Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," June 2009
How To Recognize False Prophets
False prophets generally tend to tout what is popular and what people want to hear. Very seldom do you find them going against the grain of the received status quo.
The reason they do this is most generally for mercenary motives. Usually they want fame or fortune, and being a crowd pleaser, or saying only what people want to hear, in today's materialistic culture, is a good way of attempting to get both.
The true prophet of God, by contrast, is going to tell America what Americans do not necessarily want to hear. He/she is going to tell them that this country is ultimately going to be destroyed for sin and wickedness, unless the people repent and turn to God.
Most moderns do not want to hear this message of radical reform. We do not want to hear it, because we are a culture that is full of spiritual pride and carnal self-righteousness.
The popular idea is that America is already a Christian nation, and that God is blessing us for supporting the modern State of Israel. We have tied ourselves, as a religious culture, to premillennial antinomian heresy. True prophets of God are attacking and destroying that false mind set.
Our religious mentality is that the Church exists to sit passively on its spiritual bum, until Jesus gets ready to remove it in the secret pretribulation rapture. Our false prophets everywhere reinforce upon us this baloney. Thus, we have no sense of mission as a Church. We have lost out on the world redeeming vision and passion of Jesus Christ, and do not really believe any longer that God intends to save the whole world to righteousness and true holiness now, in this present age, through the power of the Cross. Instead, we have accepted the delusionalism that the true hope of the world is for Jesus to come (after the Devil and Antichrist have been given their say for seven years) to set up His Jewish millennial kingdom.
It's a thick mentality, and it sits entrenched. Only the truth can oust it.
Related Article Links
Heresies Of Dispensationalism
Why Premillennialism Is Heresy