FALSE PROPHECIES!        DO1744   2/84
--The Other Side of the Coin!

         1. WE HAD SOME EARLY FALSE PROPHECIES AS FAR BACK AS THE CLUB, Miguel (Abraham) prophesying against Eve & Deborah. He was prophesying against Mother Eve & Deborah, who were taking quite a leadership role sometimes, but the trouble was he was prophesying against women in general--that they should not have any part in public ministry. He was prophesying, "Let the women keep silence in the church!" (1Cor.14:34) Some of our best prophets were amongst them--Becky & Rachel & Tabitha. So he was completely out of order, really.
         2. SO WE HAD SOME PRETTY EARLY FALSE PROPHETS that I had to squelch for the sake of unity. Their prophecies were pretty prejudiced, they were obviously vindictive & prejudiced, so as you may recall, I ruled with a pretty iron hand, very heavy-handed, & I squelched them in a hurry & banished them from the public assembly until I had them properly disciplined & punished & they were repentant.
         3. THAT'S THE TROUBLE WITH LETTING SOME OF THOSE GUYS PROPHESY without somebody to really prayerfully judge, who really has wisdom, knowledge & discernment. In those Early Days it was a pretty serious threat that the Enemy would mislead, misguide & steer some astray by false prophets.
         4. (MARIA: WE STARTED OUT BY TALKING ABOUT FALSE PROPHETS. The Family here has been saying how they hadn't exercised that gift for so many years & they'd been fearful of it & afraid that they had to stop & judge every prophecy.) Yes, I was bringing out how there was quite a danger of false prophecies & false prophets in the early days when the Devil tried to throw us a mickey & lead some astray & did! Quite a few of them left us & took split-off people with them, good people. (Maria: And that's when you wrote those Letters.) (See No.168, 244, etc.) Yes, & that's when I wrote those Letters to be careful about false prophecy & false prophets.
         5. APPARENTLY THE FAMILY SWUNG TO THE OPPOSITE EXTREME THEN. Of course, I'm sure that Deborah & Jethro would have really read those Letters & used them, because some of their main threats were people with deep spiritual gifts & prophecies from real prophets, true prophecies which challenged their leadership, see? So I'm sure they would have, & the whole Chain crowd squelched the true prophets & prophecies which questioned their leadership in any way. And that's probably when that squelching really began, & they used those Letters as an excuse.
         6. SO THERE WERE THOSE PROBLEMS. FALSE PROPHETS WERE A THREAT TO THE TRUE LEADERSHIP, ME! The true prophets were a threat to the bad leadership, the Chain! So eventually almost all prophecy got squelched except amongst you & me, you & I were the only little true prophets who were allowed to operate because we were all by ourselves with nobody to stop us! (Maria: But like you say, that must have been the Lord. The Lord used that to work together for good.)
         7. YES, IT TOOK THE LETTERS TO KEEP THEM ON THE RIGHT TRACK to make sure they got their leadership only from one source. (Maria: Now we have all the written Word, & people can't go so easily astray because everyone knows.) Everything has been talked about & everything has been described, all the rules & laws & guidance lines have been laid down & they know what's right & what's wrong--just like the Bible, so they can't very well get away from it. (Maria: It's not so hard to judge. They don't have to be so fearful about judging it, because they have the guidelines in the Letters.)
         8. I DON'T KNOW JUST EXACTLY WHAT THIS BIRTHDAY OUTBREAK IS GOING TO BRING AMONGST THE FAMILY IN GENERAL. There's going to be an outcropping again of the danger of too much prophecy & possibly false prophets & false prophecies, because it sort of opens the door, because whenever you've got fire you're always going to have some wild fire! You open the door for not only the Holy Spirit but you open the door for freedom, so much freedom that also the Enemy always tries to get in with some wild fire, so you really have to watch it. So they're still going to have to be careful & very prayerful.
         9. AND FRANKLY, THEY DON'T ALWAYS NEED SO MUCH PROPHECY & MANIFESTATIONS SO MUCH ANYMORE, THEY'VE GOT THE LETTERS & THE GUIDANCE OF THE WORD, the written recorded settled guaranteed Word to go by, & except for current revelations that they may need, current guidance in a specific local situation, affecting them locally, things they have to know or guidance they have to have, there really isn't a great deal of need for any outstanding leading prophets to prophesy any World-shaking events, as they've already been prophesied. So they'll still have to be very prayerful & careful & keep a close watch on going haywire or overboard or off the deep end on gifts of the Spirit & prophecies etc. Although, of course, if they're too careful they'll miss some beautiful, wonderful things like we had on the Birthday night!
         10. (MARIA: BUT THE LORD USUALLY BRINGS THE OUTSTANDING REVELATIONS THROUGH YOU, & THROUGH THE LETTERS.) Well, that's what I used to tell some of those false prophets, "If the Lord wanted to make that big a new revelation, He'd have told me first because I'm your ordained prophet & your leader." Those false prophets were always going off the track on some queer tangent, some weird doctrine or interpretation, something really weirdo & ridiculous, completely out of line, the Devil trying to steer people off the track & give them a bum steer!
         11. SO YOU JUST HAVE TO BE REALLY REALLY DEEP IN THE SPIRIT & HAVE GOOD DISCERNMENT & STRONG LEADERSHIP to keep false prophets & prophecies from cropping up & taking over. They can crop up occasionally, but if it's some dumb ignorant person, you just need to sort of gently reprove & guide them the right direction. I had to kind of gently put some people down because I knew they were just sort of dumb & a little misguided, but who weren't really all that wayward in heart.
         12. BUT THERE IS ALWAYS THE DANGER THAT EVIL SPIRITS WILL GET IN if there is not a good strong, deep, discerning, knowledgeable, wise leader in control who runs things with a firm hand, strong leadership. A weak leader can easily be brushed aside by a strong false prophet who can virtually take over & run things just through prophecy.
         13. SO THERE IS ALWAYS THAT OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN! But thank the Lord, we haven't had to have all that much manifestation of the various gifts in our own particular Homes & meetings because we have it all the time through what the Lord gives me & the Letters & what He's already given. It keeps them busy just reading what the Lord is giving virtually daily through the one genuine true & trusted Prophet that they can really be sure of.
         14. WEAK LEADERSHIP WILL ALWAYS HAVE TO WATCH OUT FOR STRONG FALSE PROPHETS & FALSE PROPHECIES, because the Devil knows where you're weak & where people are weak, leaders who are weak & where he can try to muscle in & muscle them out, even if the weak leadership is true, good & honest leadership & loyal, faithful & all that.
         15. I RAN THE MEETINGS AT THE CLUB ETC. & OVERSAW THE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE GIFTS & TONGUES & INTERPRETATIONS & PROPHECIES & EVERYTHING WITHOUT HAVING THOSE PARTICULAR GIFTS AT ALL! But I freely allowed them, encouraged them & governed them & judged them with the God-given gifts of wisdom & knowledge & discernment that I already had, & the faith He had given me. Just because you can have gifts of healing & do miracles & speak in tongues or even interpret & prophesy doesn't necessarily give you the wisdom, the discernment & the faith & the knowledge which you need for leadership! All those I had, & that's why we're where we're at, thank the Lord!
         16. THAT BIRTHDAY NIGHT SESSION BEGAN WITH ME PRAYING & PRAISING THE LORD IN TONGUES & THEN MESSAGES CAME IN TONGUES & I REFUSED TO GIVE THE INTERPRETATION. The Lord, by the Spirit, led me to refuse to give interpretations, to try to bring the Family out & stir up the gifts that were in them, & for confirmation to them themselves to encourage them, to use their gifts & be used of the Lord & to give them faith to use their gifts & exercise their gifts in the Spirit in the body, in the assembly of the Saints. It was wonderful, it was inspiring, it was thrilling, it was encouraging, it was edifying, informative & very satisfying in the Spirit!
         17. EVERYBODY HAD BEEN WANTING SOMETHING FROM THE LORD ON MY BIRTHDAY, WELL, THEY GOT IT! (Maria: Amen!)--But most of it not through me, I wanted the Lord to do it through them.--I got my wish! I got my heart's desire to almost force them out of the woods & into action to try to show them that the Lord could use them too, they didn't have to depend totally on me for messages & revelations & prophecies & spiritual leadership, that the Lord could also guide them.
         18. MAYBE WE'RE READY FOR IT AGAIN & MAYBE THERE WILL BE A REASON FOR IT. Maybe we'll be separated & maybe the communication will be poor & they're going to have to be led directly by the Lord immediately in their own midst & they won't be able to get the Letters for awhile.
         19. SO PERHAPS THE LORD IS GIVING THAT EXAMPLE OF THE BIRTHDAY NIGHT TO SHOW WHAT CAN HAPPEN IF THEY DO GET OUT OF TOUCH & CAN'T COMMUNICATE & THEY CAN'T LOOK TO US for leadership, that they can look straight to the Holy Spirit right there in their midst & not have to wait for a Letter & not have to wait for a Book, but look to the Lord & "For God's Sake, Follow God!" (See No.4) in their local situation by the direct leadership of the Holy Spirit right there through spiritual leaders & wise guides that are able to govern well the Church of God & who are able to judge what's true & what's false!
         20. THEY'VE GOT THE GUIDELINES OF ALL THE LETTERS NOW, there are nearly 2,000 Letters, & so there is really no excuse, the leadership of the Homes has no excuse for not knowing the truth & knowing the difference between false & true, whether it confirms & fits the truth of God's original guidelines laid down in the Letters, or whether it is false & detracting, distracting or misguided & leading people astray.
         21. SO IT MAY BE TIME FOR THAT AGAIN! MAYBE THE LORD IS GOING TO AGAIN GIVE US GREAT SPIRITUAL OUTPOURING & tongues & interpretations, prophecies, messages, miracles etc. to help & encourage & inspire & even govern the local Homes who may get out of touch with each other through no fault of their own, but through persecution or a breakdown of the communication system or the mails. It has its dangers but it has its wonderful advantages & inspirations, & we don't want to be so afraid of wild fire that we don't have any fire at all!
         22. SO, REGARDING THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT, IT DEPENDS ON WHAT SPIRIT OR WHAT SPIRITS ARE GIVING THEM whether they're a blessing or a curse or whether they're really helpful or a hindrance! So they have to be very very closely watched & supervised & guided, as I did that Birthday night. And I'm certainly thankful that that night we didn't get a single false prophecy that I know of!
         23. SO THERE ARE PROS & CONS, ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES, YOU JUST HAVE TO TRY TO STRIKE A REAL MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD SENSIBLE BALANCED APPROACH to the manifestations of the gifts of the Spirit in the congregation, & there has to be a good strong spiritual leader, a knowledgeable leader who has gifts himself, who can guide & discern & keep a strong controlling hand on the situation & not let it get away from him & not let anyone get away with anything false or which is wrong in either content or operation, false doctrine or whatever.
         24. (TO MARIA:) WHO KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN OR WHERE I'LL BE WHEN IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO TAKE OVER? We may not have time or opportunity to have an official anointing & ordination & commission. It's sort of like the way Mary anointed the Lord beforehand for His burial, we anointed you by the Spirit beforehand for not your burial but your resurrection! (Maria: Yes, that's true!) At least that made it official & worldwide & definite & confirmed by the Lord, as though of course He hadn't already done it many times before, but He had already done it, I should say. But this was even a more definite confirmation.
         25. AND I THINK IT WAS PERHAPS EVEN MORE FOR YOUR SAKE THAN FOR THEIRS, BECAUSE I DON'T THINK ANY OF THEM DOUBTED YOUR LEADERSHIP ABILITY.--You doubt it more than they do! I think it was to encourage you & give you the official Word! Now you can't weasel out of it by saying you don't have it, & blah, blah!--Ha! GBY!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family