But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.' And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?'-- when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. - Deuteronomy 18: 20-22 (ESV)
I have written before about false prophetess Jennifer Leclaire. She is part of the false signs and lying wonders network that makes a mockery of actual prophecy and biblical reasoning in the pursuit of money. These are the closely aligned with the heretical outfits known as the New Apostolic Reformation and the Kansas City Prophets. People like Cindy Jacobs who fancies herself a "general." People like Chuck Pierce, Mike Bickle, Rick Joyner and the list just goes on and on. The racket they run is that they are the assigned "prophets" of God for these times. They prop each other up, support each other, and validate each other's "prophecies." They create boards of prophetic elders, rewrite the bible to suit their own levels of inaccuracies, and then market their nonsense to the gullible sheep, who genuinely want to hear from God but do not apparently understand that all they need is found within the pages of their bibles.
The first responsibility these charlatans have is to themselves and protecting the racket they have created. To this end, they will vehemently come against anything that threatens their false paradigm and network. No criticism can be allowed. It is of course always couched with pseudo-piety and Christianese to sound as holy as possible but when you peel back the layers of obfuscation, you reveal the true motives. Protect and deflect. The latest in this effort from Leclaire comes from a recent article she published on Charisma News, where for some reason she is an editor. This article is entitled, "1Vital Prophetic Protocol We Should All Follow" and can be found here:
The basic premise contained in this article is that someone within the false prophetic network has not been playing nice and according to the fixed rules they have set out. It seems that recently there have been two "released" prophetic words that were critical of popular false prophets. The first one alleged a vision where two spiritual "generals" were repenting to one another on their knees. The second one suggested that a different false prophet was fighting for his life because he did something "illegal in the spirit that let the devil attack him." This has apparently "grieved" Jennifer and the primary offense is clear. These people were named by name in public and rule number one is to protect the syndicate. As false prophetess Leclaire walks through her reasoning we see the breathtakingly poor understanding she has of prophecy and the bible. Please keep in mind that I am offering no credibility to the rebuking prophecies as they seem just as biblically inaccurate. The purpose of this is to expose the false teachings behind this false syndicate so that the sheep might be better prepared to discern.
1) Leclaire claims this violates a "prophetic protocol to publish dreams, visions, and other prophetic expressions about named ministry leaders, especially those which offer rebuke or ask for repentance, without first approaching the people in question to get their blessing first."
Really? Why does anyone take these people seriously? Where in the Bible does this prophetic protocol exist? Nowhere! Let us reason logically beloved. What is prophecy? The answer according the scripture is a direct revealed word from God Himself given to a chosen person for the express purpose of being spoken. We see this play out consistently throughout the entire canon of Scripture. Nowhere is it even remotely suggested that there are protocols the prophets are to follow other than to obey God and deliver the message HE has given. Yet according to her opening rationale there are two problems. The first is that the declaration is public. Yet throughout the Bible we see the false being exposed in exactly this manner:
Avoid worthless, foolish talk that only leads to more godless behavior. This kind of talk spreads like cancer, as in the case of Hymenaeus and Philetus. They have left the path of truth, claiming that the resurrection of the dead has already occurred; in this way, they have turned some people away from the faith. -- 2Timothy 2: 16-18 (NLT)
Paul was not concerned about prophetic protocols made up by foolish men or women. He was not concerned about offending the false teachers or upsetting their apple cart. The only thing that mattered was the truth is told regarding the things of the Lord and Hymanaeus and Philetus had strayed outside the realm of truth. How offensive is the idea that God would give someone a direct message and Jennifer thinks that it somehow must not be made public? The second problem Jennifer outlines here is that the rebukers did not first get permission from the false prophet? Beloved, you cannot make this nonsense up! In the mind of Jennifer Leclaire, she thinks that before you rebuke a false teacher you must first ask his or her permission. This is not only absurd but it is insulting. Jennifer then tries to conflate Matthew 18 into her flimsy defense:
"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. - Matthew 18: 15 (ESV)
Leclaire tries to parse this out by claiming that even non-sin issues need to follow these verses but she misses the overall point. These verses are dealing when a brother sins against you personally. Not when you are delivering a prophetic word from God or even when you are exposing what is false. This is a common refrain from people who do not like their favorite false teacher exposed. That somehow, I should approach Joel Osteen on the side and tell him he is a heretic. Besides the logistical impossibilities, my responsibility is to the sheep that sit under the false teacher, not to the false teacher himself. Wolves are wolves and sheep are sheep. Matthew 18 deals with when a brother personally sins against us not when a false teacher or false prophet is being publicly corrected.
Leclaire then ups the ante on her silliness by stating that even when you cannot reach the person in question that the prophecy be submitted to a "prophetic counsel of elders" so they might pray over it and provide wise counsel on when and how to best release it. Moving past Jennifer's confusion between the words "council" and "counsel" I again ask where is any of this nonsense found in the bible and the answer remains -- nowhere! She is just making it up as she goes and encasing it in pious sounding platitudes to distract the less discerning. Once again, let us reason beloved. If God gave you a word of prophecy why is it necessary for anyone to pray about when it needs to be or how it needs to be released? Who exactly is this "counsel" of elders anyway? Remember the premise here. Leclaire is not saying the prophecies are wrong or that those who issued them were false. She is merely upset that they stepped outside of the norm and are breaking ranks.
2) Leclaire then declares that while there are times when the Lord uses a prophet to issue a strong rebuke, we "cannot ignore that Matthew 18 principle because true prophetic utterances do not violate scripture." That such words need to be "submitted to elder prophets before public release."
Uh-huh. First of all, there is no Matthew 18 principle in the scenario presented. There is no personal sin that needs to be addressed privately. Instead there are public false prophets being correctly rebuked publicly. Now the truly ironic and sad thing is Jennifer is 100% right to say that prophecy cannot violate scripture but yet again she misses the point. Why must prophecy adhere to scripture? Because both are from God Himself and He does not contradict Himself. Yet she misses the godly forest for her carnal little trees. If the word is from God then why on earth does it need to be vetted by any man? The bible expressly teaches us how to vet prophets -- their prophecies must come true! All of them by the way! There are no tiers of prophets. That the lesser ones must somehow subjugate themselves to the elders. This is the nonsense of man being portrayed as holy but it is straight from the pits of hell. Even Paul recognized that it is the call on a man and not his age that mattered:
Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. - 1Timothy 4: 12 (NIV)
