The most well read article on this Blog since September of 2020 is Who Were the Sons of Issachar? And What Might They Mean for Us Today? I wrote the article in response to the charismatic prophets who were prophesying another Trump victory in the 2020 presidential election. At least one man prophesied that Trump would be elected president in 2016, and too many people to count were prophesying a second presidential victory in 2020.
The message floating in the charismatic ether in 2020 was about “knowing the times.” Knowing the times became a buzzword for having the inside track on what God was doing. It became a signal for those who knew God had chosen Donald Trump, and he was their man who they rallied around – like the Sons of Issachar rallied around David.
The “chiefs” of the Sons of Issachar were described as “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should be do” in 1 Chronicles 12:32 when they left King Saul’s army to rally around David, who was hiding from Saul in the wilderness. The implication was that embracing Trump for a second term would be “knowing the times” and doing what should be done – as ordained by God.
When I researched the Sons of Issachar and wrote the article, I noted that the Sons of Issachar were not the first people to gather around David. They weren’t even in the first wave of people who supported David. Though the leaders of the Sons of Issachar apparently knew the times, many other Israelites, including the sons of Benjamin (from Saul’s own tribe), had already rallied in defense of David. The Sons of Issachar were actually late to the party.
I don’t know exactly how we should parse that. Was “knowing the times” said tongue in cheek? Did the leaders have a hard time rallying their men to follow? (The Sons of Issachar were specifically the leaders of that tribe, unlike the descriptions of the other tribes that responded in greater numbers.)
Whatever was going on there, the author of those words in 1 Chronicles 12:32 had the benefit of hindsight. Those words were penned after Saul’s fall from grace and David’s rise to the power. The modern day prophets in 2020 didn’t know how the presidential campaign would play out, but they were certain “they knew the times.”
I was skeptical. It didn’t sit right with me, so I spent time studying the passage from which “knowing the times” came and seeking God on the subject. The article was written by me as a way of working out what I was seeing in Scripture and sensing in my own spirit as I sought to be guided by God’s Holy Spirit. Whether, I understood the times will be known only in time.
A year earlier (in 2019), the same crowd was describing Donald Trump as a King David (and later King Cyrus), but I was thinking that he was more like King Saul. (See Is Donald Trump the King We Wanted?) I voted for Donald Trump in 2016, but I didn’t feel good about it. I was disturbed by the fruit of his life – his sordid past, his bullying, his coarse talk, his ignorance about the Bible, and his demeanor – because none of it added up to reflect the kind of person Christ followers should follow.
I had given him the benefit of the doubt, but I was unsettled in my spirit. I had not yet thought to research what Jesus told us to look for in discerning false prophets – that we would know them by their fruit. I was torn.
I was mindful not to despise prophecy, but I recalled Paul’s admonition to “test everything.” (1 Thess. 5:20) I spent years testing, not letting myself completely dismiss Donald Trump as an imposter – a wolf in sheep’s clothing – but feeling the whole time like that is exactly what he was.
Paul’s admonition about testing everything may come from Deuteronomy:
“If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, ‘Let us follow other gods’ (gods you have not known) ‘and let us worship them,’ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him…. If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’ (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them…. If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’ (gods you have not known), then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly.….”
Deuteronomy 13:1-4, 6-8, 12-14
It is clear from this that God tests His people, and He expects us to test people who claim divine providence in themselves. Even if they foretell the future and perform signs and wonders, we should not be taken in and follow if doing so compromises our love for God and our obedience to Him.
There is a way that seems right to a man…. The human heart is deceptively wicked….
Notice from this passage in Deuteronomy that it isn’t what a person says, or foretelling the future, or signs and wonders that proves a person’s divinely ordained mettle; the test is how they influence others – how they lead other people to act in relation to God.
Specifically, these “troublemakers” influence people to go astray by following other gods. Idolatry is the fruit of a false prophet.
Ancient Near Easterners literally worshipped other gods, but we have come a long way since the Ancient Near Eastern times. Or, so it seems. We are far too sophisticated to worship wooden or metal idols or mountains, trees, and objects in the sky.
Yet, the heart of man remains ever the same, ever inclined to worship and be devoted to things other than God, our Creator. We have learned to shirk the older, mundane gods of wood, metals, and pottery, but we have replaced them with the subtler, unseen idols, of pride, greed, vindictiveness, and amusements. We have also replaced them with the “nobler” idols of ideologies, philosophies, theologies, and cultural sacred cows. We also like more practical idols like politics, power, influence, and control.
Anything we exalt and to which we devote our attention and affections in the place of God is an idol. Whenever we bend and warp the idea of God and religion to serve our own ends, we have succumbed to idolatry.
Indeed, religious idolatry may be the subtlest, most dangerous form of idolatry because we deceive ourselves to think we are serving the real God when we have only propped up a convenient version of God to suit our own ends.
I wrote recently of Psalm 50:16-20. According to the Psalmist, there are people who recite God’s laws and take His covenant on their lips, but they do not follow His instruction; they “join” with thieves and cast their lot with adulterers; they “use [their] mouths for evil” and “harness [their] tongue for deceit”; and they testify against and slander their brothers.
I am reminded of James: “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.” (James 3:9) People who recite God’s laws and take His covenant on their lips, talk out of both sides of their mouths. As to this, James asks the rhetorical question: “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?” (James 3:11)
When it comes to people with great power and influence, we should consider everything a person says. To “test everything” as God instructs, we must not ignore and look the other way when a person says things that are unbecoming of a follower of Jesus. We must be more vigilant – not less vigilant – to measure such a person’s conduct and speech.
Christians can be naively accepting of people who “speak our language” and acknowledge us – me included. We can be disarmed by people who claim to be one of us – especially if they like what we like and dislike what we dislike.
When James asks speaks about double-mindedness and talking out of both sides of the mouth, he is talking to “brothers and sisters” in Christ. (James 2:1) Deuteronomy 13 speaks about prophets in the midst of God’s people who need to be tested. Psalm 50 speaks of people who recite God’s laws and take His covenant on their lips. These are all warnings to us.
Even more ominously, God says of these people,
“When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you….”
God, apparently, does not always correct ours deceptions. He allows us to deceive ourselves and think we are ok. Perhaps, the most unsettling of all passages in the Bible to me is Romans 1:18-24, revealing that God also gives people over to their deceptions.
The human heart is deceitfully wicked. (Jeremiah 17:9) It’s easy for people to find ways to bend God’s word to fit our own conceptions and proof text them with Bible verses. We need to guard against such inclinations.
“Knowing the times” could be said of anyone about anything. The mere fact that we (or someone) claims to know the times is not proof of anything – other, perhaps, than our hubris. To recite such a verse as a proof text for our own understanding is like trying to anchor our position in the air. It is the height of arrogant deception if, indeed, we are wrong.
I get the idea of prophesy – that God speaks through people, and we perceive it by faith. I am not a cessationist, but we have to be careful. It seems more than evident to me that God’s warnings must be taken to heart – if we want to avoid grievous error.
In Psalm 50, and in other places, God points us to the fruit of a person’s conduct that flows out of their motivations as the ultimate “proof text.” Balaam prophesied accurately, but he is counted among the wicked because of his conduct and wicked motivations – leading the nation of Israel astray for personal gain. Jesus said we would know a false prophet by their fruit – not by other things such as the words they speak or the signs and wonders they perform.
At a minimum, we need to consider all the words they speak, and not just their recitation of God’s laws, claims of God’s covenant, or even prophetic words that come to pass. We need to pay attention to determine whether they talk out of both sides of their mouths. We need to pay attention to the fruit of their conduct and be on the lookout for signs of idolatry that is evident in the people who follow them.
At the end of our days, what good is that we might “know the times” and be found wanting before Jesus?
Navigating by Faith 