by Steve McCranie | Mar 15, 2014
Good question. What does happen? What does it mean when false prophets actually do what they claim they can do? What does that mean?
What happens when “signs and wonders”— no, real signs and wonders accompany the preaching of a false prophet? What are we to think? What does that say about what they are saying? The implications are mind-boggling.
For example, does it mean that maybe, just maybe, they aren’t false prophets anymore? Maybe they’ve repented and finally seen the light and God is confirming their ministry with “ooo la la” kind of stuff. Or maybe we were too judgmental towards them in the first place and had them all wrong. Worldly logic would conclude, “If God weren’t blessing what they say, then their churches wouldn’t grow so large and they wouldn’t be so popular.”
So, maybe the problem is with us, and not them. After all, as the mantra of false prophets go: “Touch not the Lord’s anointed!” Maybe we’re just too blind and deceived and misguided and don’t recognize that God is moving and doing a new thing in our generation. Or possibly God just lowered His standard of truth so as not to offend the post-modern culture in which we live. Remember the enlightened by-line of most false prophets, “Doctrine divides, but love unites.” Maybe the Scriptures are not the standard of truth today and God is using these men to teach us that He is not the same “yesterday, today and forever” but actually changes with the times and adapts, like a divine chameleon, to whatever culture He finds Himself in. Maybe the false prophets are right. Maybe God is nothing more than a cosmic genie in a bottle waiting to serve us, bless us, prosper us and make us the “head and not the tail.” And maybe, just maybe, these men the Scriptures define as false prophets are really God’s pied pipers to the New, and better, 21st Century Christian.
Maybe. Then again, maybe not.
So, if a false prophet delivers the goods, does it mean that we slide them into the category of “Former False Prophets” or rename them as “Prophets formerly known as False”?
I think not.
Have you ever read the following words from Moses?
“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods whom you have not known and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” *
Oh, so it could be a test— a testing from the Lord to see if we love Him more than we love the cool things the false prophets are saying about us, our finances and our future. Looks like another classic battle against our flesh, doesn’t it?
Are you prepared for that battle? Are you prepared to win? Because the age of false prophets is upon us.
by Steve McCranie | Mar 6, 2014
Remember the dream Pharaoh had about the seven cattle and the seven ears of grain? It seems that in Pharaoh’s dreams he saw seven cows, full, fat and healthy, and then seven other cows, gaunt and sickly-looking. As he watched in his dream, the gaunt cows devoured the fat ones. Why? What did this mean?
Then, right on the heels of dream one came dream two. It was the same principle repeated— only now the characters are seven plump ears of grain and seven thin, sun-scorched ears of grain. Ah, I see, “second verse, same as the first.” Now, in dream two, the seven thin, sun-scorched ears of grain swallowed up the fat, plump and healthy ears.
Again, why? What does this mean?
Enter Joseph.
Joseph, as you remember, tells Pharaoh that God is revealing to him what He is going to do in the very near future. God is giving Pharaoh a glimpse into the future, so to speak. I’ll let Joseph tell you in his own words.
“Pharaoh’s dreams are one and the same; God has told to Pharaoh what He is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years; the dreams are one and the same. The seven lean and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, and the seven thin ears scorched by the east wind will be seven years of famine. It is as I have spoken to Pharaoh: God has shown to Pharaoh what He is about to do. Behold, seven years of great abundance are coming in all the land of Egypt; and after them seven years of famine will come, and all the abundance will be forgotten in the land of Egypt, and the famine will ravage the land. So the abundance will be unknown in the land because of that subsequent famine; for it will be very severe. Now as for the repeating of the dream to Pharaoh twice, it means that the matter is determined by God, and God will quickly bring it about.” *
Get the gist? Bad times are soon to be upon Egypt like a raging storm and there is nothing Pharaoh can do about it. And I mean bad times! Real bad times. In fact, they were to be so bad that no one will even remember what life was like before the famine. Serious stuff.
What was Pharaoh to do when faced with the certain economic meltdown of their society? What should he tell his people to do knowing that the collapse of the Egyptian dollar is imminent? How can he, the ruler of Egypt, prepare his government for hyper-inflation and food and fuel shortages? What should they do?
For one thing, listen to the advice of Joseph.
“Now let Pharaoh look for a man discerning and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh take action to appoint overseers in charge of the land, and let him exact a fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt in the seven years of abundance. Then let them gather all the food of these good years that are coming, and store up the grain for food in the cities under Pharaoh’s authority, and let them guard it. Let the food become as a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which will occur in the land of Egypt, so that the land will not perish during the famine.” *
In other words, during the times of abundance… prepare! Get off your rear, take your head out of the sand, quit listening to the pundits who are lying to you and prepare! It’s not that hard. Follow this simple rule: If you have today, store for the time when you won’t have. Like, duh. Be smart and prudent and wise and prepare for coming uncertain times. Otherwise… flash forward to gaunt cow. Get the picture?
And, as you know, Pharaoh took Joseph’s advice and not only survived, but thrived and prospered during the seven years of famine. Are we at least as smart as Pharaoh? I sure hope so.
Since we are going to spend a great deal of time talking about how to prepare for the coming collapse of our economy, the unraveling of our society, the possible declaring of martial law and, quite honestly, the greatest ministry opportunity we have ever had in our lifetime— I thought I’d preface all this with a word picture. No, make that more of an object lesson.
Now, go buy some extra groceries at Wal-Mart the next time you go shopping and we’ll talk more about this tomorrow.
Rest easy… and go grab a grub.
*Genesis 41:25-36
by Steve McCranie | Feb 6, 2014
The following are chilling words from RC Sproul, Jr. I would encourage every Believer in the West to read and ponder the following.
Where Did We Go Wrong?
These are dark days for the church in the west. While we can, indeed must rejoice over the spread of the gospel in China, and in the southern hemisphere, here the church is losing its savor, and the putrid smell of death is all around us. Perverts are parading in the streets. Mommies are murdering their babies 3500 times a day. Eighty percent of evangelical kids reject the faith by the time they reach their 20’s, and those that stay (or come back) usually opt for church-lite. And our nation has just elected the most socialistic, leftist man in our history.
Everyone has their favorite spot, a particular battle we either lost or retreated from on which to place the blame. Was it 1963, when we let them take prayer out of “our” schools? Was it 1973, when the Supreme Court declared war on the unborn? Was it 1983, when All My Children became the first soap to run a gay storyline? Was it 1993 when Bill Clinton took office, promising to socialize medicine with Hillarycare? Was it 2003 when George W. Bush signed his own legislation giving us socialized pills for seniors?
The trouble with these guesses is that they all think the problem is the camel in the tent, when the real problem is the camel’s nose. We gave up on educating our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord the moment we accepted the premise of government schools, a hundred years prior. We began seeing children as a burden and inconvenience when we embraced the pill in the 60’s. We normalized the pursuit of sexual pleasure outside God’s design when we embraced no-fault divorce (brought to you first in California, under Governor Reagan.) We accepted socialized healthcare when we embraced LBJcare for the elderly. All Bill and Hillary, Mitt and Barack have proposed is lowering the enrollment age to birth. And we have had socialized retirement since 1933. How can we object to adding pills?
With every one of these issues we have missed the forest for the trees. We engage in sundry policy debates- this program is too expensive; we can get Bible as literature classes into the schools; if we elect Republicans we can hold back the tide- and miss that we have already given up the war. Unless or until the church of Jesus Christ is ready to affirm that education is not the calling of the state, that children are a blessing from God, that any sexual behavior outside the marriage bed is an abomination before God, that healthcare, pills and retirements are not entitlements, we will continue to slouch toward Gomorrah.
I know the principled approach freaks people out. That’s my point. But you can’t turn a ship around by accepting that we’re going in the right direction generally, we just need to move a degree or two. You can’t have godly education or godly sexual standards while excluding God. And you can’t have liberty in a nation whose children are nurtured in socialized schools. We should not object to this or that in the state’s schools, but should object to state schools. We should not object to the murder of babies because they are babies, but because it is murder. We should not object to homosexual perversion because it is homosexual, but because it is perversion. We should not object to this socialist program or that but should object to socialism. Otherwise we’re not fighting but retreating.
