Are there prophets today? Who are they? What message do they bring from God? Why don’t we hear from them or recognize their prophetic mantle?

I was speaking to a retired pastor recently who told me that back in the days of Hal Lindsay and The Late Great Planet Earth, he was all in. He preached the end times with the return of Jesus, and the signs of His coming. Lately, he’s filled a pulpit on an interim basis during a pastoral search, but despite his belief that Jesus is coming soon, he isn’t keen on preaching that message. He stated that since the Bible says God sends His prophets to warn of coming judgment, and there haven’t been such warnings, he prefers to wait to hear that message. The question is: Have there been no prophets or warning that the Rapture and the subsequent 7-year Tribulation are near?

I would argue that they’re here. It’s just that we haven’t recognized them.

First, why does God send prophets? Let’s look at several Old Testament verses.

“Yet he sent prophets among them to bring them back to the Lord. These testified against them, but they would not pay attention” (2 Chronicles 24:19).

“Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there. And now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit” (Isaiah 48:16).

“And he said to me, ‘Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day'” (Ezekiel 2:3).

God sends His prophets to testify against people who turn from Him in rebellion, while calling those same people to draw near to Him. He is extremely clear in His message:

“You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 6:14-15).

What about in New Testament times? Has God changed the format of the messaging?

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:6).

“And he said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place” (Revelation 22:6).

From these verses, we could certainly say that God has given us a different means of conveying His message. We hear it through the Holy Spirit, and we see it by means of His angel. Who is His angel?  Revelation tells us this angel of the Lord is Jesus. Jesus is also the Word (John 1:1).

How does the Holy Spirit operate? Differently among each of us, but He gives us truth. He counsels us and gives us direction.

If Jesus is the Word, and through Jesus—the angel of the Lord—we learn what must soon take place, then Scripture gives us prophetic knowledge.

Putting these two concepts together, faithful believers may hear from the Holy Spirit speaking through Scripture, giving them counsel and direction to carry out God’s will. Might that include speaking forthrightly about what God intends for this world? Might it include the message of warning and judgment? How about the encouragement and hope that those who love the Lord and follow Him won’t face the wrath to come?

This isn’t to say that God would entirely forsake the major prophetic voice as in the prophets of old.  However, in one sense, that could be a challenge. We have so much static today, so many different voices that pull us in different directions, so many distractions from the internet, TV, government overreach, and much more. That one person whom everyone hears and knows he is speaking God’s Word is likely a rarity. In addition, with so few people believing in God these days, how many would actually listen?

What we do have because of the internet and other mediums is the ability for multiple people speaking God’s Word, some to the same audiences, others to different listeners, to bring warning  Although they don’t call themselves prophets and would probably cringe at the implication, who is to say that God hasn’t called the likes of Jan Markell, Amir Tsarfati, Bill Salus, David Reagan, Dave Hunt, Gary Stearman, and others to bring His Word through different media in place of the single prophet of renown from times past?

As I said earlier, there’s a lot of static out there. One of the biggest sources comes from the so-called prophets and apostles who inhabit the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement. They aren’t shy about proclaiming their creds. And they use their presumed offices to amplify their voices.

What’s distressing to me is the message they bring. Among other misleading teachings, the general belief I’ve seen among NAR leaders is that worldwide revival is coming. A great new awakening of faith will sweep the earth, the seven cultural mountains throughout society will fall from secular control into the hands of God’s prophetic elites (and money will flow from these mountains into NAR coffers), and the NAR crusade will Christianize the world, making it ready to hand to Jesus when He returns.

This belief is completely inconsistent with Scripture. It minimizes or abandons the concept of the Rapture and seems to forget the Bible speaks of a 7-year Tribulation before Jesus returns. Yet, NAR prophets are revered and followed by many.

NAR encompasses thousands of churches worldwide, accounting for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of believers. It has turned aside the majority of these from the literal Word of God. One tenet of NAR is that their apostles and prophets bring new revelation. They are the voices of this generation and are the ones who speak authoritatively about God with His (revised) plans and purposes.

Who to believe? The voices with little strength, but which have kept God’s Word, as in the church of Philadelphia? Or the booming voices that reach many and proclaim their intimate connection with God, yet veer drastically from Scripture but rationalize doing so?

Personally, I’m not looking for a major prophetic revelation to tell me that what the Bible says are the signs of the times are actually here. God’s Word already states the truth, and that which is happening in the world witnesses to that. Jesus said we’d see all these things as the birth pains came and intensified.  So we do.

Start practicing your Rapture leap. Soon we’ll be spring-boarding off this earth into the clouds to meet our Lord.

……………..

Gary W. Ritter is a lay pastor, Bible teacher, and serves as Missions Director at his church.  He is also a prolific author.  His Whirlwind Series is comprised of three books: Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind, and There Is A Time.  These books are contained in the collected volume of the Whirlwind Omnibus.  Gary has been given the Christian Redemptive Fiction award for two novels: The Tattooed Cat and Alien Revelation.  He has recently released a new novel on eco-terrorism called Green Dreams, and Looking Up – Volume 3, a non-fiction work that contains essays and devotions on end-times and prophetic events.  Gary’s intent in all his writings is to bring a strong Christian witness to what people read.  You can reach him at his website: www.GaryRitter.com or his Facebook Author page:  https://www.facebook.com/gritter3390.  You can also see his video Bible teachings on his Gary Ritter YouTube channel – look for the fish symbol.

Be Wary of Misleading, Controlling, & Apostate YouTube Ministry Channels 

1 John 4:1 (all scripture Berean Study Bible) “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

In this piece I hope to shed some light on how to spot the ‘Misleading, Controlling, and Apostate Ministry Channels’ on YouTube. I will not ‘Name Names’ but instead point out some of the ‘Errors’ we should look out for. Seeing how over the past several years I have ‘grown in my discernment’ through the gleaning of sound and even learning ‘what is error’ from the unsound information from multiple YouTube Ministry Channels. Therefore, I feel this is an important topic to write about, especially in these Last Days!

The information gleaned was from things concerning what the Bible has to say about the End Times and the Pretribulation Rapture. After watching and listening to literally countless hours of preaching, interviews, and shows from several ‘reputable ministries’ on YouTube, I feel led to share what I have learned over the years.

Back when I first started out in this ‘gleaning of information,’ it was like I had this ‘voracious appetite’… I absolutely ‘could not get enough’ on the hearing/learning about Our Blessed Hope! One of the first channels I started listening to/watching was about visions and dreams concerning the Rapture. For a while I really enjoyed this channel and even periodically supported their biblical outreach efforts.

Over time though, I started to discern that this channel was more or less ‘Sensational’ in the fact that visions and dreams are just that. One, we really do not have the capacity to interpret them, and two, we ultimately should not look to them for answers concerning our future. So, to base one’s whole ministry on these kinds of subjects tends to be ‘Speculative’ at best, especially when it comes to heeding one’s discernment.

To reinforce this stance, I recently revisited this channel and found out that after all these years, they still interpret visions and dreams, but now they also seem to base a lot of their ministry on ‘certain prophecies’ too. Prophecies, mind you, that come from a ‘Modern-Day Prophet’ who has since passed away in recent years. Basically, the ‘discernment takeaway’ is this: if a book, site, or ministry claims to have ‘certain knowledge or prophecies’ that comes from any ‘Modern-Day Prophet or Prophetess,’ then one would be wise to steer clear of those kinds of claims!

Foreknowledge: awareness of something before it happens or exists.

Synonyms: far-sightedness, foresight, psychic powers, clairvoyance, prediction, prognostication, divination, prophecy, insight, vision, intuition, perception, third eye

Even if some of the ‘so-called modern-day prophecies’ have come true, the fact of the matter is that there will be others that will not come true. The reason that modern-day prophecies will not always come true is because God has already sovereignly given us all the prophecies that we need! Most of His Prophecies have already been fulfilled, and the remaining ones will soon come to pass in the very near future!

God’s Prophecies from His Prophets are already all recorded in His Holy Word! His Word of Truth is all that we will ever need! Therefore, we should not look to ‘Extrabiblical Sources’ much less ‘New Revelations’ to tell us what God has already sovereignly told us through His Divine Foreknowledge!

Deuteronomy 18:22 “If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.”

Another Misleading Ministry Channel I started following around that time concerned ‘Stargazing’ as in the observance of the alignment of the Sun, Moon, and Stars. This channel used the means of stargazing to search for signs in connection of when the Rapture is to happen. This channel, first of all, should have raised flags right off the bat due to their heavy focus on Astrology, not to mention the ‘constant astronomical observations’ which tended to wear one out over time! Wearing their audience down with their day-after-day surveillance, having us waiting and watching exhaustively for the astrological signs to manifest into the final coming of our King in the Rapture!

Over time I came to discern that this too was mainly ‘Speculation.’ Speculation includes things like Date- Setting, Signs, Numbers, Numerology, Repetition (seeing repeated words and numbers), Dreams, Visions, Astronomy, Astrology, and the like. These are things that create ‘hype and give people things to constantly look for’ without any real substance to go on and/or any sound judgment and/or theology behind it all.

Deuteronomy 4:19 “When you look to the heavens and see the sun and moon and stars—all the host of heaven—do not be enticed to bow down and worship what the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.”

Some other channels had ‘certain heretical pastors’ that taught things like ‘only follow the teachings of Paul and not Jesus’… which obviously makes no sense whatsoever! Also, that when the Rapture happens, all of a sudden there is going to be rivers of blood everywhere because ‘flesh and blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven’ … seriously?! Talk about unsound doctrine and theology! Another one taught that Jesus is Michael the Archangel… Where have we heard that before?! Blatant and obvious heresy, to say the least!

Some pastors raised alarm bells by their ‘heavy affiliation’ with celebrities… it should not take much discernment to see what is wrong with this picture. Also, some with their ‘Avid Globetrotting,’ which showed that they were obviously hardly ever at home, for one thing. Then to compound the issue, they never seem to ‘show much love’ concerning their wives, much less mention them ‘even in passing’ on social media! This speaks volumes to me when I remember God’s command is for Husbands to love their Wives as Christ loves the Church. So, when I see a pastor who does not seem to carry this out, it is pretty discerning and concerning at the same time.

2 Peter 2:1 “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.”

In more recent years, I have been following what seemed like a ‘great ministry’ concerning these Last Days and the soon-coming Rapture, but ‘recent events’ have clued me in to the fact that this ministry is not without its flaws either. ‘Controlling’ would best describe this channel, as in ‘controlling the narrative,’ so to speak. For example, the main premise of this ministry is to ‘call out’ other ministries who are either apostate and/or who are teaching heresy.

On the one hand, this has been ‘highly beneficial’ to the Church in discerning who we should and should not listen to or adhere to. On the other hand, though, when this ministry is also ‘called out’ because they have their own flaws as well, the narrative suddenly changes on a dime! It was as if they had to ‘change the storyline’ in order to ‘save face’ and/or do ‘damage control.’

Basically, when it came time for them to ‘take a little dose of their own medicine,’ all of a sudden the portrayal becomes, ‘we are being attacked, this is not ethical or right, everyone needs to support and encourage one another instead’! So, in essence, they can ‘dish the criticism out,’ but when the shoe is on the other foot, it suddenly becomes unfair. Discernment says that this is a very ‘manipulative and controlling’ practice, to say the least.

Matthew 24:4 “Jesus answered: ‘Watch out that no one deceives you.'”

There are more or less other ‘quack’ ministry channels that I could elaborate on as well, but the examples I mentioned are some of the more pressing ones that we should look out for. In these last days and hours, it becomes imperative that we rely more and more on what God’s Word has to say, and less and less on what certain pastors, ministries, and/or channels have to say.

If turning away from channels or ministries like these is what we have to do, then so be it, no matter how hard it may be. For people like me, these friendly voices have become a ‘sort of companion,’ if you will, over the years, but I ultimately want the Truth and nothing but the Truth!  So, my Admonition is to Pray and ask God for His Wisdom and Discernment and for the Holy Spirit to lead you into All Truth! More importantly, deception is running rampant and blatant lies are being told every day throughout our media, news outlets, and television; so we need Truth over Error now more than ever!

The takeaway is this: ‘be wary, be discerning, and be careful of what you allow in’! Secular TV, movies, music, books, and all worldliness is not our friend! Deception has even crept into the Church! New Age, Masons, Witches, Yoga, Buddhism, and Hinduism among other ‘Satanic Practices and Religions’ have all infiltrated! So again, I say be wary, be discerning, and be very careful of what you allow into your lives! YouTube has been a ‘godsend’ in many ways for me, but it can also be very detrimental to some who do not know what to discern and look out for!

Matthew 10:16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

Until next time… Maranatha!

(JESUS = THE WAY, THE TRUTH, & THE LIFE)