Charisma News, safe haven for every spiritual scoundrel out there, released an article on “How You Can Recognize Today’s False Prophets. The article links to a word from Pastor Jim Kibler of Life Church In Melborne, FL, where he explains how to identify false prophets in the church.
Rather than pointing to Deuteronomy 18, showing that the standard for identifying false prophets being someone who gives false prophecies “And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’—when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. ” Kibler goes in a decidedly different direction, and never once mentions false prophecies.
Rather, he offers some different markers.
1. A false prophet is someone who tells you something God didn’t tell you personally. He writes “When somebody says, ‘God sent me to help you,’ that is the red flag… if He has something to tell you, He’ll tell me.” This is because Kibler says that God talks to him directly, that he hears from God directly.
2. A false prophet is someone that accuses other people of being a false prophet. “Now so many people accuse us of being false prophets. They accuse Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, and all the spirit filed people are accused of being false prophets. Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, all those people…They’re all accused, all the time.…the people who are actually accusing everybody of being false prophets are actually false prophets themselves. “
3. False prophets are people who deny the power of the Holy Spirit as defined by Kibler “[ False prophets] believe the power of the Holy Spirit left here when the apostles left this earth, that the power of the Holy Spirit was only for the book of Acts just to initially build up the church, and then we don’t need it anymore because we have a Bible. That’s what they say: ‘We don’t need miracles anymore; we have a Bible.’
4. “Anybody who denies the baptism of the holy spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues, is a false prophet.”
5. False prophets deny the need for spiritual warfare, false prophets deny speaking in tongues and they deny modern-day healing such as raising people from the dead, walking on water, multiplying food, healings, and signs and wonders. False prophets are people who support politicians who favor killing babies, and false prophets are people who advocate socialism.
6. False prophets deny abundance and the idea that God wants to have Christians to live in super-abundance.
This last one seems to be key, based on the overall love and promotion that Charisma has of endorsing and promoting name-it-and-claim-it, prosperity preachers. As Kibler says, if someone calls out the most wretched predators operating in the Church – Copeland or Dollar for example – that makes them the false prophet, and not the money-grubber heretics giving false prophecies.
A quick perusal of some of the rest of Kibler’s podcasts reveals he has his own fascination with wealth, “super-abundance,” and the easy acquisition of any miracle one wants.
- Break The Curse That Causes Poverty (Ep. 192) 99% of the time poverty is caused by curses, and breaking the curse will make you rich.
- You Can Live In The Land of Abundance (Ep. 190) “Walk into the promised land, The Blessing of Abraham, and receive what already belongs to you.”
- How To Demand That God Bless You (Ep. 189) Exactly as it sounds.
- Spend $72.60 For A High Quality of Life ” You can quickly increase your faith, get your prayers answered and live your life on a much higher level for only $72.60.”
- Living In The Covenant of Wealth (Ep. 186) “God’s Covenant includes wealth, (More than enough) but most people Have not taken advantage of it”
- How To Cause Financial Breakthrough In Your Life (Ep. 185) Name it and claim it.
- How The Power of God is Conducted Into People (Ep. 184) God’s powers is pretty much like electricity that must be conducted, and explains how to have that power to heal you or to have prosperity.
- How I Perform Miracles Over The Phone (Ep. 183) How to get a miracle any time you need one.
- The Secret Verse That Brings Miracles (Ep. 182) ” Very few people actually know the secret of how to make a miracle happen but I know the verse. It must be a secret because very few people are performing Miracles even though the instructions are found in one simple verse in the Bible .”
- 3 Ways To Get a Healing Miracle (Ep. 181) “Healing miracles are easy to get. I can get one for you. There are actually 3 ways to get these kinds of miracles. In this episode you will learn how easy it is to get a healing miracle and to be healed of any sickness or disease.”
Thanks, Charisma. For telling us how to identify false prophets. Because we needed to know. And we’re never sarcastic…
