When Prophets Don’t Speak the Truth

Analysing reasons why some people claim to have the truth, yet they speak false hopes to others

Incidentally I started writing about this issue, within the Christian church, some time ago, when I was confronted with the fact that there are people, inside the church, that claim themselves to be messengers of God, speaking messages from God, and yet nothing they say comes to happen. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.

In order for us to analyse these facts and finally reach some conclusions, we must see why is this tendency common and even present in the Christian church today. I tend to believe that Apostle Paul’s desire for all the believers to prophesy - or to desire most of all the gift of prophecy - has been misunderstood.

“1. Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. 2. For anyone who speaks in a tongue[a] does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit.[b] 3. But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. 4. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. 5. I would like every one of you to speak in tongues,[c] but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues,[d] unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.” (1 Corinthians 14:1-5, NIV, emphasis is mine)

The gift of prophecy is from the group of gifts Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12 as the gifts of ministry, also mentioned in Ephesians 4:11-16:

“11. And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12. for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13. till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14. that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15. but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16. from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” (NKJV, emphasis mine)

The reason why this gift was given to the church is clearly stated in the above mentioned passage. I don’t think I need to re-state what Paul has already stated about the gift of prophecy. Therefore, because I don’t intend to make this article a theological debate on the issue of the gift of prophecy, I only want to affirm the fact that today’s prophets - from the church - do know more or less about their ministry and about the gift God bestowed upon them.

Too many times today’s prophets had become fore-speakers - they speak for somebody or instead of somebody, and they use some language and some religious terms to denote the fact they are prophets. Some have so much guts to speak on behalf of God Himself that they had become, for most of the congregation, more than just simple fore-speakers; they are now fore-tellers. They tell people what will be their future, what decisions to make, whom to marry and whom not to meet with. Eventually somebody will discover, sometime, someday, soon I hope, that the activity of fore-tellers can be done by anyone of us, as long as we have a morel lifestyle. Prophets are to be judged by their fruit and by their way of living. It’s that simple. And now, because it’s so common to be a hypocrite and wear thousands of masks, many had eventually become fore-casters as well! They tell you when it’s going to be an earthquake, flooding, excess rain, and all kinds of nature phenomenas, but they will never be able to tell when the church they are in will collapse because of their fore-working. Generally speaking, people that call themselves prophets are anything but prophets. And by this I don’t want to make a general fact. I will explain later this.

I recently met a person that calls herself a prophet. Many people argue about her public utterances because they know who she is and her family (which happens to be unbelievers and they always fight for something, either ideas, objects, property or children and type of food they cook). She came to me to inform me that somebody told her that I said she is a false prophet (and that whatever she speaks is not true). I was expecting her to come to me with this, since I know what kind of person she is - a super-religious extremist that boasts with something she might have received. By the way, I don’t recall in the Bible any passage where the prophets of God shout from the top of their roofs that they are the prophets of God, or that their word is to be listened and their message is the only true to be trusted and followed.

Eventually, I told her, whatever the other person told her that I said should also be repeated in front of us so I can see what I said (and don’t recall of saying anything like this), and to my amazement she won’t say who the person was; so I realized she was defending her position in the church: a prophetess. A weird one, as you probably discovered. I don’t know why, but I felt that I needed to change the subject then and I realized who that person was that was gossiping about what I said about her. That fact had not amazed me. I know how people are and I have no expectation of them, just as God is no respecter of persons. To me all are equal; the thing is that all have a brain, but not all use it. Many claim to be believers but never believed the truth, so they seek out what seems to be the truth and they deceive themselves, they deceive others and they go backbiting people and ignore the fact that they are in a position to loose their salvation, their most precious gift ever received from the Lord. How strange this fact can be! It’s like Jesus’ saying, not to throw diamonds in the mouth of the pigs (literal translation by me).

As I was talking to this woman, she was defending herself that her prophecies are true, “Didn’t I say there’s going to be floods in our country? They came to happen!” I was going to ask if she had a specific word from God about this and what was to be done, but I realized I was going to offend her by my inquiry, and I felt that she was speaking generally - just as most of today’s prophets do!

Prophets from today got used to utilize some kind of formulas when they start to speak an utterance, and it’s strange, they speak 5 words in some unknown language and translate it in 30-40 words in the language of the congregation they are part of. That is some kind of strange thing. I mean, I say the word peace, and they translate it with 5 other words? What other words can describe the word I used? I didn’t ask for a definition of the word, and I don’t think they do an interpretation nor a translation of the words they use - they simply use the formulas they heard from others before them. Then they end with “Jesus Christ came in bodily form”. This formula is taken from the Bible, as an excuse for them, probably, to claim that the message came from the Lord and not from the devil. The message could have come from themselves as well! I could say that too! Any kid could say that! You can get a parrot to say this; does this mean he speaks the Word of God? I don’t think so.

Then there are prophets that have a 1-800 phone number that you can call. Well, not exactly 1-800, but I met many that have the phone of some so called “prophet” from some strange village, and just because one time he said something and happened, they are seen as “great and truthful messengers of God”. I was once in a meeting and one of the guys that was present there happened to have the number of such a 1-800 type of  prophet and he just called him and wanted to find out what was God’s plan for his life for the next week. He recorded the conversation with the prophet and the caller was adding, here and there, some “amen” for some reason. I don’t know if it was to confirm that what was said was truth of just to make the “messenger” feel great. I didn’t get the reason for the amen, since what was said had no Biblical reference at all. And by this I don’t want to conclude that all prophecies MUST have a Bible reference in order to be “accepted” as good prophecy. That was what I felt that moment and so I stated the facts.

I was asked then to transcribe the message that was recorded. I was so curious why did he do it. Was it so hard to kneel and pray and ask God for guidance? Was it so hard to ask God for wisdom, knowledge, understanding? I only participated in this and remained silent, trying to be as unoffensive as possible. To me it sounded as if some person is going to a witch and pay to tell the person’s future. Don’t criticise me for the comparison. I stated previously, this is my opinion and this is how it sounded to me.

I believe that there are genuine prophets of God today. I believe they are hard to find because the peer-pressure had either changed their way of ministering in the gift of prophecy - as I can recall of many people that were stopped from continuing to prophecy in some church or another - or had made their prophesying into something that is more like a guessing and more like a general speaking. Maybe they should change their name, if they continue in this position, from prophet to professional counsellor, or something similar. (We’ll soon find a slang for them too!) Those of them that remained faithful to the truth had been and will continue to be ridiculed; this is because they have a message from God and human nature does not like to receive orders for correction, holiness and repentance; it only likes to be tickled. And ticklish ears like to hear ticklish messages. Messages of this kind are not the truth and will always bring deceit inside any congregation.

In a future article we will discuss the main aspects of the gift of prophecy and how to discern between a real prophet and a false prophet. It’s not that hard to do it, all you need is a “detector” - the Word of God. Amen!