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 Prophets Playing with Fire...

From Pat Robertson's article posted on another thread: "I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss."

Greg said: "I think a nuclear attack is iminent..."

Leonard Ravenhill said in an mp3 sermon (circa 1980) he expected the destruction of America within a year or two.

Now I'm just a fool ex-bartended who quit my job last month for Jesus - I have no formal education in spiritutal matters. But I am aware of Moses' warnings to those who played at prophecy without direct revelation from God:

"But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him." DEUT 18:20-22

When God shows a man a thing via divine revelation, that man KNOWS it's true - no prophet uses "I have a feeling", "I think", "I believe", "that this... or maybe this...", "could", "would", "might happen". If you KNOW, say it plainly. If you don't know, or you're mistaking your "gut" for "God", don't say anything.

If Ravenhill and Robertson were alive in the times of Moses and Aaron, they would be STONED FOR BEING WRONG!

 2007/1/6 17:07
PaulWest
Member



Joined: 2006/6/28
Posts: 3405
Dallas, Texas

 Re: Prophets Playing with Fire...

"Behold, I come [i]quickly[/i]" (Rev. 22:12)

Jesus Christ said this over 2,000 years ago. Corey, what is the difference between this and Greg saying that a nuclear attack is "iminent"? Or with Ravenhill thinking America will be destroyed soon? None of these have been proven false, plus I know that when men like Ravenhill spoke, they would often put forth disclaimers like "I may be wrong, but..." Very wise, but even if they didn't, it still wouldn't make them false prophets. Saying "I think" or I believe" is not the same as doing what Isaiah or Jeremiah or Agabus did. When a man or woman says "I believe", it in no way implies "thus saith the Lord"; if it did, we'd all be in big trouble! You included! All of us would be the Lord's prophets whether we realized it or not. Besides, I don't think we understand the true ministry of a prophet. To most people, when they hear "prophet" they immediately think of a type of Christian Nostradamus. Not so! This doesn't even scratch the surface. Leonard Ravenhill has written a powerful little article on what defines a true prophet of God, entitled "Picture of a Prophet." In light of this article, I seriously venture to say that no regular visitor and contributer to these formus (or on any internet forum for that matter) is a real, bonafide prophet of God in the Biblical sense. I know I'm going to challenged on that last statement, but I'll hold my ground. Seriously - do you ever wonder why men like Keith Daniel and Dave Wilkerson and Zac Poonen are never seen participating in internet forums and debating and posting their theology and preaching?

This is really something to think about.

Brother Paul :-)


_________________
Paul Frederick West

 2007/1/6 17:26Profile
crsschk
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Joined: 2003/6/11
Posts: 9192
Santa Clara, CA

 Re: Prophets Playing with Fire...

Corey,

Think that may be overstating it quite a bit. It is certainly one thing to pronounce "Thus sayeth the Lord" and then go on to speak presumptuously, (trust me, I have a very large issue with this whole matter)and that which might be formulative.

What Greg is saying isn't necessarily 'prophetically' speaking, nor would Ravenhill's be either. You do not have to fancy yourself a prophet to make an observation.

Think Robertson would be better off reading The Farmers Almanac for weather patterns and the like, they have a better track record.




_________________
Mike Balog

 2007/1/6 17:27Profile









 Re:

I KNOW I'm not a prophet - if the prophets fainted in fear when they say the majesty of a single angel, I fear I would be burned up completely!

I've enjoyed Ravenhill's sermons, but seriously, if he said, "I'm not sure, but I believe that because we Jews are worshipping a golden calf the giant Anakim are going to come into the desert and kill us in a year or two..." After two years had passed without attack, and the ground swalling up Korah, etc, he would have been stoned.

I'll tell you what I absolutely loved about Tozer - his frankness and honesty when he said in an eschatological sermon: "I refuse to speculate on things I know nothing about." He was speaking about various mysteries in Revelation and Daniel that were so profound he didn't understand them and, thusly, didn't discuss. What wisdom!!!

I understand that God judges nations, churches, systems, families and individuals. It is wise to fear that judgement and to flee from such places and persons if you suspect judgement is immanent. But a spiritual authority who speculates and theorizes without SPECIFIC times, dates, and events is no prophet. A prophet's not right just 75% of the time.

Tozer also said to nullify one part of the Bible nullifies it all, too. You either take it all to be true and right or you don't. And if a man hasn't been visited by God's angel and EXPLICITELY told the future... he's better off not voicing his gut prognostications.

-Corey

p.s. Also, I'm not attacking Greg. I owe him big time for making these sermons available. Just warning us all.

 2007/1/6 17:56
sermonindex
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Online!
 Re:

Quote:
Leonard Ravenhill said in an mp3 sermon (circa 1980) he expected the destruction of America within a year or two.


Ravenhill in some of his sermons said: "I am not a prophet but speak with prophetic urgency!" He was just stating things that were very clear to him in his day. Right now if we have eyes to see and ears to hear it is inevitable that judgement comes. As Ravenhill said many times: "we have out sinned sodom" and also "if God does not judge America He will have to apologize to sodom and gommorah."

Now brother, my statements and Ravenhill's are speaking the obvious and not stating: "Thus saith the Lord..." I appreciate your weariness in discussing these things but we do have to come to grips with the reality of future judgement being around the corner. The prophetic word in the old Testament is written much for us and is very applicable right now to the "Church" which is God's epitome spiritually of what He is doing right now in the world.

Perhaps Mr. Robertston's words and approach are not well suited but he is not far off the mark. Where are the prophets? that is a good question to be asked. God does have them and is raising them up from hiding. All the things spoken to Israel were for ensamples of us "upon whom the end of the world has come."


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2007/1/6 18:02Profile
PaulWest
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Joined: 2006/6/28
Posts: 3405
Dallas, Texas

 Re:

To get a proper perspective on the office of a prophet, I decided to go ahead and post this. Brother Corey, if you haven't read this yet, please do. May the Lord bless your time of reading!

[b]Picture of a Prophet[/b]
by Leonard Ravenhill

The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men.

Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, "No man can be fully accepted until he is totally rejected." The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences. They are his "brand name."

The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him "Man of the year" when he refers to them as habituates of the synagogue of Satan!

The prophet comes to set up that which is upset. His work is to call into line those who are out of line! He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality. In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin-Sparks once said, "has almost always been that of recovery."

The prophet is God's detective seeking for a lost treasure. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him.
He has no price tags.
He is totally "otherworldly."
He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile.
He marches to another drummer!
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration.
He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind.
He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a "thus saith
the Lord."
He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of
impending judgment.
He lives in "splendid isolation."
He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright.
His message is "repent, be reconciled to God or else...!"
His prophecies are parried.
His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void.
He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead!
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with
epitaphs when dead.
He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class.
He is friendless while living and famous when dead.
He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint
by posterity.
He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of
Life to those who listen.
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years.
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation.
He announces, pronounces, and denounces!
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire.
He talks to men about God.
He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men.
He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing.
He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in
the marketplace.
He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual.
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity.
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.

Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recover its strength, or that we save face over the Watergate affair, or that we find the answer to the ecology problem. We need a God-sent prophet!

I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the "seven years of plenty" are over for us. The "seven years of famine" are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11).

Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. "Come-outers" have "come out" and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival. Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?

GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history.

There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist.
Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and
stagnant "churchianity."
Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.
Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do."
Let him reject ecclesiastical favors.
Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous,
nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting.
Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move
men to God.
Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has
received the order of the day.
Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the
clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism.
Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision
no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the
wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where
enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.


God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!


_________________
Paul Frederick West

 2007/1/6 18:18Profile









 Re:

You know what I kind of hope, and also dread, to see? The two Witnesses. Just to carry around their backpacks as they move from around from country to country and listen to them preach - whoever gets to do that is blessed indeed!

I know tribulations are coming... I'd just like to see Christians speculate and terrorize the believers. Wurmbrand says Satan's oldest trick is frightening the believer with the lives of his family. And the media frightens us with doom and gloom every day. Should Christians be terror-stricken by so-called "inspired" leaders like Robertson?

I don't see anything of Jesus in Robertson.

 2007/1/6 18:25









 Re:

HALLELUJAH JESUS!!! HALLELUJAH BROTHER PAUL!!! HALLELUJAH BROTHER RAVENHILL!!!

Thank you so much for bringing this essay to my attention!!!

Reminds me of the lecture/sermon Ravenhill gave where some "pastors" started to laugh and jeer at him. What a good man he is!

I still wish he hadn't said that thing about America going down in the 80s... Better for a man of God to remain silent than be wrong in a prediction.

But what an essay! Hallelujah!!!

-Corey

 2007/1/6 18:36
ChrisJD
Member



Joined: 2006/2/11
Posts: 2895
Philadelphia PA

 Re:

Dear Corey,

Quote:
I still wish he hadn't said that thing about America going down in the 80s... Better for a man of God to remain silent than be wrong in a [b]prediction[/b].



Brother, this is what you qouted before...

Quote:
Leonard Ravenhill said in an mp3 sermon (circa 1980) [u]he expected[/u] the destruction of America within a year or two.



But, did he say that God had revealed this to him(that is did he speak in the name of the Lord)? If not, then is it really right to make this statement concerning Ravenhill...

Quote:
If Ravenhill and Robertson were alive in the times of Moses and Aaron, they would be STONED FOR BEING WRONG!



Dear brother Corey, this is a very weighty matter, even to mention like this. Look at Deuteronomy 19:15-19, for instance. And especially concerning our brother Greg. I just do not see anything in his statement that I would or did, understand as prophesy. I believe I would have certainly taken notice if he had put it in those terms.

Please consider this, and take a look at passage also.

Thank you for considering this,

Chris


_________________
Christopher Joel Dandrow

 2007/1/6 21:44Profile
loveroftruth
Member



Joined: 2006/10/25
Posts: 25


 Re: Perspective on Prophets

Hi Greg.Welcome to Victoria! Put on your armor, open your heart and be blessed in the battle with us.

Thank you all for your thoughts on this thread:

Two neglected emphases in Biblical Prophecy that seem to be relegated to the backseat so to speak:

In my opinion of course:

One dimension of biblical, Spirit inspired prophecy: Proclaiming and explaining the mind and heart of God:

The predictive element of prophecy has been over-emphasized. We comment more on the state of affairs of a nation, or the church rather than emphasizing how God feels:

His pleasure or displeasure concerning the state of His people or plight of those who remain outside of His salvation:

His gracious call to restoration and renewal in the light of His warnings and confrontation to provoke repentance.

The persistent pleadings from His heart for men and women and children to test Him and embrace His promises with decisions of the will:

In the Bible: true predictive prophecy springs forth in the context of God revealing and confirming the character traits of who He is and how He will act in consistency with His character: while also confirming the veracity of His Word to be trusted and acted upon. In other words: A future event foretold in order to call us to trust Him today, and remain in hope for tomorrow with a balanced expectation.

However, men such as Carter Conlon and David Wilkerson due exercise prophecy in this manner on a consistent basis and from a biblical, doctrinally sound foundation.Perhaps all of you know of others who fit this pattern.

The other neglected element of the domain of a prophet called by God and gifted by His Spirit:

Placing false or aberrant teaching and practices alongside the plumbline of the truths of God's Word.

Recognizing and identifying the trends of apostasy while confirming and encouraging individuals to remain in the truths:
Alert to Apostasy as one part of Abiding in Truth and Abounding in Love: (Of course all through being dead to self and alive in Christ)

Setting aside the false and alerting others to the consequences: While feeding on and fulfilling thr truth:

A Thanksgiving Day Example might Help:

Taking great pains to wash and prepare the bird being aware of the reality of salmonella poisoning:

But then having great pleasure in preparing and cooking and serving the deleicious bird to those gathered:

Eating a full portion of the turkey and fixings:

But then going out and exercising afterwards:

And then being available to restore and minister to those who neglected the warnings in the food preparation and now have food poisoning.

In this context, we can then be zealous to warn, point out and reject those who would promote and sell rotting turkeys.


So a ministry that promotes taking joy in the real thing:

Heed the warnings but not to the neglect of loving and living the truth. And remain heartbroken for those who resist the warnings.

Roger Oakland of UnderStand The Times Intl.
http://www.understandthetimes.org/
is a notable example of a person who engages in this type of ministry.

Again, you may know of others.

Thanks for anytime spent in consideration or response to these thoughts.










 2007/1/6 21:49Profile





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