No responsible person of God uses this verse -- John 5:4 (ESV)
Jennifer LeClaire fancies herself a prophetess. She markets herself as a prophetess. She has been given editorship at Charisma News, which speaks volumes to why you should not trust Charisma News. That is because Jennifer does not actually hear from the Lord. Her usual shtick is in worshipping this country and pretending God told her that He wants to deliver revival. She has based previous prophecies on historically inaccurate facts making her false from the start. Now, she may be deceived herself. It is possible that she cannot discern between angels and demons masquerading as angels. Either way, what she does is incredibly damaging to the sheep of the Lord. She misrepresents God to them. She tells them things from her wicked imagination and then blames it on God. She raises false hopes and expectations. She robs God of His sovereignty. Her Facebook post yesterday manages to do all of these at once:
It is a John 5:4 season in the body of Christ. Whatever needs healed, whatever needs restored, whatever needs new life, the Lord is asking, "You want to be healed? He wants to heal you. Don't let the devil trouble your mind with doubt. Step into the healing flow and receive God's will for your life! -- Jennifer LeClaire
This is the norm amongst those who pimp the false signs and lying wonders theology. It is what you will hear from Bill Johnson and Bethel church as well as places such as IHOP and Mike Bickle. Ironically, both Bickle and Johnson wear eyeglasses. False Prophet heal thyself. As for this absurd post from LeClaire, let us begin with the fact that LeClaire exposes herself right from the start as someone not qualified to be dividing the word of truth. She claims that it is a John 5:4 season in the body of Christ? Really Jennifer? Beloved pick up your Bible and look up John 5:4. The vast majority of you will not find it in the Bible. It skips from verse three straight to verse five. Only the KJV and NKJV contain verse four without noting the problems with it. For the record here is the missing verse that Jennifer LeClaire claims prophetically means this is a healing season:
For an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever was there first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. -- John 5: 4 (NASB)
So what is wrong with this verse? It probably was not part of the original text. As such, it is actually not part of the Bible. God never inspired the Apostle John to write it. Which means there is absolutely no way God spoke to Jennifer LeClaire to tell her this was a "John 5:4" season regarding healing. Perhaps a John 5:4 season to be watchful for people who add things to the Word of God, like Jennifer LeClaire.
Well how does one know what to believe regarding this verse? The King James is a widely accepted version yet it kept the verse. The reality is that the earliest manuscripts of this Gospel, which would be the most accurate, do not contain this verse. There are people who make careers out of comparing manuscripts. They are called textual critics or paleographers. They have additionally discovered over two dozen manuscripts that contain an asterisk next to this verse to warn the next scribe that the verse was likely not in the original text. As further proof, four of the last five Greek words in John 5:4 are not found anywhere else in the writings from the Apostle John. Writing styles are too consistent for that anomaly. After 1900, there were discoveries of new manuscripts that further prove this point. So much so that all post 1900 KJV and NKJV at least put the verse in brackets. Theologians speculate that the problem was not so much with an angel but the superstitious notion that the angel stirred the water for one person to receive healing. After all there was a healer present already and His name was Jesus.
Which brings us to sunny point number two regarding this false prophecy. LeClaire declares that because of this verse there is a healing season for everyone, all the time. You want to be healed? God wants to heal you! Just step into the shower! I mean the flow! But when we take a closer look at the story Jennifer chose we see that she chose the healing at the pool of Bethesda. What is significant about this event is that Jesus did not heal everyone. Verse three tells us there were a multitude of disabled people there each day yet Jesus only healed the one He addressed. This debunks the often used false talking point that Jesus healed everyone. It also exposes the falseness of the global statement LeClaire makes. Her statements of "He wants to heal you" reveal that she believes as Johnson and Bickle that God always desires to heal us. This of course completely robs God of His sovereignty. God can heal us if He wants but physical healing is never guaranteed. If it were, why aren't there 200 year old Christians? LeClaire raises the insanity here by declaring it is God's will that you be healed! Just step into the flow, whatever that is supposed to mean. Beloved, you must understand that Jennifer LeClaire does not speak for God. Her words are worse than the poison of vipers. They can kill the body and the spirit.
First off nonsense like this can actually claims lives. There was a recent expose done on Kenneth Copeland, who also preaches healing as a guarantee mixed in with seed sowing con games. One sickly woman was dying of cancer but refused to seek medical attention because she believed if she just kept increasing the money she sent in to Kenneth Copeland that God had to heal her. She believed that right up until the day she died. I am not one who is sold out to the medical model at all but when you sell people who want to be healed desperately that God HAS to heal them then you not only set them up for disappointment but potentially you convince them not to seek out secular means for dealing with illnesses. What about the people who witness these unanswered healings? What happens to their faith in God? You cannot play these kind of life and death games with people beloved. It is not right. It is not biblical.
Secondly though it destroys the spirit. Note what Jennifer says in her post. Don't let the devil trouble your mind with doubt. What is the clear and implicit message? If you do not receive your healing then it is your fault! It is because you let that rascal the devil convince you to doubt God. It is from your clear lack of faith. What an insidiously evil message. To lie on behalf of God and for those who do not get better from your lie to turn around and blame the victim. To take something so personal and life altering as illness and make it into a cartoon. Just step into the flow. Or the saturation. Or whatever other catch phrase these charlatans wield against the sheep of the Lord.
Beloved, God is sovereign. That means He decides what He will and will not do. He heals people all the time and of that there is no question. He also chooses to say no all the time. He chooses to take people home all the time. Other times, the person's life is simply required of them. There is no healing flow. There is no mystical shower head you can step under and magically be healed. When faced with illness we ought to bring it to God. We ought to pray His will be done. We ought to go see the elders of the church to be anointed and be prayed over. Why would those instructions even be in the Bible if it were as easy as snapping our fingers? While we ought to do these things we ought to not shun the world and the way God can also work through doctors. That does not mean we completely accept only what the world offers either. Faith is important. The notion though that faith requires God to act is simply unscriptural. Ironically, LeClaire has a new post up today which reveals the heart of her problems as a false prophetess. She claims the Holy Spirit told her:
"It's not about being right, it's about being righteous. Don't worry about being right. Know you are righteous in Christ and do what's right" -- Jennifer LeClaire
No Jennifer. It is always about being right. The Bible says that the way to judge a prophet is by whether they are accurate. All the time. With every single utterance they claim is from God. Why such a stringent benchmark? Think about it logically beloved. A prophet is claiming a direct word from God! Is God wrong? Does He stutter? Is it difficult to understand Him when He speaks? Of course not so why would you ever be wrong unless you are not actually hearing from God! Once that happens the person is outed as a false prophet and can be safely ignored according to Scripture. In the mind of Jennifer LeClaire however, don't worry about being right. Instead shoot for some absurd measurement that relies upon our feelings to discern. Just be righteous? What does the Bible say about that?
as it is written:"None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.""Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.""The venom of asps is under their lips." "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." "Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known." "There is no fear of God before their eyes." - Romans 3: 10-18 (ESV)
Do you get that Jennifer? None are righteous but all who would prophesy must be proven right. You have been proven over and over again to be false. Sadly, this Facebook post garnered close to 3000 likes and almost 800 shares. That is how desperately people want to be healed. Reading the comments was heartbreaking as person after person listed their ailments and "declared" their healing directly or by "receiving" this false prophecy. What a scheme of the enemy. To build people's hopes up in a false prophecy. When the disappointment comes to so many they will either decompensate physically, spiritually, or both. We have no power of creation in our tongues. We cannot declare or decree anything other than the Word of God. Likewise, God does not need us to receive a W ord He has allegedly spoken. His Word never returns void. He does not need us to step out in faith, walk on water, or dunk our head in the shower. There is no river of God to jump in, flow to step into, or saturation available to us. Just trust in your Bible beloved. Even the truths regarding the key verse, which should never be used to create doctrine because most scholars agree it was simply not part of the true canon of Scripture. No serious man or woman of God should ever be using John 5:4 as the exegetical basis for anything, let alone something as absurd as universal healing. It fortunately for us reveals that not only is Jennifer LeClaire disqualified as a prophetess but she has now displayed that she should not even be trusted to speak with any authority on scriptural matters.
Reverend Anthony Wade - February 17, 2016
