Most of us believe that a false prophet is someone who tells/delivers false prophecies, but this is only partly true (biblically). According to the Bible, a false prophet is someone who prophesy but not by the Spirit of God. It means that not everyone who claims to be prophet is “God’s mouth piece”, as it were.
Consider Deuteronomy 18:14-15, “The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.”
See, the nations practice sorcery or divination to obtain supernatural knowledge, but God will raise a prophet for his people from their midst so that they do not need to seek supernatural knowledge by practicing sorcery or divination. Sadly,however, the people ended up practicing sorcery and divination, the very thing Moses warned them against…(Read Ezekiel).
Similarly, a significant number of spiritualists and herbalists have infiltrated the church nowadays as prophets with all possible titles under the sun and in the Bible. Their credibility is based solely on the signs, wonders, and “prophetic utterances” which they perform instead of the Word of God (Emmanuel) as message. Here the claim to being anointed is limited to their works and not continuity with the word of God.
Interestingly, in Deuteronomy 13:1-4 Moses describes a situation wherein, Moses writes, “a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among the people and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, ‘Let us follow other gods’ (gods you have not known) ‘and let us worship them,’ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.”
Accordingly, the litmus test of a false prophet is not that he tells false prophecies -that is, what he foretells doesn’t come to pass or is not fulfilled- but, rather, that he does not invite the people to follow the Lord and wholeheartedly obey his (written) word. Such a person will have the people revere him and follow him instead. He is the main attraction to his crusades and meeting place(s), not the Lord Jesus whose name often does not even figure or is hardly readable on advertising posters. Not so a true prophet of God who always leads people to God and his word, like the Lord Jesus did whilst on earth, hence Moses said to the people “you must listen to him”.
Finally, let’s consider Acts 16:16-18: We are told about “a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling”. We read that the girl followed Paul and his team shouting “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved”. She went on for many days until Paul becoming troubled (in his spirit) turned around and cast out the (evil) spirit that was in her -evil because it kept her in slavery and made her an object to her owner. Note that what the girl said about Paul and his team was true, but it did not come from the Spirit of God.
Please take note of John 16:13-14, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth [cf John. 8:31, 32]. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.”
It is important to note that when the Lord Jesus sent out his disciples he told them “freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). It means that they were not to build a fortune, like the slave girl’s owner did, on their God-given gifts which were meant for winning souls into the kingdom of God. Sadly, a girl like this would be labelled prophetess and made famous in most churches today or create a platform for herself on Facebook, for example, for live broadcast.
May the Lord help us all, in Jesus Christ’s name!
