Much of the book of Deut is a series of warnings about what the Israelites will encounter when they enter the PL. They should be prepared to see the religious practices of the heathen people who were living there at that time. And Moses sternly warns his people not to adopt these religious practices. The worship of the God of Israel is drastically different from the worship of the pagan gods. There must be no religious mixing—no combining with the pagans, no adoption of their religious practices.

The first part of this passage deals with pagan occultism, and the second part deals with the prophets of Israel. What these two things have in common is that both deal with communication with God. The pagans use occult methods to hear from their so-called gods; Israel hears from God through the prophets. Before entering the PL, Israel must be aware of the false, occult practices of the pagans and also be committed to following genuine, qualified prophets of the true and living God.

Many people today claim to speak for God. Some of them legitimately do speak for God, especially when they simply “preach the word.” Some believe that God is communicating directly to them outside of God’s written revelation; they claim to have heard a word from God. The danger is that they may be speaking “presumptuously” and without authority. Many of them do that.

Some people today claim to be engaged in the occult. They claim to have some kind of mystical knowledge from the unseen world. They practice witchcraft, sorcery, or necromancy. They claim that their information comes from the spirit world, but it does not come from God. This information is demonic, and we must recognize it as such and stay away from it.

Like Israel, we must listen to God and not to pagans or to false prophets. We must be very careful about to whom we listen and about the kind of religious practices in which we engage.

There is a proper, valid, legitimate way of hearing from God, and there are invalid, sinful, and abominable ways of gaining information from the spirit world. Let’s see what Moses has to say about pagan religious practices and about genuine prophets.