This message concerns with false prophets of a different kind. Anyone of us can be a false prophet. Anytime we open our mouth to say something to others we are prophesying. And anytime we say things which God has never said or would say we are prophesying falsely and we are false prophets in the eyes of God.
There is an interesting passage of Scripture in the Book of Ezekiel:
"My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. Because they lead my people astray, saying, 'Peace,' when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall. Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurting down, and violent winds will burst forth. When the wall collapses, will people not ask you, 'Where is the whitewash you covered it with?' Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: In my wrath I will unleash a violent wind, and in my anger hailstones and torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury. I will tear down the wall you have covered with whitewash and will level it to the ground so that its foundation will be laid bare. When it falls, you will be destroyed in it; and you will know that I am the Lord" (Ezekiel 13:9 - 14, NIV, emphasis added).
Ezekiel painted a very interesting picture that relates to the walls in our lives and the false prophets in our lives. Let us consider them separately.
The walls in our lives
In my previous message (Our Identity Crisis) we pictured ourselves being a wall that is out of line and that wall can represent our hearts. Now we go on to look at another picture relating to this with regards to the kind of wall that develops when we are out of line. In this picture we see a wall covered with whitewash. This whitewash speaks of the front we present before others. Many people have whitewash front but some of their fronts are actually black. We have all kinds of different front or coating and we usually present a good front because we want people to think well of us.
When we look at this picture we see that this person is in behind the wall. When you try to communicate and interact with this person you have to do so through a wall. It is obviously quite a challenge to have a relationship through a wall - one is difficult to hear, two difficult to touch and three difficult to feel.
These people hide themselves behind a wall because they are afraid of relationships, especially love relationships. They have been made afraid because of things happened to their lives earlier. The wall is really a wall of fear. Sometimes this wall is not only in individual lives but in the whole culture or nation - everyone is living his live in fear. Their relationships are not on the love basis but on the fear basis - fear of what the other people will think and fear of what the other people will say. It can bind the whole culture or nation.
Problems behind the wall
Let us just think for a moment about how a person feels in behind the wall. He feels both secure and insecure. He feels very frustrated because he reaches out to have a love relationship but fails to find it. In fact sometimes this person has what we called a love-hate relationship. Somethimes he is reaching out to love but other times he hates. What he hates might not be a person in particular but the threatening of this person. And so this person might not even know anything about it.
This love-hate relationship is common in husband-wife relationship and parents-children relationship. Because they are inside their own wall with this love-hate relationship they are likely to develop negative feelings - they can be resentful, lonely, being angry without cause and feel rejected and depreesed. Many people, including Christians, are living this way not knowing that they can develop chronic illnesses which eventually lead to death.
The False Prophets in our lives
Who can be false prophets? Who are the false prophets in our lives? Anyone talking to you can be a false prophet. The most common false prophets in our lives are our parents when we are still young. If you are a father or a mother the moment you open your mouth while your children are listening you are their prophets - true or false. Children have simple faith and they just sit there taking in your prophesying. What is more interesting is that they remember all your prophecies and prophesy them back to you in your most awkward moment. And so sometimes when we speak to our children things that God would not speak then we are misrepresenting God. Then we are false prophets to our children.
Harmful consequences
Parents need to be very careful what they speak out into the lives of their children. Some of them when they grow up have deep hurts and wounds as a result of words spoken falsely not from God. We then represent the enemy instead of God.
Sometimes our spouse can open her mouth without much thought and it is a false prophecy, particularly when she is hurting. That is the time when the words of the enemy come in and speaks through her before she has time to think.
Remember when Job was at the height of his trial his wife, his helpmeet, the one who was the closest to him, opened her mouth and ministered to him and said:
"Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!" (Job 2:9, NKJV)
Not much of a ministry - she misrepresented God and represented Satan instead!
Peter was rebuked by Jesus when he prophesied falsely to Jesus:
Jesus retorted, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men" (Matt. 16:23, NKJV).
Obviously, without thinking, the moment Peter opened his mouth Satan got into it.
Examples of false prophets
There are many false prophets but let us only deal with two major ones with some details and just mention some other minor ones.
1. Our own heart
One area that is very strong in terms of false prophecy, one we do not often think much of, is our own heart. You might have heard people said, "I feel this very strongly in my heart".
For example: A young Christian couple was very much in love with each other. They were in a young people group in a Local Church, serving the Lord. They felt a lot of love for each other and they began to have physical contacts. One thing led to another and soon they felt like having sexual relationship. Their desires were so strong that they felt it in their hearts. They even prayed about that and it seemed to them that God said go ahead. And after that they began to feel the guilt and they realized they have broken relationships with God. They have been deceived by the false prophet of their own hearts.
Not just Christian youths are doing that today. It is just the same with Christian men and women of God, people filled with the Holy Spirit, people have seen miracles and people in the deliverance and healing ministry. There are cases of Pastor seduced Church members and ran off with Church building fund. Elders and members of the Local Church refrained from taking disciplinary action against the Pastor because they misunderstood what the Bible said, "Do not judge or you shall be judged". Of cause they were deceived because all of them listened to the false prophets of their hearts!
How do people of God with spiritual gifts ever commit adultery? How did David who was a mighty man of God commit both adultery and murder to cover it up? Again the answer is they listened to the false prophet of their own hearts. The fact is, you cannot trust your own heart. There is only one heart you can trust and that is the Heart of God. As I said in my previous message the plumb line is not your heart but God's heart, expressed through God's Word. So we need to come to God's Heart by searching the truth of His Word. Only then we can hear what He says concerning any circumstance and situation in our lives.
2. Ministers of the Gospel
Ministers of the Gospel include apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teacher (Eph. 4:11). They are accountable to God to minister the truth of God's Word to Christian believers.
Pastors
Most Christian believers or Churchgoers receive their Pastor's preaching and teaching whole heartedly without checking with the Bible (unlike the Bereans). Who would think a Pastor, who is called by God to shepherd a flock of believers, would feed the sheep of God's pasture with false doctrine? But the problem is Pastors can be false prophets without themselves knowing it. Sometimes the things they learned in the Bible Seminaries cause them to be false prophets.
Pastors are generally very busy ministers. Most of them prepare their sermons without spending enough time on Bible research and praying. Most of them refer to books or the internet and most of these materials are written by false prophets.
Evangelists and teachers
We have to be very careful with evangelists/teachers and visiting ministers. They come and go and they are not there to see how well the Local Churches have received their message. Beware of ministers who claim to have a healing ministry and offer to teach Church members how to develop faith to heal the sick.
The Scripture says clearly that healing, like salvation is provided for by the redemption of Christ.
Isaiah said, "He was wounded for your transgressions. he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for your peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5, emphasis added).
Peter (1 Peter 2:24) echoed what Isaiah said above. Notice the word "healed" in past tense signifying that we are already healed as soon as we are born again. And so the question is not whether Jesus will heal us or not but rather whether we are capable of receiving the healing that the Bible speaks about. In other words, the Word of God tells us Jesus bore our infirmities and sickneeses but it does not tell us exactly how to receive that healing. Jesus taught His disciples how to pray (Luke 11:2 - 4) but He never in any occasion taught them how to pray for healing. Why? Because even Jesus never used any fixed method to heal the sick. If your healing evangelist teaches you how to pray for healing exactly as what Jesus had done then he is a false prophet! Or your healing evangelist teaches you how to bind evil spirits without discerning whether the sickness or disease is due to evil spirits or not - then he is a false prophet!
We have lots and lots of Christians in Churches who have been crying and begging God to heal them without any result. Many travel about from meeting to meeting; from healing rally to healing rally; they have elders and ministers and leaders in ther Church to lay hands on them but nothing happens. Why? They are all doing all that they know to do and they are disappointed because nothing happens. Why? Is God a respecter of persons? But Romans 2:11 says not. Why? Does God enjoy seeing some Christians to suffer more than some others? Of cause not! Then God cannot be blamed for sickness and yet many do suffer because of sickness. Why?
The answer lies in applying the correct God's principle of receiving supernatural healing. The Lord willing I will come out with a series of messages on healing soon. Basically the principle to receive healing is not to follow somebody else's example (not even Jesus') or copy what someone else is doing - but to follow the principles of God and His Word. Faith (including faith to receive healing) comes from hearing God's Word (Romans 10:17). Faith works independently from circumstances and symptoms of sickness in your life. There will still be there and so will God's Word!
Other false prophets
Media including television can be false prophets. They minister violence and lust. But TV is not necessarily evil - it depends on how we used it, just like money.
School teachers and University lecturers can be false prophets. They can influence students one way or another. Some teachers are trying to win students off God. There are many methods used by the humanism movement. In some schools it is illegal to pray or to talk to God.
Friends, including fellow Christians and Church peer groups can certainly be false prophets.
God has an effective way to deal with all the false prophets in our lives and we will consider it in my next message - the Lord willing.
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