I'm always intrigued how, "No one ones the day or the hour (except the Father)" -- Matthew 24:36 -- ALWAYS seems to get turned into, "God has given ME special insight into being able to predict when the day and hour/end times is going to be."
I always wonder... how close is this to the edge of soothsaying or fortune telling -- which is clearly forbidden in the Bible?
Now I surely believe in prophets and after all, God gave Noah special insight into the end of the world at the time (the flood,) but I've never ran into any modern person whose predictions were 100% accurate. In each case, things had to be twisted like a pretzel in order to meet their predictions rather than an obvious observation to anyone that their "prophecy" had come true. I personally believe that if a prophecy comes true, it will be so obvious that an unbeliever could understand it.
I was once part of a church that was heavily into prophesy and words of knowledge -- which I certainly do believe exists.
But what I also observed is that far too many people seem to become drunk on the power/high it seems to give them to have "special knowledge" from God. Everyone else was pitied because they just weren't as "advanced," "close to God," or "didn't have as much faith" as they did. I fell victim to this too when the church was encouraging me to my "own" "prophetic skills."
When I took a good hard look at the Old Testament and was reminded the the consequences for giving false prophecies was DEATH, I became much, much more reserved in ever trying to claim "God told me" something about anything.
Do I think God speaks to me? Absolutely. But now I just make sure I leave a very wide open gate for my own human error if ever trying to convey that to someone else.
I always wonder... how close is this to the edge of soothsaying or fortune telling -- which is clearly forbidden in the Bible?
Now I surely believe in prophets and after all, God gave Noah special insight into the end of the world at the time (the flood,) but I've never ran into any modern person whose predictions were 100% accurate. In each case, things had to be twisted like a pretzel in order to meet their predictions rather than an obvious observation to anyone that their "prophecy" had come true. I personally believe that if a prophecy comes true, it will be so obvious that an unbeliever could understand it.
I was once part of a church that was heavily into prophesy and words of knowledge -- which I certainly do believe exists.
But what I also observed is that far too many people seem to become drunk on the power/high it seems to give them to have "special knowledge" from God. Everyone else was pitied because they just weren't as "advanced," "close to God," or "didn't have as much faith" as they did. I fell victim to this too when the church was encouraging me to my "own" "prophetic skills."
When I took a good hard look at the Old Testament and was reminded the the consequences for giving false prophecies was DEATH, I became much, much more reserved in ever trying to claim "God told me" something about anything.
Do I think God speaks to me? Absolutely. But now I just make sure I leave a very wide open gate for my own human error if ever trying to convey that to someone else.
I saw a post here of someone asking to be taught how to be a prophet. He then lists off the other fruits of the spirit he has already learned. He treated them like a collection to be obtained by choice rather than something God gave them. And, of course, had to throw in all the others he learned. Seemed like a trophy case of spirituality proving how many medals he's won from God. And he's going for the gold.
But the "special revelation" types are certainly most prominent and frequent. And all of them are equally confident that God picked them to be special.
Though this guy in here has taken it to the next level. "I can't prove it to you because when it happens you'll all be dead". How convenient.
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