the wind will come,
Speaker 1: and the wall will fall, and then it will be
Speaker 1: known who whitewashed it. The false prophet is the one
Speaker 1: who paints white the walls that are going to fall.
Speaker 1: I want you to stop here with me for a second,
Speaker 1: because this touches something very human. Almost all of us,
Speaker 1: at some point in life have had some one tell
Speaker 1: us everything is fine, when deep down we knew it wasn't.
Speaker 1: And almost all of us have at some point preferred
Speaker 1: the one who lied to us gently over the one
Speaker 1: who told us the hard truth. If this resonates with you.
Speaker 1: If you ever confused comfort with truth, write the word
Speaker 1: shaloam for me down in the comments, just that word.
Speaker 1: I want to see how many of us admit we
Speaker 1: have preferred false peace to the uncomfortable truth. And I
Speaker 1: read the comments, so tell me too, if you like,
Speaker 1: which of these five criteria is costing you the most.
Speaker 1: That whitewashed wall has been built in many lives, and
Speaker 1: talking about it is already the start of tearing it down.
Speaker 1: And this leaves us at the door of the fifth
Speaker 1: and last criterion. We have seen fulfillment, doctrine, fruit, and message,
Speaker 1: but there remains the question. Almost no one asks, the
Speaker 1: one beneath all the others, Where does what the prophet
Speaker 1: says really come from? The fifth sign is the origin
Speaker 1: of the message, and the Bible draws a perfect line
Speaker 1: between two sources. Either the message comes from God or
Speaker 1: it comes from the man's own imagination. There is no
Speaker 1: third place. Stay one more time in Jeremiah twenty three,
Speaker 1: because it holds the most beautiful image of the whole
Speaker 1: subject and the deepest word of the day. In verse eighteen,
Speaker 1: God asks a question about these prophets, who has stood
Speaker 1: in the council of the Lord and seen and heard
Speaker 1: his word. The Hebrew word for that council is sod,
Speaker 1: and sod is not just any meeting. Sod is the
Speaker 1: inner circle, the secret council, the private conversation between a
Speaker 1: king and his closest advisers behind closed doors. The image
Speaker 1: is extraordinary. The true prophet is someone who has been
Speaker 1: inside the council chamber of God, who has heard what
Speaker 1: is said there, and who comes out to relay it.
Speaker 1: He does not invent the message, He brings it from within.
Speaker 1: He heard it first. By contrast, verse twenty one defines
Speaker 1: the false one with a single sentence that says it all.
Speaker 1: I did not send those prophets, yet they ran. I
Speaker 1: did not speak to them. Yet they prophesied. Read it slowly.
Speaker 1: They ran, but no one sent them. They spoke, but
Speaker 1: no one spoke to them. It is the image of
Speaker 1: a messenger running off with a letter he wrote himself,
Speaker 1: pretending the king gave it to him. And God adds
Speaker 1: in verse twenty two something that ties this criterion to
Speaker 1: the previous one. If they had stood in my counsel,
Speaker 1: in my sod, they would have turned my people back
Speaker 1: from their evil way. Do you see it? The one
Speaker 1: who truly stood with God comes out to call to repentance.
Speaker 1: The one who made it up comes out to soothe.
Speaker 1: The origin of the message determines its effect. And there
Speaker 1: is a detail that seals this criterion almost a finger print.
Speaker 1: Notice how the true prophets reacted when God called them.
Speaker 1: Moses begged God to send some one else in his place.
Speaker 1: Jeremiah said he did not know how to speak, that
Speaker 1: he was too young. Jonah flat out boarded a ship
Speaker 1: to flee in the opposite direction. None of them ran
Speaker 1: toward the post. Almost all of them tried to escape it.
Speaker 1: And yet of the false ones, God says that sentence
Speaker 1: I did not send them. Yet they ran. They ran
Speaker 1: to prophesy without any one sending them. The one who
Speaker 1: truly heard the voice of God tends to tremble at
Speaker 1: the weight of repeating it. The one who made it
Speaker 1: up runs happily to announce it because it suits him.
Speaker 1: The eagerness to speak in the name of God without
Speaker 1: fear and without trembling is almost never a good sign.
Speaker 1: The prophet Ezekiel puts it even more bluntly in his
Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen. God calls these men foolish prophets who follow
Speaker 1: their own spirit and have seen nothing. That phrase have
Speaker 1: seen nothing is devastating. They say I had a vision,
Speaker 1: and God responds, you saw nothing. They prophesy from their
Speaker 1: own heart, and God compares them to foxes among the ruins,
Speaker 1: animals that prowl through what is already destroyed, instead of
Speaker 1: repairing the breach. The impostor talks a great deal, but
Speaker 1: he saw nothing. His source is not heaven. It is
Speaker 1: his own head, his own interest, his own heart. And
Speaker 1: now with these five criteria in hand fulfillment, doctrine, fruit, message,
Speaker 1: and origin, we are ready for the second great twist,
Speaker 1: the one I promised and planted twice. Because there is
Speaker 1: an objection someone might raise at this point, someone could say, well,
Speaker 1: this is easy. The false prophet is the charlatan who
Speaker 1: does nothing real, and the true one is the one
Speaker 1: with power. And the Bible once again tears that idea
Speaker 1: down because Scripture is crystal clear on something frightening. False
Speaker 1: prophets can perform real signs and wonders. Jesus himself warns
Speaker 1: of it in Matthew chapter twenty four. He says that
Speaker 1: in the last times, false christs and false prophets will
Speaker 1: arise and will perform great signs and wonders in such
Speaker 1: a way that they would deceive if it were possible.
Speaker 1: Even the elect read it slowly great signs and wonders
Speaker 1: to the point of deceiving almost the chosen ones. The
Speaker 1: most dangerous deception is not the one with no power,
Speaker 1: It is the one that does have it. That is
Speaker 1: why the second criterion doctrine was so important, because the
Speaker 1: miracle was never proof enough. And we return at last
Speaker 1: to the gate of Samaria, to the two thrones, to
Speaker 1: the four hundred prophets, and to the man locked in
Speaker 1: the cell. Remember I left that scene unfinished. This is
Speaker 1: the moment. The lone prophet's name was my Caiah, And
Speaker 1: before they dragged him off to prison, he said something
Speaker 1: that explains everything we have been talking about. He told
Speaker 1: a vision. He said he had seen the Lord seated
Speaker 1: on his throne, surrounded by all the host of heaven.
Speaker 1: And he said he had heard a question in that hall,
Speaker 1: who will deceive the King so that he goes up
Speaker 1: and falls in battle? And that a spirit stepped forward
Speaker 1: and said, I will do it how it was asked.
Speaker 1: And the spirit answered, I will go out and I
Speaker 1: will be a lying spirit. In the mouth of all
Speaker 1: his prophets. I want to be honest with you about
Speaker 1: this text, because it is one that scholars argue about
Speaker 1: a great deal, and it would be dishonest to pass
Speaker 1: it off as simple. This is a vision Machiah describes
Speaker 1: language of images about the heavenly Council, about that sod
Speaker 1: we were talking about. There are theologians who debate exactly
Speaker 1: what it means for God to allow a lying spirit
Speaker 1: and how that fits with the justice of God, and
Speaker 1: not every one interprets it the same way. What the
Speaker 1: text does may clear beyond dispute, is what matters for
Speaker 1: our subject, that four hundred prophets were saying the same
Speaker 1: thing with confidence, with power, with enthusiasm, and that they
Speaker 1: were all wrong. The majority is not proof, the number
Speaker 1: is not proof. Unanimity is not proof. And our last
Speaker 1: word in the original appears because the Bible calls that
Speaker 1: spirit in Hebrew ruach. Ruach means spirit, but also wind
Speaker 1: and breath. A ruach of lying filled the mouths of
Speaker 1: four hundred men, and a single man, with no wind
Speaker 1: at his back, with no crowd, told the truth and
Speaker 1: paid for it with a slap and a cell. And
Speaker 1: what happened. The king decided not to believe him. He
Speaker 1: decided to believe the four hundred because they were four hundred,
Speaker 1: because they promised victory, because it was what he wanted
Speaker 1: to hear. He went to war, but just in case
Speaker 1: he did something cunning, he disguised himself. He took off
Speaker 1: his royal robes so that no one would recognize him
Speaker 1: on the battlefield, thinking he would dodge any arrow aimed
Speaker 1: at a king. And then comes one of the most
Speaker 1: striking sentences in the whole Bible. The text in the
Speaker 1: First Book of Kings, chapter twenty two says that a
Speaker 1: man drew his bow at random, without knowing whom he
Speaker 1: was aiming at, by chance, without taking aim, an ordinary
Speaker 1: arrow loosed by an ordinary soldier with no intention, And
Speaker 1: that arrow, out of all the arrows on the battlefield,
Speaker 1: went and lodged precisely in a joint of the king's armor,
Speaker 1: in the gap between the plates. The disguised king, the
Speaker 1: hidden king, was struck by an arrow fired without aim,
Speaker 1: And as evening fell, he died exactly as the one
Speaker 1: man no one wanted to believe had said. There was
Speaker 1: no chance that save the false ones, there was no
Speaker 1: disguise that covered the truth. Four hundred confident voices fell
Speaker 1: defeated before a single man who had stood in the
Speaker 1: council in the sod and had come out to say
Speaker 1: what no one wanted to hear. The random arrow was
Speaker 1: not random. It was the first criterion, fulfillment, arriving two
Speaker 1: months or a single evening late, but arriving and before closing,
Speaker 1: I want to give you one last edge, an extra mark.
Speaker 1: The Bible repeats so often that it deserves naming even
Speaker 1: if it does not enter the five main criteria. It
Speaker 1: is money. The prophet Mica, in his chapter three denounces
Speaker 1: the prophets who divine for money, who announce peace when
Speaker 1: they are fed, and war on whoever does not fill
Speaker 1: their mon The false prophet has a price, and the
Speaker 1: most famous case of all is Balum, a king named Barlac,
Speaker 1: terrified by the people of Israel, camped on his borders,
Speaker 1: sent for him from far away with a commission and
Speaker 1: with a payment, the commission to curse Israel. The payment,
Speaker 1: the text says, was the fee of divination, and that
Speaker 1: word matters because in Hebrew divination for money. The omen
Speaker 1: that is sold is called kessm, and it is precisely
Speaker 1: one of the things the Law of God forbids. In
Speaker 1: the very chapter of Deuteronomy where the true prophet is announced,
Speaker 1: the true one listens to God and passes it on
Speaker 1: for free. The diviner sells omens to the highest bidder,
Speaker 1: and Balam was half way between the two. On the journey.
Speaker 1: Something happens that no one forgets. The Angel of the
Speaker 1: Lord plants himself in the road with a drawn sword,
Speaker 1: invisible to Balem but visible to his donkey, which turns
Speaker 1: aside three times until the animal speaks with a human
Speaker 1: voice and reproaches him for the blows. When Balam finally
Speaker 1: arrives and climbs one after another, three different peaks to curse,
Speaker 1: no curse comes out of his mouth. A blessing comes out,
Speaker 1: because God twists his words. And here is the part
Speaker 1: the New Testament does not forgive. Balem could not curse,
Speaker 1: it is true, but his heart never stopped looking at
Speaker 1: the money. The apostle Peter, in his second letter defines
Speaker 1: him with an exact phrase, he loved the wages of
Speaker 1: wrong doing, and later the Book of Numbers tells that
Speaker 1: it was his counsel that ended up dragging Israel into
Speaker 1: sin once the direct curse had failed, a man with
Speaker 1: a real gift who put it up for sale and
Speaker 1: whom greed ended up corrupting from within. When you see
Speaker 1: the message always bending toward where the money is, you
Speaker 1: already have half the answer. So let's recap what really
Speaker 1: matters without the numbered list as a single look. The
Speaker 1: true prophet brings a word that holds up over time,
Speaker 1: and whose promises of good do not fall. He always
Speaker 1: leads you toward the True God, never away from him,
Speaker 1: not even when he performs wonders. His life produces a
Speaker 1: fruit that becomes visible over time, a fruit that brings
Speaker 1: people closer to repentance instead of settling them into sin.
Speaker 1: His message is not always what you want to hear.
Speaker 1: Often it is what you need to hear, even when
Speaker 1: it hurts, and even when it costs. The one who
Speaker 1: says it dearly, and his word is not born from
Speaker 1: his own head, but from having truly stood in the
Speaker 1: counsel of God. The false one does the opposite. At
Speaker 1: every point he promises blessings that never come. He pulls
Speaker 1: you away from God with dazzle and with wonders. His
Speaker 1: fruit over time is rotten. He tells you peace, peace
Speaker 1: when there is no peace, and he whitewashes walls that
Speaker 1: are going to fall. He speaks from his own heart
Speaker 1: whilst swearing he saw heaven, and almost always in some corner.
Speaker 1: There is a price. I told you at the beginning,
Speaker 1: and I hold to it at the end. The Bible
Speaker 1: does not ask you for blind faith in any one
Speaker 1: who says, thus says the Lord. It asks you to
Speaker 1: test the spirits. It gave you the tools. The question,
Speaker 1: the only one that really remains, is not whether there
Speaker 1: are false prophets. There are, there were, and there will be.
Speaker 1: The question is whom you are listening to, and above all,
Speaker 1: which voice you prefer, the one that tells you what
Speaker 1: you want or the one that tells you the truth.
Speaker 1: There is another study waiting for you, right here on
Speaker 1: the screen. It promises you nothing it can't deliver only
Speaker 1: scripture looked at head on without ornament. See you there