An increasing number of Americans identify themselves as “spiritual” but not religious. They seek to get in touch with a “higher power” simply by immersing themselves in the natural world, much as they imagine the ancient Druids or Native Americans did. In Moses’ time, this kind of thinking was quite popular, as many people looked to natural phenomena for various kinds of omens as they tried to determine what would happen in the future.

Ah, but what do you do when the lots you cast don’t agree with the markings on the liver of the bird you sacrificed (the ancient Babylonians engaged in both of these practices – Ezekiel 21:21)? Indeed, what if some priest wants you to burn your children alive as a sacrifice (that’s what making them “pass through the fire” means, and that’s what the ancient worshippers of Molech did)? How can you be sure that’s what the “Great Spirit” really wants, if all you know about him is some vague feelings you get from walking through the woods?

But the good news is that the One True God hasn’t left us to wonder about what He thinks. No, He thundered His Ten Commandments to all of His people from the top of Mt. Sinai (Deuteronomy 5:4). And He spoke with Moses face to face (Deuteronomy 34:10), giving him all the laws that God wanted His people to obey. And God continued to speak through His Old Testament prophets, calling His people to more consistent faithfulness to the covenant He had made with them.

And God eventually sent a prophet Who was even greater than Moses – the Lord Jesus. For Jesus didn’t just interpret the words of the Old Testament – He spoke with absolute authority, healing our diseases and casting out our demons (Mark 1:27). And just as Moses predicted, the Word of Christ is the ultimate measure of truth (18:19) – in fact, Jesus says that He is the truth and therefore the only way to God (John 14:6). Rejecting Jesus, refusing to listen to His Word is thus the same thing as rejecting God (18:19).

So why should anyone look to natural omens or follow personal feelings when we can rely on Jesus, the living Word of God (John 1:1)? Indeed, why would a Prophet Who was willing to die for us ever lead us astray?

Deuteronomy 18:9-22 (NASB)

9 “When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations.
10 “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,
11 or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.
12 “For whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD; and because of these detestable things the LORD your God will drive them out before you.
13 “You shall be blameless before the LORD your God.
14 “For those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do so.
15 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.
16 “This is according to all that you asked of the LORD your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’
17 “And the LORD said to me, ‘They have spoken well.
18 ‘I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
19 ‘And it shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.
20 ‘But the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’
21 “And you may say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?’
22 “When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.