#535

Assassinating The Prophets

Extremely Critical

Yes, I’m using that word again, but not in the context you might think. You see, there are some who are making a cottage industry out of overly criticizing anyone they disagree with doctrinally and even coming even harder on those who are being used in prophecy. One such prophecy is the one that exploded concerning the attempted assassination attempt on President Donald Trump on July 13th of this year. The man who gave it did so in March and was eerily accurate on a bullet grazing Trump’s ear which is exactly what happened. One critic who I won’t name went so far as to say that he just got lucky about it and mocking the vessel by looking at all of his previous prophetic words and saying that his track record is less than stellar. I didn’t go into that much detail because to me, they are two different issues. This critic does believe in the prophetic, but he went way overboard in his assessment of the man going so far as to ridicule him for his interpretations of the words more than the actual words God gave him. I agreed that he tended to embellish things to make him sound more correct which is not a good thing and should be dealt with all by itself. However, even Balaam who is not seen in a good light overall, gave some of the most beautiful prophecies about Jesus in all of the Old Testament. Here is how an article about the wayward servant in an article found on gotquestions.org:

Balaam’s three prophecies of blessing on Israel infuriated the king of Moab, who told the prophet to go back home with no reward: “Now leave at once and go home! I said I would reward you handsomely, but the Lord has kept you from being rewarded” (Numbers 24:11). Before he left, Balaam reminded the king that he had said from the very beginning he could only say what God told him to say. Then he gave the king four more prophecies, gratis. In the fourth prophecy, Balaam foretold of the Messiah: “A star will come out of Jacob; / a scepter will rise out of Israel. / He will crush the foreheads of Moab, / the skulls of all the people of Sheth” (verse 17). Balaam’s seven prophecies were seven blessings on God’s people; it was God’s enemies who were cursed.

So are some of these prophets really Balaams as some say? Or are they just in need of discipleship on their gifts? Let’s take a closer look at Balaam to see just how bad it is to call someone a false prophet.

He Could Be Bought

Going back to the same gotquestions.org we see how the story of Balaam played out:

In Numbers 22—24, we find the story about Balaam and the king of Moab, a man called Balak. King Balak wanted to weaken the children of Israel, who on their way to Canaan had moved in on his territory. Balak sent to Balaam, who lived in Mesopotamia along the Euphrates River (Numbers 22:5), and asked him to curse Israel in exchange for a reward. Balaam was apparently willing to do this but said he needed God’s permission (verse 8). Balaam, of course, had no power, in himself, to curse Israel, but, if God were willing to curse Israel, Balaam would be rewarded through Balak. God told Balaam, “You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed” (verse 12). King Balak then sent “other officials, more numerous and more distinguished than the first” (verse 15), promising a handsome reward. This time God said, “Go with them, but do only what I tell you” (verse 20).

Balaam did work in the office of a prophet of God and was known as such as we see he did indeed work for God, but all throughout the narrative we see he wanted the money and even asked God if he could curse Israel. He was told no each time, but he kept trying to obey the King’s request. Even in all of this constant rebellion, Balaam kept blessing and not cursing Israel. He even insisted on going to the evil king in spite of an angel standing in his way and a donkey supernaturally speaking to him about that angel. In the end he did help the king, but not by using cursing Israel but giving a way to corrupt them. In the end Balaam became the poster child for false prophets as the gotquestions.org article describes:

Balaam’s name and story became infamous, and he is referred to several times in the New Testament. Peter compares false teachers to Balaam, “who loved the wages of wickedness” (2 Peter 2:15). Jude echoes this sentiment, associating Balaam with the selling of one’s soul for financial gain (Jude 1:11). Finally, Jesus speaks of Balaam when He warns the church in Pergamum of their sin: “There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality” (Revelation 2:14). Satan’s tactics haven’t changed all that much. If he cannot curse God’s people directly, he will try the back-door approach, and idolatry and sexual immorality are his go-to temptations.

I bring up this rather bad man to make a point. It isn’t the amount of times a prophet is wrong or right, but why they are doing what they’re doing. In this case Balaam gave very accurate prophecies, but his heart was to deceive God’s children for his own personal gain.

Yes, Be Accurate

I’m certainly not saying that those working in the prophetic needn’t be exact or that the standard isn’t 100% correctness. They should be and it should be that way. But even the best of prophets miss it from time to time. Just as a pastor, evangelist, or missionary will preach a sermon that missed the mark so will a prophet. I know I’ve preached or taught a clunker as I grew in those ministries and thank the Lord He gave me grace. Even prophets will allow things to get in the way of a word they get. But we don’t throw around the moniker of false pastor or teacher when that happens to those offices as much as we tend to do with prophets. Truth be told, all in ministry need to be under the umbrella of a mentor who will help them work through a prophecy that didn’t come to pass. The goal is to find out why that happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again or that it is a rare occurrence. I know that in Pentecostal/charismatic circles when a person gives a word or interprets a prophetic word in a service, those in charge need to discern if it was from God or not. If it wasn’t then they need to confer with that person privately to help them refine that gift. The same is true about the plethora of YouTube prophets. The one thing that should be rare is when we take it upon ourselves to make public videos or write and publish public articles castigating anyone for when a prophecy isn’t fulfilled. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, pray twice, and criticize once.

What If They Refuse Correction?

This is a valid question. Ultimately, they like all of us are answerable to God. But correction should be public last and not first. Did this rather pointed critic reach out to the prophet he spent nearly 2 hours tearing apart? I didn’t see where he said he did that, although I could be wrong. But I can say that to those listening or reading this lesson. God will sort this whole thing out as He tells He will. We live in day and age when prophetic words are voluminous because God is pouring out His spirit on all flesh as we see in these verses:

God says, ‘In the last days I will send My Spirit on all men. Then your sons and daughters will speak God’s Word. Your young men will see what God has given them to see. Your old men will dream dreams. 18 Yes, on those I own, both men and women, I will send My Spirit in those days.

They will speak God’s Word. (Acts 2:17-18, NLV)

And afterward I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.

29 Even upon the menservants and upon the maidservants in those days will I pour out My Spirit. (Joel 2:28-29, AMPC)

It’s almost like God knew all about social media when He inspired Joel and Peter to proclaim these things. And He gave us sage advice for when these serious mountains of words are multiplying on the Internet when he had John the Apostle write these words:

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. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (1 John 4:1-3, ESV)

My advice is for those critics that have good intentions also encourage people to adhere to this advice first. Then ask God if they need to tackle a false anything in the Body of Christ and see how He wants things handled. It might take a little longer, but in the end it sets a Godly precedent and one that, if approached in humility will bring healing and not hurt to those inside the Church and those outside of it that want nothing but to see egg on all of Christianity’s faces. Let’s avoid the verbal firing squad of character assassination wherever possible.