Edition 336: November 2^nd 2016

False prophets today

False prophets today:

Introduction:

In this edition, I will be looking at false prophets in Bible days and today. I’ll be looking at today’s false teachers and false watchmen (analysts of Bible prophecy, and signs of the times).

Matthew 24:4-11 “Take heed that no one deceives you...Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.”

2 Timothy 3:13-14 “Evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them.”

The verse above in Matthew is from the discourse in which the disciples come privately to our Lord and ask Him what will be the signs of His coming again. There are actually five times in this discourse alone where He warns of deception, error and false prophets!

Note in Timothy above, that it’s a progressive worsening thing. Note also that we are to know from whom we receive.

The Bible says that we can have many instructors, but few fathers. We can’t always know our spiritual fathers well, but we can know their hearts and fruits. In much the same way, we must know who the deceivers are.

Who are the false prophets?

Firstly, a false prophet or teacher is not one who disagrees with you on every little thing.

A false prophet is one who is of a false spirit, which will be seen in their fruits, actions and doctrines.

Here’s a classic example of a false prophet:

Deuteronomy 18:20-22 “The prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die...If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you shall not be afraid of him.”

On many occasions, false prophets and teachers arise from within the church. These are people with motivations of self seeking, self elevation and self importance. They are often people with deep rooted psychological problems, like rejection. They then use these things to gain a following and acceptance by the people.

Acts 20:30 “From among you, men will rise up speaking perverse (misleading) things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.”

Jeremiah 5:31 “The prophets prophecy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end.”

The end purpose of the spirit behind the false prophet is to defeat you, blind you and kill you, spiritually, which is why they are to be killed. Hold on there! We don’t kill them physically, but we must “kill” them from our lives and sphere of influence. Don’t ever receive one word from them.

Isaiah 28:7 “They err in vision, they stumble in judgement.”

False prophets then, are not just prophets with a false message. They are agents of spiritual forces of evil. The Bible talks about the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:6)

Methods of the false prophets and teachers:

The reason why part of the church in the end-times is described by God in the Bible as vomit is fairly and squarely because of the leadership. If you remove Bible prophecy from your doctrine you are doomed to be lukewarm to God and His word. It is the lukewarm who are spewed out as vomit.

I have never met a person who knows and loves Bible prophecy who is lukewarm to the things of God. Some may be wrong about some issues, but lukewarm they are not!

False prophets are powerful agents of the devil to sneakily get access to the lives of weak, ill-equipped or gullible believers and neutralise them.

One of the major messages and actions of the false prophets today is found in the collective “prophecy” or message of the denominational churches. Their collective “message” is division avoidance of prophecy and numerous other errors.

Their “prophecy” to the world is a gospel with Bible prophecy and all its judgement removed or watered down.

●A gospel with prophecy, judgement and the severity of the Bible removed, blinds the eyes, and leads the world and much of the church into a kingdom of darkness, where all is relative and relevant. At the helm is another Messiah with no cross! He looks like and sounds like the original, but he is a counterfeit, a fraud, a liar, a murderer, the prince of hell.

This church, below, ignored all the warnings of God:

Revelation 2:22 “Indeed I will cast her (church of Thyatira) into a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.”

Here we see an entire stance by a great deal of Christendom as a “false prophecy” and false testimony to the world. These churches can fit in perfectly with the world!

Some of the lies of the modern church are: ●sin is irrelevant, ●holiness is relative and therefore irrelevant, ●judgement on a Messiah rejecting world would never come from a loving God. ●There are many legitimate ways to God. ●The church has replaced Israel and now all the blessings of God for Israel come upon the church while the curses remain on Israel.

►The great Hitler lie: “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough it will be believed.”

The lies of the leaders:

Many churches today are a product of the prophets of Baal, Babylon and Rome.

Jeremiah 23:13-17 “I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied by Baal and caused My people Israel to err...Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you (Israel) worthless; they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the Lord. They continually say to those who despise Me, the Lord has said, you shall have peace, and to everyone who walks according to the imagination his own heart, ‘No evil shall come upon you.’”

Isaiah 9:16 “The leaders of this people cause them to err.”

Jeremiah 50:6 “My people have been lost sheep, their shepherds have led them astray; they have turned them away on the mountains...”

Isaiah 9:15-16 “The prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail. The leaders of this people cause them to err, and those who are led by them are destroyed.”

The tragedy revealed in these verses above is that the leaders have led the people astray, and they have actually led the people to destruction!

It can be demonstrated from many verses that the false prophets of Israel were a major cause of Israel’s captivities. Much the same relates to the church now!

What are some of the modern false doctrines?

The most dangerous false prophecies, false teaching and presumptions of the church today are identical to the world system’s major message pronounced by the mass media.

The word of the liberal is: “Every day in every way we are getting better and better.”

The deception is that you can achieve world peace as well as personal peace by being good, loving, coming into unity and all working together. This is the cross-less way. It has no answer to sin, so it must accept sin.

The true way to peace lies on the far side of the cross, on the far side of judgement!

Ezekiel 13:1 “The word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophecy out of their own heart, ‘Hear the word of the Lord,’ Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing!’” Verse 10: “They prophesy peace when there is no peace.”

●Perhaps one of the biggest modern deceptions is that being good is good with God! Good will land you in hell, my friends! Satan is the god of good and evil. There is a huge difference between good and godly, purified good! Good that has been cleansed by the cross and washed in Messiah’s blood is the only valid good!

Some other big end-time deceptions include:

●The obscuring or removal of the centrality of the cross. ●The heretical doctrine of cessationism, which essentially teaches that the gifts of the Spirit ceased with the last apostle and are not for today. ●The removal or obscuring of all Bible prophecy on Israel, Jerusalem and the Jews. ●The Inter Faith Movement and its presumptions.

Today it’s almost fashionable to say “The Lord told me.” I have no problem with that generally, but it normally goes further: It normally progresses to, “the Lord spoke to me with an audible voice,” and “its 100% for sure”, Be sure that these are 100%, false prophets and teachers.

Amazingly these people are normally spiritual disasters in their own lives and when “the Lord’s word” uttered by them, inevitably does not come to pass, they don’t apologise or repent. Tragically, spiritually disturbed people still follow them as they go to their next “word from the Lord.”

Of course God can speak to an individual in an audible voice. But if it is said publically and prophetically, if it was the Lord, it would have come to pass exactly!

I heard a woman proclaim that God had spoken to her and given her His voice about certain things. She had previously appeared on a TV programme in which the host introduced her saying that she had heard the voice of the Lord many times before and it had all come to pass.

I took the trouble to look it up. There is no record or evidence anywhere from anyone that any of these things ever came to pass. She is a false prophet and liar!

Knowledge of God’s word and God Himself is the only way to protect against deception.

Wolves in the pulpit and on the internet:

Matthew 24:24 “False christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”

2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 “The coming of the lawless one (antichrist) is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs and lying wonders...among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth.”

Beware the sensation-seekers. They are full of pride, self opinion, self importance and self, self, self. They use manipulation in their persuasive talk. They even intimidate by accusing you of all sorts of things if you don’t feed their gods by your agreement. They use lies, exaggerations and twisted facts to get you to exalt them. They are controllers.

Many of them are backed by powerful Jezebel spirits.

A.W Tozer:  “They who degrade or compromise the truth in order to reach larger numbers, dishonour God and deeply injure the souls of men.”

The Internet combined with modern digital techniques of manipulation, is already, and will produce many more lying signs and wonders. It is so easy.

Here are two example of part of the great Nibiru deception and how you too can deceive all your friends, put it on the net and become a great end-time liar: HERE and HERE

The problem with the fraud prophets on YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet is that they cheapen the internet for everyone. They cast doubt on everything on the net! They cause many to stumble and fall into error.

Don’t write off the internet or the video channels because Satan has his workers in there. It remains the best form of mass communication today and God is using it in many wonderful ways.

Be careful before you write off us sign seekers! It was those who saw the signs in the sky at our Messiah’s birth that knew. The others saw and knew nothing. This is the story of our day. The world marches on blindly to its doom with the signs right in front of them, just like in the days of Noah and Lot.

John 14:29 “Now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass you may believe.”

►If Satan is the god of this world, then the mass-media is His mouthpiece. The hidden, but very real aim of the media is the same as that of Satan. It’s also the same as secular psychologists, which is not to inform you or make you a better person, but to change your values, virtues and morality. It is to change you into one of them.

They subtly remove your sensitivity to the Spirit of God. They strip you of your resistance to them, bit by bit. A well used political method of gaining agreement is getting rid of resistance.

If your heart is wrong, you won’t find the truth, no matter how hard you try. You will be led into error and if not careful, increasing depths of error. Many on the internet and Youtube are highly dangerous, being run by sensation seeking manipulators and the deceived!

Test the spirits and know the word:

We as believers are to test the spirits. We have the Spirit of God living in our hearts. We are to test the spirits against the Holy Spirit in us. We are not to test the spirits against the spirits of the world and the media or churchianity.

We are to examine ourselves to check if we are in the faith as we go forward.

The first “prophetic sign” of a church in trouble with God is when they remove Bible prophecy, (27% of the Bible). How can you test the spirits when you’ve messed up the word of God?

When God withdraws His Spirit and hands you over – you are on a slippery slope named doom! You will hear, believe, answer to, and follow the false prophecy of the mass-media and the god of this world!

Many believers today are lazy bums. They have never even bothered to inform themselves of the truth of prophecy.

The grave danger of remaining ignorant of the scriptures after a fair amount of time being saved is that deception is growing and intensifying fast – very fast. How can you even identify it if you have not advanced with our Lord?

Deception and error always have consequences. It’s never neutral morally, doctrinally in relationships, or in any other sense. You can always test yourselves against these things.

Today there are many who have become shipwrecked because of numerous deceptions out there. I get a huge amount of emails from people wanting counsel and help. For your benefit, here are two previous editions dealing with counselling. They have both had immensely positive responses. (There are others too if you click on the “Editions by Subject” button on the right and then go to “Counselling.”)

So if you need counsel or know of others who need counselling, these editions are a suggestion:

Edition 83 - Counselling believers in perilous times: HERE

Edition 104 – Turning curses into blessing: HERE

False prophets always catch the gullible:

There is always a danger in not moving forward with the Spirit of God, as He moves.

Many people will continue to follow false prophets even after their prophecies don’t come to pass. There is something really wrong in the heart of man that they will rather disobey God and follow liars and deceivers.

Jeremiah 6:10 “To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.”

In the verse above we see which people will be deceived and in the verse below we see the deceiver in action.

Isaiah 29:9-10 “They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink. For the Lord has poured out on you the spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, namely the prophets; and He has covered your heads, namely the seers.”

Isaiah 5:13 “My people have gone into captivity because they have no knowledge ...” The word “knowledge” is Strong’s H1847 meaning “perceptive, discerning” knowledge.

Proverbs 28:4 “Those who forsake the law (word) praise the wicked.”

Isaiah 59:14 “Justice is turned back and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street.”

How do you know which watchmen or analysts of Bible prophecy you can trust?

●It is those who have spent half their lives in radical pursuit of God. ●It is those who know the scriptures backwards and love them and still regularly study them, led by the Spirit. ●It is those fully open to all of the doctrine of Messiah in total surrender – no arguments. ●It is those with the marks of cross-bearing all over them. ●It is those who are crucified to self and the world and dead to its ways and dictates. ●It is those who sit in humility and brokenness before our Lord. ●It is those who in their own lives clearly separate and distinguish between truth and error, right and wrong, holiness and sin from God’s viewpoint. ●It is those who fear the Lord as is evident in their lives. ●It is those who care nothing for offending people with truth. ●It is those who are loved and hated supremely.

All these things will be evident in various ways at various times in the person’s life.

Bible prophecy verifies the veracity of the Bible. You will never find a church that avoids prophecy that is solid and strong – never. You will always see a church that casts down prophecy; removing other doctrines and sections of the Bible as well. It soon becomes a worldly ineffective mess.

The true prophets, teachers and watchmen:

The true and right prophet, teacher or analyst of prophecy, is the one who will always point you away from himself to our Lord. He will highly esteem and exalt the glory of our Lord and direct you to Him.

The man of truth will cast the light of God on your path:

Isaiah 42:16 “I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them...”

The true prophets of God as well as today’s analysts of Bible prophecy are the ones who are called of God. Their prophecies and analysis of it comes to pass and is correct.

They will sometimes sit and scratch their heads thinking, “Why does this person hate me so much, when all I’ve done is given him the truth.”

1 John 4:6 “We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”

John 16:1 “These things I have spoken to you that you should not stumble.”

The true modern prophets will be totally focussed on our Lord and His word. They will attack the false prophets and expose them. They will teach that peace is coming when it is, and war is coming when it is.

Because they will be Spirit led and inspired, trustworthy handlers of the truth and its holiness, you will feel safe around them.

Finally

I did this painting some years ago. It’s a mixed media incorporating gold leaf as well. It’s not my current style. I sold it to a gallery in Switzerland.

Shalom and grow in His Grace!