Episode 2-23: The Gift of Prophecy, Alive or Dead, True or False? Part 2
Welcome back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing the second part of our discussion on prophecy. Is the gift of prophecy alive today or dead? Is it true or false? Today we are going to talk about false prophecy. We will examine what the Bible tells us about false prophets and how we can develop what is needed to discern false from true.
Top Show Points:
· This is the second part of our discussion on prophecy specifically discussing false prophecy.
· Recap of the gifts of the Spirit Paul discussed in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11
· To review, the 9 Spiritual Gifts are: wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, healings, miraculous powers, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues.
· To help us to remember the gifts and to aid in understanding them, there are Power Gifts, Revelation gifts and Spoken gifts.
· Prophecy is a Spoken gift. Of the three Spoken gifts it is the one that is the strongest in that it can stand on its own. Tongues and interpretation of tongues need each other, so they cannot stand on their own in terms of edifying the church.
· The spiritual gift of prophecy involves three things: edification, exhortation and comfort.
· In my experience, there are two kinds of false prophets, the knowing and the unknowing. We could also call them the intentional and the unintentional or the evil and the ignorant.
· Let’s take a look at what the Bible tells us about false prophets.
o Isaiah 44:24:
o Jeremiah 14:14:
o Jeremiah 23:16:
o Lamentations 2:14:
o Ezekiel 13:9:
o Hosea 11:6:
o Matthew 7:15:
o Matthew 24:24:
o 2 Peter 2:1:
o 1 John 4:1:
· The Bible is warning against false prophets. If there are false prophets, then there must be “true” prophets as well. You cannot have something be false if there is no true. False cannot exist without truth.
· Someone who is knowingly, intentionally behaving, directing, providing false prophecy is evil. Someone who is unknowingly, unintentionally providing false prophecy is ignorant.
· The Bible tells us to test the spirit to see whether they are from God. You can test them by evaluating their words against scripture. This is why knowing the scripture is so important.
· A false prophet will direct the attention to themselves while giving the appearance they are speaking on behalf of God for you.
· An evil false prophet will usually depict themselves as one who functions in the office of a Prophet. The reason for this is generally pride and greed. One who truly operates in this office will direct the honor and glory to God and acknowledge that God is the source of everything. An evil false prophet will not do that because they ultimately want something for themselves.
· A true prophet is not distinguishable from his or her appearance. There is no flashy behavior or extravagance in their appearance, there is no need for that. They stand on truth, that’s all they need. A false prophet needs that extra to get attention and create excitement because there is no Holy Spirit excitement.
· Story of someone in my area presenting themselves as functioning in the Office of a Prophet, but is a false prophet.
We encourage you:
· To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment
· If you want to learn more about how to Hear God's Voice, take a look at my book, Loving Conversations: How to Pray and Hear God's Voice. There is also a Study Guide available and two new devotionals coming out based on the Loving Conversations Book. One devotional is for women and one is for men.
I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!
For the full episode, click the player below.