You must not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self.
Deuteronomy 13:3
The creator of the universe told His people He would send prophets and dreamers to lead us away from His instructions. If we loved Him with all our heart, we would know His instructions and not be fooled. A prophet is defined as a speaker, spokesman, or inspired man, based on the Hebrew word used, and ironically enough, it could be pronounced “newbie”. A dreamer is one who derives doctrine from his own imagination.
Deu 13:1 “If a prophet stands up in your midst or a dreamer of dreams and he gives to you a sign or wonder,
Deu 13:2 and the sign or the wonder comes about that he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (those whom you have not known), and let us serve them,’
Deu 13:3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self.
Deu 13:4 You shall go after Yahweh your God, and him you shall revere, and his commandment you shall keep, and to his voice you shall listen, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast.
The fourth most important commandment Yahweh Himself gave to His people, in an audible voice, was to remember the Sabbath.
Exo 20:8 “Remember the day of the Sabbath, to consecrate it.
Exo 20:9 Six days you will work, and you will do all your work.
Exo 20:10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath for Yahweh your God; you will not do any work—you or your son or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your animal, or your alien who is in your gates—
Exo 20:11 because in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and on the seventh day he rested. Therefore Yahweh blessed the seventh day and consecrated it.
He tells us elsewhere that His Sabbaths are a sign of His people to distinguish them from the nations.
Eze 20:18 “And I said to their children in the desert, ‘You must not go in the statutes of your parents; you must not keep their regulations, and you must not make yourself unclean with their idols.
Eze 20:19 I, Yahweh, am your God, so go in my statutes and keep my regulations and do them.
Eze 20:20 And treat my Sabbaths as holy, and they will be a sign between me and between you that you may know that I, Yahweh, am your God.’
Does God change? Do you follow Yahweh or someone else? The Sabbath seems important enough to God that He used it as a sign to distinguish His people from the others. Are you part of His people, or another group of people? If the answer is “another group of people”, why? Fast forward to the council of Laodecia in 346 CE.
From the council of Laodecia in 346 CE:
Canon XXIX.
Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon XXIX.
A Christian shall not stop work on the Sabbath, but on the Lord’s Day.
Balsamon.
Here the Fathers order that no one of the faithful shall stop work on the Sabbath as do
the Jews, but that they should honour the Lord’s Day, on account of the Lord’s resurrection, and that on that day they should abstain from manual labour and go to church. But thus abstaining from work on Sunday they do not lay down as a necessity, but they add, “if they can.” For if through need or any other necessity any one worked on the Lord’s day this was not reckoned against him.
The church fathers decreed we must work on the day Yahweh said “you will not do any work”. What would Jesus say to this?
Mar 7:6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
Mar 7:7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
Mar 7:8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
Mar 7:9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!
As for Laodecia:
Rev 3:14 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.
Rev 3:15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!
Rev 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
Rev 3:18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.
Rev 3:19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
Yahweh told us He would test us by sending prophets, dreamers, church Fathers, preachers, and any anyone else that might lead us away from His righteous instructions. He said, “those whom you have not known”. This is an open book test though, Yahweh told us this would happen, and what to do about it.
The featured image is from Jeshoots.com on Unplash.
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