I have been talking over the past weeks about one particular false prophet named Harold Camping. But there have been many. And what exactly is a false prophet and how can we know who they are?
Wikipedia defines it this way:
In religion, a false prophet is a person who falsely claims the gift of prophecy or divine inspiration, or to speak for God, or who makes such claims for evil ends. Often, someone who is considered a "true prophet" by some people is simultaneously considered a "false prophet" by others, even within the same religion as the "prophet" in question. In a wider sense, it is anyone who, without having it, claims a special connection to the Deity and sets him or herself up as a source of spirituality, as an authority, preacher, or teacher.
Jesus tells us in Mathew 7:15-20
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit .A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
We can identify a false prophet by what he says or does that is contrary to the word of God. If God says for example that loves us as in John 3:16, but the person we are following is a false prophet and he beats us, we can know by his 'fruit' that he is false. His fruit would be the beatings that he is giving us. In Camping's teaching, they were told that the end of the world was coming at certain times. Not only once but several times They should have stopped listening to him at that very first so called prophesy, because of Mark 13:32 where Jesus said that "no one knows the day or the hour..." And because they didn't, he was able to steal their money, time, jobs, and even relationships. Whether he meant to do these things or not, is of little to no consequence. The fact is, he did and their loss was really his gain and should have never happened in the first place. Jesus had also said, “Take heed that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, I am he! and they will lead many astray." Mathew 24:5
One man took what what he said, about end times and ran with it. And because of it, how much damage did he do? All we have to do is look at just the amount of people in the video The Wheat And Tares on Amazon, that were on the streets during the last few days prior to May 21, 2011 with their pamphlets and signs trying to convince people of what was to take place, and we only get a small idea of just how many were effected. It did not stop there. Camping had people around the world convinced that this prediction was going to go as he said it would. How sad it is that all those people took his word to be the truth instead of what Jesus said more then 2000 years ago. Friends, we have no excuse not to know. And if we follow these kinds of leaders, and don't repent of it, one day we will stand before God and he will most likely ask why we chose to ignore his word.
So who were some of the past false prophets and what were their stories? Next time I want to start looking into some of them and give a bit of their history and what brought them to their supposed "deity." It might be interesting.
Hello, Friends. Thanks for spending time with me here today. Have a wonderfully blessed day in Jesus!
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