Well it seems that the
timing of my study into prophecy was rather ‘prophetic’ itself! A couple of
days ago my church hosted a preacher who is touted as having prophetic
abilities, some were actually referring to him as a prophet.
He was a great preacher
no doubt, and his message was impeccable. Afterwards he called up a number of
people from the crowd to deliver messages which he felt God was telling him (he
termed these messages as ‘words of knowledge/wisdom’or something to that
effect), and I was one of them.
Most of what he spoke of was
from my past and present, telling me things that he couldn’t have known
himself, and it was all spot on. There was only once piece of information which
dealt with the future, and it was that I would have my own business, which is
something that I had indeed been wanting to set up. So this was great
confirmation for me, and has given me extra impetus to persue this path.
So ultimately the whole
experience was positive for me, I tend to believe that the things which he said
really were from God, but the experience did raise many questions in my head.
First of all, I wonder whether any of this should be called ‘prophecy’, which I
see no biblical basis for as my previous post details. In fact he was upfront
enough to admit that his ‘prophecies’ are at best only 30-40% accurate, which
rang alarm bells in my ears! God made it abundantly clear that if a prophet is
wrong even once then he is a false prophet. I think that the things he was
saying should be best classified as ‘revelations’.
In the end almost the entirety
of the church came forward to receive a ‘word of knowledge’ from him. So it
wasn’t just that God gave him a revelation for only a few select people, but
rather he all too easily gave a revelation to every single person that came
forward. This seemed rather curious to me, I would have expected him to draw a
blank for some people and say “I’m sorry, but God isn’t revealing anything to
me about you”.
Another thought that was
running through my mind was how strikingly similar the whole thing is to what a
fortune teller does. It’s odd that as Christians we are so defiantly opposed to
mediums and fortune tellers (and rightly so), yet we are so quick to openly
embrace our own version of it (in fact, other than the preacher getting his
revelation from God and the medium from a spirit, it is all exactly the
same thing!).
I also haven’t seen any
biblical basis for this kind of thing. Where in the Bible are the prophets
going around telling everybody their future on demand? In fact the only people
who did these things were described to as mediums and witches!! I’m not at all
suggesting that this is what these modern ‘prophets’are, but when you look to
God’s Word for guidance on such matters one is left furiously scratching one’s
head!
It may be said that I’m being
overly critical, but I would rather be a little over critical than under
critical, which would be just plain dangerous! One will be sucked into all
sorts of heretical teaching by failing to test the claims of teachers.
Do all these failed
predictions mean that he is a false prophet? I don’t know. My compassionate
side tends to think of him as slightly misguided, and simply changing his title
from ‘prophet’ might be sufficient correction. But my better instinct tells me
that anybody who claims to be a prophet, but their prophecy does not come to
pass is a false prophet, Scripture is crystal clear about this.
It also might be said
that I am getting far too caught up in what ultimately is nothing more than an
issue of semantics, that it is ‘revelation’not ‘prophecy’. But there is great
power in the Word, and the words that the Word uses, if you follow what I mean!
“ For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and
sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul
and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart” Hebrews
4:12 KJV
It then follows from this
that this power and sharpness will certainly be diminished by careless use of
the Word. Many Christians in their zeal for God go out evangelizing and
preaching but have failed to gain an adequate knowledge or understanding of the
Word. Not only is this frowned upon in Scripture (Prov 19:2 Rom 10:2), but also
is a guaranteed way to limit the efficacy of your work. I know from person
experience that my lack of firsthand knowledge of the Scriptures has severely
cumbered my work, this is something that I am now furiously working to rectify.
The simple fact is that we need to test the words of man by the Word of God.
Ultimately I don’t have a
big problem with what this guy was doing, and I feel that it is from God, I guess
I just feel a little uneasy with it because it is essentially the same things
as what a medium will do! Except a medium will charge a fee for the service!
