However, it is the will of God that you do not fall to the deception of false prophets – whether they are around you or afar of.
Can you avoid seeing false prophets around you? Possibly not; as I said earlier, they can be found everywhere – even in church.
Read also:
Three innocuous things you should know about false prophets
Being a cultural Christian is not enough
Can you avoid being entrapped by false prophets? Yes you can, if you are discerning enough and pay attention to what the word of God says.
This post will suggest two simple but effective ways to treat a false prophet.
In the book of Jeremiah, we are given two simple keys to avoid falling into the deception of false prophets. Let’s read the verses together:
For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Do not let your [false] prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you; pay no attention and attach no significance to the dreams which they dream or to yours, for they prophesy falsely to you in My Name. I have not sent them,’ says the Lord .
Jeremiah 29:8-9 AMP
From this above quoted scriptures some salient points can be surmised:
- Where ever you find yourself, you will find false prophets amongst you;
- The aim of false prophets is to deceive you;
- False prophets can prophecy in the name of God;
- You will not be deceived if you don’t pay attention to false prophets and don’t take their words seriously;
- False prophets can’t deceive you without your consent;
- False prophets are not God’s representatives.
You can see that the Bible doesn’t say you will not meet false prophets in your Christian journey. But it does say you should not fall into their deception.
Let me explain further…
1. Pay no attention to a false prophet
What does it mean not to pay attention to anyone? I like the way the Collins dictionary explains it:
“If you pay attention to someone, you watch them, listen to them, or take notice of them. If you pay no attention to someone, you behave as if you are not aware of them or as if they are not important.”
With that definition, we can have a fair idea of what the Bible means when it says you should pay no attention to false prophets. It means:
- Don’t watch them
- Don’t listen to them
- Don’t take notice of them.
- Don’t behave as if they are important.
You will not be deceived by false prophets if you don’t watch them, if you don’t listen to them, and if you don’t take notice of them.
‘Do not let your [false] prophets who are among you… deceive you” remains Jeremiah’s warning to you.
2. Attach no significance to whatever a false prophet says
Apart from not paying attention to false prophets, you are also required not to attach any significance to their words.
“If you pay no attention to someone, you behave as if you are not aware of them or as if they are not important.”
Imagine if everyone should act that way to false prophets, they will all disappear into oblivion because no one patronises them.
But what do we see around us today? People honour false prophets by paying them attention and even subsiding their operations by giving them money.
Unfortunately that’s why false prophets are in business: preying on you and feeding fact on your ignorance.
It is my hope that you will change your attitude having read this article.
What else can you do when you encounter a false prophet? Leave me a comment.
You might also like: A tribute to a Christian Apologist, Ravi Zacharias
I think the first step is to discern if a prophet is false or not. A false prophet is not false because he or she says things we don’t like. What makes a prophet false is that their words contradict Scripture. When Scripture even if the prophecy sounds wonderful to our ears we must turn away from it.
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Absolutely, I agree with you. It is good for us to discern a false prophet and knowing the scriptures will be of help in that regard.
Once we have discerned a false prophet, we should not pay attention to them or do their biddings. Like you said, we should turn away from them.
Thanks so much for the beautiful contribution.
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Most welcome.
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Hi Victor,
How is it that you are unable to discern that false prophet who calls himself Spaniard viii?
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I was wondering where you have been all this while. Glad to hear from you again though.
Are you sounding like you know a true proohet now? Don’t worry about me, I know who and what to believe. As for you, how you would even know a false prophet?
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I have my ways.
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That’s fair enough.
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” A false prophet cannot deceive you without your consent”..amen amen and amen
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Sure and Amen. Thank you.
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Hi Victor,
Karl Barth maintained that Jesus Christ, as attested in Holy Scripture, is the One Word of God whom we are to (joyfully) obey in life and in death. This one Word of God comes in a three-fold form: The Word Revealed (Jesus Christ), the Word Written (the bible which is a God-breathed human witness to Divine revelation) and the Word Proclaimed (in preaching and sacraments) insofar as it is faithful to the Biblical witness and lifts up the Jesus of the biblical witness.
The bible which is the Word Written becomes what it is when the Holy Spirit illumines it to our understanding and uplifts the Jesus of the biblical witness.
The OT is the witness of the prophets to the coming of the Messiah. It contains the promise of this coming and is the time of expectation. The NT is the witness of the apostolic community to the Messiah who came, proclaimed the reign of God, dies on the cross for our sins and rose from the grave and promised to come again. This is the time of recollection. Jesus Christ himself is revelatory time. There is an indirect identity between the words of the Bible and the Word of God, but there is an identity. We cannot know Jesus Christ apart from the biblical witness.
So we can judge all purported prophets from the Jesus Christ of Scripture. False prophets do not follow him but lead people astray. Many of them use the bible as Fundamentalist who worship the book rather than the Triune God revealed in Jesus. The bible points us to Jesus and God as love and the whole bible needs to re-interpreted from this perspective. True prophets today are Christocentric in their theology unlike the false ones who are biblicistic, like Spaniard viii.
Of course you don’t need holy books or religious gurus to interpret them, nor religious temples to practise loving kindness. God, if he exists (which many people doubt), is compassion, healing mercy and loving kindness. So all God’s so-called classical attributes need to be re-interpreted through this lens. False prophets see God as a wrathful, violent person who burns people in hell forever. God, if he exists, is a God of peace, not violence. He is not an eternal torturer but the world is elect in the elect One, Jesus Christ.
Hope this helps!
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You do know that much of the bible was written by very violent, ignorant, bloodthirsty savages and not inspired by any god. Read judges ch.19 which as the story of the gang rape of a woman all night which ends in her death. The bible approves slavery, patriarchalism, killing of little babies in war, forcing many raped women to marry their rapist, murdering homosexuals and adulterers by stoning them to death. It pictures God in many passages as very violent. We need to REJECT large parts of the bible and treat others with dignity and respect. Being kind to one another is what the true God (if he, she or it exists) wants because God is love. Any other god isn’t worth a crumpet! All preachers of the Fundamentalist God of the bible are false prophets.
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Hi Victor,
Of course, any theology is bull, Karl Barth goobledegook included. No one knows whether God or gods exist. Just practice breath meditation and you will sense the presence of love and peace. This might be what some people call God or it might not. Anyway, both Jesus and Buddha taught breath meditation. Jesus said, “unless you are born of the breath (Greek word is pneuma) you cannot enter the reign of God.”
Cheers!
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Let me just plead with you, always limit your comments to the subject of the post. All these recycling of comments and other rabbit trails you bring in here and there help no one.
You can write a full post on your blog if you can’t keep it short and specific here. I will be glad to go over to your blog to read you. I hope you understand.
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The subject of this post is how to know a false prophet. Given Jesus statement to let the little children come unto him, for of such is the kingdom of heaven and his statement to his disciples to love their enemies, would a purported prophet be a true or false prophet if that person told another person to kill all the little children and babies in warfare, claiming that God told him to tell that person so?
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In understanding the scriptures, context is everything. You would never understand why somethings happened in the Bible i you deliberately take them out of context.
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What passage did I take out of context and what do you think the context should have been. This out of context ruse of yours is your way of sidestepping the simple question that I asked you.
If a prophet claims that God commands the slaughter of little babies and children in warfare, would he be a true or false prophet?
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I didn’t sidestep your question, I only asked that you put it in context.
Since you neglected to do that, I will answer you like this: in the present world, murder is a crime against the state. So if someone commands people to be killed, he has committed a crime – prophet or no prophet.
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good reply!
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What about when it occurred in the OT? If it was okay then, why is it not okay today?
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Now you are finally getting closer to the issue of context. But if you want specific answer, you would want to provide the specific instance in the OT.
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Is 1 Sam. ch.15 a specific instance? The prophet Samuel claims that God told Saul to exterminate the Amalekites for what they did to Israel about 400 years beforehand. This included the killing of little children and babies. Do you see this as God’s will or not? You obviously don’t see it as applying today. so did God’s will change between this time and today? Did Jesus make the difference or is God’s will always the same? So is a true prophet in the OT different from a true prophet in the NT?
Peace be with you!
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Thanks for your wishes of peace and I wish you same too.
Samuel was a true prophet of God, it doesn’t matter how you look at him. The instructions He gave were from God. But the context was different, not like what we have today. That much should be obvious to you.
Samuel was the mouthpiece that spoke divine judgement on the Amalekites and Saul was the human agent that commanded the military force that executive the judgment. You cannot question the sovereignty of God. No you can’t.
Of course, Jesus made all the difference. Total extermination of a race or a people is not the way God judges people now. In fact He has reserved the final judgement till the last day. And that judgement will be upon everyone that rejects the salvation that only Jesus offers.
We are in a time of grace now, wherein God is giving opportunity to everyone whether to choose Him or not. Those who choose Him saves their lives both in time and eternity. Those who don’t have lost it forever.
That’s why I invite you to accept Jesus into your life . That’s the only sure way to escape impending divine judgement on the world.
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good reply!
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You say that we are in a time of grace now, whereas we weren’t in the time of Samuel, so you claim that Samuel was a true prophet of God who called Saul and his army to carry out divine judgment upon the Amalekites. You claim that we cannot question the sovereignty of God.
If God’s sovereignty is God’s reign and if his reign is compassion, how can God ever command the slaughter of little children and babies. Jesus is considered to be the prophet par excellence of God. He certainly doesn’t support the killing of little children and babies. And isn’t God always gracious, compassionate and kind? Isn’t the one who brings judgement the one whose judgment is compassionate?
Maybe what I am saying is that there are different points of view in the bible and we need to align ourselves with the compassionate Jesus of Nazareth who was kind to the ungrateful and the wicked and who championed the poor and the powerless. Maybe the way of faithful questioning that Jesus followed is better than the way of unquestioning obedience.
Have a wonderful day!
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God doesn’t kill babies, the way you put it. But if God judged a nation or a people, children and babies won’t be spared.
When God destroyed the world Noah’s flood, only those that believed, Noah’s Family, were save saved. Everyone else perished.
Yes you are right. Jesus, is loving and kind. His love made Him die for the forgiveness of mankind. Jesus’ nature and God’s are one and the same.
It was God’s love Jesus came to show to the world.
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