Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. -- 1John 4: 1 (ESV)
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Prophecy is supposed to something revered within the church. It is to be treasured when someone says thus sayeth the Lord. It is to be respected. God says in His Word to not treat prophecies with contempt. What we should treat with contempt are false prophecies. People who claim to bring a word that is from God but it really is not. It is from the depths of their wickedly deceitful hearts. Those we should treat with utter contempt. That someone would either be so brazen as to fake a word from God or so sloppy to not care if what they are saying even lines up with Scripture. You see we already have the final revealed will of the Lord in the Bible. He did not forget anything beloved. Thus anything uttered today that is in opposition to His Word must be immediately dismissed as false. In the Old Testament days that person would be stoned to death for daring to speak presumptively for the Lord. Today we merely mark them as false and never bother listening to another word they might say. If it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God how much more so must it be to lie on His behalf? Does not His majesty terrify you? Sadly it does not today for there is an entire army working for the devil prophesying lies and things God never said. I am not here to judge their motives. Maybe they are well intended. It matters not because to God it matters not. If we prophesy according to the revealed will then we are constantly pointing people to Jesus for He is His Word. If we are playing divination games, trying to comfort or encourage people, or selling sorcery and clairvoyance then we are scattering people away from Him. Let us pause for a second and examine two recent false prophecies making their rounds through Charismania and see what actually sayeth the Lord.
The first link above is to a 20 minute prophecy offered by Pastor Kent Christmas. Haven't heard of him? Neither did I until this video apparently went viral and was then offered up on Charisma News. I get the appeal of the prophecy. It is filled with fire and brimstone and some very good points about not being lukewarm and needing to repent. Remember beloved that not everything preached or prophesied is false even within a false teaching or prophecy. The devil mixes just enough truth to keep you blind to the error. Rat poison is only 1% poison but the 1% still kills you. So the bulk of this false prophetic word from Pastor Christmas is that 2018 is the year that God is apparently going to take control back from man. Odd, since I was not aware of any moment that God was not fully in control to begin with but apparently God is very angry and He has had enough of lukewarm Christians. By the way, that may be true but when you comb through the rest of this prophecy you see tell-tale signs that this could not be a word from the Lord. I will only highlight a few:
1. The harvest is ready! According to Pastor Christmas the harvest is ready and God has enough workers. It is unclear if pastor is aware that he is essentially saying Jesus is coming back in 2018. Since we know the Bible says no man knows the hour, we can dismiss this as patently false.
2. Millions will come into this country and my church! Pastor Christmas seems to present a God that is confused. At first He is terribly angry with His church for being so backslidden and yet it will draw millions of people into it this year? That the American church, which is the most apostate on the planet, will lead the way? This is starting to smell like an NAR/dominionist prophecy.
3. 2018 will be a year of death! I am coming against you NFL! Huh? Here is where the prophecy starts jumping the rails and becomes an obvious work of his flesh. God apparently was not on the NFL players' side during the latest political kerfuffle. C'mon. Stop the insanity. God could care less about our political persuasions, idol worshipping nationalism, and most importantly how we dare to conflate Him with either. Now Pastor Christmas has tipped his hand. He was obviously upset with the NFL players refusing to stand for the National Anthem to protest police brutality so he stuck it into his prophecy and is now pretending God is upset about it. What sheer and utter nonsense.
4. I have heard your prayers and will bring glory, revival and restoration in 2018! Apparently the Lord must now be speaking to those who did not side with the NFL players. This is the often heard prophecy from within NAR circles about a revival the Bible simply does not promise. It also neglects the apostasy the Bible does promise and of which these false prophecies are a part of.
5. Moving companies will not have enough trucks to handle the amount the righteous are going to move from home to home! Here is the obligatory carnal materialism thrown in. God may be angry and killing NFL players but you? You're not going to be able to find enough trucks to move the loot God is going to give you! Ugh.
6. I am going to take businesses and transfer their ownership to those have struggled but have tithed! Not content with killing your favorite quarterback, God will actually take businesses from people and give them to you! As a reward for following an outdated portion of the law that no one has to adhere to anymore! According to Galatians, if you tithe you yoke yourself back to the law and sever yourself from Christ. Yet this prophecy would have us believe that God will reward people for it. Garbage. If he had just said that God will reward those who have supported the Gospel with a cheerful heart -- I can believe that is from the Lord because it reflects Scripture. What this reveals is that Pastor Christmas teaches and believes in tithing and thus it crept into his false prophecy because he is angry that not enough people tithe.
7. As you have honored the flag, so you have honored me! Really? Once again his idol worshipping of this country comes screaming through his false prophecy. God could absolutely care less about our flag beloved. He certainly is not going to believe that honoring it meant honoring Him. This prophecy has been nothing but a laundry list of the things that irk Pastor Kent Christmas and ironically, many of the things he finds irksome have absolutely nothing to do with Christianity. This false prophecy was both brazen and sloppy.
The second link is to a prophecy from Bill Yount, also from Charisma News, your one stop shopping source for everything false in Christianity. Apparently, Mr. Yount believes God showed him angels swinging a mighty pendulum away from the position of sin it had swung into when he suddenly heard the Father say:
"It's time to call forth the noble, the wealthy and the renowned of the earth."
And if that does not tip you off that we are going to head into wacky-prophecy land, then you have not been paying attention. Let us reason together as we wade through this wannabe prophecy and what the Lord actually sayeth.
