PROPHECIES AND VISIONS OF NEW-AGE PREACHERS

Perhaps the most potent weapon in the arsenal of the new-age “men and women of God [god]” namely, the new-age pastors and super-pastors, the abracadabra wonder-workers and their acolytes, the “powerful” priests of the adoration ministries and their likes, by which they swindle, deceive, manipulate and rip off innocent people are embedded in their claims to foretell the future by way of prophecy. One of the commonest sights in modern-day Pentecostal celebrations is when the preacher announces to his or her congregation that the problems that brought some individuals to the service or celebration especially those who might be coming for the first time had been revealed to him or her by God beforehand. Then he or she will begin to reel out chains of generic problems allowing the individuals concerned to appropriate whatever applies to them.

The reason a new-age preacher would do this is to enhance his or her credentials as a modern-day prophet, who, like the prophets in the Bible has been gifted by God with divine ability and power to know the contents of the human heart and to discern the events of the future before they happen. In fact, it has become fashionable today for many of the new-age preachers to describe themselves as “prophets.” “Prophet” as a title has become fashionable again. And prophecy as a profession is making a triumphal comeback thanks to the Pentecostal ministers of our time after about two thousand years of a near total absence in Christian tradition. But even when these new-age preachers are not describing themselves as prophets, they make pronouncements from time to time that communicate to their followers that they are playing the role of a prophet in our time.

These new-age preachers are obviously playing on and exploiting the ignorance of the people of our time on the true character of prophets in the Bible. IGNORANCE of the meaning of biblical prophets and prophecy is at the heart of the criminal activities being perpetrated by the new-age ministers in our time. Perhaps if our modern-day Christians are exposed to a historical reading of the Old Testament and if they get to know a little more about the origin, meaning and role of the prophets in the Bible they might be inoculated against the criminal antics of the new-age ministers who are building a fortune out of their culpable ignorance of the true characters of biblical prophets. No wonder St Jerome warned Christians of all times that “ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ!”

Nearly every culture in human history where the superintending divinity is believed to have some kind of a personality has or has had traditions that could be described as both priestly and prophetic. While the priestly tradition was charged with the appeasement of the divinity through sacrifices, the prophetic tradition was associated with communicating and interpreting the mind of the divinity to the people. In Igbo tradition for instance, these two traditions were united in one person, Eze Mmuo, who served as a mediator between the human and the divine [ukochukwu]. As a priest Eze Mmuo offered sacrifices of appeasement, but as a prophet [seer] he manipulated objects, [fortune telling] to discern the mind of the divinity.

But in the Semitic world as a whole, these two traditions were separate and distinct from time immemorial. The first hint we get in the Bible of a classical priest in the wider Semitic world is in the person of Melchizedek [Gen 14:18-20]. He was the king of Salem who brought bread and wine to Abram [Abraham] and being a priest of the Most High God blessed Abram [Abraham] who was returning from a victory in the war against a coalition of kings. And Abram [Abraham] on his part, in acknowledgement of the validity of Melchizedek’s priesthood, paid him a tithe by giving him a tenth of everything he had taken as booty from his victory. And that would make Melchizedek an iconic figure throughout the whole Bible [Ps 110:4, Heb 5:6, 10; 7:2].

Concerning the prophetic tradition, the hint we have in the Bible of its existence in the wider Semitic world outside Israel goes way back to the Book of Numbers [Num 22] and to the story of Balaam son of Boer who was invited by Balak son of Zippor and king of Moab to curse the people of Israel as they returned from Egypt. But Balaam, a pagan prophet, would cast his eyes far into the future of the people of Israel and blessed them instead as God’s chosen people.

However, in ancient Israel, the priestly and prophetic traditions appeared to have been united in one person at the very beginning. Like in Igbo tradition the priest appeared to possess the powers to appease God through sacrifices and to divine His mind through the manipulations of physical objects called Urim and Thummim [The lights and the Perfections, or the perfect lights]. The priest wore these oracular physical objects as a breastplate [Ex 28:30; Lev 8:8]. He was called from time to time to manipulate the Urim and the Thummim so as to discern the mind of God.

But as time went on, the role of telling the mind of the divinity became exclusively associated with a group of people who were called Seers. The earliest name for people whose sole duty was to divine and announce the mind of God was “Seers.” 1Samuel 9:8-9 testifies that formerly in ancient Israel, when people went to make inquiry with God they would say “let us go to the seer” for the one who is called a prophet now [time of Samuel] was formerly called a seer. Seers were associated with seeing visions; hence they were called “Seers,” meaning people who saw deep into the future.

It was from the time of Samuel that the gradual transition from Seer to the new name, prophet, would begin in earnest. That was around 1000 BC. However, before Samuel both Seer and prophet were in use to describe people who played the role of interpreting the mind of God to the people. But the transition to the name prophet would never be complete until towards the end of the monarchy. That was around the 7th to 6th century BC. From the time of Saul and David up to the reign of King Hezekiah, Seers would operate side by side with the prophets. King David had his own Seer called Gad apart from such prophet as Abiathar and Zadok the priest who played some kind of a double role. In fact Zadok was also described as a Seer [2Sam 15:27]. Asaph was a powerful Seer during the reign of King Hezekiah [2Chr 29:30]. Amos himself was called a Seer in Bethel by Amaziah the priest of Bethel [Amos 7:12]. That is to say, up till the 800 to 600 BC there were Seers in Israel as well as prophets.

However, the reign of the Seers would gradually make way or accommodate the rise of another tradition of the prophetic ministry called the “sons of the prophets” from around 800 BC. This new group would contribute immensely to the portrait of the prophetic ministry in the Old Testament. The “sons of the prophets” operated as a brotherhood and as a group in their prophetic ministry. To divine the mind of God they usually operated through ecstasy and trance. They would beat and dance themselves into ecstasy so as to receive a message from God. Ecstatic dances and trance appeared to have been their principal method in prophetic ministry.

It was in this period also that the true and full portrait of a biblical prophet would appear with the emergence of classical prophets. This is represented by prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the rest that followed after them. The classical prophets had one thing in common. They were monotheistic to a fault. They tolerated no compromise in this regard. They believed in the one and only God superintending lives and society in ancient Israel. Their whole focus was to keep faith with the covenants God made with the people of Israel. The Covenant at Sinai in particular by which Israel was constituted into a nation with God as her sole leader and also the one God made with the family of King David were their passion. They were avid protectors of the covenants.

Another focus of theirs was social justice. Almost all the classical prophets were strongly committed to social justice. In fact they are called prophets of social justice. This is because they saw the keeping of the covenant as entailing a strong social responsibility. They would not brook cheating, exploitation and manipulation in any shape or form. They had zero tolerance for dishonesty of any sort. They attacked rulers who exploited their subjects and invoked curses on business people for swindling their clients.

The personal life of a classical prophet was that of abject poverty. He had nothing and kept nothing in reserve. The classical prophets were thorough-going beggars as they depended for their feeding solely on what people of goodwill could offer them or what God gave them directly by way of miracle. They never exploited anyone for their feeding. They were beggars and never got rich as such through the exploitation of the masses. The classical prophets hardly accepted anything from the rich of their time and never collected tithe from their clients. They were people who dedicated their entire lives to the prophetic ministry. Many of them were called to the ministry from birth. But those who were called midstream in their lives abandoned, sold off or shared out their earthly possessions so as to dedicate themselves completely to their ministry. They never hatched questionable strategies like sowing seeds to make money and acquire earthly possession in their ministry. They were never lovers of money.

So, the question becomes; from where do our modern-day claimants of the office of the prophets draw their inspiration? Who in the Bible serves as their real model? Obviously no biblical prophet fits the profile modern-day prophets project today. How did they come about doing what they do today in the name of the prophetic ministry? Obviously they do not get it from the Bible as we have seen. The classical prophets were absolutely monotheistic, allowing no compromises and tolerating no consideration for the pagan gods. Any thought of paganism was inconceivable for them. But modern-day prophets are syncretistic to a fault. They believe in pagan gods and go all out to seek and appropriate their power to enhance their so-called prophetic ministries. They are avid clients of the so-called Queen of the Coast. Where do they learn this from the Bible and from the prophets?

This only goes to show that what is happening today in the world of modern-day preachers who are ascribing prophetic powers to themselves is a classic fraud. Any modern-day millionaire preacher who claims to be a prophet is a criminal and is a false prophet. The truth is he or she cannot be a true prophet after the image of the classical prophets in the Bible while sitting on those millions and billions he has acquired by defrauding people through tithing and sowing seeds and by claiming to tell them about their future. The ministry of the present-day self-acclaimed prophets has zero bases in the Bible. They are making up everything through their clever devices. They are real rogues in the actual sense of the word. They use the Holy Bible as a weapon for criminality. They are no different from armed robbers. Their armor for robbery is the Holy Bible they distort to achieve their nefarious ends!

This means whenever any modern-day preacher or prophet tells you to pay tithe or sow seeds, know that he or she is doing something that was never practiced by the prophets of the Bible. He or she is in fact trying to dupe you. Do not allow yourself to be duped by a clever dude masquerading as a prophet which he cannot legitimately be. Whenever a modern-day preacher or prophet tells you to claim as your own a flashy car or a beautiful house that is not your own, know that he or she is trying to initiate you into a gang of robbers. Run away because true religion is not practiced that way. In a true religion one does not claim what does not belong to him or her. Whenever a modern-day preacher or prophet claims to know what is in your heart or to be able to tell your future, know that he or she is a criminal liar. He or she cannot have such ability. Only God knows the future and the contents of one’s heart. Trust your entire future to God through faith and you will be in a secure hand.

Beware! Many criminals have gone out into the world whose craft is solely based on the manipulation of the word of God in the Bible. Refuse to be a victim of these criminals. They will never lead you into the heaven you are longing for. They will rather drag your soul into hell fire. You have been warned. Criminal manipulation of the word of God has long replaced Advance Fee Fraud or 419 as a means of getting ahead in Nigeria and Africa as a whole. The super-pastors and adoration ministers are the latest 419ers in Nigeria and Africa as a whole. Child of God, refuse to be instructed by these people. Refuse to follow their ways. Refuse to abide with them. They will lead you astray. You have been warned!