Letter About False Prophets
by Paul K.
Greetings in the most excellent name of Jesus Christ! I have been involved with a Bible study here at camp hosted by Pentecostal brothers. While I differ with them on tongues, interpretation of tongues, and prophesying, they do trust in Jesus Christ and so are genuine brothers in the Lord. Pray that the Lord guides us all into His truth and away from any error.
I didn’t hold my own verse-by-verse Romans study on Tuesday because the Pentecostal brothers were holding “revival” meetings Monday through Wednesday. I attended their Tuesday night devotional/topical meeting and had mixed feelings about it. God was glorified as Jesus was lifted high (always a good thing). However...
The preacher was a woman, a so-called prophetess. Paul wrote:
“But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” (1 Timothy 2:12)
The context is hotly debated in Christian circles. Women who are older ARE to teach younger women, and it was the same Paul of 1 Timothy 2:12 who also wrote:
“But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things: that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” (Titus 2:1-5)
The “prophetess” was not in line with the word of God. She violated 1 Timothy 2:12 because she was teaching men in a church assembly context (i.e., a church service) and her teaching was not in an older/younger woman context.
However, we have to be careful not to go to extremes. This doesn’t mean a woman can never teach a man. One of the best Bible teachers I ever met, and whom I consider my spiritual “mom,” was Lois Peterson (she’s home with the Lord now). She taught a Wednesday night Bible study faithfully every week to men and women for about ten years. She and her husband Don had both been missionaries to South America, and she was teaching the study in submission both to her husband and to the authority of our church elders and pastor.
As a possible mitigating reason, she was there at the invite of the local men, so maybe those circumstances warranted her being there. Also, as another mitigating note, God prefers to use men, but if a man won’t “step up to the plate,” God will use a woman to do the job. (I think this was the case in Judges 4:8-9, where Barak would not take the lead.)
Anyway, I digress.
She preached a message that seemed to be half about God and half about her. I sat patiently, but with my knowledge of God’s Word “on alert,” trying to be discerning.
I had been praying that God would reach souls for Christ through this revival, so I wanted to support them as far as I could. But then the time came for invitations. After a few words to receive Jesus or to come back from “backsliding” (a word used only in the O.T., never in the N.T.), she then invited men to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost by speaking in tongues. She frequently slipped in “tongues” words during her preaching.
I could not honestly, or in integrity, give any “amen” to that. I left.
Look, I realize that someone who believes in Jesus truly is truly saved and is a brother or sister in Christ. But this Pentecostal interpretation of tongues is bad doctrine. There is a true spiritual gift of tongues (i.e., languages), but the Pentecostals have misinterpreted it and misapplied it. Anyone who calls himself or herself a Pentecostal ought to examine their doctrines to find out what is true and what is not true.
There are some whose faith and salvation I question, particularly some of the TV televangelists. The verses that come to mind concerning some of them, such as Benny Hinn, are soberly scary:
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetous shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” (2 Peter 2:1-3)
Jesus warned that in the last days, many false prophets would arise (Matthew 24:11) and deceive many. How come we don’t hear anyone being identified today as a false prophet? Surely we are in the last days, so how come no one is being identified? Was Jesus mistaken? I don’t think so!
I think that there are today, due to the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements of the past 100 years, more “prophets” arising than ever before in the history of the Church. Yet not even one of them is being identified as a “false” prophet! The reason I think this identification has not been occurring is because of the thing Jesus said in Matthew 24:11 “...and (they shall) deceive many.” Deception is the reason.
We are nearing the time of Jesus’s return and we have been warned that “many” (not a couple, or a few, or some, or a handful) false prophets would arise. Yet I don’t hear of anyone being identified for what he or she is—a false prophet. What’s wrong with this picture?
The reason I think this is so is because these charlatans are very successful in deceiving the masses. People throng to see them and donate many millions of dollars to their “ministries.” Moreover, these so-called prophets, such as Benny Hinn, live in mansions, wear expensive clothes and jewelry (the best money can buy) and fly in personal jets.
Yet they teach false doctrine. They “sucker” in people with promises of health and wealth, thus fulfilling Peter’s warning of how false prophets would “with feigned words make merchandise of you.” (2 Peter 2:36)
I had heard of Benny Hinn (and I’m not picking on him alone, for there are many like him) for quite some time and had done research on him on the Internet. Then his “ministry” came to town in Chicago. A sister in Christ wanted to go see him and asked if I could give her a ride there. This was a perfect opportunity to see him, not just on hearsay, but for myself. So we went to the United Center and sat in an upper balcony area where we could look down to the floor and stage where Hinn would be present.
The “service” was divided into two halves. The first half seemed okay. It was the second half where things got sad. Benny Hinn stated that he didn’t have any power to heal, that any healing would be by the Holy Ghost. But then it became a big performance. People came up on the stage, supposedly sick, and one by one, Hinn would whap them on the forehead and they’d topple backward. Then Hinn would have people who were allegedly cured run back and forth on the stage to prove their newfound health.
Meanwhile, from my vantage point high in the upper rows, I saw truly hurting people down on the main floor—people in crutches, people with walkers, people in wheelchairs. As the circus on Hinn’s stage finally came to a close, I saw those same people with their crutches, walkers and wheelchairs leaving the way they came, still with their crutches, walkers and wheelchairs.
The service was a sham, and Hinn a fraud. Nobody was healed. The cruelest part of it all in supposed healing services is that “insult is added to injury,” as the old saying goes. People not being healed are cruelly told the reason they weren’t healed was because they had a lack of faith. What a cruel lie!
I saw those folks in their crutches, walkers and wheelchairs moving about on the main floor. It didn’t take a genius to see they had faith. They were there, not at home. And they OBVIOUSLY had faith to be healed.
Hinn and other false prophets like him continue to “with feigned words make merchandise of you.” (2 Peter 2:36)
Where’s the outrage? Where’s the clarion call of truth? Where’s the voice of the Church of Jesus Christ to condemn such merchandising and rape and pillaging of the flock?
So to my brothers and sisters, whether Protestant, Pentecostal, Charismatic, etc. (whatever denomination you may be), please go back to the Word of God!!! Be like the early Church in Berea of whom Scripture testified:
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)
Yes, we must “receive the word with all readiness of mind.” It’s good to be zealous! But do so with attention as to whether something being taught is true!
“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)
The need for each of us to examine what we are being taught is critical! False doctrine can do terrible damage.
“Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.” (2 Timothy 2:18)
Notice the last phrase—“and overthrow the faith of some.” I wonder how many people these false televangelists and false prophets, through supposed and alleged miracle/healing ministries, have “overthrown the faith of some” when the miracle or healing didn’t happen and they were told they didn’t have enough faith. “It’s YOUR fault you weren’t healed!” is the mantra and cry of these false prophets!
The time of reckoning for these false prophets is coming, and it slumbers not. I think Jesus’s scathing words against the scribes and Pharisees also apply to our modern false prophets:
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whitened sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” (Matthew 23:27-28)
Also:
“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:21-23)
How terrible for the false televangelists and false prophets in that day!
Please pray that Jesus gets glorified and that as brethren, we can contend for the faith together (Jude 3) instead of contending against each other. I imagine you can, from this letter, think of a few more things to pray for.
Thanks for your love, care, concern, and help. May God bless you abundantly above all that you can ask or think!
In Jesus’s name and the blood of the cross,
Paul
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