Article by: Kenneth J. Ester
False Prophets and Preachers
Matthew 7:15 (NASB)
15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
Not only does Jesus warn us to beware of the false prophets here, but He even goes as far as to tell us a little bit of how to recognize them. They come in sheep's clothing. You see, every true Prophet of God in the Bible, will come with true messages from God. These messages are not typically of good tidings. God never sends prophets to a people to tell them good times are coming, or they will be blessed very soon. His messages always come as warnings to get your act together. The false prophets however, are not giving true messages from God. They are giving you what you want to hear.
In the Bible, often the Prophets of God are despised because they always come with warnings and words of punishment coming from God. Nobody likes to hear bad news, or hear that God is not happy with them. So people will turn the true prophets away and look to the false prophets instead. The false prophets give messages to tickle your ears and make you hopeful or happy.
At the lower end of the false prophets you have the amateurs in Facebook Groups who give prophecies that are something in the lines of... "The Lord God says you will be blessed today." They dont give any specifics. They dont say who will be blessed or what the blessing will be exactly. Why? Because of the hundreds or thousands who will see the post, it is likely that someone who sees it will have something good happen that day. Then that person believes that prophecy must have been for them and the person who posted it is a true prophet because it came true.
These charlatans typically have quite a few followers. They dont truly hear any message from God. They often dont even align with scripture. Yet Christians will flock to them. Not because they are true prophets, but because they tell them what they want to hear.
Then there are the top end false prophets and false preachers. The really good ones fill large churches and even stadiums with Christians who want to listen to them. Millions buy their books and watch their videos. Yet they do pretty much the same thing. They are just better at it. They dont teach you how to have a true relationship with the Lord. They dont teach you to serve God and put God first. They dont often teach about turning away from sin. They teach something far more dangerous. They teach the prosperity gospel.
Joel Osteen is a good example of this. I have listened to two of his messages in the past. Both times he twisted scripture to support something that it was never meant to support. He always gives messages about how if you have faith, God will bless you. It is always about what God will do for us. Never what we can do for God. Never what the Bible actually teaches, which is that our rewards are brought with Him when He comes back. Not here in this life! All they do is teach Christians how God is waiting to serve them if they do what they need to do. Let me tell you something people, God didn't create us so He can serve us. He created us to have a relationship with us. That starts with us serving God. Not the other way around.
Sadly, Christians dont care. They continue to send their money to prosperity preachers like Joel Osteen who live in mansions and have tens of millions in the bank. They will be struggling to pay their bills, never have money to enjoy life, but will still come up with money to give to the rich preachers. Why? Because those rich preachers give them promises that if they send their money, God will bless them a hundred fold in return.
Then there are the false prophets. I find it interesting that the one place I have found where prophets are giving messages from God that are filled with blessings and such, is a place where God's Word condemns them as false prophets.
Jeremiah 14:13-14 (NASB)
13 But I said, “Oh, Lord God! Behold, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see a sword, nor will you have famine; on the contrary, I will give you lasting peace in this place.’” 14 Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them, nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility, and the deception of their own minds.
Lets also be very clear about something with prophets. God tells us how to know a false prophet. It tells us that we will know a prophet is false when everything he says does not come true. Prophets dont get any second chances. If they claim God says something and it doesn't come true, we are not to trust them as prophets anymore. If they give 100 prophecies and they all come true, then on their 101st prophecy it doesn't happen? They are a false prophet and should no longer be trusted.
There are many out there who claim to be prophets today. When their prophecies seem to come true, Christians start lifting them up as true prophets of God. It gets a lot worse when they have a prophecy that doesn't come true and Christians just shrug their shoulders. "Its okay. 99% accuracy is still really good!" No! Its not good! Its bad! When it comes to God, anything short of 100% perfect is of the devil! This is not my rule. This is what scripture says!
Deuteronomy 18:22 (NASB)
22 When the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not happen or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you are not to be afraid of him.
Let me give you a good example of this. Today there are many many Christians who lift up Kim Clement as a true prophet of God. Someone recently told me how his prophecies are still coming true today, even though he passed away in 2016. So I started looking into him.
In 2004, Osama Bin Laden claimed that America would be destroyed in 35 days. According to Kim Clement, God told him that Saddam's prophecy would be reversed and he would be brought down in 35 days instead. .... It didn't happen.
Read the prophecy here... http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word.html?ID=1999
You will note that first it speaks of Bin Laden being brought out. Then later it speaks of Hussein instead. Unfortunately, neither of them were caught that year, much less that month.
Later, Clement tried to explain how his prophecy was misinterpreted. His answer? That God never said when the 35 days would begin.
That my friends, is how the devil works! He gives prophecies that seem to come true. Then when one does not happen, he is prepared to use a loophole in the prophecy to justify it not coming true. God on the other hand does not give prophecies with loopholes. He doesn't need them. If he says it will happen in 35 days, it happens in 35 days.
Remember, we are to know a false prophet when something he says does not come true. If they can use loopholes like "God never said when the 35 days will begin", then we have no possible way of knowing if they ever dont come true. The truth is, it didn't happen in 35 days. It didn't even happen that year!
Now there is another thing against Clement that I have read in different places, but in honesty, I have no way to confirm it. His prophecy we just talked about was confirmed because it is posted on the Elijah List, which is a site that supports Clement as a true prophet. Clement had a lot to do with that site. This next thing is unverified simply because I could not find evidence of it on a site that supports him. So I cant be certain it is not a lie. But when multiple sites post it, I have to question it.
Clement was supposedly once asked if he is ever wrong. He answered "yes". He tried to claim that he was still a man and sometimes misunderstands Gods message or vision. If this is true, then in his own words, he is admitting to being a false prophet. I can misunderstand a message from God. You can as well. That is okay because we do not claim to be prophets. But if you claim to be a prophet of God, you do not have the right to ever get it wrong! For that is the entire difference between a true prophet of God, and a false prophet. The true prophets always get it right.
I sat through a video from Kim Clement giving one of his sermons. It really didn't take me long to realize this guy was not up and up. He does everything wrong.
1) He gives a message about being blessed by God and God serving you. Basically he is a prosperity gospel preacher.
2) His entire message was about you having faith to step out and do what it takes to receive God's blessings. Which in the end, it all came down to giving your offering. His entire message was designed to set up the people so that if they wanted to do right by God, they had to give a larger offering.
3) He uses music a lot to build up a sense of excitement. He raises his voice as he preaches. His message grows in tempo as it continues. This is designed to build up ones emotions so they feel chills and such at certain moments. This causes many Christians to believe the Holy Spirit is moving when it is nothing more than their emotions.
4) Throughout his sermon, he often builds himself up as a prophet of God. Nowhere in the Bible does a prophet of God lift themselves up as a prophet like they are something special. He does it often. By doing this, he impresses the image of him being a true prophet of God on your mind so you will be more inclined to believe him.
Look, you might believe in the prophets of today. You might like Clement as a prophet and believe he is legit. But I have to ask you this. Have you ever looked into him and tried to test him to see if he was true? Or have you simply believed it from the beginning because someone told you he was.
Oh I know. You can feel the spirit moving when he speaks right? You dont believe it was just your emotions. You can tell the difference, right? But can you?
1 John 4:1 (NASB)
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
God says to test every spirit. Let me shock you with something most Christians dont notice about that verse. It does not exclude the Holy Spirit. You are even to test the Holy Spirit.
Before you get in a hissy fit over that, I am not saying we cannot trust the Holy Spirit. We can! The Holy Spirit is without a doubt, 100% trustworthy! Do you know what is not trustworthy? Man's ability to always know the Holy Spirit from his own thoughts or desires.
Churches teach that you learn to know the voice of God. We get to know the Holy Spirit. So tell me then, why are there so many denominations in Christianity? There are hundred and by some estimations, thousands of denominations in Christianity, in the United States alone! Every one of them will claim they were led to the correct interpretation of Gods Word by the Holy Spirit, or by God. But if that were actually true, we would only have one denomination because the Holy Spirit would have led everyone to the same interpretation. Clearly, man does not have the ability to know the Holy Spirit as well as he thought.
That is why God's Word says to test 'every' spirit, and does not exclude the Holy Spirit. Because if we test the Holy Spirit, and it is the Holy Spirit, it will pass the test. The only spirits that will fail the test are false spirits.
God's word is clear. We are to test 'every' spirit. So if someone says they are a prophet of God, we are never to just accept it. It doesn't matter how many prophecies they have come true. We are to test them. If you find even one false prophecy, you are not to trust what they tell you.
My mother once taught me a very logical lesson that I still hold onto today. At the time, Nostradamus was popular. We saw a cool documentary on him and how so many of his prophecies came true. Then there was a year he gave for when the world would end. My mother told me that you have to be careful when it came to prophets. False prophets will often look real. They will have a lot of prophecies come true. But then the devil will give them one prophecy that doesn't and those who are not careful will be destroyed by the false prophecy. In this example, she believed the Lord would return in our lifetimes. She said that he had so many prophecies come true but the devil may have given him that one prophecy of the world ending way in the future. That way many will think they have plenty of time and not focus on getting right with God.
That is the reason we have to be careful. Clement has had a lot of prophecies come true. Many of the prophets of this world today have had a lot of prophecies come true. But if you find they have had even one prophecy that did not come true, you simply cannot trust anything else they said, because you just dont know which one will lead you astray.
Today we have a lot of preachers giving messages designed to tickle our ears but dont truly follow scripture when you study into it. Prophets that get most of their prophecies right, but miss one every once in a while. If you truly care about following the truth and not chasing false hopes, then do what Gods Word tells you to do. Test every spirit!
15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
Not only does Jesus warn us to beware of the false prophets here, but He even goes as far as to tell us a little bit of how to recognize them. They come in sheep's clothing. You see, every true Prophet of God in the Bible, will come with true messages from God. These messages are not typically of good tidings. God never sends prophets to a people to tell them good times are coming, or they will be blessed very soon. His messages always come as warnings to get your act together. The false prophets however, are not giving true messages from God. They are giving you what you want to hear.
In the Bible, often the Prophets of God are despised because they always come with warnings and words of punishment coming from God. Nobody likes to hear bad news, or hear that God is not happy with them. So people will turn the true prophets away and look to the false prophets instead. The false prophets give messages to tickle your ears and make you hopeful or happy.
At the lower end of the false prophets you have the amateurs in Facebook Groups who give prophecies that are something in the lines of... "The Lord God says you will be blessed today." They dont give any specifics. They dont say who will be blessed or what the blessing will be exactly. Why? Because of the hundreds or thousands who will see the post, it is likely that someone who sees it will have something good happen that day. Then that person believes that prophecy must have been for them and the person who posted it is a true prophet because it came true.
These charlatans typically have quite a few followers. They dont truly hear any message from God. They often dont even align with scripture. Yet Christians will flock to them. Not because they are true prophets, but because they tell them what they want to hear.
Then there are the top end false prophets and false preachers. The really good ones fill large churches and even stadiums with Christians who want to listen to them. Millions buy their books and watch their videos. Yet they do pretty much the same thing. They are just better at it. They dont teach you how to have a true relationship with the Lord. They dont teach you to serve God and put God first. They dont often teach about turning away from sin. They teach something far more dangerous. They teach the prosperity gospel.
Joel Osteen is a good example of this. I have listened to two of his messages in the past. Both times he twisted scripture to support something that it was never meant to support. He always gives messages about how if you have faith, God will bless you. It is always about what God will do for us. Never what we can do for God. Never what the Bible actually teaches, which is that our rewards are brought with Him when He comes back. Not here in this life! All they do is teach Christians how God is waiting to serve them if they do what they need to do. Let me tell you something people, God didn't create us so He can serve us. He created us to have a relationship with us. That starts with us serving God. Not the other way around.
Sadly, Christians dont care. They continue to send their money to prosperity preachers like Joel Osteen who live in mansions and have tens of millions in the bank. They will be struggling to pay their bills, never have money to enjoy life, but will still come up with money to give to the rich preachers. Why? Because those rich preachers give them promises that if they send their money, God will bless them a hundred fold in return.
Then there are the false prophets. I find it interesting that the one place I have found where prophets are giving messages from God that are filled with blessings and such, is a place where God's Word condemns them as false prophets.
Jeremiah 14:13-14 (NASB)
13 But I said, “Oh, Lord God! Behold, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see a sword, nor will you have famine; on the contrary, I will give you lasting peace in this place.’” 14 Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them, nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility, and the deception of their own minds.
Lets also be very clear about something with prophets. God tells us how to know a false prophet. It tells us that we will know a prophet is false when everything he says does not come true. Prophets dont get any second chances. If they claim God says something and it doesn't come true, we are not to trust them as prophets anymore. If they give 100 prophecies and they all come true, then on their 101st prophecy it doesn't happen? They are a false prophet and should no longer be trusted.
There are many out there who claim to be prophets today. When their prophecies seem to come true, Christians start lifting them up as true prophets of God. It gets a lot worse when they have a prophecy that doesn't come true and Christians just shrug their shoulders. "Its okay. 99% accuracy is still really good!" No! Its not good! Its bad! When it comes to God, anything short of 100% perfect is of the devil! This is not my rule. This is what scripture says!
Deuteronomy 18:22 (NASB)
22 When the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not happen or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you are not to be afraid of him.
Let me give you a good example of this. Today there are many many Christians who lift up Kim Clement as a true prophet of God. Someone recently told me how his prophecies are still coming true today, even though he passed away in 2016. So I started looking into him.
In 2004, Osama Bin Laden claimed that America would be destroyed in 35 days. According to Kim Clement, God told him that Saddam's prophecy would be reversed and he would be brought down in 35 days instead. .... It didn't happen.
Read the prophecy here... http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word.html?ID=1999
You will note that first it speaks of Bin Laden being brought out. Then later it speaks of Hussein instead. Unfortunately, neither of them were caught that year, much less that month.
Later, Clement tried to explain how his prophecy was misinterpreted. His answer? That God never said when the 35 days would begin.
That my friends, is how the devil works! He gives prophecies that seem to come true. Then when one does not happen, he is prepared to use a loophole in the prophecy to justify it not coming true. God on the other hand does not give prophecies with loopholes. He doesn't need them. If he says it will happen in 35 days, it happens in 35 days.
Remember, we are to know a false prophet when something he says does not come true. If they can use loopholes like "God never said when the 35 days will begin", then we have no possible way of knowing if they ever dont come true. The truth is, it didn't happen in 35 days. It didn't even happen that year!
Now there is another thing against Clement that I have read in different places, but in honesty, I have no way to confirm it. His prophecy we just talked about was confirmed because it is posted on the Elijah List, which is a site that supports Clement as a true prophet. Clement had a lot to do with that site. This next thing is unverified simply because I could not find evidence of it on a site that supports him. So I cant be certain it is not a lie. But when multiple sites post it, I have to question it.
Clement was supposedly once asked if he is ever wrong. He answered "yes". He tried to claim that he was still a man and sometimes misunderstands Gods message or vision. If this is true, then in his own words, he is admitting to being a false prophet. I can misunderstand a message from God. You can as well. That is okay because we do not claim to be prophets. But if you claim to be a prophet of God, you do not have the right to ever get it wrong! For that is the entire difference between a true prophet of God, and a false prophet. The true prophets always get it right.
I sat through a video from Kim Clement giving one of his sermons. It really didn't take me long to realize this guy was not up and up. He does everything wrong.
1) He gives a message about being blessed by God and God serving you. Basically he is a prosperity gospel preacher.
2) His entire message was about you having faith to step out and do what it takes to receive God's blessings. Which in the end, it all came down to giving your offering. His entire message was designed to set up the people so that if they wanted to do right by God, they had to give a larger offering.
3) He uses music a lot to build up a sense of excitement. He raises his voice as he preaches. His message grows in tempo as it continues. This is designed to build up ones emotions so they feel chills and such at certain moments. This causes many Christians to believe the Holy Spirit is moving when it is nothing more than their emotions.
4) Throughout his sermon, he often builds himself up as a prophet of God. Nowhere in the Bible does a prophet of God lift themselves up as a prophet like they are something special. He does it often. By doing this, he impresses the image of him being a true prophet of God on your mind so you will be more inclined to believe him.
Look, you might believe in the prophets of today. You might like Clement as a prophet and believe he is legit. But I have to ask you this. Have you ever looked into him and tried to test him to see if he was true? Or have you simply believed it from the beginning because someone told you he was.
Oh I know. You can feel the spirit moving when he speaks right? You dont believe it was just your emotions. You can tell the difference, right? But can you?
1 John 4:1 (NASB)
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
God says to test every spirit. Let me shock you with something most Christians dont notice about that verse. It does not exclude the Holy Spirit. You are even to test the Holy Spirit.
Before you get in a hissy fit over that, I am not saying we cannot trust the Holy Spirit. We can! The Holy Spirit is without a doubt, 100% trustworthy! Do you know what is not trustworthy? Man's ability to always know the Holy Spirit from his own thoughts or desires.
Churches teach that you learn to know the voice of God. We get to know the Holy Spirit. So tell me then, why are there so many denominations in Christianity? There are hundred and by some estimations, thousands of denominations in Christianity, in the United States alone! Every one of them will claim they were led to the correct interpretation of Gods Word by the Holy Spirit, or by God. But if that were actually true, we would only have one denomination because the Holy Spirit would have led everyone to the same interpretation. Clearly, man does not have the ability to know the Holy Spirit as well as he thought.
That is why God's Word says to test 'every' spirit, and does not exclude the Holy Spirit. Because if we test the Holy Spirit, and it is the Holy Spirit, it will pass the test. The only spirits that will fail the test are false spirits.
God's word is clear. We are to test 'every' spirit. So if someone says they are a prophet of God, we are never to just accept it. It doesn't matter how many prophecies they have come true. We are to test them. If you find even one false prophecy, you are not to trust what they tell you.
My mother once taught me a very logical lesson that I still hold onto today. At the time, Nostradamus was popular. We saw a cool documentary on him and how so many of his prophecies came true. Then there was a year he gave for when the world would end. My mother told me that you have to be careful when it came to prophets. False prophets will often look real. They will have a lot of prophecies come true. But then the devil will give them one prophecy that doesn't and those who are not careful will be destroyed by the false prophecy. In this example, she believed the Lord would return in our lifetimes. She said that he had so many prophecies come true but the devil may have given him that one prophecy of the world ending way in the future. That way many will think they have plenty of time and not focus on getting right with God.
That is the reason we have to be careful. Clement has had a lot of prophecies come true. Many of the prophets of this world today have had a lot of prophecies come true. But if you find they have had even one prophecy that did not come true, you simply cannot trust anything else they said, because you just dont know which one will lead you astray.
Today we have a lot of preachers giving messages designed to tickle our ears but dont truly follow scripture when you study into it. Prophets that get most of their prophecies right, but miss one every once in a while. If you truly care about following the truth and not chasing false hopes, then do what Gods Word tells you to do. Test every spirit!
