(2 Peter 2:1-3) “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; “Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping”
In the last days false prophets and teachers will be an infestation within the wider Body of the Messiah and this is the context of 2nd Peter. These we are told will by stealth “secretly introduce destructive heresies.” The idea is that these false prophets and teachers will by stealth creep into local assemblies and seek to lay truth and error side by side. Satan has been around for a very long time and knows very well how to sow the seeds of doctrinal error and spiritual deception among the Body of the Messiah, the faithful Assembly of New Covenant believers.
It is like having for lunch a regular diet of beautiful healthy gourmet sandwiches that look really fresh and are filled with nutritious ingredients and good to taste but they have been laced with very small amounts of arsenic, a slow acting poison that cannot be tasted that over time ultimately brings death. False doctrine is like that. Exposure to it over time will bring spiritual decay and ultimately death if there is no repentance of it and a turning away from it. This is why we must know the Word of God in its context and in light of its co-texts. Verses in isolation from their context can be spiritually deceptive, especially when those using them out of their context put their own spiritual ‘spin’ on these texts to bolster their own importance in people’s eyes and in their brand of doctrine.
What are the signs of false prophets and teachers? Let’s very briefly look at four of them in light of God’s Word.
1. False prophets and teachers are into self-promotion.
Their focus is on themselves and their gifts and their products with an ample display of their photographs and their books and DVD’s. Of course not all who advertise their ministries via the media are like this, but we are living in the last days when over the internet there are a myriad of so called prophets and teachers and even those claiming to be apostles that are peddling the Word of God for profit and claiming to have prophetic and eschatological insight. Some may even be preaching the gospel but their motives are not pure.
They were around in the time of the apostles. Paul calls these ‘super apostles’ that can dazzle the senses with their dreams, visions, manifestations, utterances, oracles and oratory and even with their professed miracles, signs and wonders but they are in fact agents of Satan masquerading as messengers of light (2 Corinthians 11:5, 12-15).
One of the movements spreading through the wider Body of the Messiah is the International Coalition of Apostolic Leadership (ICAL) previously known as the New Apostolic Movement which has apostles that are appointed over local congregations and that receive the hard earned dollars from these congregations for the work of their ministry as so called apostles. They are in fact teaching a form of so called apostleship which is not the Biblical one.
Many are caught up in this movement which is also connected to Kingdom Dominion doctrines which are unscriptural. It is also anti-Israel in that their leaders by and large are teaching that the nations will be Christianised before the Second Coming of the Messiah and that when He comes back their movement of apostles and the Body of the messiah will present to Him a ‘Christianised’ world. The seven mountain kingdom theology teaches this.
Having spoken to one of their key leaders some years ago I asked him if their movement, then known as the New Apostolic Movement, had replaced Israel and he answered yes in the affirmative. I was told that their movement had replaced Israel. Exposing the workings and doctrines of this movement is not the purpose of this post. One thing is clear this movement puts its leaders in the spotlight and their DVD’s and books. Added to this there is on their website a fee to be paid to the organization if one wants to be registered as a prophet or an apostle and an increased fee for an apostolic or prophetic couple.
Added to this just look at the string of false prophets on television and the internet where we see these ‘apostles’ and ‘prophets’ blowing on people, waving their coats over people and seeing huge crowds falling down on mass. Nowhere in the Word of God do we see people falling backwards (called carpet time) and passing out or writhing uncontrollably on the carpet or sliding down seats or laughing like Hyenas.
The Bible does reveal that when God’s power was present that people fell on their faces and were totally aware of their sinfulness before a Holy, righteous and just God and aware of their deep need of spiritual restoration. Instead you have so called ‘prophets’ and ‘apostles’ clowning around and getting people to laugh and see them rolling around on the floor barking like dogs and producing all kinds of strange manifestations and calling it the work of the Holy Spirit. Of course these ‘leaders’ are at the front of the auditorium controlling the ‘show.’ They are believing in their own publicity and revelling in the adulation of the crowd. Let them deny this! They will say they are God’s anointed servants and this is their defence!
The only place in the New Testament where people fell backwards was when they came to arrest the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and when He said I AM He they fell backwards! It was a judgement and not a blessing! I wish these ‘super apostles’ would read about the revivals under John Wesley, George Whitfield, William Booth and Dwight Moody for starters that saw society radically changed, sinners saved and saints sanctified! One just has to read the entire journals of John Wesley to really see what true Biblical revival is!
2. False prophets and teachers tell people what they want to hear and not what they need to hear and are disobedient to God.
Paul writing to Timothy tells him about the time coming when people within the wider Body of the Messiah will not put up with sound doctrine but to suit their own desires gather to themselves a great number of teachers that would ‘scratch’ their ‘itching ears’ telling them what they wanted to hear in such a way that would make them feel good and spiritually blessed and having things good in this world while turning away from sound doctrine and Biblical truth and turning aside to fables, dreams, visions and personal prophecies all aimed at making them responsive and of course being relieved of their hard-earned cash! (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
The Apostle Peter calls these false teachers “experts in greed-an accursed breed” (2 Peter 2:14) Jude calls them “shepherds who feed only themselves” (Jude 1:12). These false ‘apostles’ and ‘prophets’ and ‘teachers’ have never stood in God’s presence because if they had they would not be doing what they do.
As the Lord spoke through the prophet Jeremiah about these so called prophets; “I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied. But if they had stood in My council, they would have proclaimed My words to My people and turned them back from their evil ways and deeds” (Jeremiah 23:21-22).
Now there is a place for dreams and visions but they must never usurp, replace or go contrary to the Word of God. As the Lord also says through the prophet Jeremiah; “The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has My word speak My word in truth. What does straw have in common with grain?” declares the Lord. “Is not My word like fire?” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer which shatters a rock?” (Jeremiah 23:28-29).
God places a much higher priority on His Word than He does on dreams or even visions for that matter. Dreams are as straw that can be blown away with every wind of false doctrine but His Word is the nutritious grain that feeds the deepest needs of the soil of the human heart. His Word is like a fire that rips through the dry and arid souls of the unsaved and the unsanctified saint not yielded to the Spirit of God and breaks the hard rocky attitudes of the unsaved and unsanctified heart! C.H. Spurgeon said something along these lines; “The Word of God is the iron anvil upon which the hammers of man’s opinions are smashed!”
3. False prophets and teachers are into lying signs and wonders.
When Moses and Aaron confronted Pharaoh’s magicians these practitioners of the occult up to a point were able to duplicate the miracles of Moses and Aaron but in the end they could not match the power of God. When God’s power was at work Satanic counterfeits were dismantled and exposed. Paul writing to Timothy specifically mentions Pharaoh’s magicians by name being Jannes and Jambres who like all false prophets, prophetesses and teachers, oppose the truth, being men and woman of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith once delivered to the saints is concerned, are rejected, however they will not get far because in God’s time and in his way they will be exposed and their folly seen by everyone (2 Timothy 3:8-9).
In fact we are also told in the Word of God that the man of sin will be ushered in following along with a landslide of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders and that those who refuse to love and obey the truth will be spiritually deceived and be engulfed in Satan’s wicked works, believing what is false.
As the apostle Paul writes to the assembly at Thessalonica; “Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness” (2 Thessalonians 2:8-11).
Notice that because they have deliberately chosen to not believe the truth they are described as those who are delighting in wickedness. Personally I believe in the gifts of the Spirit practiced Biblically, that they have never ceased to operate in the wider Body of the Messiah and that God is the God of the supernatural and goes not change but one thing is certain He will never go beyond what He has written in the God-breathed Word of God, the scriptures. We also must not go beyond what is written (1 Corinthians 4:6) (Deuteronomy 12:32) (Proverbs 30; 5-6) (Revelation 22:18-19).
As it is also written; “All Scripture is God-breathed by and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
All manifestations, revelations, visions, dreams, utterances, personal prophecies, doctrines, miracles signs and wonders must always be tested by the Word of God. Many today want the gifts of prophecy, healing and tongues but how many want the gift of discernment of spirits? It is a gift desperately needed today within the wider Body of the Messiah!
4. False prophets and teachers love money and materialism and in the end will make shipwreck of their faith.
Paul corresponding with Timothy yet again writes; “Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness” (1 Timothy 6:9-11). These spiritual qualities Paul mentions are the marks of all true prophets and teachers.
Greedy ‘apostles’ ‘prophets’ and ‘teachers’ may be in abundance now but the day is coming when the man of sin is revealed and the persecution really kicks in big time within western Christendom, these so called shysters and connivers of kingdom dominion money making hyper faith and prosperity will hide away in abject terror when the real test comes that will call for every ounce of the Power of God without which none of us will stand! These prophets and teachers are having it good now but it will not last! Their doom is sealed!
As Peter writes; “Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping” (2 Peter 2:3b)
