The Pathetic Prophetic

Another genuine spiritual gift has become so distorted and perverted that it is getting harder to distinguish the truth from the false. We have come from one extreme of the prophet as a propogator of "gloom and doom" to the other extreme of expecting the prophet to be one's own "personal psychic" or "Christianized Cleo". However, the true role of a prophet is of many functions. One of the main functions of the prophet is per 1 Corinthians 14:3 is to edify, exhort, comfort the church, and exalt the name of Jesus at the same time. If you look up the word edify, this word means "To instruct especially so as to encourage intellectual, moral, or spiritual improvement." Therefore, the prophet is to instruct especially so as to encourage intellectual, moral, or spiritual improvement of the church and exalt the name of Jesus at the same time.

One member of the AVAILABLE LIGHT ONLINE G.O.L.F. team did an exhausive study of the Characteristics of a prophet. He had thirty characteristics (remember, this is not an 'all-inclusive' list) but many of the concepts he later taught to his congregation truly denote what a prophet's true characteristics really are along with instructing especially so as to encourage intellectual, moral, or spiritual improvement of the church and exalt the name of Jesus at the same time. Some of these characteristics (and remember, this is not an 'all-inclusive' list) are:

• The prophet calls individuals and nations to personal and national righteousness because of the holiness in him. (I Kings 18:17-46; Jonah 3:1-10; II Chronicles 15:1-13; Matthew 14:1-5)
• A prophet has a burning passion to declare the word of God uncompromisingly and is is very upfront and direct in confronting sin. (Exodus 3:1-10; I Kings 17:1; II Samuel 12:1-12; I Samuel 9:27, 15:16; Psalm 104:4; Jeremiah 20:9)
• A prophet shares the humanity and challenges of the people he represents. He can relate to them and identify with them. (Hebrews 4:15,16; II Corinthians 1:3-5; Deuteronomy 18:15)
• A prophet must be grounded in the foundations of the faith, and must relay them to the people to whom he is sent in a way they can receive. (Genesis 18:18,19; Luke 3:1-18; Ephesians 4:29)
• The true prophet will not be influenced to prophesy with promise of reward. A true prophet feels that prophesying is its own reward. (Jude 11; Acts 8:14-24; Daniel 5:5-29; II Kings 5:20-27; Micah 3:11)
• The prophet uses his authority of command to establish and maintain God's order. The prophet has a passion for order and a very low tolerance for disorder. (I Corinthians 14:27-37; Exodus 32; Matthew 21:12-17)

As you can see, the main purpose of the prophet is to edify the church while exalting the name of Jesus. Sometimes, the prophets have to rebuke and sometimes a gloom and doom word has to be given. But everything the prophet does whether it's a word of blessings, encouragement, and/or rebuke must in the long run be tied to giving God all the glory and advancing Kingdom principles at the same time. That is what a real prophet does. Prophets are not psychics who gives you a word to help you plan your future, tell you what food to eat Wednesday night, what color socks to wear with your clothes, etc. Prophets are not 'scaremongers' that come into a church to fear at the pastor's request to scare people back to the pastor's agendas when the pastor feels the people are moving away from the pastor's agendas. In fact, a real prophet, when he speaks in a church is not the owner of the church nor has full control of the church, the true prophet always recognizes the pastoral and eldership authority within that church and falls into submission with it while at the same time, giving the Word of The Lord to edify the saints and exalt the name of Christ. True prophets are not 'phantoms' who gives a Word and then leaves. If a false prophet comes into the church and the pastor and elders recognize this, you should expect the pastors and elders to immediately remove than person from the pulpit and expel him or her out of that church. A false prophet may continue to "propheTRY", "propheCRY", and even "propheLIE", but in the long run, that false prophet will "propheDIE" along with those false prophecies.

However, like their spiritual warfare counterparts, there are extremes and downright wrong prophecies and teachings in this movement. Many have turned the prophetic into the pathetic by self-exalting themselves as "prophet" or "prophetess" and became a Christian Psychic in the name of money. In many charismatic magazines, there are ads for seminars where you pay money to attend the seminar and are guaranteed a personal prophecy. There are ads where you send the "profit" or "profitess" some money and you get a cassette tape or a letter with your "prophecy". Usually the prophecies are very generic and can apply to most everyone with such stuff as "God's is getting ready to bless you", "God really loves you and wants you to know it", "God is doing a new thing", etc. Nothing in specific but generalized statements to where it would be hard to go back and make the "profit" or "profitess" accountable for their spoken words. The prophet John Paul Jackson in one of his newsletters stated that:

"For some reason, the church has begun to view revelatory people in the same way the world views psychics. They believe that prophetic people should have an answer any time to anything the inquirer wants to know. They treat prophetic individuals as if they were 'Christian psychics.'... We...are not in competition with occult practitioners," he says. "Nor are we to take the place of God, who longs to speak individually to each individual through His Holy Spirit." Nor should a prophet ever be "force you to produce a revelation," or be pressured into telling all they know about an issue. "You do not have to generate a prophetic answer for every question posed to you," he counsels. "You are not God. You only know as much as He gives you. Furthermore, you were not given a revelatory gift to be a 'prophetic 7-Eleven convenience store.'"

John Paul Jackson stated this in response to where several "graduates" of his courses and prophetic seminars took part in what they called a "dream team" outreach at the Winter Olympics in Utah, in February 2002. Offering free "spiritual readings" to people at bookstores and other venues, they used their prophetic gifts to interpret dreams as a way of sharing God's love. WRONG FOCUS HERE!!!! When Joseph (Genesis 40) interpreted the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker, the first thing out of Joseph's mouth in verse eight of capter 40 was "Do not interpretations belong to GOD?, tell me then, I pray you". Later on in chapter 41, when Pharoah summoned Joseph, the first thing Joseph stated in verse sixteen was "It is not in me: God shall give Pharoah an answer of peace". The interpretation of the dreams was done to give God all the glory and it was God giving the interpretation. It was not a witnessing tool to show God's love. It was a tool that warned of coming famime, but a tool that exalted God because the wisdom and foresight given in the interpretation of the dream was beyond conventional means of wisdom. Joseph acted out of obedience of an imparted gift. Many Charismatic psychics operate out of the greed of money and preying on people's fears of the future by tickling their ears with generic 'words from God' assuring them that everything is ok, He's got the whole world in his hands'.

Like their spiritual warfare counterparts, there is a increased phenomeon of taking an event in the physical and overspiritualizing it. This is done in two ways. The first way is to drag out some twenty year old prophecy that was never true and "force fit" the prophecy into a world event stating that the prophecy was true. The hammering of the square peg prophecy into the round hole happening is a distortion of the Truth of God. The second thing many prophets try to do is to state that after a world event, they had this prophecy that was kept in 'the secret place' because "God said so". Before 9-11-01, there were no prophecies about the World Trade Center but after 9-11-01, there were people who claimed with their 20/20 prophetic hindsight that they had this prophecy ten years ago. Every event has some major spiritual and prophetic significance in the heavenlies or can be traced back to some Old Testament King James Version verses dealing with judgement. There are prophetic forums online that specialize in this stuff. I have seen and received via e-mail everything from "God will defeat these "spiritual terrorists" and defeat "jihad" with "Jehovah". and so forth." I also received a 'prophecy' stating that the attack occurred because America idolized the World Trade Center and God allowed it to happen on 9-11-01 because 911 is a sign of emergency and America is in a spiritual emergency and that the "11" in 9-11-01 was representative of the twin towers and the "01" was a sign of "0" is "off" in digital electronics and "1" is "on" in digital electronics and the "01" shows our Laidocea state of not being off (0, cold) or on (1, hot) but lukewarm (both 0 and 1, cold and hot). Two years ago, I received prophecies why the Rams will win the Super Bowl because the Ram of God is defeating the Titans (greek gods / polytheism) and shows the true battle in the heavenlies of good versus evil." I also received a prophecy this year before the Super Bowl stating that it was God's will for the Patriots to win because of the rise of Godly American Patriotism. The same thing with the Yankess winning the World Series in reference to the patriotic spirit but when the DiamondBacks won off of Luis Gonzales' bloop single in the eleventh inning of Game seven, the prophecies that next Monday morning turned to "a snake in the grass has robbed us of our birthright".

Every world event has some parallel and a tie-in to the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy of judgement, gloom and doom in the minor prophetic books and a prediction of the "Antichrist of the Week". Many 'so-called' prophecies are not really prophecies at all, they are an attempt to line up the scriptures to their mode of thought instead of forcing their narrow thinking to line up with the scriptures. As I write this article and watching the O'Reilly Factor being interrupted due to the arrest of the troubled child actor Robert Blake for murdering his wife, I wonder if the next prophecy I will receive in my e-mail will be like this "A 'Little Rascal (satan) [also referring to the 'Mickey' character Blake played] in the spirit' is killing HIS Bride (the church)! Therefore, don't committ spiritual suicide like Alfalfa, get spiritually fat like Spanky, and get right with God and remember Adam and Eve how the snake deceived them to eat the forbidden fruit. My people, the little rascal snake is trying to get people to partake of forbidden fruit in order to kill my spotless bride call the church. Deal with Rebellion, Repent, and be Revived!! Thus Saith The Lord????"

Those are some pathetic words I have written above showing what I expect next in the 'pathetic prophetic', some will find it comical. However, I do receive prophecies like this (and worse) every day in my e-mail. What is even more horrible is when people demand you to "post the prophecy for the world to see" claiming that if you do not "judgement on your life will follow." The true prophetic is being profaned by the pathetic. Instead of calling some of these pathetic people "prophets", we need to call these pathetic people who abuse the name of God excatly as they are, "pathets (pronounced 'pe thet')" or their female equivalent "pathetess (pronounced 'pe thet' tess)"

In summary, the cosmic has became comic and the prophetic has became pathetic in many areas. However, there is a real spiritual war being fought by real spiritual warriors and there are real prophecies spoken by real prophets out there today. When the real spiritual warriors and the real prophets show up, we can not be so turned off by the prophetic flakiness and the extreme unbiblical warfare methods seen before or currently being seen that when the real warriors and prophets come, we refuse to even open up to real spiritual warfare and real prophetic happenings in fear of being conned, deceived, and hurt again. Also, we must never allow ourselves to get to the point that we believe that the flaky warfare and prophecies are so real that we end up rejecting the real warriors and the real prophets.

When we treat serious issues with a flippant attitude, the reactions that come forth backfire. True spiritual warriors are to be respected and true prophets are to be honored. However, the focus is not the Holy Spirit, the focus is supposed to be on Jesus and advancing the kingdom and causes of Christ. It is Jesus, the giver of the spiritual giftings, callings, and annointings that must be worshipped and exalted, not the actual gift, calling, and annointing in and of itself. Is Christianity in an era where we are gasping for air, choking on gnats, swallowing elephants, and failing to distinguish the tress from the forest? Are we like Don Quixote who could not tell the windmills from the real enemy even when his horse Rocinate knew the difference? Instead of obeying the Scriptures and looking to the Scriptures and praying to God to reveal His Holy Spirit, we attempt the latest "craze" and force the craze to be "God at work". From spiritual mapping to Christianized psychics, Christianity has veered off into a religion where we are looking to exalt the "me" instead of exalting "HE" being Jesus. In order to be an effective warrior and / or prophet, these character traits of message, ministry, maintenance, methods, manners, manhood, maturity, marriage, morality, money, and motives must be in complete alignment to the Scriptures.

Lord, right now in the name of Jesus, I ask that you would help us see the error of our ways. Help us to get out of the comic cosmic and the pathetic prophetic and grasp the true definition of spiritual warfare and the prophetic. We need true prophets and true Bible teachers to interpret both your Rhema and your Logos Word. The comic cosmic needs to become the conquered cosmic and the pathetic prophetic needs to be the pined prophetic. Forgive us for our games of "Risk" based on out "words" and our attempted to answer people with a spiritual parallel to a physical happening and calling it God. Help us to respect and keep the prophetic holy and also to address problems head on instead of making a game out of Spiritual warfare when needed and perform spiritual warfare when necessary. In Jesus name I pray, AMEN!!