Prophecy XV

 Some people receive a true word of prophecy, but because they don’t like what God has to say to them, they set out to do everything within their minuscule, unimpressive power to prove God wrong. Such was the case with Ahab, who, upon hearing the word of the Lord, did not relent or change his plans, but took it upon himself to ensure that the prophecy would not come to pass.

Micaiah had told him in no uncertain terms that if he went to war, he would fall. He likewise told the king that, contrary to what the four hundred prophets had said, victory would not be theirs that day; Israel would be scattered like sheep without a shepherd, but all Ahab managed to hear was the confirmation of his bias against Micaiah, because here he was, given the chance to cosign what others had said, and instead, once again, like clockwork, he had prophesied evil concerning him rather than good.

Even when a prophecy is of a personal nature, it’s not personal. God’s not trying to get your goad; He’s not trying to embarrass you in front of your friends; He doesn’t have a bone to pick with you, nor did He single you out before a congregation to make an example of you. His love for you is what anchors the word of warning or correction, and if you refuse to see it, bitterness is sure to follow.

If I see my daughters doing something I am certain will be detrimental to their well-being, if they are about to hurt themselves somehow, even if they don’t see it because they have neither the experience nor the maturity level to do so, telling them to stop isn’t hating them or picking on them; it’s loving them enough to warn them of the danger they’re placing themselves in.

So what was Micaiah’s recompense for speaking a true word from the Lord? He got slapped around by one of the four hundred prophets, mocked, and sent by Ahab to the governor and the king’s son to be put in prison and fed with the bread and water of affliction until he returned in peace.

Micaiah had spoken the truth, but Ahab had not believed it. He was certain of his invincibility, to the point that, other than putting him in prison and feeding him bread and water, he would deal with Micaiah upon his return. Then Micaiah delivered one of the coldest lines you’ll ever hear or read anywhere: “If you ever return in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me.”

Pride, arrogance, and hubris played their part in Ahab’s decision, but no matter how full of himself he was, hearing those words should have given him reason to pause.

If Ahab truly believed Micaiah was a false prophet, and all he’d said was out of dislike for him as a person, then he would have taken no measures to keep the word from coming to pass. He would have stood side by side with Jehoshaphat at the head of their armies, the tip of the spear, resolute and unafraid because four hundred prophets had ensured victory.

Instead, he came up with a plan, one that reeked of cowardice and not a little fear.

1 Kings 22:30, “And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘I will disguise myself and go into battle; but you put on your robes.’ So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle.”

Men will go to great lengths to ensure that the warnings God has given them will not come to pass except for doing the one thing God said they must do in order to avoid disaster, which is to repent. Had Ahab repented in sackcloth and ash, had he heeded the word of the Lord and not gone to battle, this moment in Israel’s history would have had a different outcome.

If I show contrition, if I repent, then I would be admitting to sin. I would be admitting to rebellion. I would be admitting I’m not the man I pretended to be, so I’ll pretend to be someone else instead, put off my robes, and take the armor of another, and that way they’ll never know it’s me.

As they arrayed for battle, the king of Syria had one command for the captains of his chariots, some thirty-eight in number: “Fight no one small or great, but only with the king of Israel.” Evidently, he knew enough of warcraft to know that if you take out command and control, if you are able to fell the general or the king, then the rest of the army is easy prey. There are so many practical and spiritual applications we can draw from this story, whether the reality that you can’t trick God, or that you can do a thousand other things, but if you fail to do the one thing He commanded, it’s still disobedience; to the more obvious, that even the best-laid plans and manmade defenses will not deter God from carrying out His plans.

I wonder what was going through Ahab’s mind as he saw the Syrian army chase after Jehoshaphat while he stood in his chariot, disguised as just another soldier. My plan is working. I’ll show that Micaiah; he thought he could scare me, but I’m smarter.

Then a certain man drew his bow at random, loosed his arrow, and struck the king of Israel between the joints of his armor. He wasn’t aiming at him; he hadn’t recognized him. A random act in the heat of battle sealed Ahab’s fate that day, and all his plans and dreams of conquest bled out of him as he realized that you can’t spite God, and the man you hated for speaking the truth to you was only doing what the Lord had commanded him to do.

By the time the arrow struck him between the joints of his armor, it was too late for redress. Ahab died propped up in his chariot, facing the Syrian army, and his pride, hubris, and rebellion bled out of him with every crimson droplet that hit the floor of that chariot. It is the great folly of man that only once it’s too late does he see the error of his ways.

1 Kings 22:37-38, “So the king died and was brought to Samaria. And they buried the king in Samaria. Then someone washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria, and the dogs licked up his blood while the harlots bathed, according to the word of the Lord which He had spoken.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Prophecy XIV

 If a word of prophecy attempts to excuse sin, duplicity, or rebellion, no matter how good it may make you feel in the moment, know that it was not a true word of prophecy. God will not speak something through a vessel that is contrary to His word, His nature, and His righteousness. When you know there are issues in your life that require repentance, yet the word you received speaks nothing of it, it’s not God giving you a pass; it’s the enemy trying to make you comfortable and at ease in your current condition so that he might more securely ensnare you.

There is always a compounding ripple effect when someone believes a word that is not from the Lord, or that is contrary to the Bible itself. It’s not a one-and-done proposition, because believing a lie as truth will affect how you proceed from that point forward. The world is magnetic, sin is magnetic, rebellion is magnetic, and if someone believes God has given them permission to stop resisting evil, to go with the flow and let themselves be buoyed along, the pace at which they distance themselves from truth and light will only increase.

What once seemed anathema becomes a common practice, and what once was deemed sin because the Bible calls it sin is treated as acceptable. It all started with the supposed word from the Lord they received, insisting God has become more lenient, that the rules no longer apply, that there are no guardrails or standards for those who call themselves sons or daughters of the Most High.

It’s likely that Ahab conflated the positive words of the four hundred prophets with God’s own approbation of him and his actions. Why would God promise victory if I were truly living in rebellion? Why would God promise a breakthrough, or that I would be a prophetic voice to the nations, if what I’m doing was so bad? You see how that works? You see how subtle, devilishly deceptive, and duplicitous the enemy can be?

We see it from the serpent’s first interaction with God’s creation in the garden. The serpent didn’t come out and demand that Eve eat of the forbidden fruit; he asked questions meant to sow doubt in her heart as to what God meant, or whether He meant what He said.

Is it really a baby or a clump of cells? If it’s your body, why shouldn’t it be your choice as to what you do with that clump of cells if it isn’t really a baby? Well, yes, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaped upon Mary’s greeting, but that’s just anecdotal, isn’t it? And so we stray, further and further from the truth, to the point that we’ve given ourselves permission to murder a baby up until the point of birth without thinking anything of it.

We are where we are because we entertained the question that the serpent posed to Eve: “Has God indeed said?” Why change your approach if it’s still working? If it’s not broken, why try to fix it? Sure, you can improve upon it; you can get compromised individuals posing as shepherds of God’s people to co-sign and validate the wickedness, but the genesis of it all was still that seemingly innocuous question: Has God indeed said? Even if He did, did He really mean it, or was He just having a bad day? Even if He meant it, doesn’t it seem a bit legalistic?

Doubt, drip by miserable drip, poisons the hearts of the innocent, strengthens the hand of the wicked, and makes the hearts of the righteous sad with lies. Some have lived the lie for so long that the truth is alien to them. Their instinctual reaction to it is all the clue you need to know where they are spiritually, and though all you’re doing is quoting Scripture verbatim, they rage and gnash while insisting they are the bride of Christ, spotless and unblemished.

We’ve gone from calling murder what it is to simply stating that it’s not God’s best, as though it’s no more egregious than getting second place at the regional spelling bee competition for failing to spell kumquat. False prophecy does not occur in a vacuum, and neither does believing it. It has both real-world and eternal consequences.

Perhaps if more people professing to be the body of Christ believed what the Bible says about the return of Christ, and not what some dreamer of dreams insists is the truth, less of us would be as indifferent, purposeless, apathetic, and checked out, just waiting around, bags packed, checking our watches and wondering why we’re still here.

If the attitude of your heart isn’t right before God, expecting a word from the Lord other than to repent and seek His face isn’t simply unrealistic or improbable, but impossible.

Consider that once Micaiah was summoned and repeatedly asked to tell the truth of what he heard from the Lord, he finally relented and said that the Lord had put a lying spirit in the mouths of Ahab’s prophets because the Lord had declared a disaster against him.

Seeking words of prophecy to validate or approve of things you know the Word of God does not, ignoring the call of repentance because you do not desire it, and going on to seek another word that makes no demands but promises breakthroughs is a form of tempting God to the point that He may allow a lying spirit to tell you exactly what you want to hear for having not heeded His warnings and reproofs.

“Lord, should I marry this girl or this man?”

“Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.”

“But Lord, she’s so pretty, or he’s so handsome; are you sure?”

And you get the same answer not once, or twice, but three or four times. God confirms it multiple times, and still you persist in seeking a different answer to the same question because you don’t want to hear what the Lord has to say; you want the Lord to say what you want Him to say. Finally, you hear, “do as you will”, and you think to yourself that you’ve worn God down; He finally saw it your way, and years down the line, when all that remains is ash and ruin, you shake your fist at God and demand an answer to why things went so sideways.

If you ask and God answers, the matter is concluded. He doesn’t stutter. He is not double-minded, nor is He double-tongued. Even if the answer you receive isn't the answer you hoped for or wanted to hear, it was nevertheless the answer God gave to your query, and you must accept it as such.      

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Prophecy XIII

 Even reprobate as he was, Ahab did not insinuate that what Micaiah had prophesied to him in the past was not of the Lord. He didn’t call him a false prophet, nor did he insist that what he had previously prophesied had not come to pass. His only metric was that whenever Micaiah prophesied concerning him, it was never good, but evil.

There was not an ounce of introspection, acknowledgment, or humility in Ahab’s statement. He did not look within his heart to see what needed to be removed, purged, weeded out, or done away with. His response to what Micaiah had prophesied was purely emotional. When someone responds to a word of prophetic warning from a place of emotion and feeling rather than objective self-analysis, they will always reject the truth, grow bitter toward it, and grow bitter toward the one delivering the hard truth.

Even when the truth hurts, God warns out of love. As long as He is still warning an individual or a nation, there remains the possibility of redress, of repentance, of turning from the path that will lead to the judgment and destruction sure to come if no change is forthcoming. It’s when God leaves men to the desires of their hearts, when they can do as they will unbidden, that their destruction is assured and unavoidable.

When God calls out iniquity or calls a person or a nation to repentance, He’s not aiming at hurting your feelings, and your feelings should never enter the equation to begin with. If anything, we ought to rejoice when God corrects us, knowing that He chastens those He loves. Some people have never been told no in their entire lives, and the way they react to God’s correction proves it. Rather than becoming tender of heart, they grow brittle and combative, trying to convince God that He was wrong in His rebuke, that it was unwarranted and unnecessary.

If you’re trying to convince an omniscient God that He missed something, you’re going to lose that particular debate. If you start pointing to others and what they are doing as a reason you should be allowed to do it too, or demanding that God correct them in kind, you’re missing the forest for the trees.

The wheat and the tares are allowed to grow together until the time of harvest. Then He will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

We are where we are because we’ve allowed the feelings of individuals to dictate whether we preach and teach the whole counsel of God, and with every compromise preachers, teachers, and evangelists make in watering down the Gospel, the goalpost is moved, and even greater compromise is called for and demanded.

It’s like a spiraling slide, wherein once you start going down it, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to stop. One compromise will inevitably lead to another, because the more permissive you become, the more willing you are to twist the Word of God into a pretzel that allows for everything under the sun while ensuring a first-class ticket to heaven, the more your ministry will grow, the more your pews will overflow, and the more your coffers will burgeon with those sweet, sweet gifts and offerings.

If ever the intent was to rightly divide the Word of truth, it has now fully transitioned to pandering to the majority and doing your utmost not to ruffle feathers or hurt feelings, because angry people aren’t great givers, and there’s always the church across the street.

It all comes back to the question God posed through the prophet Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 5:31, “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?”

We can lie to ourselves, we can delude ourselves, we can ignore Scripture, convincing ourselves that since a majority of denominations are doing something or allowing something, then it overrides the Word of God, but that only lasts until the reapers come and they begin to separate the wheat from the tares. The end tells the tale, and the question remains: what will we do in that end?

For now men prophesy falsely; for now men make up doctrine out of whole cloth without any scriptural foundation or underpinning, and my, how the people love to have it so. Their hearts were never truly surrendered, their flesh was never truly crucified, and now they have found the one to give them permission to do as they will without being convicted or called to repentance. How glorious; how wonderful; what a magnificent concept.

I can have my cake and eat it too; I can live a life of half-measures, lukewarmness, indifference, apathy, and a lack of devotion and righteousness, and still sing when the saints come marching in, believing I will be among them. Did the Bible say it? No, obviously not, but the guy whose outfit costs more than my car, prancing on the stage and using all manner of props, said as much, and I’m going to believe him instead.  

This was Ahab’s attitude when it came to Micaiah. There’s one guy who never says good things about me, and then there are four hundred lickspittles who will cosign everything I desire. In my heart, I know I’m not doing as I ought; I know I’ve been living in rebellion, but four hundred prophets can’t be wrong. Maybe I’ve just been too hard on myself. Perhaps it’s not God calling me to repentance, but my inbred guilt talking.

What if, when Jesus said we must strive or agonize to enter through the narrow gate, it wasn’t so much an instruction as a slip of the tongue, an artistic flourish, something He didn’t really mean? After all, so many pastors, preachers, and evangelists insinuate as much, don’t they? Could they all be so wrong, so misguided, so myopic? Surely overwhelming consensus equates to truth. Four hundred out of four hundred, with not one dissenting voice, except for the one guy who has a penchant for being the fly in the ointment and never prophesying good concerning me, but evil.        

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Prophecy XII

 Another misconception regarding prophecy is that it’s somehow ruled by democratic fiat. More people agree than disagree with the word; therefore, it must be true. One lone voice against a chorus of voices saying the opposite is suspect, especially if that lone voice is saying things that scour the heart or bring warning of God’s displeasure against an individual or a nation that knows itself to have surrendered to rebellion and hypocrisy.

If a prophecy originates from God and is faithfully delivered by a chosen servant, how many give it a thumbs up versus a thumbs down is as irrelevant as how many Instagram followers you have, or how many people hearted your latest hot take on topics you know nothing about but feel as though you must expound upon because it’s the newest thing to go mega viral and you want to be part of it.

When you're burdened with delivering a prophetic warning or message, nothing matters except delivering it without adding to it, taking away from it, or letting your biases color it in any way. I can promise you none of the Old Testament prophets who had to deliver words of warning or judgment felt good about it. They did not revel in the idea of their people being subjugated, mistreated, taken into bondage, or vanquished by worshippers of strange gods or idols.

They were likely cognizant enough to realize that the prophecy they were delivering would affect them in some form or fashion, whether directly or indirectly, whether through retaliation from those they were tasked with prophesying to, or the effects of the fulfillment of the word they spoke.

It’s not as though, when Jeremiah prophesied about the coming Babylonian destruction and exile, he thought himself exempt from it, or that he would be spared and left to live out his days in peace and harmony on a plot of land somewhere. He was among them and knew full well that if the word came to pass, he would suffer along with his countrymen.

That his countrymen chose to persecute him for the words he delivered was likewise unsurprising because all one needed to do was look to those who came before and see how they fared to get an idea of what was coming.

Acts 7:51-53, “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.”

Stephen’s words were not only an indictment that made those who heard them gnash their teeth at him, but also a synopsis of how the prophets were treated throughout the centuries. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? This wasn’t a question that demanded an answer; it was rhetorical. Stephen wasn’t trying to test their knowledge of the prophets, but to point out the reality that not one prophet of God had escaped persecution.

The only ones to escape persecution were the false prophets, and those always outnumbered the true prophets of God.

One of the most one-sided examples in the Bible occurred when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah and Ahab was king of Israel. Three years without war seemed a bit of a stretch, so when Jehoshaphat came to visit the king of Israel, the first item on the agenda was whether they should go to war against Syria and take Ramoth in Gilead.

Given that Jehoshaphat was a man of faith who believed and obeyed God, before agreeing to go to war, he asked the king of Israel to inquire of the word of the Lord.

After gathering the prophets together, some four hundred, all told, and asking whether he should go to war or refrain, the answer was unanimous: “Go up, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.”

That should have settled it. Four hundred voices insisted that victory was theirs, no one dissenting, and Ahab was likely all smiles by this point. Then Jehoshaphat asked something that reveals how discerning he truly was. Men often confuse skepticism with discernment, and the two are not the same.

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve always been naturally skeptical, but not to the degree I’m at currently. Life’s hard lessons have not only made skepticism necessary, but have grown it. That said, I don’t rely on skepticism; rather, I rely on discernment when it comes to spiritual matters, words of prophecy, or the proclamations of individuals insisting they are prophets of the Lord and should be heard and obeyed.

If you have discernment, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s that sense that even though the individual is saying all the right things, something you can’t quite put your finger on, or momentarily identify, is off, ringing hollow, or striking a discordant note somehow.

Jehoshaphat was sensitive enough to give his discernment a voice, and even though the words of the prophets were in line, unanimous, and harmonious, something felt wrong. And so, he asked a simple question, to which he received an unexpectedly vitriolic answer: “Is there not still a prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of Him?”

The one whom Jehoshaphat wanted to inquire of was not the prophet, but God. He wasn’t looking for a four hundred and first opinion. He was looking for a true word from the Lord, whatever that might be.

If you want to hear a word from the Lord, a true word, and not some general affirmation or validation of your lukewarmness, you cannot dictate terms as to what that word should be, or how it will frame you in the eyes of those you hope to impress with God’s praise of you.

1 Kings 22:8, “So the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘There is still one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord; but I hate him because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.’”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Prophecy XI

 If you were working a nine-to-five for ten bucks an hour and someone handed you a hundred-dollar bill, sure, you might hold it up to the light as most people do, but if you had the money marker pen handy, you wouldn’t risk it being a counterfeit; you would use it and know with certainty. That’s ten hours of your pay that would get docked if it turned out it wasn’t authentic, and you failed to use the thing that would’ve proven it conclusively, one way or the other.

How much more cautious should we be with prophecy? Some people don’t just lose ten hours of their time, but years upon years, believing something someone said to be a word from the Lord, and building their entire future around it, only to discover that, no, Jesus isn’t contractually obligated to return on the date they said He would, just because they said it. What could they have done with the time they squandered, had they gone to Scripture and believed what it said: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”

Likewise, just because someone says they have a word from the Lord for you doesn’t guarantee it is, in fact, from the Lord. Just because the words someone spoke over you make you feel warm and fuzzy, promising prosperity, influence, blessing, and all manner of earthly things, doesn’t mean they came from God. We tend to reject true, corrective words of prophecy and embrace those that praise and elevate us, because human nature is predisposed to receiving accolades rather than chastening.

Lamentations 2:14, “Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captives, but have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.”

It’s not a new thing. Men have always gravitated toward praise rather than correction, even when correction was necessary. God doesn’t mince words when it comes to those who take it upon themselves to speak glowing words to those hungering for affirmation or validation. He doesn’t call them His prophets or the prophets; the distinction is made clear that it’s their prophets, the people’s prophets, those to whom they lent their ears because they prophesied good things. What they spoke was not of divine origin, but from their own bellies. The words they gave were of their own making rather than a message from God, and because they were neither challenged nor chastened, the people loved it.  

Your prophets have seen false and deceptive visions for you, so when the opposite of what they promised happens, don’t blame God or shake your fist at Him. It’s not God who lied; it’s the men you ran to hoping they would tell you something contrary to Scripture or give you liberties the Word does not.

Why does every word of prophecy nowadays have to do with how great you are, how great you’re doing, and how great the calling on your life is? Everyone and their pet pug is either called to be an evangelist to the nations or a prophet to the nations because being a servant in your local congregation just doesn’t cut it anymore. We want the big titles, the big callings, and the privileges we’ve been duped into believing come along with them. Who duped us into believing that the title of prophet affords you exclusive benefits? The same people who claim these titles and insist you should treat them with the same reverence you would Jesus. It’s almost euphoric having people defer to you, treat you like royalty, call you prophet or apostle, and you seem not to mind that it’s become about you rather than Jesus.

It is the snare the countless souls have fallen into, one that not only ensures a shameful downfall for the man or woman who sees themselves as something more than a servant, but also wounds the souls and shipwrecks the faith of those who bought into the lie that by claiming a title the individual was more special than the rest.

No one questions why modern-day prophecy doesn’t call anyone to repentance or uncover their iniquity because it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. Why rock the boat or kick over a hornet’s nest when all you’ll have to show for it is angry letters about how you’re not supposed to touch God’s anointed?

But are they God’s anointed? Are they His prophets if they haven't heard from Him, yet speak flattering things in His name to lukewarm people who lap up the slop as though it were a fine feast?

Don’t blame God for things He didn’t do or expect Him to keep words He’s never given.

As God warned through Jeremiah, the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power, and His people love to have it so. Why, I wonder? Because a true word from God will address the pressing issues of your life, and humble you to your core. Because a true word of God is not a pep session where He praises you while you’re sitting on His lap braiding His beard.

Any promise of future national glory without addressing the iniquity among God’s people is, at best, wishful thinking and, at worst, a flagrant lie, knowingly disseminated because telling people it’s going to be all right is likelier to get them to open their wallets than telling them judgment is at the door is ever going to. Either way, God is not in it. He did not speak it, and the message did not originate from Him!

But it sounds so good, and hopeful, and full of promise. Even so, it’s still a lie. And because you put your trust in men’s words and believed them to be God’s words, when they don't materialize, your faith will be shaken, and your conviction will wane.

Even if it gives you hope in the moment, it’s artificial, a bubble that will eventually burst, and what you have left is less than what you had before you took the bait and believed your prophets over what the Word of God says.

The message of the hour is still repentance, as it has always been, and anyone insisting that we can have God's favor, blessing, and protection while bypassing repentance, whether as individuals or a nation, is lying to your face while you’re elevating him to sainthood for it.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Prophecy X

 The validity or veracity of a prophecy doesn’t hinge on peer reviews, how many bear witness to it in their spirit, or how popular the individual delivering it is, but only on whether it’s in harmony with God’s Word. Does it do what prophecy is meant to do, which is to edify, exhort, comfort, warn, foretell some future event, correct, rebuke, and draw the individual toward repentance, righteousness, and sanctification?

Any supposed prophetic word that doesn’t fall into one of these categories can be dismissed outright, no matter who insists that they are hearing from the Lord. How does someone knowing my dog’s name edify, exhort, comfort, warn, correct, rebuke, or stir repentance in my heart? How does their knowing the name of the street I live on, or my long-dead great-grandmother’s name, do any of the aforementioned things we know, biblically, prophecy is supposed to do?

If you’re looking for parlor tricks, plenty of mentalist shows in Vegas do that. If you want to be impressed by someone’s knowledge of your family tree, plenty of websites will tell you where your people originate from, how they migrated to where they ended up, and everything in between.

On the conservative end, the Old Testament contains over three hundred prophecies about the birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Other, more generous estimates number closer to 550. It took over four hundred years for the last prophecy regarding the birth of Jesus to be fulfilled, and close to a thousand years from the first.

It boggles the mind and humbles the soul of man to consider such a thing, but what gets overlooked in the grandeur of some 48 prophecies being fulfilled by His birth alone, and over 300 throughout His life, is that those contemporary with the generation in which Jesus was born knew the scriptures well enough to identify them, harken back to them, and acknowledge their fulfillment.

Know your Bible. Know what it says for yourself, not what others say the Bible says, whether regarding prophecy, the end times, the supremacy of Christ, the last days, or how a believer ought to conduct themselves as strangers in a strange land, because in knowing what Scripture says, you will more readily be able to identify when someone speaks a thing which the Scripture does not say, trying to pass it off as the truth.

Those who claimed to be prophets of the Lord had the bona fides to back up their claims, from possessing the authority granted to them to prophesying events that came to pass, to living lives honoring to the God they served.

It was never about image, popularity, or consensus; it was about faithfully delivering the message they were tasked with delivering, and more often than not, to their own personal detriment. If you stood before a king or someone of great authority, it doesn’t take a genius to deduce that you would more readily be received and honored if you were to prophesy that their kingdom would grow and flourish rather than that God would snatch it out of their hand and all that they’d built would come to ruin.

The men of courage and boldness whom God called to prophesy in the Old Testament knew full well that they would stir the ire of individuals who had the authority to make their lives miserable, and even end them violently if they were to deliver the words they received unredacted and unfiltered, yet they did it nonetheless.

We often refer to the words of prophecy Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, Zechariah, or any of the others delivered, but rarely consider what it personally cost them to do so. For faithfully delivering the word of the Lord, Isaiah was placed in a hollow tree and sawed in two at the order of King Manasseh. For speaking the word of the Lord as instructed, Jeremiah was put in stocks, publicly humiliated, beaten, and thrown into a muddy dungeon, only to be stoned to death in Egypt. Zechariah was stoned to death by King Joash for his unflinching faithfulness, and Amos had to flee for his life for preaching against Israel’s idolatry, meeting his end when he was tortured to death by a priest of Bethel.

If you want to prophesy thinking it will bring you honor and accolades, look back on those who came before you and realize the only ones that were esteemed, honored, elevated, and praised by the people were the false prophets who tickled ears and promised all would be well even though the people had strayed from God and gave themselves over to idols.

Those who delivered a true word from the Lord, whether a word of warning, judgment, or the insistence that they must repent and cast aside their idols lest the wrath of God come upon them, were not as readily embraced, because killing the messenger, thinking it would invalidate the message, has always been a viable option for those unwilling to submit themselves to the will, purpose, and authority of God.

By using the Biblical litmus test, and seeing how true men of God were treated throughout, we can rightly deduce that most of what passes for prophecy today isn’t, and most of those insisting they are prophets aren’t.

That’s not to say true prophecy does not exist. Wherever the counterfeit, or the false, exists, the true, authentic, and real will also exist; if there wasn’t true prophecy, there would be no need for false prophecy. The US dollar is counterfeited because it exists, is real, and serves as legal tender. If it didn’t, then anyone could point to it, laugh, and conclude that it was funny money.

The purpose of a counterfeit is to create something almost identical to the real thing, so much so that you could pass it off for the real thing. If you’ve held enough dollars, whatever the denominations, you will know the counterfeit by feel. Those in doubt can always avail themselves of the counterfeit detector pens, those things that grocery stores are fond of checking large bills with, because even if you might have been tricked by the feel of it, the pen doesn’t lie.

The Bible works like the money marker pen. It is the counterfeit detector. You may feel something is authentic or true, but if the pen tells you it isn’t, then it isn’t, no matter how close it may be to the real thing. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Prophecy IX

Chances are there were individuals in Joel’s time who rolled their eyes and proceeded to say something snarky about how what Joel had prophesied was nothing more than wishful thinking. Everyone knows God doesn’t do that; I mean, could you imagine sons and daughters, men and women, old and young, prophesying, having visions, and having dreams? Why, that’s unheard of. We know how things work. Whenever needed, God raises up a prophet; they prophesy, we ignore it because we don’t like what they have to say, and inevitably what they prophesy comes to pass because we refuse to heed the warning. That’s what we’re used to, and God can only do what we are comfortable with. Anything beyond that is suspect. Sound familiar? It should. People are people, and the way they react to new information that takes them out of their comfort zone doesn’t change from generation to generation.

There were likely scoffers in Joel’s day who became more vocal and belligerent the more time passed, and there was no evident outpouring. Sons and daughters weren’t prophesying, young men weren’t seeing visions, the old weren’t having dreams, there was no increase in prophecy, and the passing of time only emboldened them in their renunciations. Five centuries is a long time to wait for the fulfillment of a prophecy, at least to man, but to God it’s mere moments. To put it in context, the least time that could have passed between Joel’s prophecy and its fulfillment was twice as long as America has been a nation.

Another thing that few take into account is that the prophecy itself survived and was circulated by word of mouth for all that time, so that when it was fulfilled, Peter could harken back to it and confirm its fulfillment. There was no database with all the prophecies prophets had uttered over time; no mass pamphlets were printed; you couldn’t just log on to a website and access it for a small fee. Joel’s prophecy survived through the centuries because God willed it.

Nathan the prophet wrote an entire book that has been lost to time. It’s mentioned twice in First Chronicles and Second Chronicles, but as far as what it contained, we will never know. We can debate whether Joel was a more prominent figure than Nathan, and when allowing for their influence during the time they lived, it’s not a stretch to conclude they were on equal footing, even though Nathan had access to the king, while Joel never mentions any.

What’s the point? The point is simple, really, that God, in His sovereignty, established what would remain and be remembered from generation to generation, and what would be lost to time. He established what would be included within the canon of Scripture, and what would be left out. For anyone to insist that something that shouldn’t be within the pages of Scripture somehow made its way in, or that something which should be included was somehow left out, is to question both the sovereignty and omnipotence of the God we serve.

1 Corinthians 14:1-5, “Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries. But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied; for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks in tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification.”

Does this mean that everyone who desires to prophesy will prophesy? It is, after all, what Paul instructed: to desire spiritual gifts, especially that we might prophesy. The short answer is no. Not everyone who desires to prophesy will prophesy, because, ultimately, God is the gift-giver, and He chooses whom He endows with that specific gift. In modern terms, you don’t get every job you apply for, and you may not get the position you desire even if you get hired.

Desiring to prophesy is biblical, and Paul even encourages it, but we must ask ourselves why we desire it. Is it to speak edification, exhortation, and comfort, or because the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues? God already knows the answer. He knows the intent behind the desire, and if it is to glorify self rather than Him, if it is to see ourselves superior in some way, though we may desire it, because it will be detrimental to our spiritual growth, God will say no.

You can’t bribe, coerce, threaten, or purchase your way to prophecy. It is God, via the Holy Spirit, who chooses specific servants for specific tasks, then equips them with the gifting necessary to carry out said task. The one thing incumbent upon us is to keep ourselves pure and undefiled, walk humbly with our Lord, serve Him in spirit and in truth, and be willing to serve in a greater capacity if He so chooses.

What we must likewise be aware of is that with a greater calling comes greater responsibility, as well as a bigger bullseye painted on our back. The devil doesn’t bother those already doing his will. He leaves those spreading deception, false doctrine, or false prophecy to their devices, knowing that they’re doing his bidding. He targets those who desire to serve, obey, and follow Jesus, not out of ulterior motives or vested interests, but because they’ve surrendered their lives to Him in their entirety. The enemy attempts to disspirit, dishearten, and destroy the faithful, not those who sow division and confusion, because they help achieve his end goal: a weakened, divided, distracted, and compromised church.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.