Sermon Central
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A Fox In Our Hood
Contributed by Joe Rowland on Jul 4, 2009 (message contributor)
Summary: We live in a day of the Prophetic. I believe in God given dreams and God given Visions, and I believe in God given Prophesy. For the real there is also the false. The Bible tells me that there will be false Prophets that will arise and will decieve.
A Fox In Our Hood
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the LORD;
3 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!
4 O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts.
5 Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.
6 They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD saith: and the LORD hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word.
I have entitled this today: “A Fox In Our Hood”
Mt 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
We live in a day of the Prophetic. I believe in God given dreams and God given Visions, and I believe in God given Prophesy.
For the real there is also the false. The Bible tells me that there will be false Prophets that will arise.
The Word of God tells me to beware of the false.
Satan, who has always tried to be like the most High God, has always wanted to be like Him.
Satan will come as an Angel of light and he will decieve anyone that he can.
If it be possible, he will decieve you.
A False Prohet is someone that might look like you or me, they come in the name of the flock, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Mt 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
Can a false Prophet do signs and wonders?
Mt 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
Mr 13:22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.
Satan is a master deciever, he counterfeits what God does, but the end result will be death.
Ec 1:9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
The Word of the Lord came to Ezekiel in our opening text and said, Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the LORD;
As there were False Prophets and False Prophetesses in Jerusalem, there were such among the exiles as well.
Look at Ezekiel 13:3
3 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!
The Phrase, “who followed their own spirit,” means they did not follow the Holy Spirit, they preached what people wanted to hear, in this case a speedy restoration to the land of Judah.
4 O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts.
Foxes made their homes in the desert among ruins, the false prophets likewise made their financial profit out of the ruin of Israel, and actually made the ruin worse.
They had not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.
These foolish false prophets made merchandise of time by telling the people a lie instead of the truth.
They made them feel comfortable in their sins, and told them that peace and prosperity was right around the corner.
This slandered the Prohecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and in effect slandered God.
6 They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD saith: and the LORD hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word.
The phrase, “they have seen vanity and lying divination” means that they have believed their own lies and have had tried to confirm their own predictions.
They did so by claiming that the Lord saith, when in fact the Lord did not send them, and never said anything to them.
7 Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The LORD saith it; albeit I have not spoken?
The Lord called utterances of these false prohets “a vain vision” and lying divinations.
The sad thing is that we still have these lying spirits trying to deceive us today.
