44. RETURNING FROM DEATHWhat can a prophet do for you?
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How do you know if someone is a true prophet? There have been a lot of people throughout history, who claimed to be a prophet.
Nostradamus is famous as a prophet or seer though he apparently never claimed to be one. He said he used planetary con gurations of past events in a comparative way to try to predict the likelihood of future events. Some research suggests that Nostradamus often paraphrased collections of end time prophecies from many sources including the Bible that were passed off as his own. His most popular predictions were written using a mixture of different languages, word games, and a writing technique where a passage from another source is taken and given a different meaning in a present or future context. He didn’t give dates to these so-called predictions and they were often so vague that they can be applied to a number of events. This may account for some of his popularity. Nevertheless, Nostradamus remains popular and his book The Prophecies is still being printed.
There have been many more people, less famous than Nostradamus, who have come and gone from public attention. Many of these people who claim to be a prophet gather a large following. Some write out their prophecies of the future. Others just seem to collect money and attention.
How can you evaluate if someone is a true prophet or not? We need to have some criterion for evaluation. Perhaps we can start with the story of Orhan who was searching for a doctor. Diabetes had left him nearly blind in both eyes. So he went to the hospital for some help.
"Dr. what can be done to get my sight back?" asked Orhan.
"Well, I think you will need to come to my private office. After I nish at the hospital today I will go over there. I can do a proper evaluation and tell you what you need to do."
So Orhan went to the doctor's of ce and paid 250 lira for an exam. When the exam was done, the doctor said,
"I think you will need surgery. But I don't do that type of surgery, so you will need to go to someone else."
Orhan felt ripped off. He said to himself, "He could've told me that at the hospital without examining at his private of ce. He was just cheating me out of my money."
Orhan went to another hospital to see if he could nd a quali ed surgeon. While there, he found a number of doctors, but none of them could do the surgery. The doctors didn’t have the special training and techniques necessary for working with the veins that supply blood to the eyeball. Then Orhan went to a teaching and research hospital and found a professor of eye surgery. He said to Orhan,
"I have some advanced training in eye surgery. But the surgery you need is very particular. There is only one person in Turkey with that education and experience. He is in a hospital in Istanbul.”
So Orhan packed up and went to Istanbul to nd that doctor.
When Orhan got to the hospital in Istanbul, he received an examina- tion from the doctor who had been recommended.
"You were right to come here,” said the doctor. "This will be a very dif cult surgery, and very expensive. How did you know to come to me? I'm the only one in this country who could do the surgery."
Orhan said to the doctor, "I went from place to place, from hospital to hospital, and from doctor to doctor to find the one who had the right qualifications. I found many doctors, but learned that not every doctor can do this type of surgery."
Orhan was right, all eye doctors are not the same nor can they all do special surgery. This leads us to ask a question. Does every prophet have the same quali cations or do the same job?
According to the Bible, a prophet is someone who represents God before the people. God communicates His will to the prophet who in turn reveals that information to the people. It may be a warning or a commandment to do something. It may be general teaching on what to do in certain situations. It could even be a prediction of future events.
Sometimes prophets are permitted by God to work miracles. But remember that God gave speci c warnings to the Israelites about prophets. Not all prophets are prophets of God, even if they are per- forming miracles, signs, and wonders. Let’s look at Deuteronomy chapter 13 verses 1-5:
1 If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 "and the sign or the won- der comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods' -- which you have not known -- 'and let us serve them,' 3 "you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 "You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. 5 "But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst.
We see that God deals seriously with evil. Did you notice that God said even liars and deceivers might have power to work miracles? Don’t believe that everything supernatural is from God! Do you remember when pharaoh’s magicians also worked miracles by mak- ing their rods become snakes? We know their power didn't come from God, so it must have come from God's enemy. Don’t forget that Satan has incredible power and he can give that power to his agents when he wants to. It may be that the sign or wonder comes to pass. Then if you are deceived by the miracle you can be led to do evil, which God speci cally forbids. Don’t do it! Always follow what God has commanded speci cally and don’t make miracles your only criteria for belief.
We said that a prophet sometimes makes predictions about the future. One way you can know if a prophet is real is to see if his pre- dictions come true. Let’s see what the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 22:
22 When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.
If someone says he is a prophet and the events he predicts do not come to pass then we know he is not from God. Does every prophet make predictions about the future? No. Earlier we learned that a prophet is someone who communicates a message from God to the people. That message may or may not include a prediction of future events.
Moses at one time told the Israelites that another prophet would arise like him. Let’s look at Deuteronomy chapter 18 verses 18-19:
18 I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. 19 'And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.
What characteristics of Moses would the future prophet have? The future prophet would be from among the Hebrews like Moses and not from some other race. Moses was certainly a leader. He received instructions from God and taught the people. He worked miracles when he delivered them from slavery and led them to the Promised Land. He also served as a judge of right and wrong when people had disputes. So Moses said that a prophet would come who would have these characteristics: Hebrew, leader, teacher, judge, and miracle worker.
Not every prophet works miracles, but some do. Today we will look at one of the greatest prophets in the Old Testament and how miracles were a part of his work for God. The prophet’s name was Elijah. We can start by reading 1 Kings chapter 17 verse 1:
1 And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word."
You remember that the nation of Israel was divided in the time of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son. Jeroboam took ten of the tribes and formed the northern kingdom of Israel while the southern kingdom of Judah consisted of two tribes. Ahab was the king of the northern kingdom of Israel in the time of Elijah the prophet. He was one of the worst kings of Israel’s history and lead the people into apostasy and idol worship. As punishment, God told Elijah that He was going to withhold the rain and wanted him to announce it.
Drought was one of the curses that God said would come upon the nation if they disobeyed.4 That tells us that it was not the predetermined fate of God that the drought occurred. If the people had obeyed the Lord, the drought would not have happened. The choice was theirs.
Also notice how precise the prophecy was. It was not some vaguely worded cryptic statement that could be interpreted a thousand different ways like one of Nostradamus' prophecies. This was a prophecy that was veri able in history. Either the prophet's message was going to happen or it wouldn't. There was no guesswork here and no room for misinterpretation. In later lessons, we will see other examples of God's precise prophetic words, which make a wide and clear distinction between false prophecy and the true.
Let’s pick up our story again in 1 Kings chapter 17 verses 2-7:
2 Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 3 "Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which ows into the Jordan. 4 "And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there." 5 So he went and did according to the word of the LORD, for he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, which ows into the Jordan. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morn- ing, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook. 7 And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.
It is interesting to see that God works a miracle to sustain the prophet during the drought he himself was commanded to announce! God did not completely guard His true followers from the effects of the drought, but He did sustain them during it. This is an important lesson for us. God will not shield us from every trouble that comes upon a nation because of evil. But God will sustain us if we stay faithful to Him. Elijah did not eat like a king, but his needs were supplied. The story continues in 1 Kings chapter 17 verses 8-16:
8 Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 9 "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you." 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, "Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink." 11And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, "Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." 12 So she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of our in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." 13 And Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it rst, and bring it to me; and after- ward make some for yourself and your son. 14 "For thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'The bin of our shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth.'" 15 So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The bin of our was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke by Elijah.
We should stop here and contemplate this woman’s faith. She, along with her son, was on the brink of death. They were about to eat their last meal! And yet, this widow’s faith was so strong she was willing to sacri ce her own life by giving up her last bit of food to feed Elijah. Rest assured, God honors that kind of self-sacri ce and faith. For her kind act, God blessed them with the miracle of sustenance. Elijah, the woman, and her son were not eating baklava. But they were eating!
Is it possible that we take for granted the miracles God works every day to sustain us? Going to the market to buy tomatoes, cucum- bers, and lettuce for breakfast seems like a normal, mundane task. But do you ever stop and think about the miracle God works every single day by providing the food that supports billions and billions of people? Cut open a cucumber and notice its symmetry. Think of the millions of cells that grew one by one to form the it. Then think of the millions and millions of atoms that make it all form together. Who can make a cucumber? Only God can! It may not seem like much, but its a miracle! As this story points out, the sunshine and the rain are God’s miracles too. Without them nothing grows. And no rain falls except at God’s word. Let’s continue reading in 1 Kings chapter 17 verses 17-24:
17 Now it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. And his sickness was so seri- ous that there was no breath left in him. 18 So she said to Elijah, "What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?" 19 And he said to her, "Give me your son." So he took him out of her arms and carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. 20 Then he cried out to the LORD and said, "O LORD my God, have You also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge, by killing her son?" 21 And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the LORD and said, "O LORD my God, I pray, let this child's soul come back to him." 22 Then the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, "See, your son lives!" 24 Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is the truth."
After all the woman had been through, you would think that her faith would remain strong. But in death, it is easy to be confused and distraught. We know the woman had faith from the beginning because she obeyed Elijah’s command to give him food. She also wit- nessed the miracle of the flour and oil not running out. So while her faith may have been weak after her son died, we also see that it was strengthened by the miracle. But miracles do not always strengthen faith.
The Egyptians saw the miracles directly done by God and the ones He did through Moses. But it did not make them believers. They still rejected the truth. Miracles can encourage faith and they can be the blessings received from having faith. They can also help people understand who is a true prophet. But we must still make sure that the prophet never speaks against what God has revealed through earlier prophets. Because if he does, we know that there is no truth in him. In other words a true prophet is never going to promote something contrary to God’s revealed will through earlier prophets.
God’s principles do not change even though the application of them may change under different circumstances. So when we are look- ing for the prophet who would be greater than Moses, we need to look for someone with the right quali cations. Consider an example from our own time.
If we would hope to find a leader for Turkey who would be greater than Ataturk, we would have to look for someone who was a suc- cessful general and who rallied the nation around a cause. We would have to nd someone who would be strong enough to change the script of the language and set up a whole different system of government, complete with law and nances. We would have to find someone skilled in foreign policy who could manage to get the entire nation accepted as new in an international treaty. The list of what he did goes on and on.
So when we are looking to find the fulfillment of the great prophet who is to be like Moses, we should be looking for a prophet who is establishing the covenant of the Ten Commandments among the people. He would be a leader of the people and teach them what God revealed to him. He would be a prophet in the true sense of the word. He would work miracles that would be as great or greater than Elijah’s miracles, including raising people from the dead. And he would lead the people to the Promised Land.
Discussion Questions
1. Have you seen something supernatural before? If so, did you believe it was from God?
2. If God worked more miracles in front of people do you think it would cause more people to believe the truth? If yes, why don’t we
see more miracles?
3. Think of people considered “Great Prophets.” How many of them raised someone from the dead?
4 Deut. 28: 23, 24
Nostradamus is famous as a prophet or seer though he apparently never claimed to be one. He said he used planetary con gurations of past events in a comparative way to try to predict the likelihood of future events. Some research suggests that Nostradamus often paraphrased collections of end time prophecies from many sources including the Bible that were passed off as his own. His most popular predictions were written using a mixture of different languages, word games, and a writing technique where a passage from another source is taken and given a different meaning in a present or future context. He didn’t give dates to these so-called predictions and they were often so vague that they can be applied to a number of events. This may account for some of his popularity. Nevertheless, Nostradamus remains popular and his book The Prophecies is still being printed.
There have been many more people, less famous than Nostradamus, who have come and gone from public attention. Many of these people who claim to be a prophet gather a large following. Some write out their prophecies of the future. Others just seem to collect money and attention.
How can you evaluate if someone is a true prophet or not? We need to have some criterion for evaluation. Perhaps we can start with the story of Orhan who was searching for a doctor. Diabetes had left him nearly blind in both eyes. So he went to the hospital for some help.
"Dr. what can be done to get my sight back?" asked Orhan.
"Well, I think you will need to come to my private office. After I nish at the hospital today I will go over there. I can do a proper evaluation and tell you what you need to do."
So Orhan went to the doctor's of ce and paid 250 lira for an exam. When the exam was done, the doctor said,
"I think you will need surgery. But I don't do that type of surgery, so you will need to go to someone else."
Orhan felt ripped off. He said to himself, "He could've told me that at the hospital without examining at his private of ce. He was just cheating me out of my money."
Orhan went to another hospital to see if he could nd a quali ed surgeon. While there, he found a number of doctors, but none of them could do the surgery. The doctors didn’t have the special training and techniques necessary for working with the veins that supply blood to the eyeball. Then Orhan went to a teaching and research hospital and found a professor of eye surgery. He said to Orhan,
"I have some advanced training in eye surgery. But the surgery you need is very particular. There is only one person in Turkey with that education and experience. He is in a hospital in Istanbul.”
So Orhan packed up and went to Istanbul to nd that doctor.
When Orhan got to the hospital in Istanbul, he received an examina- tion from the doctor who had been recommended.
"You were right to come here,” said the doctor. "This will be a very dif cult surgery, and very expensive. How did you know to come to me? I'm the only one in this country who could do the surgery."
Orhan said to the doctor, "I went from place to place, from hospital to hospital, and from doctor to doctor to find the one who had the right qualifications. I found many doctors, but learned that not every doctor can do this type of surgery."
Orhan was right, all eye doctors are not the same nor can they all do special surgery. This leads us to ask a question. Does every prophet have the same quali cations or do the same job?
According to the Bible, a prophet is someone who represents God before the people. God communicates His will to the prophet who in turn reveals that information to the people. It may be a warning or a commandment to do something. It may be general teaching on what to do in certain situations. It could even be a prediction of future events.
Sometimes prophets are permitted by God to work miracles. But remember that God gave speci c warnings to the Israelites about prophets. Not all prophets are prophets of God, even if they are per- forming miracles, signs, and wonders. Let’s look at Deuteronomy chapter 13 verses 1-5:
1 If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 "and the sign or the won- der comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods' -- which you have not known -- 'and let us serve them,' 3 "you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 "You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. 5 "But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst.
We see that God deals seriously with evil. Did you notice that God said even liars and deceivers might have power to work miracles? Don’t believe that everything supernatural is from God! Do you remember when pharaoh’s magicians also worked miracles by mak- ing their rods become snakes? We know their power didn't come from God, so it must have come from God's enemy. Don’t forget that Satan has incredible power and he can give that power to his agents when he wants to. It may be that the sign or wonder comes to pass. Then if you are deceived by the miracle you can be led to do evil, which God speci cally forbids. Don’t do it! Always follow what God has commanded speci cally and don’t make miracles your only criteria for belief.
We said that a prophet sometimes makes predictions about the future. One way you can know if a prophet is real is to see if his pre- dictions come true. Let’s see what the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 22:
22 When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.
If someone says he is a prophet and the events he predicts do not come to pass then we know he is not from God. Does every prophet make predictions about the future? No. Earlier we learned that a prophet is someone who communicates a message from God to the people. That message may or may not include a prediction of future events.
Moses at one time told the Israelites that another prophet would arise like him. Let’s look at Deuteronomy chapter 18 verses 18-19:
18 I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. 19 'And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.
What characteristics of Moses would the future prophet have? The future prophet would be from among the Hebrews like Moses and not from some other race. Moses was certainly a leader. He received instructions from God and taught the people. He worked miracles when he delivered them from slavery and led them to the Promised Land. He also served as a judge of right and wrong when people had disputes. So Moses said that a prophet would come who would have these characteristics: Hebrew, leader, teacher, judge, and miracle worker.
Not every prophet works miracles, but some do. Today we will look at one of the greatest prophets in the Old Testament and how miracles were a part of his work for God. The prophet’s name was Elijah. We can start by reading 1 Kings chapter 17 verse 1:
1 And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word."
You remember that the nation of Israel was divided in the time of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son. Jeroboam took ten of the tribes and formed the northern kingdom of Israel while the southern kingdom of Judah consisted of two tribes. Ahab was the king of the northern kingdom of Israel in the time of Elijah the prophet. He was one of the worst kings of Israel’s history and lead the people into apostasy and idol worship. As punishment, God told Elijah that He was going to withhold the rain and wanted him to announce it.
Drought was one of the curses that God said would come upon the nation if they disobeyed.4 That tells us that it was not the predetermined fate of God that the drought occurred. If the people had obeyed the Lord, the drought would not have happened. The choice was theirs.
Also notice how precise the prophecy was. It was not some vaguely worded cryptic statement that could be interpreted a thousand different ways like one of Nostradamus' prophecies. This was a prophecy that was veri able in history. Either the prophet's message was going to happen or it wouldn't. There was no guesswork here and no room for misinterpretation. In later lessons, we will see other examples of God's precise prophetic words, which make a wide and clear distinction between false prophecy and the true.
Let’s pick up our story again in 1 Kings chapter 17 verses 2-7:
2 Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 3 "Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which ows into the Jordan. 4 "And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there." 5 So he went and did according to the word of the LORD, for he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, which ows into the Jordan. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morn- ing, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook. 7 And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.
It is interesting to see that God works a miracle to sustain the prophet during the drought he himself was commanded to announce! God did not completely guard His true followers from the effects of the drought, but He did sustain them during it. This is an important lesson for us. God will not shield us from every trouble that comes upon a nation because of evil. But God will sustain us if we stay faithful to Him. Elijah did not eat like a king, but his needs were supplied. The story continues in 1 Kings chapter 17 verses 8-16:
8 Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 9 "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you." 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, "Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink." 11And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, "Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." 12 So she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of our in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." 13 And Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it rst, and bring it to me; and after- ward make some for yourself and your son. 14 "For thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'The bin of our shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth.'" 15 So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The bin of our was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke by Elijah.
We should stop here and contemplate this woman’s faith. She, along with her son, was on the brink of death. They were about to eat their last meal! And yet, this widow’s faith was so strong she was willing to sacri ce her own life by giving up her last bit of food to feed Elijah. Rest assured, God honors that kind of self-sacri ce and faith. For her kind act, God blessed them with the miracle of sustenance. Elijah, the woman, and her son were not eating baklava. But they were eating!
Is it possible that we take for granted the miracles God works every day to sustain us? Going to the market to buy tomatoes, cucum- bers, and lettuce for breakfast seems like a normal, mundane task. But do you ever stop and think about the miracle God works every single day by providing the food that supports billions and billions of people? Cut open a cucumber and notice its symmetry. Think of the millions of cells that grew one by one to form the it. Then think of the millions and millions of atoms that make it all form together. Who can make a cucumber? Only God can! It may not seem like much, but its a miracle! As this story points out, the sunshine and the rain are God’s miracles too. Without them nothing grows. And no rain falls except at God’s word. Let’s continue reading in 1 Kings chapter 17 verses 17-24:
17 Now it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. And his sickness was so seri- ous that there was no breath left in him. 18 So she said to Elijah, "What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?" 19 And he said to her, "Give me your son." So he took him out of her arms and carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. 20 Then he cried out to the LORD and said, "O LORD my God, have You also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge, by killing her son?" 21 And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the LORD and said, "O LORD my God, I pray, let this child's soul come back to him." 22 Then the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, "See, your son lives!" 24 Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is the truth."
After all the woman had been through, you would think that her faith would remain strong. But in death, it is easy to be confused and distraught. We know the woman had faith from the beginning because she obeyed Elijah’s command to give him food. She also wit- nessed the miracle of the flour and oil not running out. So while her faith may have been weak after her son died, we also see that it was strengthened by the miracle. But miracles do not always strengthen faith.
The Egyptians saw the miracles directly done by God and the ones He did through Moses. But it did not make them believers. They still rejected the truth. Miracles can encourage faith and they can be the blessings received from having faith. They can also help people understand who is a true prophet. But we must still make sure that the prophet never speaks against what God has revealed through earlier prophets. Because if he does, we know that there is no truth in him. In other words a true prophet is never going to promote something contrary to God’s revealed will through earlier prophets.
God’s principles do not change even though the application of them may change under different circumstances. So when we are look- ing for the prophet who would be greater than Moses, we need to look for someone with the right quali cations. Consider an example from our own time.
If we would hope to find a leader for Turkey who would be greater than Ataturk, we would have to look for someone who was a suc- cessful general and who rallied the nation around a cause. We would have to nd someone who would be strong enough to change the script of the language and set up a whole different system of government, complete with law and nances. We would have to find someone skilled in foreign policy who could manage to get the entire nation accepted as new in an international treaty. The list of what he did goes on and on.
So when we are looking to find the fulfillment of the great prophet who is to be like Moses, we should be looking for a prophet who is establishing the covenant of the Ten Commandments among the people. He would be a leader of the people and teach them what God revealed to him. He would be a prophet in the true sense of the word. He would work miracles that would be as great or greater than Elijah’s miracles, including raising people from the dead. And he would lead the people to the Promised Land.
Discussion Questions
1. Have you seen something supernatural before? If so, did you believe it was from God?
2. If God worked more miracles in front of people do you think it would cause more people to believe the truth? If yes, why don’t we
see more miracles?
3. Think of people considered “Great Prophets.” How many of them raised someone from the dead?
4 Deut. 28: 23, 24