How do we know whom to believe? Politicians from opposite parties take up opposite positions, highlighting data to prove opposite points of view. Preachers interpret the same Scriptures in different ways. Even your own Facebook friends come to different conclusions about current events – some think the extreme measures taken to contain the spread of the coronavirus are sensible, while others claim it’s all just media hype. Everyone can’t be correct at the same time, so how can we be sure who’s right and who’s wrong?

Deuteronomy 13 eliminates a few popular tests of truth. In verses 6 through 11, we are counseled not to listen to people just because they have a close relationship with us. No, even if our brothers or sisters, our sons our daughters, our husbands or wives were to encourage us to worship other gods, we should not listen to them. Even if our friends who are as close to us as our own souls urge us to do or believe something that is contrary to God’s Word, we should not listen to them.

And the same thing goes for preachers. Even if he’s faithfully preached God’s Word in the past, even if he’s successfully prayed for God to heal someone, if that preacher encourages you to worship any other god, if that preacher teaches you to rebel against God’s Word, you shouldn’t listen to him.

Here’s the bottom line – however important any of our human relationships may be to us, they simply don’t and can’t determine the truth. It doesn’t matter how sincere our friends may be, and it doesn’t matter what good works our pastors have done. It is only the Word of God that can possibly be the sufficient rule of our faith and practice. We must measure all truth claims, not by our reason, or our tradition or our experience, but only according to the Word of God.

Deuteronomy 13:1-11 (ESV)

“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘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 taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.