Conclusion
Chapter three
Biblical Prophets and Suffering
For an example of hardship and fortitude, brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the Lord’s name.
—James 5:10
[When people persecute or insult you,] rejoice and jump for joy, for your reward is great in heaven, since this is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
—Luke 6:23 (compare also Matt. 5:12)
If there is any ministry that many Spirit-filled Christians today regard as next to apostolic ministry, it would be prophetic ministry. So it is relevant to our discussion to note that biblical prophets often both announced and experienced hardships. Jesus notes that prophets are typically unwelcome among those nearest them (Matt. 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24; John 4:44).
Killing the Prophets
For some preliminary examples of the prophets’ hardships, note the following:
Revelation has in view continuing prophets rather than just Old Testament ones (compare Rev. 11:18; 19:10; 22:9); this is also the case in Matthew 23:34 and Luke 11:49. Jeremiah escaped death, but lest we suppose his survival normative for the prophetic occupation generally, he narrates the story of the prophet Uriah, who was killed for his message despite his best precautions (Jer. 26:20–23).
Prophets of Peace Get Popular
Most of us recognize that in the Old Testament, true prophecies were not always positive, and consequently people were often unhappy with those who prophesied to them. Shooting the messenger is hardly an exclusively modern practice. In most generations, most people were not living for the Lord, and they did not want to hear what the Lord was really saying. For example,
People Perish with Prophets of Peace
Conversely, people (including myself) usually appreciate those who prophesy happy news. In the long term, however, this is true only when they prophesy correctly! What some charismatics call “prophetic declarations” are really blessings—prayers—not predictions per se. Even “blessings” and “curses,” however, are ideally prophetic (see, e.g., Josh. 6:26 as fulfilled in 1 Kings 16:34).
God told Jeremiah to wear a yoke around his neck to symbolize that God was putting the nations, including Judah, under Babylon’s empire (Jer. 27:2, 8, 11–12). By contrast, the prophet Hananiah soon prophesied that God would break Babylon’s yoke (28:2, 4). Indeed, far from punishing his people through Babylon, Hananiah assured Judahites, God would restore all that Babylon had already taken. Jeremiah confronted Hananiah. “I want all your words to be true,” Jeremiah conceded. But that’s not what Jeremiah was hearing from God. He explained that an intergenerational succession of prophets had warned about judgment, leaving the burden of proof on any prophet of peace (28:1–9).
How did Hananiah respond? In true prophetic form, he matched Jeremiah’s symbolic action (the yoke) with another symbolic action, seizing Jeremiah’s yoke and breaking it. Then with even greater assertiveness than Jeremiah he reaffirmed his earlier prophecy, declaring that God said he would break the yoke within two years. He shamed Jeremiah, who apparently was unprepared with an answer from the Lord (Jer. 28:10–11). Jeremiah wasn’t playing a game of prophecy; he spoke only what God gave him. Later, however, a prophecy came to him: Hananiah was not going to live long enough (two years) to see his prophecy fail. Hananiah was going to die within the year (28:12–16). Hananiah went on to die a few months later (28:17), but by then no one was paying attention. It was no longer part of Jerusalem’s news cycle.
Jeremiah laments false prophets and leaders through much of chapter 23, though he recognizes the true gift of prophecy. “What does straw have in common with wheat?” Jeremiah asks, distinguishing false prophecies from true (Jer. 23:28). Unhappily, the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day vastly outnumbered the true ones. Sometimes Jeremiah just wanted to keep quiet. “You made me look like a fool!” he protests to God (20:7–8). But whenever he resolves to quit speaking, the word of the Lord burns within him so he can’t stop speaking it (20:9; compare 6:11). As far as others can tell, he remains simply a stubborn naysayer.
Prophets and Priests Persecute the Prophet Jeremiah
One example of why Jeremiah stayed unpopular may suffice. “Do you have a message for me?” King Zedekiah asks him. “Sure do,” Jeremiah responds. “You’re toast!” (Jer. 37:17; compare 23:33). His words contradicted the more optimistic prophets, as God had already made clear:
The prophets prophesy falsely,
And the priests rule on their own authority;
And My people love it this way!
But what will you do when the end comes? (Jer. 5:31 nasb)
Jeremiah certainly wasn’t winning the prophetic popularity contest. People expected that God’s presence and favor with them rendered their nation immune from judgment (Jer. 7:4), and they naturally gravitated toward prophets who agreed with them. After all, God couldn’t judge his own people. Everybody in the ancient Near East understood that that wasn’t what a god was for. Jeremiah smashing a pot to symbolize the imminent fate of Jerusalem (Jer. 19) did get some attention but really did not go over very well. The priest Pashhur, the temple’s chief administrator, had Jeremiah beaten and then put in stocks overnight, again publicly shaming him (20:1–2). (At least the authorities didn’t immediately plot to kill him, like they did for Jesus after Jesus made a big scene in the temple in Mark 11:15–18.)
Yet instead of humbling himself and acting more submissively, Jeremiah greeted Pashhur with a fresh prophecy in the morning: “You’re a false prophet yourself, Pashhur, and you and the people deceived by you will all die in exile” (Jer. 20:3–6). Imagine! What a great way to win the favor of the temple establishment!
Eventually, priests and prophets rallied the people to seek Jeremiah’s death for prophesying against Jerusalem (Jer. 26:8, 11). After Jeremiah warned that God would hold them to account for his blood, however, the people and their officials remembered the long-standing tradition of prophetic immunity (essentially diplomatic immunity for God’s ambassadors) and restrained the religious leaders from killing him (26:16). This confrontation, however, would not be Jeremiah’s last.
Accusing Jeremiah of being a traitor, another official named Iriyah arrested him (Jer. 37:13).1 As the political-military situation became more desperate, leaders even resolved to execute Jeremiah because his prophecies were “discouraging” the people (38:4). (One might imagine upbeat preachers today who warn that negative prophecies weaken people’s faith in positive outcomes.) The king, who has enough authority to stand for what is right, instead abdicates his responsibility to do so (38:4–5)—and will face judgment (38:18; 39:5–7). We cannot avoid taking sides, especially if we are church leaders; we must stand with the truth and reject false prophecies of “peace, peace.”
Even after Jeremiah’s prophecies proved true, he experienced the hardships of a prophet living in a time of disobedience. The Babylonians naturally appreciated his recognition that God had given them an empire, and they treated him kindly. They did not force him to exile in Babylon with most others (Jer. 40:1–6). But a group of his own people disbelieved his prophecies (43:1–4) and so forced him into exile with them in Egypt (43:5–7)!
Should All Christian Prophecies Be Positive?
What about prophecies after Jeremiah’s time? In some circles, prophecies about a massive influx of new believers and a coming transfer of wealth have reached the status of being standard expectations.2 That we would appreciate positive prophecies is no surprise, but are we ready to heed warnings as well? Even in the early eighteenth century, God used true prophecies to protect many individual believers,3 but some increasingly popular prophetic expectations faced disappointment.4 True warnings can be helpful in preparing for testing (e.g., Acts 11:28–29; 21:11; Rev. 2:10; 3:10) or in inviting correction (e.g., Rev. 2:4–5, 16; 3:2–5, 19).
In Iran, Maryam Rostampour and her sister Shirin both experienced prophetic dreams warning that Maryam would soon be arrested and imprisoned.5 As with Agabus’s prophecy to Paul in Acts 11 or Pharaoh’s dreams of impending famine in Genesis 41, these dreams were getting her ready for hardship in advance. A dream warned the imprisoned Korean believer Esther Ahn Kim about the life-threatening test of faith that awaited her that day.6 Similarly, one of her recent converts in the cell dreamed about meeting Jesus, and that same day the convert was taken out and executed.7
Before it was obvious that war would come to my future wife Médine’s hometown of Dolisie, Congo, a friend visited Médine’s family on January 9, 1997. “I wanted to move here to Dolisie, but the prophet was adamant. ‘Don’t stay more than two weeks. If you stay till past midnight, Sunday, January 24, you won’t be able to get out.’”
Médine’s family could not easily relocate, however, since their father was disabled. Médine herself had recently barely escaped fighting in the capital, and she and her sister Thérèse were both recovering from medical procedures. Monday, January 25, began as usual. Thérèse was preparing to leave for the elementary school where she taught. Around six o’clock in the morning, however, they heard a deafening sound. Dolisie was being bombarded; war had come. They had missed the January 24 deadline.8
Like Jerusalemites in Jeremiah’s day, most of us tend to gravitate to verses and promises we find pleasant. Charismatic conference planners also know the topics that draw crowds: miracles, blessings, success, or even how to get what you want from God (compare 2 Tim. 4:3).9 And yes, I speak about miracles at conferences where I am invited to do so. Miracles are biblical, but they are not God’s whole message. Some foods are healthy in moderation but are not meant to be the whole diet; in the same way, in learning Scripture we need “the whole purpose of God” (Acts 20:27).
What About New Testament Prophecies?
Some people say that prophecies today should always be favorable. The idea that prophecies should never be corrective rests especially on 1 Corinthians 14:3: “The one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” (esv). But while Paul usually uses the middle term for encouragement or comfort, which makes sense in a local church setting, this Greek term can also mean exhortation (1 Thess. 2:3; Heb. 12:5), which can have various levels of intensity.
If someone is going to make a mistake in prophesying, a positive mistake is usually less harmful than a negative one. But the idea that all prophecy should be favorable is not biblical—even if one narrows the pool of evidence to the New Testament. The clearest New Testament examples of prophecies appear in Acts, where they involve impending suffering: coming famine (Acts 11:28) or arrest (21:11). The next clearest examples would be the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, which include both encouragements and warnings; five of the seven churches receive corrections and reproofs.
One of those warnings in Revelation includes the removal of a church’s lampstand, signifying its end as a church. I once had to prophesy these same words to an apparently vibrant church, to my own dismay. (In case we ever meet in person, don’t worry; I don’t normally do that!) Why would the Lord warn of judgment to this church and not to the many others that I was sure were worse off? This one seemed to be failing only on the matter that the Lord pointed out—in this case, lack of outreach. But within a year the church ceased to exist. We don’t have the authority to decide what to prophesy based on our understanding; whether with teaching, prophecy, or evangelism, our job is just to deliver faithfully the message entrusted to us.
The only two churches of Asia Minor in Revelation 2–3 that Jesus does not reprove at all are those in Smyrna and Philadelphia—the persecuted churches. Yet the exhortation to one of even those is sobering:
You will have suffering. . . . Be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you a crown of life. (Rev. 2:10)
God is warning of impending hardship in Smyrna, not of judgment. Yet judgment may begin at the house of God (1 Pet. 4:17), and God’s healing power may be curtailed by our failure to treat one another rightly (1 Cor. 11:29–30). New Testament examples of prophecy and exhortation are certainly not all favorable.
Why Nobody Liked Jeremiah10
Most of Jeremiah’s people did not like what God gave him to say; they viewed him as an unpatriotic contrarian.11 Such hostility may be harder on those of us who are sensitive to what others think than on somebody thick-skinned and pugnacious. It was certainly going to be hard on Jeremiah. God’s opening assurance, “Don’t let them scare you! I’ll rescue you!” (Jer. 1:8) gave a hint where this assignment was headed. “But if you give in to them, you’re through,” God essentially says (1:17; compare 12:5; 15:19). Jeremiah would struggle inwardly, but he would never be free to renounce his saving message to Judah.
Following God’s will meant that he would be ostracized and attacked.
Nobody owes me money, nor do I owe money to anybody else, but everybody curses me anyway! (Jer. 15:10)
God’s calling—and the nation’s destiny—demanded significant sacrifice. Jeremiah would have to stay single—to spare him from the grief of having to lose a family when judgment came (Jer. 16:2–4). He couldn’t attend parties or funerals. Separated by his devotion to God, he fed on God’s words and was isolated from what mattered to the rest of society (15:16–17; 16:5–9). His closest friends would turn on him (20:10). He would endure public beating, humiliation, and confinement in stocks for not being appropriately “patriotic” (20:1–3). His own relatives, priests in Anathoth (1:1), would want to kill him (11:21). Most of us hate it when that happens.
For decades, Jeremiah went against the mood of his culture. He was summoning Judah back to the values of God’s covenant with them, but they didn’t think that they had strayed.
Contradicting Guardians of the Tradition
Most of the common people couldn’t read Scripture, so they depended on what their preachers taught them. (Similarly, most people today are able to read Scripture but don’t, so they depend on what preachers or, more often, social media teach them.)
And most of Judah’s preachers assured them that God was with them. After all, they were his chosen people, and they alone of all peoples worshiped the one true God. Granted, they had compromised that allegiance, but they were doing better than any other people. These preachers remembered part of the covenant message. Yet they forgot that God expects higher standards for his own people and thus may judge them more strictly (compare Amos 3:2). Although they remembered the blessing part of the covenant message, over generations they had adapted the curse part of the message (see Jer. 2:8; 18:18; Ezek. 22:26). Keeping up with the times meant being more positive. Certainly that helped their view count.
Unfortunately, these leaders’ “progressive” adjustments rested not on what God was really saying but on what seemed good to them, which was shaped by generations of tradition and by the climate of public opinion (compare Judg. 17:6; 21:25; Prov. 14:12; 16:25). They didn’t want to upset their donation base (Jer. 6:13; 8:10; compare Mic. 3:5, 11). They refused to challenge immorality; after all, the preachers themselves were among those committing it (Jer. 23:14). Even in the New Testament, some attempts to “update” key biblical issues of sexual and theological morality rested on deceptive appeals to the prophetic Spirit (Rev. 2:14, 20).
It could have been different, had the prophets cared more about God’s voice than that of their fellow prophets or followers. God told Jeremiah, “I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied. But if they had stood in My council, then they would have announced My words to My people, and would have turned them back from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds” (Jer. 23:21–22 nasb).
The situation was like that of a century earlier, when the more openly idolatrous northern kingdom of Israel could cry out, “My God, we of Israel know you!” (Hosea 8:2)—even while continuing to honor golden calves at Dan and Bethel. Now, in Jeremiah’s day, priests and prophets were still telling God’s people how much God delighted in them without warning them of the dangerous judgment to come.
It was indeed true that God loved them. But the God who loves us comes to transform us and invite us into relationship with him, not to leave us wallowing in de facto rebellion against him. Judgments on societies are sometimes wake-up calls (Ps. 78:34–35; Amos 4:6, 8–11; Hag. 2:17; Rev. 9:20–21; 16:9, 11) because God loves us too much to let us continue to be deceived. They come when more direct means of admonition have failed—when people do not listen to God’s message through the prophets, or when the prophets fail to speak the full truth of God’s message (Isa. 28:9–13; 29:9–12; 30:10–14; Amos 7:12–13). Shorter-term judgments warn people to avoid pursuing the longer-term judgment of alienation from him—our source of meaning and life (Jer. 2:13; Hosea 13:9). People complain about a God of judgment, but people complain even more about its delay—about God’s patience with the wicked.12
Most prophets of Jeremiah’s day focused on the covenant blessings and took encouragement from one another’s prophecies (see Jer. 23:30) that they must be saying the right thing. Who was Jeremiah to think that he alone was hearing from God? (Still, he may have had some sympathizers at some point. Some letters that archaeologists recovered from the ruins of Lachish might suggest that more than one Judahite prophet of doom was undercutting “the war effort” with “unpatriotic” warnings.) How could Jeremiah dare to prophesy one thing when everybody else was prophesying something different? And something that nobody wanted to hear! And something they thought contradicted Bible verses about God’s blessings! Yet the majority of the prophets proved to be wrong about the big picture. They were stealing God’s words from one another, confident in the consensus of their peers (Jer. 23:30).
Discerning the Truth
Jeremiah was often discouraged about his mission. To whom could he speak, when the people were closed to his message (Jer. 6:10)? Yet he was full of God’s wrath; he could not hold it inside any longer and had to speak (6:11). The prophets and priests had healed his people’s wound only superficially, promising them well-being (6:14); but they needed to return to the ancient covenant, to God’s Word that he had given long ago (6:16). Listening to a consensus of preachers, even on YouTube, is no substitute for going back to the Scriptures ourselves. Most Judahites were illiterate and lacked this option (Isa. 29:12; compare Jer. 5:4–5), an opportunity more available to most of us.
God explained that his people did not know him (Jer. 8:7), despite their insistence:
How can you say, “We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us,” when, in fact, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie? The wise shall be put to shame, they shall be dismayed and taken; since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what wisdom is in them? (Jer. 8:8–9 NRSV modified)
From prophet to priest, eager for popularity, the leaders had been assuring God’s people that all would be well, but it was not what God was saying (Jer. 8:10–11).
Rather than weighing opinion by Scripture or God’s prophetic voice, most people follow what is right in their own sight (Judg. 17:6; 21:25; Prov. 12:15; 18:2). We naturally think our own ways are right, but the Lord is the one who evaluates our hearts (Prov. 21:2).
Granted, we know in part and prophesy in part (1 Cor. 13:9), so some of us may hear one part of God’s message and others different parts. For example, God might be warning of judgment and encouraging his remnant at the same time. But if the word of the Lord that we hear consistently and urgently calls God’s people to awaken, to turn more wholeheartedly to him, how can we hold that inside?
Jeremiah’s generation didn’t listen to him, but his message turned out to be true. And while Jeremiah himself did not see full vindication in his lifetime, the next generation affirmed his message (2 Chron. 36:22; Ezra 1:1; Dan. 9:2). Together with the exile, Jeremiah’s message from God ultimately brought a paradigm shift among his people, who never again turned to physical idols.
Bad News and Bad Prophets13
When God gives a promise, we are right to believe it with all our hearts. Some biblical promises, though, are about collective judgment or impending hardship. These promises, too, we must take to heart so we may prepare for them (Gen. 41:30, 36; 2 Kings 8:1). This perspective may not appeal to a generation accustomed to having speakers cater to our wants as consumers. We need, however, to break that consumer habit when it comes to God, who does not work for a service industry.
Unfortunately, we leaders ourselves are vulnerable to being misled. If we do not immerse ourselves in God’s voice in Scripture, we can sometimes miss the voice that is genuinely God’s when his Spirit speaks to us. As we have seen, that happened in Jeremiah’s day.
All the King’s Prophets
We encounter the same sort of setting in 1 Kings, back in the time of the prophet Elijah. There all King Ahab’s court prophets unanimously promise that their boss will win back the city he is trying to capture (1 Kings 22:6). Yet the God-fearing king of Judah, King Jehoshaphat, is uncomfortable with their unanimous message. That he wants to inquire from a prophet of the Lord (22:7) suggests that he recognizes that the prophets on Ahab’s payroll are not speaking for God alone. King Ahab seems to view prophets the same way that some earnest Christians today treat “positive confession”: Speak what is positive in the Lord’s name and thus help bring it to pass. Without a genuine message from God’s Spirit, however, that is a sure formula for false prophecy (see Lam. 3:37: “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?” [NIV]).
Ahab’s false prophets use symbolic gestures just as true ones do (1 Kings 22:11). They claim to speak in the Lord’s name, just as true ones do (22:11–12). Formal features do not distinguish the false prophecies from true ones; only truth can do that. But Jehoshaphat insists on hearing an independent witness, so Ahab reluctantly summons the prophet Micaiah, who consistently confronts Ahab with unpleasant messages (22:7–9). Why should Ahab believe this isolated, grumpy prophet who prophesies coming judgment on Ahab, when despite Micaiah’s past prophecies Ahab remains alive? Micaiah will just put a damper on the troops’ confidence before the battle!
Ahab’s messenger thus warns Micaiah what the consensus of prophets is, and invites him to speak accordingly (1 Kings 22:13). Talk about pressure! Micaiah at first seems to echo the other prophets (22:15), yet in such a way that it seems clear to Ahab that he does not believe their message (22:16). Micaiah is committed to speak what he hears from God (22:14). Thus Micaiah prophesies that the king will die (22:17) and that God himself, as a means of judgment, ordained a false message for Ahab’s prophets in order to lure him to destruction (22:19–23). Not every inspiring feeling that anyone has is from God’s Spirit.
Better Heed the Right Ones!
As far as Ahab is concerned, this is just contrarian Micaiah, characteristically trying to give his king a hard time (1 Kings 22:18). Moreover, Zedekiah, one of the other leading prophets, strikes Micaiah, thereby publicly insulting and challenging him. Why should anyone suppose that Zedekiah, a renowned royal prophet, heard wrongly whereas isolated Micaiah heard correctly (22:24)? Micaiah informs him that he will know when the Lord’s true word comes to pass, and Zedekiah has to hide in a time of judgment (22:25). The king takes precautions to forestall any bad luck from Micaiah’s prophecy (22:26–27), as if Micaiah rather than the Lord were the source (22:28). (Despite what others sometimes suppose, those who prophesy judgment may not personally want it to happen; see Jer. 28:6; Luke 19:41–44.) Yet Micaiah’s word does come to pass (1 Kings 22:34–37), as does an earlier prophecy of Elijah that had been deferred for a time on account of Ahab’s temporary remorse (22:38; compare 21:19, 27–29). Needless to say, this proves to be the end of Ahab and his dynasty.
My African wife taught me to pay more attention to dreams, and now the Lord sometimes speaks to me through them. But not all dreams are from the Lord (Jer. 23:27, 32); some messages come only from people’s own minds (23:26, 36). It is often easy to become popular by telling people what they want to hear (2 Tim. 4:3) and then attributing the corporate emotional thrill to God’s anointing. Yet cheap thrills from rhetoric alone are not the same as the stirring power of the true word of the Lord in one’s heart (Jer. 5:14), and imitations of prophetic form are not the same as the true word of the Lord—God’s own voice within us (Jer. 23:28).
The biblical solution is not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, to discard Micaiah or Jeremiah along with the prophets who curry favor. The biblical solution is to use discernment (Jer. 23:28; 1 Cor. 14:29; 1 Thess. 5:20–22), unfortunately a discipline sometimes in short supply. Jeremiah seems to suggest that even the false prophets could have become true prophets had they truly feared and heeded God first (Jer. 23:21–22).
Consensus of people genuinely seeking God is important (Acts 15:28; 1 Cor. 14:29), but when a generation becomes too corrupted by its own desires, the consensus we must heed instead is the transgenerational succession of the true prophetic word (Jer. 28:8). If prophets have been announcing judgment for a land and no major transformation has occurred, then the burden of proof is on prophets who prophesy peace (28:9).
Accurate and Inaccurate Prophecies
Before I say more about false prophecies, I want to emphasize that prophecy can be very accurate, even today. Mesfin Nigusse, an Ethiopian Pentecostal with a track record of very accurate prophecies, did not know that I wrote books. Yet he prophesied to me accurately about two books that were then in process, including information that I myself did not yet know about their publication. Likewise, three different people of prayer in Congo-Brazzaville, who did not know one another, prophesied to Médine Moussounga that she was going to marry a white man with a big ministry. There aren’t many white guys in her country, Médine and I weren’t dating, and I didn’t yet have a big ministry, but the prophecies proved correct.
Keep in mind, too, that in one of the instances Médine thought of a godly white friend in France during the prophecy, whereupon the woman prophesying interjected, “Not that white man, but another one.” The woman prophesying in that case was also annoyed by what she needed to prophesy, because she was personally against Black Africans marrying white people, whom she had earlier experienced as oppressive colonialists. This prophecy and the others nevertheless proved surprisingly accurate. I have other dear friends who prophesy so accurately that I could never doubt the reality of the gift. But I am under no illusion that most people prophesy at that level; tragically, some people even abuse the gift or its counterfeit.
Hardships Ahead?
While some offer prophecies of peace and security each January, others have prophesied very differently. Certainly, earlier voices such as Leonard Ravenhill and David Wilkerson called for repentance in the face of coming judgment. For what it is worth, if anything (but I’ll go ahead since I’m the one writing this book), I have sometimes felt judgment was coming also. (Judgments on societies are not judgments on every individual who suffers them, but wake-up calls to the societies more generally.) As one example, I wrote down something I felt the Lord was saying in 1982:
Those who have not drawn near to me will be taken unprepared. Humble your hearts to hear my word, and seek not the prosperity of men—for man’s prosperity will fade and wither in the time of famine, but the Lord will not suffer him to be hungry who has faith in him. Put your trust in the Lord; for the earth and its mountains shall be removed, but he who trusts in the Lord shall be firmly planted, as an oak battered by the winds but unshaken. Let my words be to you as the strength and life of your heart: so in the day of adversity you will stand and will not fail.14
Later I felt the Lord saying that Christians in North America sometimes acted as though severe catastrophes were only for other places, an attitude of arrogance against our brothers and sisters elsewhere. I had never thought of it that way. Then he went on to say that he would strip us of the things that we valued so we could learn to value what really matters. Sometimes I also felt that there would be a dangerous collapse of our infrastructure.
Someone may say, “Keener, it’s been over four decades since then, and I don’t see any catastrophes!” Personally, it takes me time to adjust, so I welcome plenty of advance warning. But maybe the US has already experienced more catastrophes than my imaginary critic might suppose—certainly we have experienced some disasters on the scale I was hearing in other countries, not least the tragedy of 9/11. Maybe what I felt was conditional—though I’m not sure I’ve yet witnessed the sort of repentance that would bring full relief. And naturally I’d prefer to be wrong. Yet I’m sure of one thing: God taught me that day not to exempt my own culture from the hardships that batter others.
Prophesying Amiss
Because prophecies get filtered through human agents (including a few heavy-handed prophetic editors), they can be distorted by deeply held personal convictions or the influence of popular theological fashions. It may be a matter of semantics whether we want to call the heavily redacted versions “prophecies,” but their proclaimers and hearers often consider them such. Fashions can influence even the spiritually sincere, as they often have even in otherwise important movements of God’s Spirit. At the height of the Moravian revival that birthed the first Protestant missions movement, some Moravians in the 1740s emphasized the blood of Jesus to such an extent that they sang that they were worms sucking Jesus’s blood. Jonathan Edwards had to defend the First Great Awakening in the face of some excesses in the same era.15 At the height of the Second Great Awakening, when leading evangelist Charles Finney was president of Oberlin College, the positive emphasis on healthy eating led to the cafeteria for a time serving especially the health fashion of the day: graham crackers.16 (Admittedly, they also served vegetables, and 1830s whole-grain graham crackers were healthier than today’s modified-for-consumers version.)
Some attempted “prophecies” even reflect mere calculations about the future. There is nothing wrong with futurists studying trends and helping us try to plan ahead. (For example, if the sea level is rising quickly, beachfront property might not be the wisest investment.) But futurism is not prophecy. For well over a century, “prophecy teachers” have tried to predict the future based on biblical prophecies—often taking verses out of context. It is legitimate to look for general principles of God’s ways of working, but some of these speakers are just being Christian “futurists” (and also sometimes very speculative Bible interpreters). Some who claim to have the biblical gift of prophecy have blended it with futurism and arrived at very fallible predictions (projections? guesses?).17
Worse yet, some prophets speak from spirits other than God’s. Once when I was a doctoral student I was invited to a neighbor’s “discussion group,” where I expected purely intellectual engagement. Instead it was a reading of an occult manual. Supposedly dictated from Jesus himself, it denied that sin and guilt were real.
Then the leader, who seemed very sincere, invited us all to discuss the reading. I pointed out that toward the end of the first century, there were various voices claiming to speak for Jesus (compare Rev. 2:14, 20). But John, who had been with Jesus in the flesh (John 1:14), insisted that the true prophetic voice of God’s Spirit was the one in accord with the Jesus who came in the flesh (1 John 4:1–6), the Jesus whose message John had earlier recorded in his Gospel. The denial of sin, righteousness, and judgment reflected not the Spirit of Christ (John 16:7–11) but false prophets with the spirit of antichrist (1 John 4:3). The Spirit of true prophecy will always be consistent with the testimony about the real Jesus (Rev. 19:10).
Grounded in Rightly Understood Scripture
It is too easy to go along with what others tell us rather than stand for what God alone is saying. One true prophet who believed another prophet’s “white lie” ended up paying for this error with his life (1 Kings 13:11–25). If we immerse ourselves in what we all can agree is God’s Word—Scripture—we will be much more likely to rightly discern God’s voice when he speaks to us in other ways.
Today we have Bibles, but we often interpret them according to how the rest of the church is living instead of interpreting how people are living in light of the Bible. We may assume that some commands are not meant to be taken very seriously if no one we know takes them seriously. But what if the problem is simply with the peer group we are using for comparison? Will you stand firm to make a difference for God in your generation? Even if you have to stand virtually alone? You can stand firm if you know, as God told Jeremiah, “I’m with you to help you” (Jer. 1:19).
After I had been a Christian for a couple of years, I began learning to hear God’s voice in prayer.18 I shared about this experience with a new believer whom I’ll call Brenda (not her real name). After my first semester of Bible college I returned to my hometown for a visit, and by this time Brenda had gone way beyond me in listening to God. In fact, she was having visions. I had never had a vision, and—displaying my own spiritual immaturity—I got jealous. One day I shared with her something the Lord had shown me that day. “God showed me that months ago,” she shot back. Spiritual gifts are not the same thing as the fruit of the Spirit!
Yet all was well and good until she began explaining her newest revelation (under the influence of an older friend who should have known better). Sometimes God gives people insights while reading Scripture;19 these friends, however, had gotten this idea while reading the Chronicles of Narnia (though C. S. Lewis would not have approved). She shared that we, the church, would become the fourth member of the Trinity. Aside from this “revelation” violating basic arithmetic, it rather glaringly contradicted Scripture and the most basic orthodox theology. She insisted that it just complemented Scripture. “Of course it’s not in the Bible,” she explained. “It was revealed only last week.”
“As far in the future as we see,” I protested, based on the Bible’s last chapter, “we are still his servants, serving him before his face.”
“It’s farther in the future than that,” she replied. She and her friend began pressuring me for being unspiritual. I felt very stubborn, but I could not see how their point made sense biblically, or even from what I knew of the Spirit’s voice. Eventually, Brenda admitted that the idea was wrong. But where had she gotten off the right path to begin with?
Brenda really did have an intimate relationship with God (despite the isolated and temporarily unorthodox anecdote I just offered), but it drifted off course because it was not grounded in Scripture. Brenda explained it this way: “God spoke to people in the Bible, but God speaks to me also. Why do I need to hear what God spoke to them when I can hear God for myself?”
Unlike Brenda, most of us know better than that, but many of us fail to immerse ourselves in Scripture anyway. One reason we need Scripture is that each of us plays just a part in God’s larger plan in history (compare Acts 13:36). Paul warns, “We know in part and we prophesy in part” (1 Cor. 13:9) and that all prophecy must be evaluated (1 Cor. 14:29). Lots of people think they hear God, but how do we evaluate what God is really saying and who is really hearing him?
The Measuring Stick
The word canon means “a measuring stick.” Whatever else Christians have disagreed with one another about, one thing nearly all of us agree about is that the Bible is “canonical”—that is, it is God’s Word, and we can evaluate other claims in light of it.20 In Jeremiah’s day, there were lots of prophets, and lonely Jeremiah was the outlier. After Jeremiah’s message was fulfilled, however, everybody knew which prophet was right and which prophets were wrong. So guess which one’s book made it into the Bible?
Like the book of Jeremiah, the rest of Scripture comes to us tested by time (compare Ps. 18:30). It provides a “canon,” a measuring stick we can use to evaluate any other claims to hear God’s voice. Certainly, God sometimes has pleasant messages for his people (as in the book of Haggai, for example). But the burden of proof is always on those who speak what people want to hear, especially to those blatantly disobeying God’s values. When a false prophet insisted to Jeremiah that all would be well, Jeremiah responded, “The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet” (Jer. 28:8–9 nrsv).
Conclusion
Jesus warned his disciples about coming suffering (John 16:2–3) so they would remember that he told them in advance (16:4) and thus would not fall away in time of testing (16:1). The world would hate them (15:25–16:4), but Jesus reminds us that he overcame the world (16:33). We should beware of supposed “revelations” that leave God’s people unprepared for suffering hardship. Scripture urges us to be wise with sober expectations about what is coming: “A wise person sees trouble and hides oneself, but the simple-minded keep going, and pay the penalty” (Prov. 22:3; 27:12).
Clearly, true prophets often delivered messages about suffering and, especially in times of national disobedience, were forced to experience it themselves. Yet suffering is by no means limited to apostles (chap. 2) and prophets (chap. 3).
1 Iriyah was the grandson of a certain Hananiah, maybe the false prophet Jeremiah earlier confronted; but then, Hananiah was a common name (e.g., 2 Chron. 26:11; Ezra 10:28; Neh. 3:8, 30; 7:2; Jer. 36:12; Dan. 1:6).
2 See, e.g., Christerson and Flory, Rise of Network Christianity, 127–29.
3 See, e.g., Cosmos, Huguenot Prophecy, 46, 51, 113.
4 For unfulfilled (at least in their lifetime) Camisard hopes, see, e.g., Cosmos, Huguenot Prophecy, 35, 48, 59, 69–70. More problematic, though understandable, were the calls to arms (Cosmos, Huguenot Prophecy, 85–105, especially 89–90, 96–97, 101) and especially to vengeance (Cosmos, Huguenot Prophecy, 101; compare 144). Obviously those who set deadlines for the Lord’s return have brought disappointment, including in 1981 (Christerson and Flory, Rise of Network Christianity, 127, cite the example of Chuck Smith’s predictions) or 1988 (Whisenant, Reasons). Additionally, Kyle, Last Days, 120, notes some other failed predictions.
5 Voice of Martyrs, Hearts of Fire 2, 256–57. For her and her colleague’s story in greater detail, see Rostampour and Amirizadeh, Captive in Iran.
6 Kim, If I Perish, 218.
7 Kim, If I Perish, 216.
8 I borrow most of the wording from Keener and Keener, Impossible Love, 123–24.
9 In other circles, denying God’s power today is more popular (compare 2 Tim. 3:5).
10 Adapted from my blog post, Keener, “Against Grain.”
11 This paragraph is especially from my blog post, Keener, “Call and Cost.”
12 For complaints that God waits too long to punish the wicked, see, e.g., Pss. 10:1–2; 13:2; 35:16–17; 74:10; 94:3; Hab. 1:2–4. God may often delay to let the wicked destroy themselves (Pss. 5:10; 9:15; 35:8; 37:13–15; 81:12; 141:10; Rom. 1:24, 26, 28), but also to allow the opportunity for repentance (Ezek. 18:23; 2 Pet. 3:9).
13 I adapt this section from my blog post, Keener, “Prophets Wrong.”
14 February 10, 1982. Keep in mind that in 1982 most of us did not yet use inclusive language, but the wording in those days was nevertheless meant to cover both genders.
15 See Edwards, “Distinguishing Marks,” a nuanced work valuable today as well.
16 See, e.g., “Nutritional Crusade.”
17 Compare discussion in Keener, “Political Prophecies”; Keener, “Trump Prophecies.” Given the 2024 election outcome, many in 2020 may have indeed been hearing something, just without specificity concerning timing, which is also true in many biblical prophecies. (Whether you see that outcome as a blessing, a judgment, or a mixture of each may depend on your political proclivities.)
18 I describe some of this experience in Keener, Gift and Giver, 45–46; Keener and Keener, Impossible Love, 22–23.
19 See Keener, Spirit Hermeneutics.
20 Catholics and Orthodox have a slightly larger canon than Protestants, but we all agree on most of it. For more specifics, see varied discussions in, e.g., McDonald, Canon; Kruger, Question of Canon.