How it all started

Earlier today I received an urgent word from the Lord which I posted on Facebook. I was scrolling through my instagram account and saw an amazing image of a huge bright blue wave with the face of the Lion of Judah roaring manifesting in the water within the image. As soon as I saw the image I heard The Lord say, “The Roar of the Lord is about to crash upon the shore.” Immediately thereafter I was reminded of a word Holy Spirit had given me in passing when I was encouraging a friend on the phone several years ago. My friend was working in the government realm  and very disappointed and discouraged about everything that was going on in the nation and the rampant compromise, malicious behavior amidst politicians and deceptions being propagated through the media as well. My heart was grieved and I found myself thinking Lord what do I say, a moment later Holy Spirit blurted out: “A Tsunami wave of my remnant of faithful, obedient, uncompromising ones is gaining great momentum and while it is under the surface of the ocean now it is about to crash ashore.” I was attempting to give my friend hope. She quieted her frustrated rant for a moment and we agreed God is still good and in control.

There is a true unity movement led by a purified remnant  that is building momentum in cities all over this nation. Many of these movements are still hidden. Many of the leaders still unknown. They are focused on reformation. They are focused on changing the very cultural fabric of our cities. They are focused on reinstating righteous moral standards in the land again so that people can live in peace, safety and prosperity. As I continued to process what’s happening in our nation and remembered the frustration my friend felt that day – I began to reflect on the current cultural conundrum in our nation. We have leaders in place who are literally calling evil good and good evil. We have many in the church who are in agreement with these leaders and are calling it Holy. My heart began to feel grieved and I again prayed for mercy. Abba forgive them for they know not what they do!

Father does not allow sinful men and women to reign unchecked. Many times the plight of our nation reflects the condition of the church. In this hour however that is not the case. Millions stood for righteousness, for truth, for life, for Isreal, for marriage, for justice, for helping the poor, for the widow and the orphans.  As my heart grieved over the current leadership and their blatant raising of the fist toward God himself. I heard immediately: “Watch, watch, watch and see! The Lord is about to Roar! I hear the Lord saying brace yourself, for I will speak on my own behalf and they will have to answer me themselves.” Some would pridefully presume as many are tweeting and posting that the storms we are seeing in various states across our nation are the result of that states position on certain matters. The truth is that we have a leadership that has rescinded the righteous laws that were protecting our land from imminent judgement and is creating laws that fly in the face of a Holy Creator – our Father God. All throughout the old testament whenever wicked kings allowed depravity to be normalized in the land judgement would come upon the nation of Isreal.

In this pivotal hour when the consequences of sin begin to manifest in our midst  the church has an opportunity to shine like stars in the darkest of nights. It is the perfect storm frankly in the midst of which the purest and bravest of leaders will begin to shine forth.  It was prophesied by Hank Kunneman to be a furious February and that it has been! However the Lord also told him it would be a March to celebrate! Let’s see what the Lord has in store for us next. Now more than ever before is the time for the church to arise, stand, speak life and truth – to be the shining examples of God’s love in ways we would have had the opportunity to be if all was well in the land.  Church GET READY TO ROAR!

After I finished posting the above on FaceBook, I continued to struggle internally with the plight of our nation, with the deception in the church, with the souls of the deceived leaders and their future fate without revelation to repent. I began to weep. I ended up in the book of Jeremiah – apropos being that he was called the weeping prophet. The Lord led me to the passage about the Lying prophets. It was a sobering read as I worked my way through Jeremiah 23: 3-39. There have been all kinds of accusations flying around in the church about “false prophets” most of them coming from churches and individuals who know very little about practicing prophecy but are trying to make sense of the seemingly conflicting words coming forth from various prophets. Some are sincere in that they truly want to know and understand while others are sadly full of bitterness and anger. Likely the bitter-hearted don’t realize they are partnering with a spirit of intimidation and a spirit of jezebel to come against the prophets who were brave enough to speak the truth.

I couldn’t let today pass without bringing some clarity to the issue of the fruit of actual false prophets. Over the last month I have seen many posts: “Asking for a friend” Side note,  everyone knows that 99.9% of the time the person is not asking for a friend LOL. I pray the Lord emboldens the church to just be brave enough to directly ask the question and deal with the backlash, it is so good for growing us up in godliness.

Some people are sincerely asking the following questions, which I will answer below with the biblical examples to prove the point.

IF A PROPHET MISSES IT ARE THEY A FALSE PROPHET?

ANSWER: No not necessarily. God can give a true prophet a TRUE WORD, from Him, that HE TOLD THEM to deliver that DOES NOT COME TO PASS!

EXAMPLE: Jonah was a minor prophet. God gave Jonah who was a true prophet a word to deliver. (See Jonah 1:1 “The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”  For those who know the story, you know that Jonah did not want to deliver that word – in fact he tried to run from God Almighty. He was unsuccessful of course and his attempt to run from the call landed him in the belly of a fish, a bit smelly, a bit humbled and still put right back where God told him to go in the first place. I believe as the body learns to work with and receive the prophets we must remember that they don’t always like being the ones who bring bad news and it is not necessarily a fun job to be told by God to say the kinds of things He asks them to say.  That said we ought to be a little kinder.

Then it says the word of the Lord came to the prophet a second time and commanded Jonah to give them the message God gives him. This time Jonah obeys, He proclaimed on the first day, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” and the Ninevites believed God and fasted and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. As we continue to read on we see that the king and nobles of Nineveh put out a decree and commanded everyone to participate in the fast and to turn from their evil ways and call on God so that they wouldn’t perish. Jonah 3: 10 states, “ When God saw what they did and how they turned rom their evil ways, He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction He had threatened.” This verse tells us several things.

1. God responds to genuine repentance and loves to relent from bringing judgement.

2. God did not do what He asked Jonah a true prophet to tell the Ninevites He was going to do – bring destruction upon the city in forty days.

3. He had indeed told Jonah to threaten the city and the leaders with impending judgement. So to answer the above question emphatically, God can give a true prophet a true word from Him, that He told them to deliver and that does not come to pass!

TAKE AWAY: So what’s the take away. When a prophet brings a harsh word, check your heart, ask God to reveal any self deception, repent for any areas where you have partnered with the idolatry the prophet is referring to and get right with God. Don’t assume that because the word didn’t come to pass (even though you didn’t check your heart) that you are good to go. It could be that someone repented and the entire city was spared because of their humility and willingness to intercede on your nation or cities behalf, yet you are still fumbling down the path of perdition and will eventually see the full fruit of a sinful life. The word is God’s grace to call us back to Him. Always check your heart and always turn back to Him quickly.

CAN A TRUE PROPHET GIVE YOU A TRUE WORD THAT GOD DOES NOT WANT YOU TO OBEY?

ANSWER: Yes, He can and He does that to test our hearts.

EXAMPLE: Jeremiah was a major prophet. God gave Jeremiah a TRUE WORD, from Him, that He did not want the people to obey. “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: ² “Go to the house of the Rechabites and speak with them and bring them to the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers; then offer them wine to drink.” Jeremiah 35:1 Those who are familiar with the story know that Jeremiah did exactly what the Lord asked him to do and filled their cups and told them to “Drink some wine.” Jeremiah35:5b but the Rechabites responded “We do not drink wine, because our forefather Jonadab son of Recab gave us this command: neither you nor your descendants must ever drink wine.” It would seem that Jeremiah being a true prophet with a true word from God, may be tempted to be frustrated with these Rechabites because the Lord told him what to tell them a true word from Him and they did not obey. This type of word from the Lord is always a test to both the prophet giving the word and the people receiving it. In this instance we will see God didn’t want the Rechabites to obey this word and they were actually commended for obeying the word of their fathers instead. Let us look at the rest of the story. “Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, Go tell the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, ‘will you not LEARN A LESSON and obey my words?’ …’Jonadab son of Recab, ordered his sons not to drink wine and this command has been kept to this day they do not drink wine, because they obey their forefather’s command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not obeyed me. Again and again I sent all my servants the prophets to you…they say, ‘each of you must turn from your wicked ways and reform your actions do not follow other gods to serve them. Then you will live in the land I have given to you and your fathers.’ But you have not paid attention or listened to me. The descendants of Jonadab son of Recab HAVE CARRIED OUT THE COMMAND their forefathers gave them, but these people HAVE NOT OBEYED me.” A prophet must be so careful to remember that their job is simply to say what God tells them to say and let it go. It is not their responsibility what the people do with the word, nor is it their fault if the people don’t obey. And this example teaches us that not every true word that God gives a prophet is given so that the people will obey it. Some words are given to test the hearts of the hearers sometimes God will give a true prophet a true word for us that He does not want us to obey. We need to be careful to make sure we are worshiping God and not the prophets. Always obey the last word God gave you unless He confirms to you and shows you differently.

ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE APOLOGETIC PROPHETS

You do not need to apologize for sharing a word that God has asked you to share. It is good practice for prophets to be willing to be misunderstood as well. It is so good for our character development. The culture and those who do not understand the ways of God will try and pressure prophets to withdraw what they previously stated, but don’t take the bait.  Take time to ask the Lord why the word didn’t come to pass or why He’s asking you to give the word. It will save you some heartache and embarrassment in the future. When a prophet starts apologizing for saying what God clearly told them to say it looses a spirit of confusion in the camp and weakens the credibility of prophecy.  If God told you to say it own it and know that He has a purpose in having you say it. You may not know what it is now, but if you listen closely to His voice and not the voices of intimidation and jezebel coming against you He will tell you the purpose. Jonah was used to bring the fear of the Lord to a city that was wicked and needed to repent and they did. Jeremiah was used to test the hearts of the Rechabites and rebuke the Israelites. Also as leaders, we need to do more teaching around the above issue so people are not so easily duped by the spirit of division. We are so much further along than we used to be but equipping the church in these issues will help us remain unified during difficult and transitional seasons like the one we are in now and those we will need to persevere through in the future.

Moral of the story – Always test the words and do the last thing God told you!

FRUIT OF A FALSE PROPHET

With the rise of Trump and Biden and the political tension in our nation there have been many prophetic words that were released that didn’t  to come to pass when many thought they would. When specific dates passed multitudes came against the prophets that released those words accusing them of being false prophets. Even if we just look at the above biblical examples of true prophets receiving a true word from God that didn’t come to pass, that alone is reason enough for the church to apologize to these prophets. But for the sake of understanding and clarity let’s also look at the fruit of an actual false prophet so that the body of Christ can learn to discern the difference and cease participating with the demonic and coming against God’s true prophets. As I read Jeremiah 23 today, I realized it clearly delineates the fruit of an ACTUAL FALSE PROPHET looks like. When we are looking at prophets and they have these qualities listed below we know they are a lying prophet, a false prophet and not someone we should be following if we desire to hear from the Lord and walk upon His highway of holiness.

Let’s look at these verses.

v 10b “The prophets follow an evil course and use their power unjustly.”

v11 “Both prophet and priest are godless; even in my temple I find their wickedness.” –  these prophets are godless in character, hebrew: polluted, flatterers, ruthless men 

v13 “they prophesied by Baal & led my people astray” – False prophets are in support of abortion (child sacrifice) a modern day worship of Baal. also baal Peor the worship of sexual pleasure.

v14 ” they commit adultery and live a lie”- false prophets are those living in sin and choosing to break convent with the wives of their youth.

v14 “They strengthen the hands of evil doers” – false prophets strengthen the hand of those doing evil through false words and flattery for their own gain

v16 They fill people with false hope – these prophets give hope that doesn’t align with God’s word, promises nor His son sent to bring true hope.

v16 “They speak visions from their own minds, not from the Lord”

v17 “They keep saying to those who despise me you will have peace” – prophesying peace to people in grave sin is a sign of a lying prophet, sin without repentance brings death and destruction

v17 “to all who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts they say, ‘no harm will come to you'”

A close look at these verses helps us understand that those prophets who prophesied regarding Trump very likely did obey the Lord as none of them have any of the above fruit of a lying prophet. However the same careful look shows us that there are those who are calling themselves prophets and aligning with worldly leaders prophesying peace peace to those who hold to many of the above practices in their lifestyles. One might suggest, well what about Daniel? Daniel worked for many godless men and cared deeply for them. This is true, Daniel was a stellar example to us. He never wanted to see the leaders he served harmed but He always spoke the truth even when it meant the leader was being judged by God. ex. Mene mene tekel parsin Daniel 5:25 NIV Daniel was also willing to still live a holy uncompromising life of obeying the word of the Lord even if it got him thrown into the lions den (proverbial jail  with a death sentence in modern day terms)

All this to say, saints we ought to grieve like Jeremiah did in chapter 23:9 and cry out with him “my heart is broken within me; all my bones tremble. I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine because of the Lord and his holy words.” Let’s ask Abba for mercy, for an awakening of hearts, for the fear of the Lord to be granted so that men and women may turn from their ways and be saved.