The mission of a prophet – Pastor Kim, Yong Doo
To test a person’s honesty, the role of a swindler needs to be revealed. The spiritual swindler is much more dangerous than any physical swindler of this world. These spiritual swindlers are more dangerous than the dictators of even the communist countries. Who are these people? In the bible, there are people who are dreadfully deceived and deluded. They are the false prophets.
The false prophets exist all over the world. They have disguised themselves with various false gifts, supernatural experiences, and position. What is a prophet? They are the ones who possess and deliver God’s word. But these false prophets have not received any absolute authority and yet, they deliver false messages to the people as though their words are God’s.
The bible said that we all have a responsibility to discern these false prophets. When the blind lead the blind, both of them will fall into the pit. Yes, it is a problem when a blind leads with his or her selfish interest. But the greater problem is when the people who follow these blind people.
So, it is necessary for us to discern if a particular ministry or word benefits us or not and to discern whether the voice I hear is truly the voice of God or not. Even if one speaks with “authority”, the person listening must discern properly if the person speaking is honest and upright. If you are not sure, at least question the person who prophesy. To question the word or prophesy is not a bad thing. When we first listen, we need to know if the given word will influence my life.
When the false prophet speaks, there is always suspicious areas within that given word without fail. The false prophets possess greed, self interest, and a wicked desire within their hearts. The people who are deceived by them can not see but yet, the people who are deceived will need to be responsible for their deception.
The pastors, missionaries, and many lay believers are deceived by evil spirits that are disguised with faith and what looks like true spiritual things. Even though the evil spirits have deceived them, the people who are deceived are deceived by their own hidden greed within their hearts. Therefore, Satan and his forces are able to work with their greed.
The words of a false prophet are soulish and flesh. When one works in the soul and flesh, they will eventually perform the works of Satan. We can easily discern between the work of the flesh and the work of the spirit. But the work of the soul and of the soulish person is difficult for us to discern. A soulish person is working in the middle or between spirit and flesh.
These type of people are NOT true spiritual ministers. The people who are led by their own “self will” will exalt themselves as they are disguised spiritually telling others that they have gone to heaven many times. Moreover, these people have not experienced any true suffering, difficulties, nor posses any self sacrifices, have have any proper identity, they disguise themselves with a false scholarship, financial disguise and tactics, mixed with self emotion, self pity and self reason.
From the outside, the false prophets speak spiritual things by telling people about heavenly experiences and prophecies mostly war. But what is the essence or root of their hearts? They do these things to exalt themselves to be honored and to be specially treated for their own glory.
Judah and Israel had many false prophets. Many of them started as God’s servants who had initially and accurately received the word of God. Some of them went to the school of prophets. Even though they started as God’s prophets, if the word of the Lord does not come upon them, they need to shut their mouths.
Even if you have gone beyond the flesh as a believer, you may however be stuck in the soulish state and you can stay that way for long time. A person’s mind, emotion, feelings and personality/character belong to the soul.
When you give service to God, yes you need to use your free will with certainty. But beyond your soulish areas such as your intellect, emotion/feeling, and will, you need to go deeper into the spiritual area and be led by the Holy Spirit. With the help of the Holy Spirit, you need to go forward as you possess humility, love, truth, sincerity and holiness, and as you die to the cross daily.
When you throw a bone to a dog, the dog will love it. The Prophet, Micah, said that false prophets will love and they will shout for you if something is thrown their way. (What they desire) False prophets are considered dogs. The false prophets do not care what happens to God’s people. What they care about is what fills their stomachs.
The false prophet are not completely lying. They speak 90 percent right/truth and the rest of the 10 percent can be lie. If a servant of God only centers around money and offering, you need to question that servant. If a servant ignores the written word Logos but only talks about Rema, or vice versa, or if a servant ignores Rema but only emphasizes about the written word Logos, either way, it is dangerous.
The false prophets are sent to our church and if slapping their faces would wake them up, I would slap their faces. So in order for us not to be deceived, we basically need to have a healthy christian life and live in healthy faith. In the book of Acts, chapter 5, there is a incident of Ananias and Sapphira. As we can see in all of our situation, we have purpose, intention, and motive whether it is good or evil.
The most important thing that we must consider is how God views it but for Ananias and Sapphira, the people’s view was more important.
Satan does not approach us with an obvious sin, but rather he come with something small. Satan comes to us with something that we are not able to see or feel. Satan comes with small lies, not obvious lies. Satan also comes and deceives us with small whispers in our hearts, feeling, self opinion, self certainty/confidence, and one’s belief. Satan grows these characteristics in us as he hunts our souls.
We need to be spiritually sincere and faithful. It is very important for us to admit our faults, mistakes, sin, and truly repent. We must admit our sin and mistakes to repent accordingly. This is a beautiful thing. The Lord preciously considers honesty, gentleness, meekness, purity, and innocence. Hallelujah!
Pastor Kim, Yong Doo
February 17, 2015