Upon the top of Mt. Carmel in the 9th Century B.C., Elijah stared down the prophets of Ba’al and Ashera. They promised to be able to get their gods to move by decreeing and declaring positive confessions of their power. They beat their chests and screamed into the heavens. They cut themselves and bled to get their gods’ attention. They huffed and puffed and blew. But nothing happened.
Nothing happened because their gods were dumb, deaf, blind, dead idols. And Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh, mocked them.
And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
Fire never came from heaven at the inanimate and imagined hands of those gods. And for a time, they were humiliated and defeated.
Never a better example has been provided to illustrate the futile hopelessness, ineffectual impotence, and fraudery of sub-Christian charismaticism than that.
Perceived as having the greatest supernatural power among today’s self-professed modern day Apostles, Kenneth Copeland, Cindy Jacobs, Shawn Bolz, Rodney Howard Browne, and Lou Engle – all associated with the New Apostolic Reformation – have decreed and declared an end to coronavirus.
These false prophets have beat their chest until they’re bruised, without an answer from the Almighty. They have screamed toward the heavens, without response. They have given prophecy after prophecy and interpreted dream after dream, without a single instance of prophetic accuracy or apostolic power. They are prophets without power, apostles without authority, and clouds without water.
These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots (Jude 1:2).
Kenneth Copeland claims to control the weather. Bill Johnson claims to make the blind see. Todd White claims to raise the dead. Mike Bickel claims to tell the future.
But none of these men or women – not a single one – prophesied that coronavirus was coming. No, not one.
Like a parade of fortune-telling soothsayers and crystal ball-gazing seers, a multitudinous flood of charismatic prophets issued declarations about what would be coming in the year 2020. And on our horizon is the greatest health crisis of the last hundred years. Coronavirus will change, and already has changed, the world. Economies are collapsing. Entire industries are going under. Whole markets are faltering. People are panicking. Grocery stores are bare.
And yet not one, not a single one, of these prophets saw it coming.
As the coronavirus began to make headlines, with few knowing the scope and trajectory of this illness, charismatic prophets like Bethel’s Shawn Bolz claimed “the tide was turning.” Patricia King declared it illegal and demanded it cease and desist. Rodney Howard Browne claimed his power would keep it from America. Others said that Christians were immune altogether.
And yet, not one, not a single one, of these faith-healers have healed a single person of coronavirus. Heck, Bethel Church won’t even touch people with coronavirus, having canceled their hospital healing trips, healing rooms, and faith-healing worship services.
Not only has God proven through the coronavirus that these charlatans cannot heal – no have they ever healed – something like cancer, they don’t even have the power to heal a respiratory virus. Not only do they refuse to go into hospitals to heal, they won’t even let the sick come unto them. They are huddling in their own quarantines, hiding under a blanket of their own prophetic impotence.
Might God use coronavirus to wipe the plague of charismaticism off the map and sweep these charlatans into the dustbin of history. Might God place the entire world into a quarantine against the Satanic false claims of charismaticism and innoculate us against their devilish assertions. Might God rid the world of every last one of them.
For their god is either talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
