Derek Prince - Someone's Prophecy Might Be True, But Not Coming From God
This is an excerpt from: Take Heed That You Are Not Deceived
Now, I want to deal with some very nitty-gritty practical issues. I hope I’ll offend nobody, but if I do, it’s not through desiring to do so. I want to say, frankly, how error can enter through prophecy. Prophecy has got a very high-sounding title and a lot of people just think "If I ever refuse a prophecy, I’ll be in trouble"! But that’s not what the New Testament teaches. In 1 Corinthians 14:29 Paul says: Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. And in 1 Thessalonians 5:19–21 Paul says this: Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good.
So, we’re not to despise any manifestation of the Holy Spirit but we are to test it. And we’re only to hold onto what is good. And Paul says if people prophesy others are to judge them. Any prophet who is not willing to be judged, should not prophesy. There are prophets around who will tell you that: "If you judge my message God will judge you". I’m not theorizing, I know. My own attitude is, if I don’t judge their message God WILL judge me, because He told me to judge it. So, do not be afraid of prophesying. Thank God for it when it’s right but never let it terrorize you or dictate to you. Prophets are not dictators. What standard are we to judge by?
I’ll give you an answer from Isaiah 8:19–20: And when they say to you "Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter," should not a people seed their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? [That, of course, is a warning against séances. And then the answer here is:] To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word it is because there is no light in them. So the ultimate test is: Do they speak according to the law and the testimony of God’s word. If they do not, there is no light in them. So we judge them by the Word of God. Now I’m going to go on in an area that is practical and perhaps a little delicate but I’m going to give some examples of misleading prophecies how people can be misled by prophecy.
The first instance I’ll take from Romans 12 verse 6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. In other words, don’t go beyond your faith when you prophesy. It’s rather heady to be prophesying. It’s a kind of exhilarating feeling and you can get so exhilarated that you depart from what the Word of God and the Scripture and the Holy Spirit actually give you. For instance, just to take a simple example. Somebody may get a true prophecy: "There is going to be a great revival". That’s true. But he gets so excited that he adds on, "and it’s going to start in our church".
You see. Now it might be true, but it’s very possible the first half was true the second half wasn’t. Why? Because he went beyond the proportion of faith that God allotted to him. I was dealing with that this morning in connection with spiritual warfare. Stay within your allotted proportion of faith. And then in Acts 16 we get an example of what you could call a prophecy or a revelation that was true, but not from God. I think this is a tremendous temptation. If the thing is true then it must be from God. Not so. Acts 16 describes what happened when Paul and Silas arrived in the city of Philippi verse 16 and following: Now it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us. What it says in Greek is a spirit of python, the snake. You know, the snake that coils itself around people and crushes the life out of them?
And, interestingly, there is a well-known clairvoyant in Washington, D.C. who wrote a book in which she said that her gift came to her when a snake got in bed with her. So she rather, I think without realizing it revealed the source of her gift. So there was a certain slave girl with a spirit of divination. who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, "These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation". Now every word she said was true. Furthermore, she was the first person in Philippi to know who they were. But it wasn’t the Spirit of God that was speaking through her. It was a divining fortune-telling spirit. And this is the end: And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly [distressed], turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her". And he came out that very hour. And after that, she was no longer able to tell fortunes.
You see, fortune-telling is a reality and it’s amazing how many times fortune-tellers can tell you the truth. But, it’s not from God. And ultimately there will always be a lie mixed in with it. But the truth is the bait that gets you to receive the lie. I’ve sometimes commented on that girl in Philippi some modern missionaries would have made her a charter member of the church in Philippi! And there she was bearing testimony to them—the first "What a wonderful convert! We just were there on the streets and she began to tell this to people"! Do you see the snares? How subtle Satan is?
I’ll give you some examples from my own personal acquaintance. I have a friend who at that time (some years back) was the pastor of what you’d call an old-line denominational church in the United States. And in order to raise funds for the church they held what they call a church bazaar or a church fete in Britain. And somehow the people organizing it said to the pastor, "Listen, it would be good if we did like they do in other fetes and we had a fortune-teller". So, he didn’t really want it, he knew better. But he didn’t want to face the pressure, so he said, "All right. You can have a fortune-teller". So there she was sitting in her little tent and he went in to have his fortune told. And the fortune-teller looked him in the eye and said, "Your wife is going to get cancer"! And my friend said his blood ran cold but his wife got cancer.
Fortunately, with the help of prayer and medicine, she was eventually healed. But, you see, she spoke the truth, but it wasn’t from God. I was in a situation (I must not reveal where it was) where I heard about a case in which a young married woman, who was, I think, a kind of Christian, went to a fortune-teller (she ought to have known better). And the fortune-teller said, "You’re soon going to be widow. Your husband will be killed". And in a very unusual freak accident less than two years later her husband was killed. And you know what happened to that poor woman? She was tormented with guilt. "Did I open the way for that to happen to my husband by going to that fortune-teller"?
I’ll relate a personal experience. Some years back I was on the pastoral staff of a church in the United States and I was doing a lot of deliverance. And a lady came to me, told me that she had been a spiritist, but that she had repented and she wanted deliverance. Well, I didn’t have any witness that she’d really repented. So I said, "I’m not convinced. Go away and come back when you’ve really repented". So a week or two later she came back. She said, "I’ve repented". Well, it’s very hard to deny that a person has repented because you don’t want to eliminate such a possibility. I still didn’t feel good about her, but I said, "Okay. Let’s pray". We were praying up at the front of the church where there was a platform for the speakers, but we were below the platform.
And I was really struggling, trying to help this woman get her delivered and it was hard work. And after a while, I wanted to take a rest so I just leaned back against the platform. And she said, "I see you in a car and it’s wrecked against a tree"! And Thank God! I was on my guard. I said, "You divining spirit, I’m not going to be in any car that’s going to be wrecked against any tree! I don’t accept that"! But I’m inclined to believe that if I had accepted it, it would have happened. It was Satan’s destiny for me. And just as you receive God’s destiny by opening up to what He says, you can receive Satan’s destiny by opening up to what he says. Well, thank God, years have passed. I’ve never been in a car wrecked against a tree. But what a warning to me! I thought, "Dear Lord, I’m so grateful that I was on the watch". I could have easily said, "Oh, isn’t that terrible! I’m going to be in a car"! You see?
I read the testimony of a businessman in Australia in the Full Gospel Businessman’s Voice in Australia, and he described how he’d got into the occult and then he went on to tell how God had got him out. But this is how he got into the occult. He was in his office, phoning long distance a long way away to a lady in another city, and she was telling him that she could tell him things that he didn’t know. she was persuading him that she knew things by supernatural means. So he said to her, "Tell me, what’s behind me right now in my office"? And she said, "A camel". Well, camels are hardly heard of in Australia. They hardly know what a camel is, but he had a big picture of a camel right behind him in his office! Well, that convinced him, "This woman has got the truth"! And he became involved in the occult and only the mercy of God delivered him. You see how we have to be on the watch.