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Do PROPHETS Exist TODAY What Is a FALSE PROPHET 🤔 Don_t Be Deceived · truthunedited

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  Speaker 1: Four hundred men spoke in the name of God on
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  Speaker 1: the same day. All of them lied except one. Picture
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  Speaker 1: the scene. The gates of the city of Samaria are
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  Speaker 1: flung wide open. There is a threshing floor of packed
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  Speaker 1: earth right at the entrance, and there, on two thrones,
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  Speaker 1: raised side by side, sit two kings dressed in their
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  Speaker 1: royal robes. The sun catches the gold embroidery on their garments,
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  Speaker 1: and in front of them, in a semicircle, stand four
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  Speaker 1: hundred prophets, four hundred men who claim to hear the
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  Speaker 1: voice of Heaven, and they all say the same thing.
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  Speaker 1: They all promise victory. One of them has made with
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  Speaker 1: his own hands a pair of iron horns, and he
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  Speaker 1: lifts them over his head, and he shouts that with
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  Speaker 1: those horns the king will gore his enemies until they
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  Speaker 1: are finished. The crowd roars back. The air smells of
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  Speaker 1: sweat and certainty. Four hundred voices pushing in one direction,
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  Speaker 1: and then they bring in, almost by force, one more man,
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  Speaker 1: a prophet who had been locked away, a man the
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  Speaker 1: king hates, because in his own words, that man never
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  Speaker 1: announces anything good to him, only disasters. They set him
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  Speaker 1: before the thrones and this man alone, facing the four hundred,
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  Speaker 1: says exactly the opposite. He says, he sees the army
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  Speaker 1: scattered across the hills like sheep without a shepherd. He says,
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  Speaker 1: the king will not come back alive. The prophet with
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  Speaker 1: the iron horns steps up and slaps him across the
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  Speaker 1: face in front of every one, and the King orders
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  Speaker 1: that he be taken back to prison and fed bread
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  Speaker 1: of affliction and water of affliction until he the king,
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  Speaker 1: returns safe and sound from the war. Hold this scene
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  Speaker 1: in your hand for the next few minutes, because we
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  Speaker 1: are going to come back to this gate, to these
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  Speaker 1: two thrones, and to a single man locked in a cell.
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  Speaker 1: And I want to leave a question driven into you.
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  Speaker 1: If you had been standing there that day among the crowd,
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  Speaker 1: listening to four hundred confident men shout victory, and to
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  Speaker 1: a single one, beaten and hated announce death, whom would
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  Speaker 1: you have believed? How do you tell apart the one
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  Speaker 1: who speaks for God from the one who only says
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  Speaker 1: what you want to hear. Because this is not an
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  Speaker 1: ancient problem. The Bible warns about false prophets more often
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  Speaker 1: than most people imagine. It is in the law of Moses,
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  Speaker 1: it is in the prophets, it is on the lips
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  Speaker 1: of Jesus, it is in the letters of the Apostles.
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  Speaker 1: And against what many believe, Scripture does not ask us
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  Speaker 1: to place blind faith in any one who says, thus
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  Speaker 1: says the Lord. On the contrary, it gives us tools
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  Speaker 1: to test it. It gives us concrete criteria. To day.
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  Speaker 1: We are going to look at five of those criteria,
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  Speaker 1: and I want to be honest with you from the
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  Speaker 1: very first minute, because that is part of doing this right.
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  Speaker 1: The Bible does not can a chapter titled the Five
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  Speaker 1: Signs of the False Prophet like a numbered list. That
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  Speaker 1: arrangement into five points is mine a way of ordering
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  Speaker 1: for you what is scattered throughout the text. But each
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  Speaker 1: of the five signs, taken separately, comes straight from the
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  Speaker 1: pages of Scripture, with chapter and verse, and you will
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  Speaker 1: be able to check it for yourself. What we are
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  Speaker 1: about to do is honest. We are going to look
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  Speaker 1: the text in the eye, and let me give you
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  Speaker 1: three things in advance so you don't leave. The first
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  Speaker 1: one of these criteria completely contradicts what you probably believe
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  Speaker 1: about miracles. The second, we are going to meet a
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  Speaker 1: prophet whose prophecy did not come true, and who even
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  Speaker 1: so was not false, and understand why this is one
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  Speaker 1: of the finest and most overlooked points in the whole subject.
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  Speaker 1: And the third. At the end, we will return to
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  Speaker 1: that gate of Samaria, where a single arrow fired at random,
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  Speaker 1: without aim, without intention, will decide which of the prophets
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  Speaker 1: was right. Before we go on one thing. If this
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  Speaker 1: channel helps you read the Bible honestly, leave your like
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  Speaker 1: it tells YouTube to show this to more people who
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  Speaker 1: are looking for the truth. If this is your first time, welcome.
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  Speaker 1: If you keep coming back, thank you for trusting. And
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  Speaker 1: if in the end it wasn't worth it, you take
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  Speaker 1: it back, and that's that. Let's continue. The first sign
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  Speaker 1: is the most obvious, and for that very reason, the
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  Speaker 1: most misunderstood. The first sign is fulfillment. In the Book
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  Speaker 1: of Deuteronomy, in chapter eighteen, Moses faces a question the
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  Speaker 1: people were going to ask sooner or later. The question
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  Speaker 1: appears almost in these words, how will we know the
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  Speaker 1: word that the Lord has not spoken? How do we
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  Speaker 1: tell the true from the false? When someone stands before
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  Speaker 1: us and claims to speak for God? And the answer
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  Speaker 1: the text gives in verses twenty one and twenty two
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  Speaker 1: is brutally simple. If the prophet speaks in the name
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  Speaker 1: of the Lord, and what he said does not happen,
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  Speaker 1: does not come true, then that word did not come
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  Speaker 1: from God. The prophet spoke it out of arrogance. Stop
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  Speaker 1: on that last word, because it is the first of
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  Speaker 1: our words in the original language, and we are going
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  Speaker 1: to use several today, since the text in Hebrew and
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  Speaker 1: in Greek says things that translations sometimes soften. The Hebrew
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  Speaker 1: word behind arrogance or presumption is zaydon. Zaydan is not
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  Speaker 1: an innocent mistake. It is not someone who got it
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  Speaker 1: wrong in good faith. Zadan is arrogance, boldness, the nerve
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  Speaker 1: to place the name of God on top of your
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  Speaker 1: own words to give them weight. The impostor Deuteronomy speaks of,
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  Speaker 1: is not the one who is mistaken. He is the
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  Speaker 1: one who uses the name of God as a tool.
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  Speaker 1: And we have the perfect example because the Bible doesn't
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  Speaker 1: only give us the rule, it also so tells us
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  Speaker 1: the story where the rule is applied with chilling precision.
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  Speaker 1: Let's go to the Book of Jeremiah, chapter twenty eight.
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  Speaker 1: The people of Judah are under the shadow of Babylon.
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  Speaker 1: The Empire has already carried off captives, has already carried
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  Speaker 1: off treasures from the temple, and the threat of total
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  Speaker 1: destruction hangs in the air. In the middle of this, Jeremiah,
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  Speaker 1: the prophet, walks through Jerusalem with something strange on his shoulders,
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  Speaker 1: a wooden yoke, the kind put on oxen. He wears
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  Speaker 1: it as a living sign. The message is harsh. Submit
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  Speaker 1: to Babylon because God has decided this as judgment, and
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  Speaker 1: resisting will only make everything worse. It is a message
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  Speaker 1: no one wants to hear. And then another prophet appears
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  Speaker 1: named Hannaniah. Hannaniah also speaks in the name of the Lord,
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  Speaker 1: and his message is the exact opposite the message everyone wants.
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  Speaker 1: Within two years, he says, God will break the yoke
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  Speaker 1: of Babylon. The treasures will return, the captives will return,
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  Speaker 1: everything will be set right. And to make it clear,
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  Speaker 1: Hannanaiah grabs the wooden yoke off Jeremiah's neck and breaks
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  Speaker 1: it to pieces in front of all the people, and
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  Speaker 1: he says, this is how God will break the yoke
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  Speaker 1: of Babylon. Picture the moment the popular prophet has just
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  Speaker 1: broken with his own hands, the symbol of the uncomfortable message.
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  Speaker 1: The crowd must have roared. And notice what Jeremiah does.
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  Speaker 1: He does not shout, he does not defend himself. The
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  Speaker 1: text says that Jeremiah the prophet went his way, he left,
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  Speaker 1: he let time do the talking. Only later does he return.
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  Speaker 1: And then he pronounces the sentence you broke a wooden yoke,
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  Speaker 1: but God will put an iron one in its place.
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  Speaker 1: And he says to Hannanaiah, a sentence that pleases the blood.
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  Speaker 1: The Lord has not sent you, and you have made
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  Speaker 1: this people trust in a lie for that this very
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  Speaker 1: year you will die. And the text closes with a
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  Speaker 1: single line without ornament. And Hannanaiah the Prophet died that
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  Speaker 1: same year, in the seventh month, two months later. The
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  Speaker 1: word that does not come true exposes the liar. The
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  Speaker 1: word that comes true, even when it is a word
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  Speaker 1: of death, confirms the true one. But fulfillment on its
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  Speaker 1: own is a more complicated criterion than it seems. And
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  Speaker 1: here comes the first twist. I promised you, because there
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  Speaker 1: is a case that breaks the simple rule. What do
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  Speaker 1: we do with a prophet who announces something in the
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  Speaker 1: name of God and it does not happen, and yet
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  Speaker 1: he is not an impostor. Think of Jonah God sends
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  Speaker 1: him to the city of Nineveh with a one line message,
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  Speaker 1: in forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed, no conditions, no
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  Speaker 1: unless a sentence. And Nineveh was not destroyed. So, by
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  Speaker 1: the simple rule of Deuteronomy, was Jonah a false prophet?
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  Speaker 1: His word did not come true, And yet the Bible
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  Speaker 1: presents him as a true prophet, and Jesus himself cites
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  Speaker 1: him as a sign. The answer is a few chapters earlier,
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  Speaker 1: in Jeremiah chapter eighteen, in the image of the potter,
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  Speaker 1: God says he is like a potter with clay in
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  Speaker 1: his hands. If he announces disaster against a nation and
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  Speaker 1: that nation repents, he turns back from the harm he
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  Speaker 1: meant to do it. And if he announces good over
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  Speaker 1: a nation and that nation does evil, he also turns
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  Speaker 1: back from the good. In other words, most prophecies of
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  Speaker 1: judgment carry a silent condition inside them. They are not
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  Speaker 1: mechanical predictions of the future. They are warnings. They are
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  Speaker 1: an open door to repentance. Nineveh repented and the s
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  Speaker 1: entence was suspended, and that does not make Joanah false.
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  Speaker 1: It means the warning worked. And this is not an
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  Speaker 1: idea that came from outside the Bible. It is planted
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  Speaker 1: in Jeremiah's own text. In that very confrontation with Hannanaiah.
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  Speaker 1: A few verses earlier, Jeremiah had said something precise. The
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  Speaker 1: prophets of old, the ones who came before him, almost
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  Speaker 1: always announced war, calamity, judgment. But the prophet who announces peace,
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  Speaker 1: that one is recognized as truly sent only when his
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  Speaker 1: word of peace comes true. In other words, the promise
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  Speaker 1: of good is the one that is really put to
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  Speaker 1: the test. Hannaniah announced peace, and his peace never came.
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  Speaker 1: Centuries later, a Jewish sage named my Monodes put this
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  Speaker 1: into very clear words, and it is worth knowing because
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  Speaker 1: it sharpens the whole first criterion. He said, in short,
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  Speaker 1: that there is an asymmetry. When the prophet announces disaster
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  Speaker 1: and the disaster does not come, that does not disprove him,
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  Speaker 1: because God may have shown mercy on account of repentance.
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  Speaker 1: But when a prophet announces blessing, prosperity, peace and it
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  Speaker 1: does not come, then he is exposed. Because the promises
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  Speaker 1: of good that come from God are not canceled. On
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  Speaker 1: a whim. Look at the trap Hannaniah falls into. In
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  Speaker 1: this light, Hannanaiah promised good, promised liberation, promised peace, and
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  Speaker 1: it did not come by the stricter rule he stood
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  Speaker 1: stripped bare. That is why the first criterion is not
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  Speaker 1: everything he said happened to the letter. It is sutler.
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  Speaker 1: His promises of blessing from God hold up, and his
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  Speaker 1: warnings always leave open the door of repentance. Keep this
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  Speaker 1: because we have just discovered something important. Fulfillment helps, but
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  Speaker 1: it is not enough, and sometimes it is slow. What
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  Speaker 1: do we do in the meantime? We need a criterion
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  Speaker 1: that works, to do without waiting to see what happens.
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  Speaker 1: And that is the second and it is, without a doubt,
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  Speaker 1: the most uncomfortable of the five. The second sign is
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  Speaker 1: faithfulness to God, and the discomfort is this, According to
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  Speaker 1: the Bible, a fulfilled miracle, a sign that really happens,
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  Speaker 1: does not prove the prophet is true. Read it again,
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  Speaker 1: because I know it clashes with everything we tend to think.
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  Speaker 1: We are trained to believe that if someone does something supernatural,
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  Speaker 1: if they predict something and it comes true, if something
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  Speaker 1: inexplicable happens, then it comes from God, the Bible says,
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily, and it says so in a text few
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  Speaker 1: people know, the very chapter before the one about fulfillment, Deuteronomy,
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  Speaker 1: chapter thirteen. The text deliberately lays out an extreme case.
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  Speaker 1: It says, if a prophet rises up among you and
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  Speaker 1: announces a sign or a wonder to you, and the
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  Speaker 1: sign or the wonder comes true, really happens exactly as
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  Speaker 1: he said. But then he tells you, let us go
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  Speaker 1: after other gods to serve them. Do not listen to
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  Speaker 1: the words of that prophet. Do you realize what the
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  Speaker 1: text has just done. It has just said that the
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  Speaker 1: miracle may be real, that the prediction may be right,
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  Speaker 1: and that even so, if it pulls you away from
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  Speaker 1: the true God, he is false. The criterion is not power.
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  Speaker 1: The criterion is direction. Where is it taking you? And
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  Speaker 1: the text goes further and explains why God would allow
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  Speaker 1: such a thing. It says, it is a test to
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  Speaker 1: know whether you love the Lord your God with all
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  Speaker 1: your heart and with all your soul. The wonder that
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  Speaker 1: pulls you away from God is not a glitch in
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  Speaker 1: the system. It is part of the test. The dazzle
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  Speaker 1: of the supernatural is sometimes the bate. This, which in
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  Speaker 1: the Old Testament is a rule, becomes in the New
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  Speaker 1: Testant something even more concrete and more sharply edged. Because
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  Speaker 1: after Christ, faithfulness to God has a face and a name.
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  Speaker 1: Here comes our second word in the original language. In Greek,
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  Speaker 1: the term the New Testament uses for false prophet is
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  Speaker 1: pseudo prophets. The part prophets means the one who speaks
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  Speaker 1: for another, the spokesman, and pseudo means false lying. The
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  Speaker 1: false prophet is literally a lying spokesman, someone who claims
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  Speaker 1: to speak for God and speaks for himself or for
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  Speaker 1: another spirit. And how is that spokesman tested? In the
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  Speaker 1: New Testament. The apostle John says it in the most
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  Speaker 1: direct way in his First Letter, Chapter four. He begins
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  Speaker 1: with an order that ought to be engraved in the
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  Speaker 1: mind of every believer. Beloved, do not believe every spirit,
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  Speaker 1: but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,
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  Speaker 1: because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
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  Speaker 1: Do not believe everyone test, and then he gives the
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  Speaker 1: concrete exam. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has
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  Speaker 1: come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit
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  Speaker 1: that does not confess Jesus is not from God, that
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  Speaker 1: is the spirit of the Antichrist. The test is no
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  Speaker 1: longer only did it come true? The test is what
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  Speaker 1: does it say about Christ? Toward whom does it lead you?
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  Speaker 1: The apostle Paul takes it to the extreme in his
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  Speaker 1: Letter to the Galatians chapter one, with one of the
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  Speaker 1: strongest sentences in the whole New Testament. He says, even
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  Speaker 1: if we or an angel from heaven should preach to
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  Speaker 1: you any other gospel than the one we preach to you,
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  Speaker 1: let him be accursed. Let him be damned. Read it carefully,
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  Speaker 1: Even an angel from heaven. Even if a luminous, glorious,
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  Speaker 1: supernatural apparition comes from Heaven itself and preaches a different gospel,
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  Speaker 1: Paul's an is, do not believe it. Let it be cursed,
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  Speaker 1: because the apparent origin does not validate the message. The
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  Speaker 1: message validates the messenger. This completely destroys the argument that
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  Speaker 1: he had a vision, a being of light appeared to him,
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  Speaker 1: he did things that can't be explained. The Bible already
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  Speaker 1: answered that not even an angel from heaven has the
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  Speaker 1: authority to change your gospel, and the danger, according to
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  Speaker 1: the New Testament, almost never comes head on the apostle.
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  Speaker 1: Peter warns in his second letter that false teachers introduce
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  Speaker 1: their errors in a covert way, slipping them in little
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  Speaker 1: by little, mixed with truth, until the poison is already inside.
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  Speaker 1: No one announces I have come to pull you away
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  Speaker 1: from God. No one would buy that, so they disguise it.
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  Speaker 1: And that is why doctrine has to be examined careful,
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  Speaker 1: sentence by sentence, and not swallowed whole just because it
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  Speaker 1: comes wrapped in spiritual language. Hold on to this twist
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  Speaker 1: because we are going to come back to it at
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  Speaker 1: the end with a story that will give you chills.
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  Speaker 1: In the Bible, false prophets can perform real signs. We
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  Speaker 1: leave it planted. But if the miracle is not enough
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  Speaker 1: and doctrine has to be examined, is there any mark
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  Speaker 1: you can see simply by looking at how the person lives? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: it is the third criterion, and Jesus said it with
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  Speaker 1: an image no one forgets. The third sign is the fruit,
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  Speaker 1: that is the character, the life, what the person actually
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  Speaker 1: produces when no one is applauding. We are in the
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  Speaker 1: Gospel of Matthew, chapter seven, within the Sermon on the
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  Speaker 1: Mount Jesus is finishing, and suddenly he drops a warning
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  Speaker 1: that breaks the tone. He says, beware of false prophets
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  Speaker 1: who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are
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  Speaker 1: ravenous wolves. Stop on the image because it is perfect.
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  Speaker 1: The impostor does not arrive with horns or with obvious evil.
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  Speaker 1: He arrives disguised as a sheep, gentle, harmless, spiritual. On
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  Speaker 1: the outside, the skin is a lamb's. The inside is
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  Speaker 1: a predator's, and that means something terrible. At first glance,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't show the disguise works, So how do you
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  Speaker 1: see what the disguise covers? Jesus gives the answer immediately,
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  Speaker 1: and our next word in the original appears. He says,
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  Speaker 1: by their fruits, you will know them. The Greek word
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  Speaker 1: is carpos, which means fruit what a tree produces, and
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  Speaker 1: Jesus develops the image are grapes gathered from thorns or
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  Speaker 1: figs from thistles. Every good tree bears good fruit, but
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  Speaker 1: the bad tree bears bad fruit. And he closes a
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  Speaker 1: good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree
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  Speaker 1: good fruit. Don't look at the leaves, which are the
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  Speaker 1: pretty words. Don't look at the height of the tree,
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  Speaker 1: which is the fame. Look at the fruit, what actually
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  Speaker 1: grows around this person. And the Bible is very concrete
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  Speaker 1: about what the rotten fruit is. Go back to Jeremiah
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  Speaker 1: chapter twenty three, which is practically a composite portrait of
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  Speaker 1: the false prophet, and which we will return to several times.
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  Speaker 1: In verse fourteen, God describes the prophets of Jerusalem with
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  Speaker 1: very harsh words. He says, they commit adultery, They walk
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  Speaker 1: in lies. They strengthen the hands of evil doers, so
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  Speaker 1: that no one turns from his wickedness. Rid that last
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  Speaker 1: part again, because it is the key. They strengthen the
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  Speaker 1: hands of those who do evil. The impostor does not
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  Speaker 1: make the sinner uncomfortable. He calms him, He gives him permission.
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  Speaker 1: He tells him everything is fine, keep going. God understands,
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  Speaker 1: don't change anything, and so no one repents. The fruit
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  Speaker 1: of the false prophet is a community that feels holly
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  Speaker 1: while it rots inside. And a note of honesty is
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  Speaker 1: in order, because I don't want to sell you a
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  Speaker 1: mechanical rule. Fruit is not measured in a single day,
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  Speaker 1: nor by judging an isolated fall. The true prophets also
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  Speaker 1: had crises. They also doubted Elijah wanted to die under
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  Speaker 1: a tree. Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth. The
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  Speaker 1: mark of the fruit is not this person is perfect.
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  Speaker 1: It is the sustained pattern of a life. Where does
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  Speaker 1: it point, what does it build? Does it leave people
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: closer to God and more repentant or more comfortable in sin?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: That is what time reveals. And this leads us almost
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: by the hand to the fourth criterion. Because there is
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: one particular fruit, one mark, that appears again and again
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: when the Bible speaks of false prophets, and it is
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: perhaps the one that hurts most to recognize. I ask
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: you to pay special attention. The fourth sign is the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: content of the message, and it boils down to a
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: single tension. The false prophet says what people want to hear.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: The true one says what people need to hear. Let's
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: go back to Jeremiah twenty three to verses sixteen and seventeen.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: God warns the people do not listen to the words
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: of the prophets who prophesy to you. They fill you
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: with empty hopes. They speak a vision from their own heart,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: not from the mouth of the Lord. And then he
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: describes exactly what those prophets keep saying. To those who
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: despise God, they say, you will have peace. And to
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: everyone who follows the stubbornness of his heart, they say
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: no harm will come upon you. Do you see the pattern.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: The impostor is the professional of cheap comfort. He says
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: peace to the one walking toward disaster. He says relaxed
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to the one who ought to be trembling. Not because
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: it is true, but because that is what sells, That
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: is what keeps the crowd happy, that is what fills
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the threshing floor with people who applaud. And we come
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to one of the best known and most devastating sentences
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: in all of Scripture, which appears twice in Jeremiah, in
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: chapter six and in chapter eight. Speaking of these prophets
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and priests, God says, they heal the wound of his
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: people lightly, saying peace, peace, And there is no peace, peace, peace,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: when there is no peace. It is the image of
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: a doctor who sees a tumor and tells the patient
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: it's nothing, go home. It is the cruelest betrayal disguised
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: as the kindest news. Here comes another word in the original,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: because there is a bitter irony hidden inside. The Hebrew
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: word for peace is shalom, and shalam does not mean
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: only the absence of war. It means fullness, wholeness, that
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: everything is healthy, complete in its place, right with God.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: The false prophet shouts shalom, fullness, all is well over
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a people that is falling apart inside. He uses the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: most beautiful word in the language to cover the worst
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: of realities. And it is worth seeing the price of
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: telling the opposite truth. Jeremiah, for insisting on his uncomfortable message,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: was not given applause. They lowered him with ropes into
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: an empty cistern, a well with no water, only mud
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: at the bottom, and there they left him sinking so
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: he would shut up. The man who said there will
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: be no peace ended up in the mud of a pit.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: The ones who shouted peace piece had the favor of
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the king and the affection of the crowd. It is
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: almost always like this. The comfortable lie pays better and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: faster than the difficult truth. The prophet Ezekiel, in his
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: chapter thirteen gives this an image you never forget. Picture
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: a threatened city and its people hurriedly building a defensive wall.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: But the wall is badly made the stones poorly. It
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is going to fall at the first serious push, And
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: instead of warning, some men show up with buckets of
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: whitewash and paint it white on the outside. They leave
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: it beautiful, gleaming, and they tell the people, look, what
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: a firm wall protects us. That, says Ezekiel, is what
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the false prophets do. They coat a condemned wall with whitewash.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: The text calls it daubing with loose mud, with worthless
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: mortar on the outside, A flawless wall, white, beautiful on
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the inside, about to collapse. And God says, the rain
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: will come, the hail will come, the wind will come,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and the wall will fall, and then it will be
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: known who whitewashed it. The false prophet is the one
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: who paints white the walls that are going to fall.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I want you to stop here with me for a second,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: because this touches something very human. Almost all of us,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: at some point in life have had some one tell
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: us everything is fine, when deep down we knew it wasn't.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: And almost all of us have at some point preferred
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the one who lied to us gently over the one
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: who told us the hard truth. If this resonates with you.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: If you ever confused comfort with truth, write the word
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: shaloam for me down in the comments, just that word.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I want to see how many of us admit we
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: have preferred false peace to the uncomfortable truth. And I
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: read the comments, so tell me too, if you like,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: which of these five criteria is costing you the most.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: That whitewashed wall has been built in many lives, and
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: talking about it is already the start of tearing it down.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: And this leaves us at the door of the fifth
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: and last criterion. We have seen fulfillment, doctrine, fruit, and message,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: but there remains the question. Almost no one asks, the
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: one beneath all the others, Where does what the prophet
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: says really come from? The fifth sign is the origin
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: of the message, and the Bible draws a perfect line
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: between two sources. Either the message comes from God or
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: it comes from the man's own imagination. There is no
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: third place. Stay one more time in Jeremiah twenty three,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: because it holds the most beautiful image of the whole
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: subject and the deepest word of the day. In verse eighteen,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: God asks a question about these prophets, who has stood
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: in the council of the Lord and seen and heard
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: his word. The Hebrew word for that council is sod,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and sod is not just any meeting. Sod is the
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: inner circle, the secret council, the private conversation between a
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: king and his closest advisers behind closed doors. The image
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: is extraordinary. The true prophet is someone who has been
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: inside the council chamber of God, who has heard what
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: is said there, and who comes out to relay it.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: He does not invent the message, He brings it from within.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: He heard it first. By contrast, verse twenty one defines
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the false one with a single sentence that says it all.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I did not send those prophets, yet they ran. I
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: did not speak to them. Yet they prophesied. Read it slowly.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: They ran, but no one sent them. They spoke, but
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: no one spoke to them. It is the image of
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: a messenger running off with a letter he wrote himself,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: pretending the king gave it to him. And God adds
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: in verse twenty two something that ties this criterion to
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: the previous one. If they had stood in my counsel,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: in my sod, they would have turned my people back
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: from their evil way. Do you see it? The one
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: who truly stood with God comes out to call to repentance.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: The one who made it up comes out to soothe.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: The origin of the message determines its effect. And there
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: is a detail that seals this criterion almost a finger print.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Notice how the true prophets reacted when God called them.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Moses begged God to send some one else in his place.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Jeremiah said he did not know how to speak, that
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: he was too young. Jonah flat out boarded a ship
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: to flee in the opposite direction. None of them ran
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: toward the post. Almost all of them tried to escape it.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And yet of the false ones, God says that sentence
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I did not send them. Yet they ran. They ran
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: to prophesy without any one sending them. The one who
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: truly heard the voice of God tends to tremble at
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the weight of repeating it. The one who made it
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: up runs happily to announce it because it suits him.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: The eagerness to speak in the name of God without
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: fear and without trembling is almost never a good sign.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: The prophet Ezekiel puts it even more bluntly in his
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen. God calls these men foolish prophets who follow
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: their own spirit and have seen nothing. That phrase have
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: seen nothing is devastating. They say I had a vision,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and God responds, you saw nothing. They prophesy from their
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: own heart, and God compares them to foxes among the ruins,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: animals that prowl through what is already destroyed, instead of
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: repairing the breach. The impostor talks a great deal, but
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: he saw nothing. His source is not heaven. It is
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: his own head, his own interest, his own heart. And
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: now with these five criteria in hand fulfillment, doctrine, fruit, message,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and origin, we are ready for the second great twist,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: the one I promised and planted twice. Because there is
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: an objection someone might raise at this point, someone could say, well,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: this is easy. The false prophet is the charlatan who
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: does nothing real, and the true one is the one
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: with power. And the Bible once again tears that idea
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: down because Scripture is crystal clear on something frightening. False
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: prophets can perform real signs and wonders. Jesus himself warns
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: of it in Matthew chapter twenty four. He says that
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: in the last times, false christs and false prophets will
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: arise and will perform great signs and wonders in such
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: a way that they would deceive if it were possible.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Even the elect read it slowly great signs and wonders
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: to the point of deceiving almost the chosen ones. The
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: most dangerous deception is not the one with no power,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: It is the one that does have it. That is
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: why the second criterion doctrine was so important, because the
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: miracle was never proof enough. And we return at last
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: to the gate of Samaria, to the two thrones, to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the four hundred prophets, and to the man locked in
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: the cell. Remember I left that scene unfinished. This is
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the moment. The lone prophet's name was my Caiah, And
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: before they dragged him off to prison, he said something
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that explains everything we have been talking about. He told
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: a vision. He said he had seen the Lord seated
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: on his throne, surrounded by all the host of heaven.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: And he said he had heard a question in that hall,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: who will deceive the King so that he goes up
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: and falls in battle? And that a spirit stepped forward
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: and said, I will do it how it was asked.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: And the spirit answered, I will go out and I
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: will be a lying spirit. In the mouth of all
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: his prophets. I want to be honest with you about
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: this text, because it is one that scholars argue about
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: a great deal, and it would be dishonest to pass
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: it off as simple. This is a vision Machiah describes
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: language of images about the heavenly Council, about that sod
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: we were talking about. There are theologians who debate exactly
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: what it means for God to allow a lying spirit
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: and how that fits with the justice of God, and
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: not every one interprets it the same way. What the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: text does may clear beyond dispute, is what matters for
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: our subject, that four hundred prophets were saying the same
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: thing with confidence, with power, with enthusiasm, and that they
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: were all wrong. The majority is not proof, the number
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: is not proof. Unanimity is not proof. And our last
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: word in the original appears because the Bible calls that
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: spirit in Hebrew ruach. Ruach means spirit, but also wind
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: and breath. A ruach of lying filled the mouths of
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: four hundred men, and a single man, with no wind
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: at his back, with no crowd, told the truth and
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: paid for it with a slap and a cell. And
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: what happened. The king decided not to believe him. He
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: decided to believe the four hundred because they were four hundred,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: because they promised victory, because it was what he wanted
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: to hear. He went to war, but just in case
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: he did something cunning, he disguised himself. He took off
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: his royal robes so that no one would recognize him
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: on the battlefield, thinking he would dodge any arrow aimed
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: at a king. And then comes one of the most
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: striking sentences in the whole Bible. The text in the
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: First Book of Kings, chapter twenty two says that a
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: man drew his bow at random, without knowing whom he
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: was aiming at, by chance, without taking aim, an ordinary
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: arrow loosed by an ordinary soldier with no intention, And
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: that arrow, out of all the arrows on the battlefield,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: went and lodged precisely in a joint of the king's armor,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: in the gap between the plates. The disguised king, the
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: hidden king, was struck by an arrow fired without aim,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And as evening fell, he died exactly as the one
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: man no one wanted to believe had said. There was
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: no chance that save the false ones, there was no
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: disguise that covered the truth. Four hundred confident voices fell
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: defeated before a single man who had stood in the
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: council in the sod and had come out to say
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: what no one wanted to hear. The random arrow was
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: not random. It was the first criterion, fulfillment, arriving two
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: months or a single evening late, but arriving and before closing,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I want to give you one last edge, an extra mark.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: The Bible repeats so often that it deserves naming even
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: if it does not enter the five main criteria. It
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: is money. The prophet Mica, in his chapter three denounces
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the prophets who divine for money, who announce peace when
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: they are fed, and war on whoever does not fill
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: their mon The false prophet has a price, and the
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: most famous case of all is Balum, a king named Barlac,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: terrified by the people of Israel, camped on his borders,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: sent for him from far away with a commission and
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: with a payment, the commission to curse Israel. The payment,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the text says, was the fee of divination, and that
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: word matters because in Hebrew divination for money. The omen
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: that is sold is called kessm, and it is precisely
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: one of the things the Law of God forbids. In
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the very chapter of Deuteronomy where the true prophet is announced,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: the true one listens to God and passes it on
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: for free. The diviner sells omens to the highest bidder,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: and Balam was half way between the two. On the journey.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Something happens that no one forgets. The Angel of the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Lord plants himself in the road with a drawn sword,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: invisible to Balem but visible to his donkey, which turns
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: aside three times until the animal speaks with a human
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: voice and reproaches him for the blows. When Balam finally
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: arrives and climbs one after another, three different peaks to curse,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: no curse comes out of his mouth. A blessing comes out,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: because God twists his words. And here is the part
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the New Testament does not forgive. Balem could not curse,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: it is true, but his heart never stopped looking at
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the money. The apostle Peter, in his second letter defines
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: him with an exact phrase, he loved the wages of
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: wrong doing, and later the Book of Numbers tells that
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: it was his counsel that ended up dragging Israel into
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: sin once the direct curse had failed, a man with
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: a real gift who put it up for sale and
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: whom greed ended up corrupting from within. When you see
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: the message always bending toward where the money is, you
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: already have half the answer. So let's recap what really
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: matters without the numbered list as a single look. The
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: true prophet brings a word that holds up over time,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and whose promises of good do not fall. He always
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: leads you toward the True God, never away from him,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: not even when he performs wonders. His life produces a
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: fruit that becomes visible over time, a fruit that brings
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: people closer to repentance instead of settling them into sin.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: His message is not always what you want to hear.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Often it is what you need to hear, even when
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: it hurts, and even when it costs. The one who
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: says it dearly, and his word is not born from
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: his own head, but from having truly stood in the
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: counsel of God. The false one does the opposite. At
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: every point he promises blessings that never come. He pulls
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: you away from God with dazzle and with wonders. His
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: fruit over time is rotten. He tells you peace, peace
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: when there is no peace, and he whitewashes walls that
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: are going to fall. He speaks from his own heart
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: whilst swearing he saw heaven, and almost always in some corner.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: There is a price. I told you at the beginning,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: and I hold to it at the end. The Bible
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: does not ask you for blind faith in any one
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: who says, thus says the Lord. It asks you to
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: test the spirits. It gave you the tools. The question,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the only one that really remains, is not whether there
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: are false prophets. There are, there were, and there will be.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: The question is whom you are listening to, and above all,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: which voice you prefer, the one that tells you what
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: you want or the one that tells you the truth.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: There is another study waiting for you, right here on
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: the screen. It promises you nothing it can't deliver only
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: scripture looked at head on without ornament. See you there