With so many TV preachers, pastors, and Bible teachers claiming to be authoritative voices for God himself, how do you know who to listen to?
Deuteronomy is one of the most unique books in the Old Testament. It is a book of sermons that were originally spoken by Moses to the Israelites as they were on the verge of entering the Promised Land. It is, at times, a repetitive and tedious book to read, especially since the bulk of the material in Deuteronomy can be found in books like Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. But don’t let that scare you from studying it. Deuteronomy is more than just a regurgitation of the law; it is the proclamation of God’s words for God’s people. Whereas in Exodus we hear God’s law given, in Deuteronomy we hear God’s law preached.
Simmering under the surface of every sermon is the painful reality that Moses would not be going into the Promised Land. Because of his quick temper and lack of faith, he would have to watch as his people went on while he stayed behind (Deut. 32:52). This, of course, is devastating and excruciating, both for Moses and for the Israelites as a whole. Moses had been Israel’s leader for the better part of four decades. In many ways, we should think of him as their George Washington. He was integral to who they were as a people. Moses advocated for them before Pharaoh, led them out of Egypt, spoke to the Lord for them at Sinai, and intervened for them when they failed on countless occasions.
Deuteronomy is more than just a regurgitation of the law; it is the proclamation of God’s words for God’s people.
Moses’s leadership of Israel cannot be overstated. He was their captain, their shepherd, their mediator, and their luminary. But soon the Israelites would have to learn how to live without him, which was both daunting and disorienting. Who would take their petitions to the Lord? And who would speak God’s words back to them? How would they hear from the Lord without Moses? How would they know what to do? Who to listen to? Who to rely on? In many ways, these are questions that still plague us today. Every evening news broadcast loves to remind you that they are your “most trusted source” for news and information. But my question is, how can they all claim the same thing? How are they all the number one source for breaking news? Who is the ultimate authority?
The same issue has, unfortunately, made its way into the church, too. Depending on where you go or who you listen to, you might get vastly different answers or explanations to the same basic questions about Christian life. With so many TV preachers, pastors, and Bible teachers claiming to be authoritative voices for God himself, how do you know who to listen to? Complicating matters further is the stunning rate at which these supposed “biblical authorities” fall prey to immorality and scandal. When this happens, far more is lost than just their ministry or their platform.
Given all the scandal and contradictions, it’s unsurprising that public trust in pastors or ministry leaders recently reached its worst rating ever. According to the 2023 Gallup Honesty and Ethics poll, the trust rating for members of clergy reached a record low of 32 percent, which is down from 64% in 2001. In light of this, how do you know who to trust? Whose words should you be heeding and following? Moses’s sermon in Deuteronomy 18 gives us a helpful way to know who to listen to and who to trust by conveying four lessons that outline whose words are authoritative and whose are not.
A lesson about authority
To assuage the worries and concerns of the Israelites in light of Moses’s impending absence, God establishes a new office of authority: the prophet (Deut. 18:15–18). Moses reminds them of that “day of the assembly” when, years before, God’s presence descended on Mount Sinai with thunder, flashes of lightning, and smoke that enveloped the whole landscape (Exod. 20:18–21). God had come down in all his might and glory, which proved too much for the people to handle. This beckoned them to stand “far off” and beg Moses to speak on God’s behalf. According to Moses, this wasn’t a one-time event. Israel’s need for someone to deliver God’s words to them was ongoing, which is why the office of the prophet was established.
While you might think that a prophet is someone who makes predictions about the future, that is not what it means to be a prophet, at least not entirely. Essentially, a “prophet” is a spokesperson, or someone who speaks on behalf of someone else. In biblical terms, a prophet is one who receives the words of God and delivers them or preaches them to the people of God. Those words could be related to future events or, more often, they could be words that make sense of what was happening in the present. The whole line of Old Testament prophets — from Elijah to Isaiah to Jeremiah to Ezekiel — can be traced back to this moment when God organized a way for his word to be understood.
God himself would “raise up” one like Moses from among the people of Israel to speak on his behalf, impart his wisdom, and bring to bear his truth for those who belong to him. The prophet’s words were to be received as if they were the very words of God. That is to say, his words were authoritative (Deut. 18:19). If the prophet’s words were refused — if the people did not listen to them — God himself would hold those individuals accountable for it. God, therefore, imparts his authority through this particular office. Prophets were to be conduits of truth, hope, and, yes, judgment (when it was called for). But the point is that a prophet’s authority is not his own.
A preacher’s authority is always downstream of the words he is preaching.
In fact, he had no authority of his own. The source of a prophet’s authority is not inherent to him nor does it originate with him. A prophet’s authority is always borrowed; it’s given to him by God himself (Deut. 18:15, 18). It is the Lord himself who fills the prophetic office with his authority. Accordingly, a prophet who demands that you listen and abide by his words simply because he says them is not a prophet to be trusted. Similarly, any preacher or ministry leader who starts listing their qualifications, their status, or their position as the reason why you should listen to them is not worth your time. “You need not be afraid of him” (Deut. 18:22). “Authority,” writes Christopher Ash, “does not reside in the preacher as an individual, or in the preacher’s office, or in his ordination or commissioning, or in his church as an institution. It resides in the written word of God. The source of authority is Christ” (37). Just because a preacher has a laundry list of credentials doesn’t mean he is authoritative. Rather, a preacher’s authority is always downstream of the words he is preaching.
A lesson about humility
God makes it abundantly clear that a prophet’s message isn’t his, it’s God’s. “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers,” the Lord declares, “and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him” (Deut. 18:18, emphasis mine). A true and faithful prophet, therefore, is not one who stands to speak whatever he wants or whatever is on his mind. Rather, he is one who stands for God to speak God’s words to God’s people. “The Lord has spoken,” the prophet Amos says, “Who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:8). “Have I now any power of my own to speak anything?” attests the beleaguered prophet Balaam. “The word that God puts in my mouth, that must I speak” (Num. 22:38). A prophet’s entire ministry is concerned with communicating God’s words and God’s truth, not the prophet’s own opinions, ideas, or preferences. He has a specific message that he is bound to deliver and he has to get it out.
This reminds me of something the comedian Mike Birbiglia once said while he was doing a press tour to promote his new comedy show back in 2022. Unlike other standup comedians, Birbiglia’s shows are very planned and organized. This means there isn’t a lot of room to ad-lib or make up material on the fly. One interviewer asked Birbiglia if this made him feel “trapped” or confined by his material, to which he responded: “No, because I ultimately have to deliver . . . like, in one way, I think about the show as this thing that I can hold in my hands. ‘I have this thing and I need to convey it to these people who are gathered here.’ And I know that there [are] ten aspects of the show that really have to land in a certain way. And if they don’t, then I won’t have delivered the thing.”
Leave it to a comedian to say something truly profound and thought-provoking! We can take what Birbiglia said about his comedy show and apply it to what a prophet’s ministry should be about, especially what a prophet should say. A prophet’s message isn’t one with which he is authorized to tinker or edit. A trustworthy prophet understands that they are bound by God to deliver God’s words and not their own, or else they haven’t done their job. It is unfortunate that the reverent responsibility of opening God’s Word and proclaiming its truth for the benefit of God’s church has been spoiled by man’s opinions. “The preacher’s task,” Raymond Brown comments, “is not to confront the congregation with his own ideas but with the authoritative word of God” (186). The assembly of God’s people is neither the time nor the place for what I want to say. Rather, it is a sacred event in which God’s Word gets all the attention because his words are true. A true prophet, therefore, is one who humbly submits to proclaiming the words he receives, instead of going off on his own tangents and tirades. After all, the only words that have any authority, in and of themselves, are the words of God.
A lesson about gravity
For a prophet to be true, his words have to come to pass one hundred percent of the time.
Within Moses’s sermon, he answers a question he anticipates his people will ask. “How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?” Moses contemplates (Deut. 18:21). How can they know when a prophet is actually speaking for God? He, then, proceeds to tell them that if a prophet starts making all kinds of proclamations only for none of them to come true or come to fruition, rest assured, those words don’t come from the Lord (Deut. 18:22). For a prophet to be true, his words have to come to pass one hundred percent of the time. A prophet with a ninety-nine percent success rate is not a prophet to be trusted. Why? Because a true prophet will speak the words of God and the words of God always come to pass. This is what the Lord says of himself through the prophet Ezekiel: “I will speak the word that I will speak, and it will be performed,” he says (Ezek. 12:25). Or as the prophet Isaiah puts it: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:10–11).
If a prophet’s words don’t come true, don’t pay any attention to them. They have “presumed” to speak on behalf of God, but they have done so out of pride. Accordingly, any prophet who speaks pridefully or “presumptuously” is liable to die (Deut. 18:20). That is the penalty; that’s how serious God is about those who speak for him. Countless preachers and so-called “prophets” made all kinds of predictions about the eclipse back in April of this year. Remember when that was all anyone could talk about? Ministry leaders who supposedly represented God made all kinds of claims about how this event would signal “the end of the world,” only for the eclipse to come and go without much fanfare. Those who presumed to “speak for God” should be held accountable for speaking “presumptuously.” I’m not saying they should die but maybe their ministries should.
If a preacher is capitalizing on your fear to validate his ministry and fill his pockets, in the words of Moses, “You need not be afraid of him.” The responsibility of speaking God’s words to God’s people is filled with an enormous sense of gravity. There is a weightiness and seriousness that imbues the moment of opening God’s Word and declaring its truths.
A lesson about priority
As we’ve seen, a prophet’s message doesn’t originate with him, and neither is it ultimately about him. “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers,” Moses declares, and “it is to him you shall listen” (Deut. 18:15). These words, which would go on to play a critical role in the hearts of the Israelites for centuries, beg the question, Who’s he talking about? Who is he referring to when he says that God will raise up a prophet like him? Who is it? In the immediate context, this is a nod to Joshua, who takes up Moses’s mantle and leads Israel into the Land of Promise. Joshua’s succession of Moses is a major theme in the book that bears his name. But for as admirable as Joshua is, even he, too, fails. (He’s human after all.) This means that Moses must have someone else in mind, a true prophet who would know nothing of failure; a better prophet who would exceed the quality of all the others who would follow him. For all of Elijah’s exploits, Isaiah’s candor, Jeremiah’s integrity, or Ezekiel’s brilliance, none of them are who Moses has in mind. Not ultimately. There is only one person who has perfectly fulfilled his prophetic ministry. The true and better spokesman for God is none other than God himself, who comes to deliver his word and disclose himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
As the ages wore on after this moment in Deuteronomy, with prophet after prophet coming and going, the people of Israel grew eager to see “The Prophet” of whom Moses spoke. If you fast forward to the New Testament and the period when John the Baptist emerged as an up-and-coming “prophetic voice,” he is interrogated by some “priests and Levites” who inquire, “Are you the Prophet?” John emphatically dismisses this claim (John 1:21). He, of course, knew his role. He wasn’t “The Prophet” since that role was reserved for someone else; for someone better (John 1:21–27). This clears the way for us to consider the moment we know as Jesus’s Transfiguration, in which God makes his intentions clear concerning the identity of The Prophet, as the Father himself declares, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matt. 17:5), unambiguously echoing his words to Moses (Deut. 18:15). There on that mountain top, Jesus’s “inner circle” — Peter, James, and John — is given an unmistakable sign that the Prophet of whom Moses spoke is none other than Jesus himself. He’s the one! He is the culminating revelation of who God is.
If a preacher or ministry leader is preaching a message that is entirely focused on you, he has lost his priority. He has punted on his responsibility and his calling since a prophet’s mission isn’t to talk to you about you. Rather, it is to bring you the Word of God, the focus of which is always the Lord Jesus Christ. “You search the Scriptures,” Jesus attests, “because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39; cf. Luke 24:27). Every page, every prophecy, every story, and every bit of the Bible is about him and any preacher worth his salt will never tell you otherwise or lead you to believe something other than what Jesus has already said of himself. Neither will he leave you to focus on you since the thrust of God’s Word is not about you, it’s about God’s Son and what he has accomplished to rescue the world from sin and “reconcile to himself all things” (Col. 1:20). The function of a prophet or preacher, therefore, is to speak the things concerning Christ alone since it is to him alone that the church should listen.
Luther’s fingers are not pointed at the parishioners, they point to Christ.
In many ways, this is best captured by an oil painting that hangs in the parish church of St. Mary’s in Wittenberg, Germany. Behind the altar of that historic church is the “Wittenberg Altarpiece,” which consists of an impressive series of panels depicting various scenes either from Scripture or from Lutheran theology that were integral to the Reformation movement. Installed in 1547, the “Wittenberg Altarpiece” was begun by Lucas Cranach the Elder and finished by his son, Lucas Cranach the Younger. In the center of the altarpiece, below the main trio of scenes, is a visual of Martin Luther delivering a sermon with his arm extended and fingers reaching out like lances, ready to cut the unsuspecting congregant to the quick. Across from him, on the left side of the frame, is a gallery of listeners who appear to hang on to Luther’s every word. The image I just described, though, is incomplete. Without the last element, this image isn’t beautiful, it’s fearful. Luther would appear to be living up to the familiar trope of preachers who berate, bellow, and bludgeon their parishioners into compliance.
The final element of this altarpiece is, of course, Christ on the cross. His crucified body is the focal point of the entire frame and, indeed, re-frames how we understand the scene. Luther’s fingers are not pointed at the parishioners, they point to Christ. In fact, the gaze of the congregants is not directed at Luther either but at the one on the cross, at battered and bloodied Jesus, the one in whom we find life, hope, meaning, and salvation. This vividly epitomizes a preacher’s responsibility and, likewise, how you can know who to listen to. “In every pulpit,” declares Henry Law, “let the great Prophet’s voice be clearly heard” (149). After all, the only kind of preaching or prophesying that actually saves souls from the brink of certain damnation is the kind that gives every ounce of attention to Jesus, the true and better Prophet who comes to not only tell us what God is like but also to show us through his death and resurrection. It is to him alone that we listen, that we direct our gaze, and that we owe our eternity.
