MODERN PROPHETS

 

 

 

Are you interested in knowing what will happen in the future?  What will I be? Who will I marry?  Will I have children?  How much money will I make?  You might like the answers to these questions and many more, but does the Bible say God will give them to us?  In our last study we saw that God gives many spiritual gifts to His church. One of those gifts is the gift of prophecy. Prophets have the ability to foretell the future as we saw in our first study when we read the prophecies concerning Babylon. Those prophecies, however, were found in the Bible which is where we expect to find such things. Today in the religious world, there are many who claim to have messages for us from God. Some of those messages are about the future and some are just for today, but they are all supposed to be from God.  Are they?  Can we know for sure?  Yes, we can be absolutely positive if we let God make it all clear to us through His Word.

 

Let’s review the reference to prophets we saw in the last study.

 

Ephesians 4:11  

It was He, who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers.

 

Paul specifies that God has given us prophets.  But wasn’t that just back in the early days of the church and in the Old Testament of the Bible?  That’s a good question and in Matthew 24 Jesus gives us the answer.

 

Matthew 24:11  

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

 

These words from Jesus are in the context of the last days and make it clear that their will be false prophets around at that time. They will deceive many.  Now, if all the people who claim to be prophets are false, then God could have just said don’t listen to anyone who says they’re a prophet.  He didn’t do that, so we know there are true as well as false prophets.  John says something that helps us to distinguish between the true and the false.

 

1 John 4:1  

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

 

We are to test them, but how do we do that?  John gives us one way in the next two verses.

 

1 John 4:2-3 

This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

 

So, the first indication that a prophet is genuine is that he/she acknowledges that Jesus came to this earth, accepts Him, and honors all that He said.  Let’s look at another verse to add weight to the last one.

 

Isaiah 8:20  

To the law and to the testimony.  If they do not speak according to this Word, they have no light of dawn.

 

They must acknowledge Jesus and not say anything that is contrary to God’s Word, the law and the testimony.

 

Now, Paul told us in Ephesians 4:11 that God has given some to be prophets. In the next verse He gives us something else we can use in determining whether a prophet is truly from God.

 

Ephesians 4:12  

to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up

 

The body of Christ refers to all of us who are His true followers, His church. The work of a prophet is to prepare us to do the work of building up that body. Any prophet who is not doing that is not a genuine prophet. You see, the work of a prophet is not to foretell your future. They can sometimes see into the future but only when it is in connection with God’s purpose.

 

What you see is not always what you get. God wants us to look behind the curtain and use our own senses. See what Jesus says.

 

Matthew 7:15-18  

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.  By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

 

A false prophet will do his or her best to impress you as a true one so

if the good words of a self-proclaimed prophet are not consistent with his or her actions, then be careful. The fluffy white sheepskin coat might be hiding a cunning wolf.

 

God gives us all the tools we need for digging out the truth, authenticating it, and testing whoever is proclaiming it. We wouldn’t want to turn away a messenger from God out-of-hand and then find out the words that prophet had would have been a great blessing to our lives. Please keep this in mind as you read on.

 

There is a person that the Seventh-day Adventist Church accepts as a modern-day prophet. Her name is Ellen G. White.  The church does not base its beliefs and doctrines on her words. Our doctrines and beliefs are based solely on the Bible.  Ellen White, in her writings, clearly councils her readers to make the Bible their paramount source of Truth.  The only thing the church asks of its members is that they sample her writings and acknowledge her genuineness as a true prophet of God based on the criteria given to us in the Bible.

 

Ellen White is modern only in the sense that she did not live in the days of the Bible-writers.  In fact she was born on November 26, 1827. She helped in the founding of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which was officially organized in 1863, and participated in its growth until she died on July 16, 1915. Her writings have been, and continue to be, of great importance to the mission of the church which is to bring the good news about Jesus and what He has done to the whole world.  Mrs. White’s writings, used correctly and in the way she intended, are a plus for anyone who is sincere about their desire to understand the Scriptures, live a wholesome Christian life and have an intimate relationship with Jesus.

 

Of course, the only way for you to be certain of this is to read some of her books for yourself. The book entitled, Steps to Christ, which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, is a good place to start.  It is short, easy to read and is designed to do just what the title says. An excellent book to follow this one is The Desire of Ages, which covers the entire life of Jesus on this earth. The United States Library of Congress has designated this book to be the greatest one ever written on the life of Jesus.  We would be glad to provide you with a copy of these books and also more information from the Bible on the subject of prophets.

 

I hope that these studies have been helpful to you in understanding the basic beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and that you can see that our church’s goal is to live and teach only what is given to us by God through His Holy Word. If it is your desire to do the same, please contact us and we will be more than glad to talk with you about attending and becoming a member of our church.