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Of Human Origin or Divine? Truth stands.

False teaching about God has been a factor since Adam and Eve had the garden gates locked behind them. False teaching is anything that departs from absolute truth, anything that diminishes the one true God – his omniscience, omnipotence or omnipresence. Jesus’ apostles were accused of being false teachers by the Jewish leaders (in Acts 4 and 5). When they wanted to kill the apostles to shut them up, highly-revered rabbi Gamaliel said,
“Leave these men alone! Let them go!
For if their purpose or activity is of human origin,
it will fail.
But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men;
you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

Truth stands . . . eventually, that which is false falls away.

The Old Testament referred to those who peddled messages sent of God but were not, as false prophets. Do you remember hearing about Elijah, the prophet, maybe from Sunday school days of old? Ah Elijah … I picture him as tall with longish gray hair and beard. And for some reason, from what I know about him, I don’t see a smile on his face; I read him as really intense. Elijah lived about 800 BC after the time of the kings in Israel—Saul, David and Solomon--when the nation was divided into two kingdoms, Israel in the North and Judah in the South.

Old Testament prophets were given specific messages by God to deliver—usually to people of great influence. Elijah was sent by God to tell King Ahab that there would be drought upon the land—God’s judgment because of Ahab’s evil ways. Ahab and wife Jezebel did not follower God, but rather worshipped Baal.1 Thought of as the sun god and the storm god, Baal is usually depicted holding a lightning bolt, who defeated enemies and produced crops … a fertility god who provided children. Baal worship was rooted in sensuality and involved ritualistic prostitution in the temples. At times, appeasing Baal required human sacrifice, usually the firstborn of the one making the sacrifice.2 Yikes.

Back to Elijah … in the third year of the promised drought,3 the Lord told him to go to Ahab. As Elijah walked toward him, Ahab asked, ‘is that you, you troubler of Israel?’ And then Elijah proposed a contest to establish for the people the one true God. In fact, Elijah faces off with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. After building an altar and attaching the sacrifice to it, the prophets of Baal call upon their god all day long to rain fire from heaven, but it is to no avail. I mean, this went on all day long!
Not a word from the gods, and no fire.

But then Elijah builds an altar of stones,
digs a ditch around it,
puts the sacrifice on top of the wood and
calls for water to be poured over his sacrifice three times. � Elijah calls upon God,
and God sends fire down from heaven,
burns the sacrifice, the wood and the stones and
licks up the water in the ditch.

God proved he was the one true God.
Truth stands . . . eventually, that which is false falls away.

Huh, when I was a kid, I remember getting a freeway exit very near the Oakland Coliseum, where people regularly tried to sell us flowers at the stoplight. Moonies, they were - taken in by a false teacher. Poor young people made to get out and fundraise for many hours a day to show their dedication to Moon. Now their messiah, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon is dead, never to be heard from again.
Truth stands . . . eventually, that which is false falls away.

What Gamaliel said, hundreds of years after Elijah, was true –
if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.
But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men…

The truth of God’s Word,
The truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
--that he came to live amongst us, love us,
teach us, die for us, rise again and live eternally …
stands.
That is because the truth of God is eternal.

Christine Todd DiGiacomo

1 - 1 Kings chapter 16.32-33.
2 – Got Questions? https://www.gotquestions.org/who-Baal.html ;
3 - 1 Kings 18.1

Of Human Origin or Divine? Truth stands.

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