True Prophecy vs False Prophecy

By Ptr. Vince, on December 19th, 2009

Most Common False Prophecies

In our world today, there are many false prophecies and false prophets. This part two of the Gifts of The Holy Spirit Series will tell you the most common false prophecies that until now many people get into being scammed. I hope this will also serve as a warning to every Christian out there to be very careful in examining prophecies. After all, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14, that we are to weigh carefully the prophecies being spoken.

Fixed Date of The Second Coming Of Christ

How many incidents, articles, and books should we read to prove that Matthew 24:35-36 is true? With man’s hard headedness and continous passion to know God’s will of his second coming, hundreds has fallen into temptation of predicting an exact date of the second coming of Christ.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and The Children of God are just two of hundreds of people who predicted the exact date of the second coming of Christ. But none of them was correct.

As a result of these false prophecies, thousands of people were lead astray. Some resigned from their jobs and sold all their properties and donated everything to charity believing that their properties have no use anymore. Some even commited mass suicide believing that they are going to meet the Messiah in the clouds.

Self Declaration As Messiah

If I am correct, the number now is in the hundreds of religious leaders who claimed that they are the new Christ, the new Messiah from the east. Some of these religious leaders have a great number of followers and has a very strong stand to their claim.

However, if we will just try to understand what Jesus said, “For many will come in My name, saying ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” (Matthew 24:5). We can see that Jesus already gave us a warning believing in these people. They are false teachers that we need to be aware of.

Fortunetelling Mixed Up With Prophecy

There are people who mixed up fortunetelling with prophecy. The dictornary defines fortunetelling as the practice of foretelling the events in the future of another person which is completely different from prophecy which is “forthtelling”.

It has the similiraty in telling the future, but the difference lies mainly in the source of the wisdom. The source of wisdom in prophecy is God while fortunetelling mostly came from human wisdom and sometimes in the extranatural powers of darkness.

Test of True Prophecy

How in the world are we going to know the true prophecy? Here’s a passage from the Old Testament that gives us a clear understanding of the test of a true prophecy.

“18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. 19 Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. 20 But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.” 21 You may say to yourself, “How can we recognize a word that the LORD has not spoken?” 22 If a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it.

–Deuteronomy 18:18-22

This passage is very clear in telling us that once the prophecy did not came to pass, it means that it is a false prophecy and the one prophesying is a false prophet. This also means that there is no way of knowing which is a false prophecy in advance until the time that come to pass. However, there are prophecies that we can clearly see which is true and which is false from the moment that it was given. A very good example is the picking of exact date of the second coming of Christ. Again in the Bible, it is very clear that we can never know the exact time of his coming.

May all of be guided by the Holy Spirit so that you may know which are true prophecies and which are false prophecies.