{"id":1130,"date":"2019-06-26T14:49:28","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T19:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2019-06-30T15:00:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T20:00:09","slug":"dealing-with-false-prophets-u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=1130","title":{"rendered":"Dealing With False Prophets (U)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wednesday of the 12th<\/sup>\nWeek in Ordinary Time<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Gen 15:1-12, 17-18; Mt\n7: 15-20<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Deacon Larry\nBrockman<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I wonder whether we have false prophets in our day?\u00a0 Jesus says they would come to us in sheep\u2019s clothing, but underneath they would be ravenous wolves.\u00a0 Prophets. you know, tell us what things will be like in the future.\u00a0 They are either prophets of doom; or prophets of boon.\u00a0 Most people like the second kind of prophet, don\u2019t they?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know about you, but a whole bunch of things leap out\nat me about prophets of boon.  How about\nthe advertising industry for starters?  We\nare constantly bombarded with claims on products by advertisers all telling us\nhow much better our lives would be if only we bought their products.  They are claims that are hard to believe; probably\nbecause they are not true, or at best, they are half true.  And underneath, we know that there is just\none motive- money, not our welfare.  This\nincludes ads for toothpaste, soda drinks, beer, chips, all kinds of foods and\nentertainment, and a whole lot more.  They\nare replete with promises, implied promises. \nThey use good looking women or guys with the whitest teeth, or having\nthe best time at the party, or any number of other visual traps that sell us.  Everything looks so good on the surface.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of us are not taken in by these kinds of false\nprophets.  Probably because all of us\nhave bought these false narratives a time or two, and so, we learned from our\nmistakes.  We can tell what the real\nfruits of their efforts are.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are other, much more serious false prophets who\nuse the same techniques to sell something as good.  They are not selling products; they are\nselling visions as a means of gaining power. \nI\u2019m talking about politicians; politicians whose hidden agenda differs\nfrom what they are selling.  They couch\nwhat they say by making it all sound so good. \nFree college education for everyone; free health care for everyone; a\nbig increase in the minimum wage; a tax cut for everyone; eliminating stifling\ngovernment regulations on business and the environment; and safeguarding the\nsecond amendment.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you have to wonder if they are sheep in wolves clothing.  Are they promising these agendas to gain and\nmaintain power?   Or do they really have\nour best interests at stake?  Because\neach one of the 6 things I mentioned comes at a cost, doesn\u2019t it?  And basically, the costs are not addressed by\ntheir promises; rather, the emphasis is on all the \u201cgood\u201d that is promised.  Some things appear to be good on the surface,\nbut when you look at them closer or over time they end up being very bad.  Unfortunately, consequences like this and\nreal costs are ignored.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But just like the products pushed by the advertising\nindustry, we can often tell when we\u2019ve been hoodwinked.  Because most of the time, politicians just\ndon\u2019t deliver on their promises.  And if\nthey do, the consequences, come back to bite us.  So, we sometimes know what the fruit of their\nlabors is.  The challenge is to find\nsomeone who delivers on their promises and handles the consequences.  We are looking for the truth; not propaganda.  And in our society, that is getting really difficult\nto find.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are the prophets of gloom.  They are like barking dogs, warning us about\nGlobal warming or complete financial collapse due to the national debt or and\nof a number of international threats and dangers.  It is harder to sort out the truth from these\ndoomsayers because the issues are so complex. \nAnd besides, it is human nature to want to hide from gloom and doom.  Old Testament Israel constantly ignored true\nprophets like that    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you know, there is an oasis in all of this.  There is a place all of us can go to test everything\nand determine whether the prophets of gloom and the prophets of boon are\nbearing good fruit or bad fruit.  And\nthat oasis is our relationship with God. \nAbram\u2019s story this morning is an example.  If we have a relationship with God; and we\nask him sincerely what the right thing is to do; he will guide us; he will\nanswer our prayers; and we can put our trust in him.  He may not explain it all in such a way that\nwe fully understand everything, especially all the consequences.  More than likely, he will just point us in\nthe right direction.  We will get the\nright feeling, a sort of common sense.   \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we have false prophets in today\u2019s world?  You bet; they are all around us, especially\nas we get close to an election year.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday of the 12th Week in Ordinary Time Gen 15:1-12, 17-18; Mt 7: 15-20 Deacon Larry Brockman I wonder whether we have false prophets in our day?\u00a0 Jesus says they would come to us in sheep\u2019s clothing, but underneath they would be ravenous wolves.\u00a0 Prophets. you know, tell us what things will be like in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[578],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1133,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions\/1133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}