December 30, 2007

But the year’s biggest dud is the prophecy record of the "Christian" prognosticators. These men and women in the apostolic/prophetic movement get together at the beginning of every year and publish their prognostications for the coming year. They already have their latest predictions for 2008 on DVD for sale so they can make a quick buck by selling you "hidden truth" all for $69.00. So-called prophets Chuck Pierce, Dutch Sheets, Stacey Campbell, Denny Cline, and Steve Shultz will tell us what God is doing in 2008, as if God is tied into our calendar! 

But these modern-day soothsayers are not very specific – even the quatrains of Nostradamus were more to the point and you know how shadowy they were. You would get clearer information from astrologers and the National Inquirer’s psychics predictions than you will get from these spiritual hucksters.

Last year Elijah List published the collective prognostications of the ACPE (Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders), starring Beth Alves, Sam Brassfield, Stacey Campbell, Kim Clement, Paul Keith Davis, Lou Engle, Will Ford, Joseph Garlington, Ernest Gentile, Mary Glazier, James Goll, Bill S. Hamon, Jane Hamon, Tom Hamon, Harry Jackson, Mike & Cindy Jacobs, Jim Laffoon, Sek Leang Ong, Chuck D. Pierce, Rick Ridings, John & Paula Sandford, Michael Schiffmann, Gwen Shaw, Dutch Sheets, Steve Shultz, Jean Steffenson, Sharon Stone, Tommy Tenney, C. Peter & Doris Wagner, and Dominic Yeo.

They prefaced their pontifications with this disclaimer; after all they don’t want to be labeled false prophets:

1. All prophecy not contained in Scripture is conditional.

2. The timing of when the prophecy comes to pass may not occur in a one year time frame. [Then why do they label them for a specific year?]

3. It is possible that the prophetic warnings given will cause either the person or nation to repent and thus turn away the judgment prophesied. Biblically, this happened when Jonah prophesied to Nineveh and the city repented, causing God to relent. [That’s their loop-hole that they’ve used over and over again after failed predictions and have never been able to connect to any repentance by the nations that they have falsely prophesied about.]

And then they go on to their corporate word for 2007:

1. Finishing of a building cycle. Time for new building strategies to be released. [By whom? Roe Messner?]

2. Finishing of the five-fold ministry restored. Apostolic and Prophetic moving together. [With themselves at the top, of course!]

3. Finishing anointing for shifting the courts in America. The nation is hanging in the balance. [I didn’t see any shifting in the courts this year.]

4. Political times of realignment. War against the Jezebel spirit of influence. [Maybe they don’t like Hillary?]

5. Finishing anointing for the release of miracles. [How does an anointing get finished?]

6. Finishing anointing for the release of transfer of wealth. Many deals that are in the balance will be completed. Satan has set up strongholds that are ancient and must be torn down to shift wealth to the Body of Christ. [Rather greedy of them, don’t you think?]

And the number one false prophet, Kim Clement, made his own prognostications all by himself. In November of 2006 while he was looking through the coming 2007 calendar with the eyes of a seer, he prophesied very vague things such as the "Spirit" giving the people a year of Jubilee and taking away debt. The most tangible prophecy was supposed to have come through this past Christmas:

"This Christmas, I will bring about changes so massive, that the Church shall no longer even look like the Church has looked before. I will invade the marketplace. I will take Texas, and I will honor you. I will buckle the Bible belt again, and bring honor back to you,’ says the Lord." [I haven’t seen any sudden change in the church, even though false teachers are making headway in stamping out that "old-time religion."]

Pat Robertson outdid all of the above "prophets" and really put his reputation on the line with his "prophecy" of nuclear holocaust in America at the hands of terrorists in the second-half of 2007. He said on his 700 Club broadcast of January 2, 2007:

"I felt that evil men; evil people, are going to try to do evil things to us and to others during the last part of this year. I don't know whether it'll be in the fall or September or later on, but it'll be the second half, somehow, of 2007. There will be some very serious terrorist attacks. The evil people will come after this country."

"And there's a possibility that--not a possibly--a definite certainty that chaos is going to rule, and the Lord said that the politicians will not have any solutions for it. There's just going to be chaos."

"It's going to happen. And I'm not saying necessarily nuclear. The Lord didn't say "nuclear," but I do believe it'll be something like that that'll be a mass killing, possibly millions of people, and major cities injured…."

"So I believe that it's going to be--these first few months, I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be an extraordinary time, and we should expect miracles beyond our wildest fantasies in the first six months. And after then--chaotic." [Egg on his face again!]

Harold Camping, the author of the failed book "1994" projects further than the coming year – he dogmatically says that the rapture is going to take place on May 21, 2011 and the coming of Christ on October 20, 2011. But his record is worse than the Watchtower Society. Even the secular soothsayers have a more impressive record. We already know this is false and we don’t have to wait until May 22, 2011 to proclaim it.

I wonder if Camping’s 1994 prediction of the return of Christ influenced other impressionable false teachers. Others were pointing to that same year as something significant and held it over the heads of donors to hurry up and finance the final harvest of souls. Paul Crouch wrote in the April 1994 issue of the TBN newsletter,:

"By the Holy Spirit, we see this day fast approaching [reference to 2 Pet. 3:10]. As I said earlier, men and women of God who move in prophetic utterance are warning that something "BIG" is going to occur even this year of 1994! Something which will shake America and even the World to its very foundation…many of God’s messengers and prophets are seeing things in the Spirit that boggle the mind! Hospitals – emptied by the healing power of Christ! Instead of us crying out the witness of Christ to the Lost, they will come running to us seeking salvation and refuge from the awesome events coming upon the earth!…But here is where it really gets exciting. Even as God begins to shake heaven and earth, even as the awesome events predicted begin to unfold – God still needs us – HIS WITNESSES – to bring in the final harvest of Souls!…If you haven’t already called or mailed your pledge, do it TODAY! Let’s send a message to Heaven and Hell that TBN is ON THE OFFENSIVE! Satan—BEWARE – TBN is ON THE MARCH AGAIN!" [Emphasis in original.]

I don’t recall 1994 having any real significance – had they predicted 2001 perhaps then we could think of 9/11. So many "prophets" have come and gone who have predicted they would be alive at the second coming of Christ who are now deceased – Kenneth Hagin, Lester Sumrall, and Dr. Richard Eby, to name a few.

These newer "prophets" on the scene have learned from the failures of their predecessors to be vague and shadowy. Camping, Robertson, and Clement are bolder than the others cited in that they put their reputations on the line by giving some specifics.

Too bad they don’t all learn a big lesson and stop calling themselves and one another "prophets" because if they are prophets, they are false ones. If they think God is telling them something, they should play it smart and share it as something the Lord "might" be showing them and not be so dogmatic about their hunches. Then if nothing happens no big deal – and if something does materialize they can hold their heads up as people with keen insights that others can take more seriously.

It is comforting to know that when the Lord returns and sets up His earthly Kingdom, He will first clean up the influences of these "prophets" and the counterfeit spirit:

Zechariah 13:2 - "It will come about in that day," declares the LORD of hosts, "that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered; and I will also remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land."

♥♥♥