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Fighting the false prophets - itgwfdisciple - 19-12-2011
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The false prophet advantage
As you go through a life that you have given to God you will find that there are some situations in it that conflict with His word and that make you feel tempted to dodge the odd commandment or two to try and make things easier, you will also find that the kind words of your local false prophet will be a lot more appealing when this happens. We also have the problem that the Holy Spirit is seemingly not as active in the church as it was back in the New Testament times and this has given the the false prophets the confidence to start making up various things about it to suit their aims.
Training from God (the safest option)
Countering false prophets is not an easy thing because it requires you to have read through the Bible so that you know the history of what has happened in God's interaction with man and it allows you to see the unchanging nature of God and the fact that the false prophets only tend to be active during His quiet periods, but their doom is swift when God gets fed up with the people, for listening to them for too long, and then makes His next move. This is why it is very important to study the Bible properly because without a deep enough knowledge of it you will be easily confused by even the lowest level false prophet. Some people, who might even be false prophets, will try to convince you that you should read this or that study guide of the Bible, or they will tell you that this or that Bible scholar has some interesting things to say, but you will find that God is the one who can teach you everything that you need to know about his inspired word. In I John 2:26-27 it says "These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him." and from this we can see that you do not have to go to man to gain a decent knowledge of God's word, because He is willing to teach you everything directly so that the things that you learn will not be tainted by the false prophets who only seem to be interested in sounding good to the people of this world, rather than actually helping you to get into God's kingdom.
A false prophets main technique
Any knowledge that you get from God will also help you to counter a false prophets main move and it is called the False Prophet Injection Technique, you will find that this is the technique that they use the most when they are trying to deceive you. A classic example of this the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1-4 it says "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." and they will then try to use this scripture to justify why people will sometimes run around and scream and say that they are filled with the Holy Spirit, but you should notice that they are injecting this into the conversation using their own words rather than anything that is written in the Bible. If you read on in Acts 2:7-15 "And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilæans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judæa, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judæa, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day." you will notice that the Holy Spirit has regulated the levels of each apostles voice so that the people from each nationality could hear and understand the words that were spoken in their language. Note also that they were sitting at first and then Peter stood up, so the Holy Spirit did not cause them to dance uncontrollably, and Peter could speak above their voices so they were not speaking in an overly loud or uncontrolled manner. The Holy Spirit always does things in a controlled and orderly manner as it says in I Corinthians 14:40 "Let all things be done decently and in order.", so if someone ever says that the unorderly things that are going on in a church are caused by the Holy Spirit, then you can know with confidence that they are using the False Prophet Injection Technique on you.
Another false prophet technique
Another, even worse, technique that a false prophet will use on you is the False Prophet Corruption Technique. This can turn out to be a deadly technique because they are actually changing the words that are written in the Bible and if you fall for this technique then you are almost certainly guaranteeing your doom. One classic example of this that I have seen is in relation to what Jesus says in Matthew 19:24 "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.". They will try to convince you that Jesus is talking about a gate in Jerusalem called the eye of the needle through which a camel could not pass unless it stooped down, therefore implying that a camel could get through the eye of a needle and that a rich person could make it into the kingdom of God. If you read on in Matthew 19:25-26 "When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible." you will see that Jesus says "With men this is impossible" which indicates that a rich persons doom is certain and they will be joined by the false prophet who has tried to corrupt God's word. Another example that I remember hearing is someone quoting Matthew 6:33 "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all the things you desire will be added unto you." and this almost made me feel like jumping off the bench because the correct version is "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." and you can see how they have corrupted the last part of the sentence to make it more appealing to people of this modern world, because the "these things" that Jesus is talking about are listed in the verses above and they are not things that people of this modern world want to know about because of how they would cramp their style. If you are tricked into believing the corrupt version, because you have not studied your Bible properly, then you will be in for a shock when Jesus returns and the false prophet will have taken one more victim with them.
There is still hope
There is some good news though for anyone who wants to help with fighting the false prophets, it looks as if the Holy Spirit is ready and willing to give a hand to anyone who loves God properly and is prepared to defend His word against anyone who tries to go against it. I have had a strange experience a couple of times recently where I was starting a discussion with someone who believed some things that were false and as I started to speak a strange feeling would come over me and, even more interestingly, during the conversation I would say some things that I am sure that I have not said before. It was only after the last time it happened that I realised it could only have been something given to me by the Holy Spirit and upon working this out I realised that it must be available to anyone who has read God's word and wants to defend it. I also had another recent experience that shows the teaching power of the Holy Spirit. At the beginning 2011 I received a PDF from someone relating to a contentious issue in the church, when I first read it I was confused by some of the things that the author was saying and I found that I could not comment on it properly because of this. In November of 2011 I found that I was getting a lot of thoughts relating to how to counter false prophets and there seemed to be some interesting ideas coming into my head, I also then remembered about the PDF that I was given and decided to see if these new ideas would help with countering the words that were in it. When I read the PDF again I was a bit surprised to find that the false prophet methods that he was using were literally jumping off the page and I could easily comment on what he was doing and why it was wrong, I knew that this increase in skill was not by my hand but must have been because of the help that I was receiving from the Holy Spirit.
I will be writing some more details of my experiences in another article so watch out for it and I hope this will encourage some more people to realise that we do not have to sit back and allow the false prophets to do all the talking and deceiving because God is ready to help in our defence against them as long as we are willing to turn to him and keep his commandments properly.