5 Reasons Why Calling the Election a Fraud Because Your Favorite Prophets Do Is Dangerous

I believe in Prophecy

I have made life altering decisions based on receiving a direct word from God. I pressed on in faith and prayer when things were confusing. I went back and remembered what was heard.

I believe in prayer — that it actually does stuff in the world. I have prayed desperate prayers for housing, for finances, for conflicts to be resolved, for health to be restored.

I believe God speaks to his people, that the gift of prophecy is and should be active in our churches, and that God answers prayers.

I also believe people can get it wrong

People can hear God’s word wrong, confuse God’s word with their own hopes, and confuse God’s word when they are false words from the enemy.

It is difficult work to test and approve God’s will (Rom. 12:2).

It is hard work learning the difference between:

• A word from God
• A word from the flesh
• A word from the enemy

There are many resources for discerning God’s Word for us. I’ll pull something together soon.

But Right Now It Is Dangerous that Prophets and their Followers are Calling this Election a Fraud

I’m seeing in the charismatic, pentecostal, and prophetic movements a lack of willingness to admit that their prophecies about Trump winning a second term were false.

PLEASE DROP IN THE COMMENTS WHAT YOU ARE SEEING.

Instead of acknowledging that their prophecies were false, they are insisting that the election was a fraud.

I see calls to prayer and petitions circulating that we need to fight for the truth of God’s will to be done. And that God’s revealed will is being thwarted by election fraud. And that we must claim, hold onto, and receive God’s word about the re-election of Trump and denounce the lying news media.

And of course President Trump has been priming that pump for months, that the election would be a fraud because of all the mail-in voting.

Again, this is dangerous.

Dangerous not only for our democracy — which isn’t really my main concern.

But this is dangerous for the church and for our discipleship.

5 Reasons Calling Something a Fraud Because of a False Prophecy is Dangerous

Danger #1: Too much faith in these prophets

Celebrity prophets are given too much power within the prophetic movement and charismatic circles (just like celebrity pastors are given too much power within typical evangelical circles).

We put too much faith in them by overlooking their excesses, expecting too much from them, and failing to hold them accountable.

We are in danger of believing that the more we believe in the words of these prophets that this somehow will prove our own faith to God.

But we should place our faith in God—alone. Human leaders are and leadership is necessary — but fallible.

Let us not put too much faith in these prophets.

Danger #2: Too Little Faith In Local Government

Many complained about the deep state trying to impeach Trump, always standing in his way, always thwarting him.

But elections are not run by the deep state. They aren’t even run by the federal government.

Elections are run by ordinary people in each state, county, city, and township. These aren’t deep state people.

Elections are run by your neighbors.

And Paul’s words about God’s purposes for governments holds whether your party is in office or not (Rom. 13:1-7).

If the election is a fraud, it will be found out.

But as of yet there is no evidence of widespread fraud, and Trump and these prophets saying so doesn’t make it so. And thinking so is dangerous thinking.

Danger #3: Reduction of Prophecy to Prediction

Prophetic words about futures event in a tiny part of prophecy.

A tiny part. Very small. Miniscule.

Yes, there are examples of prophecy as prediction in the Old Testament. And a couple recorded in the book of Acts. And we could even throw in Daniel and Revelation — although many have shipwrecked their faith trying to decipher those books as a book of predictions.

But these celebrity prophets clinging to their words about the future are in danger of training the church into the idea that prophecy is all about words of prediction.

It’s NOT.

What does Paul say about prophecy?

“Those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” (1 Corinthians 14:3).

Most often a prophetic word is about one’s identity in the here and now, about building up an individual or a group in the present.

False prophecy is known by its addiction to prediction.

Danger #4: Loss of the Prophethood of all Believers

I take this danger from the title of a small book by Roger Stronstad.

God’s desire is that we would all become prophets, experienced in the ways of receiving and giving a word from God.

We don’t just have the priesthood of all believers.
We have the prophethood of all believers.

But a focus on celebrity prophets makes us dependent on them, on their times of prayer, on their fasting, on their words from God.

Instead, returning to the apostle Paul, he says “Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy…I would like all of you to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy” (I Cor. 14: 1, 5).

Those who follow these prophets would do better to receive their own words from God right now, words for the present.

And we would do better to enter into the rigorous training that knows the difference between words of God, words of the flesh, and words of the enemy — and that we would learn the humility to admit when they heard wrong.

Danger #5: Prophecy Replaces Critical Thinking

As I said before, I believe prayer works — it does things in the world. I believe in healings (and have experienced them). I believe in angels and demons.

But I also use my God-given faculty of reason and discernment.

Living in a naturally supernatural world means we always need to be open to natural causes.

Mental health issues aren’t always demonic afflictions.
Physical health isn’t just because of sin.
A failed business deal isn’t spiritual oppression.

Sometimes, or rather, often God is working through natural pathways as much as supernatural ones.

So we need to use our critical thinking, rather than outsourcing common sense to prophetic words.

Regarding the presidential election, critical thinking would say that it is just as likely that hundreds of thousands of moderates who voted for Trump four years ago changed their minds about him this year.

It isn’t a conspiracy to think that moderates in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania who voted for Obama (twice), then changed their minds and voted for Trump, now again changed their minds and voted for Biden.

That isn’t crazy to think.

That would actually be the common sense, critical thinking kind of answer to why the election went against Trump and for Biden.

So, Let’s Do This…

Let’s regain some common sense and critical thinking.
Let’s regain the prophethood of all believers.
Let’s regain the real roles of prophecy beyond predictions.
Let’s regain a little faith in the government God has ordained.
Let’s regain more faith in our ability to hear from God.

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GRASSROOTS CHRISTIANITY:
Growing faith for everyday people

Returning the prophetic to everyday people, giving them the tools to understand prayer, to have the critical thinking tools of faith, and to better understand the Bible is exactly why I’m working on launching a little side project called “Grassroots Christianity”. ?

It is for all those who want to take hard questions and honest doubts and use them as the fertilizer of faith.

Check out this little GRASSROOTS THEOLOGY MANIFESTO all about it.