There's been a huge rise of fake, false, phony and fraud prophets, especially online
and it's nothing new. Jesus warned us that in the last days there will be false prophets.
Not much is mentioned about false pastors but much is mentioned about false prophets, false teachers,
and I want to address that today. There's two types of false prophets. The first one is a false
prophet is somebody who has a spirit of divination operating through them. Spirit of divination as
seen in Acts 16:16, we see that it's somebody who can actually predict things accurately. A psychic
is a good example of this. A psychic, a medium, a fortuneteller is operating out of a wrong heart
and an evil spirit, and so some people actually operate like a psychic. And you will look at their
ministry and you will see, it's no different than a psychic. There is no repentance of sin.
There's no forgiveness. There is no heaven. There's no hell. It's all about the goodies.
It's all about the good stuff and has nothing to do with Christ. It has nothing to do with leading
people to Jesus Christ, and they can be accurate and accurately could be wrong, in their heart,
and on the source of where they're speaking these words from. The second type of a false prophet is
somebody who has received a call or a gift from God, but through sin and other things, because
they lost that connection to the Lord, the gift of God stayed, according to Romans 11:29. It says
the gifts of God, you know they're not taken away. The gifts and the callings of God are irrevocable,
and they can still operate in the gift but they're no longer under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
We can see example of that is false prophet Balaam. Even though he's not called the prophet in
the Bible but we see that he was speaking things that are true, yet he was speaking from the wrong
heart, who was driven by greed and driven by desire to be famous. Now I want to take a look
at a few signs of a false prophet. The Bible says in Matthew 7:15, all the way till verse 17 is that
by their fruit you will know them. So the sign of a false prophet is first not his prophecy but
their fruit. What is the fruit of a prophet? And it's not just a prophet but what is the fruit of a
pastor? The fruit is our life, it's our character, our teaching and our influence. Meaning, do people
get influenced for Christ or get more drawn to us? Is our character a sign of Jesus or our character
reflects the world? And is our doctrine in line with the Scripture or is our doctrine very murky,
very confusing and also very worldly like, and it's not gospel Christ centered? And is our
lifestyle glorify Jesus or is our lifestyle life of sin, flesh and indulging the worldly nature?
It's interesting, the sign number two is that Jesus says the false prophets will dress or
appear like a sheep. He says that in 7:15. They are not going to appear as false shepherds. False
prophets blend in with the sheep and they attack the sheep, pretending to be sheep. They could call
themselves with the name, they could carry the title and everything, but they blend in with the
sheep. They are not false shepherds. They are false prophets dressed like a sheep but inside
they are not sheep. Inside they are evil. Inside they are greedy. Inside their controling. Inside
that are full of offense. Inside they're poisonous on the inside. Jesus didn't rebuke false prophets
prophetic accuracy. He didn't say, they don't prophesy accurately. He didn't say that their
words are wrong. He said it's what's inside of them that is wrong. They pretend to be like sheep,
but they're not sheep because inside they're wolves. It's their lifestyle that is wrong. It's
their heart and their character that is wrong. Number three is false prophets do have power and
miracles. Jesus clearly indicated that they will do signs. That they will do wonders. What makes
false prophets attractive is the fact they do have certain measure of results. Otherwise they will be
completely pathetic. They will be completely pointless. Nobody will even pay attention to
them. Everybody would think they're crazy but because there's a level of miraculous that
accompanies their life, people are drawn to that and it gives people a sense of solution to their
problems. The problem with miracles that come from other sources except the Holy Spirit is that while
they solve one problem, they usually replace it, not remove it. Meaning they'll take away
one problem by replacing it with another problem. They'll take away one demon and they'll give you
a bigger demon, and so they really don't remove problems, they just replace them with bigger ones.
Number four is false prophet will operate with an antichrist nature. They're not anti-Jesus,
they are antichrist. 1 John 4:1-3, it talks about the false prophets and it talks about
the Antichrist. Antichrist is somebody who comes against the work of Jesus Christ on the cross,
is somebody who comes against Jesus Christ as the Son of God. They don't have a problem with Jesus
as a son of man. They don't have a problem with Jesus as being a historic figure. They don't have
a problem with Jesus being the cool, enlightened dude but the moment it comes about salvation,
the moment it comes about the Savior. That means that we all are confronted with the ugly truth,
that we are sinners and we need repentance. And false teachers and false prophets do not like that
because the spirit of antichrist is really behind in operation in their life. Number five is false
prophet does not listen to anyone except God. They view correction as criticism. But the Bible talks
about in 1 Corinthians 14:32, that prophets have to you know the spirit of a prophet is submitted
to the prophet, and another translation says is that subject to be silenced as unnecessary. The
moment a prophet begins to say that I don't need anybody and nobody can tell me anything. I'm only
listening to God. This is where you have a red flag. If that prophet doesn't have a pastor.
If that prophet doesn't have people around him, and I'm not talking about somebody that he pays
or somebody that you know he claims that are mentoring him, but in reality nobody really
tells him what to do and nobody really guides his life. That person is in a dangerous territory,
and it will be wise for you to abstain from these kind of prophets. Number six is false prophets
aren't motivated by love but by pride. Their whole goal is to draw attention to themselves. A lot of
false prophets are people who deal with rejection and people who are having chronic insecurities. If
you remove their title and remove their spotlight, they will die. Like they thrive on that. They see
ministry as a way to cure insecurity, and in fact their identity is what they can do and how people
kind of give and feed that to them. That's why they constantly need to be called by their titles.
They constantly need to be called and honored, and they demand that because they're really driven by
pride, and their goal is to connect you to them, not to Jesus Christ. Prophetic ministry connects
everyone to Jesus. Their ministry connects everyone to them. Number seven is false prophets
use fear to control people. They use manipulation, they use control, and sometimes they even use doom
and gloom to cause person to live in paranoia and to live in fear, and constantly need that
prophet to God guide that person out of fear. And they give you just enough of prophecy or words to
get you just a little bit extend your leash, but they really hold you captive, and you have
to be very careful about things like that. Number eight is false prophets use prophets, not purity.
What makes Balaam dangerous as a prophet or a person, pretty much he was a soothsayer. And
2 Peter 2:15 and Jude 11 talks about the fact that Balaam had one drive and his drive was not just
ambition. He was driven by greed. He was driven by mammon. He was money driven, and today this is
pretty common when a lot of people, they start out pure. God spoke to them, they fasted, they prayed.
They really pressed in, they loved the church and then with time what happened is that greed
came in. And today you can see that where they won't give you a prophetic word until you sow,
until you give money, until you give a lot of money. And so they become rich and you become
poor, and because people lack discernment, and why they lack the discernment is because they're
desperate. When you get desperate and you're more desperate than you're devoted to Christ,
you will always lose discernment, and when you lose discernment, you will be deceived. And
that's where many people, I see people, even online, who get deceived because they lack
discernment. And guess what happens? They get the "word" but they never have a solution. Their life
is always a mess because the guy that's giving them these prophetic words is self-proclaimed,
Facebook prophet. Because the person that's giving them these prophetic words absolutely has
no church, has no accountability, his own life is in shambles. He's full of insecurity, rejection,
offense and a lot of times some of those people actually have real mental disorders, and some take
drugs and they give prophetic words out of a place of schizophrenia. I've seen this head on, and I
had to even stop some people who will be dead on with their words, but they have schizophrenia or
they have a mental problem. I'm not saying that they did not have at one time a gift of prophecy
or something, but it does not mean it makes them a prophet just because they have a gift
of prophecy and it does not mean that they are walking in purity. If they are profit driven,
if they are ego ambition driven. My friend, it is dangerous waters and you have to exercise your
discernment. And in order to exercise discernment, you have to carve your desperation and replace it
with your devotion to God and God's Word. Number nine is false prophets do not like the church.
They use the whole thing about the Old Testament, that in the Old Testament prophets were on their
own. Nobody could tell them what to do. They told the kings what to do. But they're wrong about
that because in the New Testament prophets have a different function. Prophets are belonging to the
church. Church doesn't belong to the prophet, the prophet belongs to the church. The same way the
church doesn't belong to the pastor, the pastor belongs to the church. And so if a prophet calls
himself a prophet and the church doesn't recognize that he's a prophet, he doesn't serve the local
church, he's not submitted to the church. I'm not talking about to the pastor but just to the church
in general. This guy or a girl is very dangerous, and exercise discernment and walk away from people
like that because you will be drinking polluted waters. And when you drink polluted waters like
that, you will be poisoned, you will be poor and you will be broke. You might have words,
a lot of words. You just will not live in the word because they will take away your hunger from
God's Word. They will take your hunger from Holy Spirit. They will take your hunger from knowing
God personally and they will direct all of that on themselves. If you're noticing your passion
for the Lord is dying out. If you're noticing your life is getting worse, you're only sowing money,
sowing money and to somebody who claims to be prophet just because they have few verses
there and there, and they claim to be Christ but something in your spirit says no. Run from it like
from a plague. Leave him alone. Let the blind lead the blind and protect your spiritual life.
The last sign of a false prophet is that a lot of times what they predict does not come true. And
instead of taking responsibility for missing the prophetic words, they blame you for not praying
enough and doing all of this stuff. But they're never wrong concerning missing prophecies. You and
everybody else is wrong, and I think that's wrong because in the Bible, in the Old Testament if you
miss prophecies, you were stoned. The challenge we have with a lot of people today is they're not
prophesying, they're guessing. They're guessing and they are practicing with prophetic. And I'm
not against you know all believers learning to prophesy, and hearing the voice of God
and creating a safe environment. But the moment we begin to turn prophetic, something that is sacred,
something that is holy, into a guessing game. Into whatever comes to my head and I say it, and I got
few right and few wrong, and I start judging and I start doing it on demand. You know come to me and
I'll prophesy. Here's 99 dollars and I'll give you a prophetic word. My own life is on in shambles,
nothing is working out but I'm giving you prophetic words. That means that I'm prophesying,
this thing is coming out from a wrong place. It already has wrong motives and God wants to speak
to you. Precious people, please hear me out. God has given you His Word, God has given you a local
church. God has given you, for crying out loud, common sense. I'm not in any way denying the need
for prophetic voices and to hear the voice of God. But what I'm saying is that there's been
so much pollution in the prophetic, that we have to walk in purity. And we have to hold prophetic,
as much as every ministry accountable to walk in Integrity. Let me know what you think about this.
Have you had some prophetic weird stuff happen? Drop that in the comment below.
What are some of the tips that you would have in order to guard yourself and to walk in discernment
concerning receiving prophetic words? And have you had situations that happen that you didn't agree
with or didn't sit right with you, and then you found out that you know this person was completely
off? Drop that in the comment below, let's keep it clean. We're not attacking the prophets but there
are false prophets. I'm not going to name them here today but if you've had that experience, drop
that in a comment. Let's have a healthy discussion so that we can all grow toward holiness and closer
to Jesus Christ. As always, don't forget to hit like to this video and click subscribe
and on the bell below, so you can be reminded each time that we go live. Until next time.