Correcting Prophetic Inaccuracies

I was asked the other day, "When a well known prophet gives a national prophetic word and it ends up being completely wrong, how should the prophet address it?" Excellent question.

This strikes me as another way to ask the question, “Who is responsible for inaccurate prophetic words?”

If there was such a thing as an ideal world, everybody would take responsibility for their own stuff. But that doesn’t happen, and there are at least two ways that it doesn’t happen that make this a complicated question:

First, it has appeared that prophets with big public ministries don’t often take responsibility for their prophetic words. There are a few that DO take responsibility when they find out something was predicted correctly, but most don’t slow down enough to even recognize either when a word is fulfilled or when it’s proven inaccurate.

The other side is that I can’t really affect whether the national prophet will, in fact, acknowledge and respond to an errant prophecy. National prophets generally haven’t made themselves accountable to me, so my expectations have no real effect on their actions.

Second issue: so many prophetic declarations are worded in such a way (I make no statement about intent here: this is just the way it is) that it’s hard to clearly interpret and apply portions of the word, and therefore, it’s hard to judge the word (1 Corinthians 14:29). For example: the word is about an earthquake: but is it a literal, physical quake, or a metaphor for God shaking things up? And does a 3.4 quake that knocked a pencil off of a teacher’s desk somewhere qualify as fulfillment when we were all clearly expecting the earth to open swallow a region whole?

But let’s face it, the people receiving a prophetic word are more likely to be invested in the word than a prophet that’s travelling through, heading towards their next meeting. That’s not a criticism, it’s just recognizing how the “real world” interjects itself into the ideal.

This leads me to a third issue. I’ve long been an advocate of the concept that when a prophet gives me a word, it’s now MY word; it isn’t theirs anymore. And therefore I am the one who needs to take responsibility for that word: I need to nurture it, feed it, cherish it, and help it grow to fruition.

And I need to discern it. It certainly saves time and energy if I can successfully discern a word BEFORE I encounter the conditions stated in the word. I’d much rather recognize beforehand if a prophet was adding something of himself into the revelation, rather than wait till afterwards.

Note that it may not be the prophet that’s adding something to the word: it may be my own expectations. I met a woman who was praying for the death of her pastor’s wife. “But God said I could have anything I want! I want him, and she’s in his way!” And I’ve run into lots of prophecies that have been taken way beyond the original word that was spoken.

So yeah: if the prophet is aware of having given a word that turned out to be inaccurate, it would be appropriate for that prophet to take responsibility for the mistake, acknowledge it, and (how does one do this?) apologize to those who were misled by it.

But whether or not they take responsibility for a word that they’ve given to me (or to a group of which I’m a part), still I have responsibility for the word, which is now mine. I need to discern it (“judge it”) even if I’m late in doing that, and if it’s bogus, I need to toss it out.

I’ve done that with a lot of words recently. I find myself frustrated with a number of national and regional prophets who drop a prophetic bomb and move on, or who prophesy so vaguely that they are essentially mumbling gibberish in God’s name.

More than once, I’ve stood with a group of people on behalf of my region and renounced a prophetic declaration that we’ve judged to be inaccurate, false, mistaken. Sure, it would be better if it came from the prophet that spoke the word, but if they don’t, then somebody needs to. I often find myself following these sessions up with prayers for the prophets whose work we were just correcting.

Nor’west Prophetic
nwp@northwestprophetic.com

Beware Gypsy Presbyteries

“Beware gypsy presbyteries!”

It has been fifty years since the warning was prophesied to the church in that city. It was one of the larger cities of the greater Pacific Northwest region, and the prophet declaring the word was known by the church of that city, and was respected. “Beware gypsy presbyteries!” he declared.

I’ve been thinking about that word, and I’m hearing God breathing on it for my region. In fact, I believe God is re-breathing that word to the entire Pacific Northwest. He’s probably saying it to more than just our region, but I have confidence that this is the season for the Northwest to hear it. Fifty years ago, the church didn’t hear, or they didn’t understand, and there was a price that was paid for their failure, but that’s not the story I’m telling here.

But before I tell the story, I need to be clear about the position that I tell it from. I am not opposed to traveling ministries; I am not opposed to prophetic ministries. In fact, I have good friends in both camps, and I serve ministries that are in both camps. What I am about to say is not a declaration that such ministries are in error. That would be an untrue accusation. In fact, the very prophecy we’re discussing here was delivered by a traveling prophetic minister.

Think with me about that simple sentence: Beware gypsy presbyteries:

· Beware: watch out. There’s danger here. Be careful here; don’t get caught in it.

· Gypsy: in the less-politically-correct times of a half century ago, a gypsy was “a member of a people with dark skin and hair who speak Romany and who traditionally live by seasonal work and fortunetelling.” They traveled from place to place, with no roots in the places they visited, and no accountability in those places.

· Presbyteries: Bill Hamon defines a prophetic presbytery: when two or more prophets and/or prophetic ministers lay hands on and prophesy over an individual, a body, or a region, to minister a prophetic word, to identify gifts and placement in the Body or in leadership, to impart gifts and callings, or for ordaining to an office of ministry.

It’s probably worth mentioning that this a metaphor: I am not suggesting that there are either individual prophets or groups of prophets wandering from town to town performing fortune telling under the guise of prophetic ministry just to make a living. I’m sure that does occasionally happen, but again: that’s not the primary warning here.

These days, we have a large number of traveling prophets, visiting town after town, prophesying. I would expect that, like the gypsies of old, they were tempted to declare what people wanted to hear in order to generate better offerings, but again, that’s not the primary warning here.

The warning is to guard against depending on prophetic words from traveling prophetic ministries who have no root, no stake in this region. There is good that can come from visiting prophetic ministries, even from ministries that we don’t well know; the warning is against depending on those.

And this is a warning to the church; I am confident that this is a warning to the church in my region; I suggest you ask the Holy Spirit if it’s a warning to the church in your region as well. Fundamentally, this is a warning that the primary prophetic voice in our region must not be from traveling ministries. Our primary prophetic voice needs to come from the prophetic people of our own region.

Thirty years ago, there were a relatively large number of traveling evangelists. They’d come into town, hold a week or two worth of meetings, collect that many offerings, and move on to the next town. A few people came to Christ, more folks renewed forgotten vows, and some of the saints were encouraged. Sometimes.

But it was not an uncommon occurrence that the evangelist would say some things that confused some of the sheep. In my community, the departure of an evangelist would leave uncertain saints worrying about “Can a Christian really have a demon?” or “Can I really lose my salvation?” “Am I really in danger of hell after all these years?”

Pastors would talk with respect about some of the evangelists; others, they said, would “Blow in, blow up, and blow out!” and the pastors would be left to clean up the messes, soothe their worried sheep and answer their difficult and sometimes unnecessary questions.

In our generation, we have more prophets than evangelists blowing into town, declaring a prophetic sermon, prophesying with varying degrees of accuracy over several people in the audience, collecting the requisite number of offerings, and blowing on to the next town. Again, the pastors are left to clean up the messes, soothe their worried sheep and answer their difficult and sometimes unnecessary questions. These days, the questions include, “The prophet said this would happen; why isn’t it happening?” and “Why won’t the pastor recognize me in the role the prophet said I am called to?”

In other words, there are a number of pastoral problems with the church depending on traveling prophetic ministers. In order to deal with the pastoral questions, there is a temptation to reject the traveling prophetic ministry; I’m not sure that’s the right solution.

But there are also significant apostolic problems when the church depends heavily on traveling prophetic ministers, particularly when she depends on un-connected gypsy presbyteries. Some examples:

· If we don’t stand up and take responsibility for hearing what God has to say for our region, then why should we expect people who have no investment in the region to labor to hear God’s heart for our region?

· Prophetic words often don’t come to pass by themselves; we need to labor with them: fighting for the promises, fighting with the promises. Prophets who blow into town, declare a word (even a good word) and then are gone to the next town cannot labor to birth the word that’s been declared.

· If we depend on guest speakers for our prophetic declarations, then what happens when we need to hear from God and there is no guest speaker in town this weekend?

· When a church, a region, depends on others to bring the word of the Lord for them, then they have no motivation, no reason to raise up their own prophetic community. The church is justly famous for teaching on the gift of encouragement, the gift of giving and others; recently, the church has begun teaching on the gift of prophecy and how to hear God’s voice, but how often has either a congregation or the church of a region taught the people of their own region about how to walk in the difficult office of a prophet?

· If there are no prophets raised up and recognized in the region, then how will the church of the region recognize and stand up to the agenda of darkness and declare, “You shall not pass!” As a result, the region stands with weakened defenses.

If we are to be a healthy people, we need to develop a measure of strength in all of the gifts in our region. We will do well to welcome traveling prophetic ministries, but we need to develop lasting relationships with them; fortunately, in this generation, it’s very possible to build lasting, distant relationships.

I believe the Spirit of God is calling for maturity in the prophetic (in all of the gifts, really). It’s time to raise up mature prophetic communities in our region, communities that have the maturity to declare the word of God to our region, both to the church and to the “secular” community, communities that are self-replicating, raising up their replacements, communities that can discern and judge the declarations of the gypsy presbyteries.

From Northwest Prophetic.

Graham Cooke - False vs Poor Prophecy

We were greatly impacted by this discussion with Graham Cook on the nature of prophecy. He not only provides a framework for judging prophecy but describes prophecy that flows from the heart of the Father and reveals His work of redemption and reconciliation in the world.