Good question. What does happen? What does it mean when false prophets actually do what they claim they can do? What does that mean?
What happens when “signs and wonders”— no, real signs and wonders accompany the preaching of a false prophet? What are we to think? What does that say about what they are saying? The implications are mind-boggling.
For example, does it mean that maybe, just maybe, they aren’t false prophets anymore? Maybe they’ve repented and finally seen the light and God is confirming their ministry with “ooo la la” kind of stuff. Or maybe we were too judgmental towards them in the first place and had them all wrong. Worldly logic would conclude, “If God weren’t blessing what they say, then their churches wouldn’t grow so large and they wouldn’t be so popular.”
So, maybe the problem is with us, and not them. After all, as the mantra of false prophets go: “Touch not the Lord’s anointed!” Maybe we’re just too blind and deceived and misguided and don’t recognize that God is moving and doing a new thing in our generation. Or possibly God just lowered His standard of truth so as not to offend the post-modern culture in which we live. Remember the enlightened by-line of most false prophets, “Doctrine divides, but love unites.” Maybe the Scriptures are not the standard of truth today and God is using these men to teach us that He is not the same “yesterday, today and forever” but actually changes with the times and adapts, like a divine chameleon, to whatever culture He finds Himself in. Maybe the false prophets are right. Maybe God is nothing more than a cosmic genie in a bottle waiting to serve us, bless us, prosper us and make us the “head and not the tail.” And maybe, just maybe, these men the Scriptures define as false prophets are really God’s pied pipers to the New, and better, 21st Century Christian.
Maybe. Then again, maybe not.
So, if a false prophet delivers the goods, does it mean that we slide them into the category of “Former False Prophets” or rename them as “Prophets formerly known as False”?
I think not.
Have you ever read the following words from Moses?
“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods whom you have not known and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” *
Oh, so it could be a test— a testing from the Lord to see if we love Him more than we love the cool things the false prophets are saying about us, our finances and our future. Looks like another classic battle against our flesh, doesn’t it?
Are you prepared for that battle? Are you prepared to win? Because the age of false prophets is upon us.
