#675

Prophetic Infighting

Now What?

In the run up to the 2020 presidential race a curious thing started to happen. Christians started hearing from God about who would win. That’s not a new thing as men and women both inside and outside of the church make such predictions. However, with the advent of the Internet and social media this trend took on a whole new life of its own. The moniker of YouTube prophets was attached to these people and with that there came a divide, especially in the Body of Christ over this online trend. We were accustomed to such prophetic words to be rare with years and maybe decades in between their fulfilments. I still have my original copy of the book by David Wilkerson entitled The Vision and I recall how stunned I was when I first read it back in 1974. A great deal of what God gave him back then is still yet to come to pass. We then move to more current times and the popular prophetic voice of Kim Clement whose visions are still being examined today. However this explosion of visions and dreams being heard, read and seen is a whole new thing to at least the evangelical/charismatic community. If you want to explore social media you won’t have any trouble finding them and you can just as easily get lost in scrolling them one after the other. For the most part, the ones talking about the current lightning rod of prophetic words, President Donald Trump dominate the landscape and for good reason. He is highly controversial and his journey from 2015 to today makes for entertaining viewing. The vast majority of the words given about him were about him serving two terms in the White House, which we now know he will do. However, not everyone sees a rosy future for the man.

The Current Prophetic Kerfuffle

That’s an interesting title, isn’t it? If I’m being honest, I just wanted to use the word kerfuffle today, but it does fit my topic. While most of the prophetic community see the reelection of Trump in a positive light, one prophetic voice is getting a lot of flack for a word she revealed about Trump. Her name is Emma Stark and she has a ministry based out of Scotland. In a word she said she received just before the US election and made public on November 4th she said she saw God punching Trump in the mouth and his teeth came out. She then said that this spoke to a catastrophic time of him leading and then that God would remove him. To say that this began a whirlwind of responses is to undersell things. But to those who invested so much into Trump being back in as president, hearing that he would be removed was throwing cold water on them. And I have to admit that personally I felt the need to find ways to discount the word given to Emma Stark. But I know that I have to listen to words even if I disagree with them. So I did my due diligence and listened. But then the rebukes started to come with the most prominent one coming from Cindy Jacobs and the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders she is a part of. Their response is also causing a stir. And those outside the church are laughing at the apparent infighting of those who they see as a circus of kooks, frauds, and hucksters. How should we who are also looking from afar respond?

All Words Should Be Tested

Beloved, do not put faith in every spirit, but prove (test) the spirits to discover whether they proceed from God; for many false prophets have gone forth into the world. (1 John 4:1, AMPC)

Add this to the multiple times that Jesus warned His disciples of the false prophets and prophecies they espouse in the time just before He returns and you have an environment where even the elect can be deceived. This ability to test and then determine what it false and what is true is of paramount importance now as I see we are living in the days of false words. It’s almost like Jesus peered into the future and saw the multitude of ways we can communicate and knew that the prince of the power of the air would more than take advantage of it. But He also knew that He could get His words out as well if His children also took advantage of the same avenues of communication. In the mix is the contesting of prophetic words encouraged by the Apostle John who wrote these verses in a time when false teachings about Jesus were abounding. He told his followers to beware of these spiritual sounding ministers, but he also knew how convincing they were at first blush so he told them to weigh their words against their Bible at the time that really consisted of the Old Testament. And in Deuteronomy 13 we see this:

If a prophet arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder,

2 And the sign or the wonder he foretells to you comes to pass, and if he says, Let us go after other gods—gods you have not known—and let us serve them,

3 You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being. (Deut 13:1-3, AMPC)

Interestingly the accuracy of the words wasn’t at stake. It was the turning of their hearts and minds away from serving the true God. John knew these verses when he penned the ones in 1 John and he surely expected his readers to know them, too.

How Should This Play Out?

As I see it, Cindy Jacobs and her leaders reached out to Emma Stark and her crew and, using the Matthew 18 process of going to them privately essentially were told to talk to the hand because the face wasn’t listening. Now I’m sure it was more congenial than that, but you get the point. Both sides stood their ground leading to Jacobs and company to issue their statement. Stark and her people issued their response to that and this is where they stand. But now social influencers are hashing out things about who is right, who is wrong, but more importantly should there be an overall body of spiritual arbiters who need to have the final word. If this sounds familiar, well we’ve been down this road before with the first round of prophecies about Donald Trump which saw a group of ministers whose numbers stand at 1,078, who essentially said they would decide what words should be made public and which ones should not. Hindsight tells us how that worked out because the prophetic community basically said no to them and continued to publish their words. In any event I want to say that I am an advocate for vetting prophetic words but I am not in favor of some international or even national group of people judging all words. Why you ask? Well I’ll tell you.

We Need To Discern Individually

In a world that is seeing an explosion of prophetic words it is incumbent on all of us living in the end times to dust off the ability to discern because when the rubber meets the road we have to be responsible for what we believe. God isn’t going to judge us as being spiritually righteous because on our affiliations. He will judge us on the basis of how we live our lives individually. It is not a bad thing to get the opinion of others, however at the end of the day we need to decide what we is right and wrong based on the Bible. And that kind of discernment has to be a part of our lives more and more as we get closer to the rise of Antichrist who will be slickest and convincing liar of all of history. His spirit is in the world today and his messengers are working with the same ability to deceive. It’s nice to have groups that will give us information about what word if from God and what word isn’t. At the end of the day we need to be able to make that call. If there was ever a time when discernment is needed, it is now when the cacophony of prophetic voices is abounding. How do you get discernment? First, know the Bible inside and out. And then lean heavily on Holy Spirit who will lead you into all truth. Then ask for wisdom from on high:

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (James 1:5, NIV)

That wisdom is described this way:

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. (James 3:17, NKJV)

Finally, understand that growing in discernment is a process. As the false prophets and their words grow, so should your level of discernment.