by Jacob Ninan
There was a time when speaking in tongues was the fashion in Pentecostal and charismatic circles. Nobody wanted to be left out of the tongues-speaking club, and people took to all sorts of measures to qualify. They went to different special meetings hoping to experience it, and many made themselves utter a few syllables and claim that they too had spoken in tongues.
But apart from the satisfaction of telling others that they too have spoken in tongues, did they actually get any 'edification' for themselves or fellowship with God? (1Cor.14:4). They had missed the whole point of speaking in tongues and satisfied themselves with just some thrill.
Things have moved on. The current fashion is prophecy! Especially after the 'word of faith' heresy came and taught people that their tongue has power to make things happen, 'everyone' wants to 'prophesy'. Some people have set up workshops or special meetings where people can be trained to prophesy, or their dormant gift of prophecy can be activated! A lot of people have been taught to believe that 'all can prophesy', and so, after a preliminary teaching on the subject, they encourage all the participants to speak to one another the ideas that come up to their mind. It is not difficult to see that this can be dangerous, because according to the Bible, not all can prophesy! People who are not able to discern the voice of God begin to assume that their own ideas are from God!
There is a genuine gift of the Holy Spirit for prophecy. To prophesy is to speak to people what God wants them to hear. In the Old Testament, only certain people whom God had chosen to be prophets could hear from God, and even kings had to ask prophets to find out God's will for them. The Old Testament prophets were mainly occupied with conveying warnings from God to His people. Sometimes they also brought encouragement when His people were in distress. God also used certain prophets to write down predictions about things that He had planned to take place in the future, such as the coming of the Messiah, not only to prepare people in advance, but also to serve as a proof that God was the One who held all things in His control.
If we look honestly at the things that are going on among God's people in these days, we would imagine that God would send prophets to warn, correct and rebuke us because as His church we are guilty of neglecting His salvation (Heb.2:1-3). It was to save us from sin that Jesus came (Matt.1:21). Yet the church all over the world is generally losing its focus on getting saved from sin, and people are continuing in all kinds of sins and still maintaining their church activities. Even with such a situation, people who call themselves prophets today are mostly making a name for themselves by predicting individual future for people and guiding them in their decisions in the same way that astrologers pretend to do. This itself should raise a red flag to indicate that such are not true prophets.
There are two ways in which the true gift of prophecy operates now. One is a strong gifting that makes you recognised as a prophet in the church. If you have this gift, that is also your calling or function in the church. You will have a close relationship with the Lord and you can hear His voice clearly. This is a major function or 'office' in the church, and not everyone can be a prophet like this (1Cor.12:29).
But if we understand prophecy broadly as conveying a message from God, then we can see that other members of the church who are not recognised as prophets can also prophesy in a smaller measure. Someone who is basically a teacher can also be prophetic in his teaching, teaching different people and at different times what they need to hear. As he reads the Bible, he receives special insight into what the Lord is saying. Those who listen to him realise that God was speaking to them through his teaching even though the teacher himself was not aware of who was being touched by what he was speaking. A counsellor needs to be prophetic if he has to give people what they need to hear. Though there is an element of the 'prophetic' in their ministry, they are not prophets. If we want to visit a home where there has been a death, we can pray that God will give us the right word to comfort them. These are some of the ways where all of us need to prophesy even though we may not be prophets. Now we can understand why Paul encourages everyone to seek to prophesy so that others can be blessed (1Cor.14:1,3). Let us understand clearly that this is not an exhortation for everyone to become prophets, but to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in whatever ministry we do.
One verse which many people wrongly use to promote everyone as prophets is based on a misunderstanding. This is an example of how some people pick up verses out of their context to prove what they want to say. Paul mentions that 'all can prophesy' in the context of avoiding confusion in the church if there are several prophets there. Then they are to take turns (1Cor.14:29-33). This is about prophets speaking and not about everyone prophesying! We saw earlier that all in the church have different ministries, and that all are not prophets.
Now, even if someone is a prophet, it is still possible for him to make mistakes because of his being human. Nathan was a prophet of God, but when David told him that he wanted to build a temple for God, he assured David that God was with him (1Chr.17:1,2). But this was a mistake because Nathan had not actually heard from God about this, and he was just assuming in a human way that David's idea would be all right. God corrected him afterwards, and then Nathan had to go back to David and tell him what God had told him. Certainly this cannot be called a false prophecy, and Nathan cannot be called a false prophet! This just shows our human fallibility, in not always being able to differentiate between our human ideas and words from God. It is possible for us to be sincere in thinking that God has spoken something to us, but we may be actually speaking our own ideas.
At the same time there are also false prophets and con artists around, who deliberately seek to mislead people for their own benefit – for money, fame, power, control, etc. These so-called prophets manipulate people through different ways. One common thing they do is to ask people to repeat their words, raise their hands, speak something to the neighbour, etc., thereby bringing down the people's guard and making them compliant to the prophet. Many stir up the emotions and bring up people's expectations with songs, narrating stories, impressing them with stories of past achievements and miracles, and telling them God has great things stored up for them, so that they slowly begin to believe whatever the 'prophet' says. Some use threats of calamity falling upon people if they disobeyed the prophet. When the 'atmosphere' has been built up sufficiently, then they come out with prophecies. Because these prophets are planning to exploit the people, it is common that their prophecies talk of what the people are longing to hear, similar to the way many astrologers exploit people. Usually these 'prophets' talk about good and exciting things to come. But sometimes they mention things such as calamities going to come or generational curses that need to be overcome with fasting and prayer. These things make the prophets to gain more power over the people. The sad fact is that people in churches get used to seeing these so-called prophets behaving like this and gaining fame and reputation, and they begin to think this is the normal thing to do and start imitating them. But if we want to be wise and careful, we must be on guard not to allow ourselves to be manipulated.
Because there can be human errors in what prophets say, or the prophets themselves can be false, it is for us to be careful if someone gives us a prophecy (1Thess.5:20,21). It is good to be sceptical about this, and not be gullible. Neither should we assume that there is no such thing as prophecy (do not despise prophesying) nor should we accept every prophecy at face value (examine everything carefully). To be sceptical here is to be careful. God Himself tells us to examine everything carefully to see which is good. It will be naive to assume that everything some so-called prophet says must be from God.
If we are born again children of God, then we have a direct relationship with God our Father. It should be expected that normally, if God wants to tell us something, He will tell us Himself (Heb.8:11). This was not the case for God's people under the Old Testament. There, even kings depended on official prophets to find out God's will. As children of God who have the Holy Spirit living in us, it will be wrong for us to depend entirely on what someone else tells us to do. For example, it is we who must choose who we are going to marry, and must not allow others to force that decision on us.
Coming to the new covenant, we have an example of how God called Saul and Barnabas to go out as missionaries. "Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them'" (Acts.13:1,2). This was not a prophet telling Barnabas and Saul out of the blue to go out into the unknown as missionaries. "I have called them" indicates that God had already revealed this plan to both of them. If it was only being announced right then, God would have said, "I am calling Barnabas and Paul." Also, the fact that both of them agreed immediately shows that they have already had time to process this in their mind. This prophetic announcement was a confirmation to them as well as information to the others.
Imagine what happens among many 'prophets' nowadays. People are being instructed to marry strangers, leave their jobs and become missionaries or pastors, move to another place, give their property to the church or missionary organisation, etc. People are confused, and many are scared to end up disobeying God. Sadly, we have too many examples of people following such prophets and ending up in failure and misery.
God will not force His way on us. He will not put us in places where we are pressurised to follow Him. He does not want us to blindly obey prophets, because He knows that prophets are human and can make mistakes, and also that there will be false prophets who exploit people for their own gain. As human beings, prophets may make mistakes, but that does not make them false prophets. But we must learn to distinguish false prophets by their fruit (Matt.7:15,16). Of course, if we see that what they have prophesied has not happened, it is easy to judge the fruit. But if we see a prophet manipulate people, then also we must recognise that it is not according to the fruit of the Holy Spirit. If we can see that someone is a ravenous wolf, or in other words, one seeking to exploit the people for his own benefit, it should be obvious that God has not sent him. If the 'fruit' of the work of these prophets is not setting people free from their bondage to sin and bringing them closer to God, then again we must notice the red flag.
God gives us other general warnings about false prophets. In Deuteronomy 13, the warning is about prophets who mislead people to follow other gods, even if they do miracles. This is very relevant for us because when we see miracles we are tempted to assume that they are from God. In our context, it may not be that we will be enticed to follow other faiths, but that what we are told to do by the prophets may need us to go against our conscience or what we know to be right.
For example, the one we are told to marry may be an unbeliever or very much incompatible with us (2Cor.6:14 KJV). Even believers can be unequal in many ways. If we marry someone who is drastically different from us in many ways, it can lead to a lot of trouble. Another thing is, can we allow prophets to tell us to leave our wife and children behind and join a church as a full time servant of God? (1Tim.5:8).
Some false prophets promise quick and miraculous outcomes to deep issues, without dealing with the issues themselves. For example, there is a long standing marriage problem, a huge debt that has accumulated over the years, older children who have grown to be irresponsible, people who are struggling with addiction – they are all told to expect a miraculous resolution. There is no place for discussion, counselling, psychotherapy, psychiatric care, etc. This is like saying 'peace' when there is no peace, and whitewashing over the wall without proper plastering (Ezek.13:9,10). God asks about what these prophets will say when the walls fall down. Different members of the body of Christ who have different spiritual gifts need to work together. No one must think that they do not need the others.
If people's sinful behaviour has caused problems, and they receive a miraculous solution, how can they be expected to learn to change for the future? All they would have learnt is to go again to a prophet! Prophecy is not enough, and nor is prayer, or fasting or Bible study. Many times, problems require a multi-disciplinary type of attention. For example, some may involve mental disorders or demonic attacks. We must use different tools, and not expect a simple approach to deal with all.
Another warning God gives is that if a prophet tells us that good things are going to happen to us, he should be recognised as a prophet only if they come to pass (Jer.28:9). This was in the time of Jeremiah through whom God was telling the people of Judah that they were going to be taken into captivity by Babylon. But there were many false prophets proclaiming peace and accusing Jeremiah of false prophecy. God was with Jeremiah, even though many people rejected him, and finally he was shown to have been right all the time.
Let us recognise that we like hearing about problems going to be resolved miraculously. Let us also consider that naturally we don't like to hear about our sins and changes we ought to make. But that was what most Old Testament prophets spoke about. That made them unpopular too. But that was what God wanted, to tell the people about their sins, help them to repent and come back to Him. Knowing this desire of human beings to hear about good things to come, false prophets know what they must tell us in order to catch us. We must not be gullible and allow ourselves to be deceived. They also know how to leave predictions a little vague so that they will have an opportunity later to find excuses!
So. What must we do when we come across people prophesying over us? Let us take it to our Father and ask Him if this was from Him. Tell Him that we are willing to do whatever He wants, but that we don't want to be manipulated by people. Ask Him to give us discernment. Ask Him to show us why He was not able to speak to us directly and why He was forced to use a prophet. Also, let us watch out for signs to recognise when a prophet is trying to manipulate us. It is better than being gullible.