Modern Day Prophets

Modern day prophets. In the dawn of the 2020 election, COVID-19, and many other wild events, many have come out to claim that they are prophets, but does God still use prophets? Or does God even need to use prophets? Well lets take a look into the Word of God to interpret the truth of this matter and finally debunk the Christian myth of modern day prophets and false prophecy.

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Matthew 24:4-12 (Jesus speaking on the end of times)

4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

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If we focus for now on verse 11, we can see the Jesus himself warned of false prophets coming in the latter days. 1 John 4:1, Matthew 7:15, Matthew 24:24, Deuteronomy 18:20, 2 Corinthians 11:13-15, and 2 Timothy 4:3 all talk about false prophets and the dangers therein. So what are we to make of this? First, let us look at what the bible says on who can be a prophet. Could females be prophets? Deborah from the book of Judges was a prophetess and judged Israel in the time of the judges. We can also see that throughout the bible God appointed prophets and also had His prophets anoint others (ex. Elijah and Elisha). So really, God chose who became prophets, and obviously He chose many throughout the bible, namely in the Old Testament, but does God still choose prophets today? In 1 Corinthians 12 and 13, Paul spend time talking about spiritual gifts, and in so names what spiritual gifts we as believers can receive. Among these are: healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning spirits, divers kinds of tongues, and interpretation of tongues. Others include teaching and being an apostle. However, in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 he goes on to state that prophecies and tongues shall fail because of the (at the time) coming completion of the Word of God or the bible. God promised that He would preserve His Word through the generations, therefor we can be certain that nothing is missing from the bible. So the Word of God is complete, we no longer need prophecy or divers tongues, because we have all that is needed in the bible. In the Old Testament days, God's Word was not yet complete, so the Israelites needed prophets to speak on behalf of God, now thanks to the completion of the bible, we have no further use for prophecy. Are there still others out there writing books of the bible? Of course not! God has provided every detail needed for living the Christian life and more. Now, taking this as truth, we can move on.

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1 Kings 13, the chapter following the dividing of Israel into Judah (southern kingdom) and Israel (northern kingdom). This chapter follows a man of God who prophecies concerning Jeroboam the king of Israel. This man of God was commanded of God to not eat or drink or turn back the way which he came, but a prophet heard of this man of God and met him and asked the man of God to come and sup with the him. The man refused, stating his commands from God, but the prophet lied to the man of God and told him that an angel came and told him that this man of God was supposed to eat with him. So the man of God agreed, long story short, God killed the man of God for his disobedience even though he was deceived. What was the mistake of the man of God? He chose to listen to the prophet (who was flawed being a man) rather than sticking to what God directly commanded him to do. The bible is clear on the dangers of false prophecy and that prophets are no longer needed, so are we to listen to man or to God?

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I will most likely write a follow up article on this subject, but to conclude I would like to debunk the idea that there are still apostles. The biblical definition of an apostle is one who has seen Jesus Himself. Paul proves his apostleship in 1 Corinthians 9:1-2. So it is quite impossible for anyone today to be an apostle period.