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FORT WORTH?The media are replete with books, magazines, web sites, and radio and television talk show hosts offering pseudo-spiritual advice. With regard to such pretenders, Christ-followers must perk up, pay attention, and pay their biblical dues when identifying and responding to false prophets.
That’s the advice for believers from Cky Carrigan, associate professor of evangelism at Southwestern Seminary.
In the 1960s, Satan tried to convince the world God was dead. But since that didn’t work, Satan changed tactics, trying to convince the world that he doesn’t exist.
That subtle strategy works all too often because the “Devil and all deceivers use the same vocabulary as Christians, but employ a much different dictionary,” Carrigan said. “All of today’s talk about truth is not the same truth of the Bible. And all today’s talk regarding God, Jesus Christ, love, hope, joy, salvation, the cross, Heaven and Hell are not the same as these things from the Bible.
“We must be alert to a changing world and changing teachings about God and spirituality because we live in an era when some people display a form of godliness, but know not God’s power,” Carrigan said.
Carrigan served as national missionary for interfaith evangelism at the North American Mission Board from 1998-2007. His website, ontruth.com, deals with Christian apologetics and combating false teachings.
“The best remedy for a lie is the truth. So, we Baptists must open our Bibles and read them. Biblical dues-paying is hard work, but it’s good, rewarding and essential work,” he said.
“Acts 17:11 says the Bereans eagerly examined the Scriptures every day to verify the veracity of contemporary teaching and preaching. Today is no different,” Carrigan advised. “The Berean onus is on us. It’s time for this generation to pay our dues as did our Baptists forebears who mastered the doctrines of our heritage that we find in the Bible and the Baptist Faith and Message.”
“We must study the Bible and doctrinal statements derived from it as if the whole world depends on it, because it does. If we don’t know the truth, we can’t tell it; and if we don’t tell it, the world won’t know it. Furthermore, if we don’t know the truth intimately, then we also will be ignorant to half-truths and whole lies,” said Carrigan, who added that extra- or contra-biblical teachings “almost always corrupt the pure doctrines of the Scriptures, the tri-unity of God, the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, and grace-alone, faith-alone, Christ-alone salvation. The best way to identify the counterfeit is to know what is true and real, and that comes from biblical study.”
Carrigan said parents, deacons and Sunday school teachers must be versed in the fundamental Christian doctrines, and “teach those we love what we know and protect them from false prophets and false teachers.”
Carrigan is careful to distinguish exactly who is a prophet, saying that a “true biblical prophet received and conveyed direct, unmediated revelation from God.” And to confer the title of prophet on those who purvey false doctrines is a misnomer. They are, instead, teachers of false doctrines.
Christians therefore, may be unaware that, to call someone a false prophet may shift the focus off of the revisionist’s self-proclaimed status and onto whether their utterances are really false and not on whether the person is indeed a prophet. While scrutiny of both the message and messenger is vitally important, Carrigan cautions that such discernment must not become imbalanced.
Theologians continue to debate whether valid prophecies have ceased, Carrigan said, adding that many Southern Baptists believe that foretelling in fact has ceased?at least for this present Christian era.
“Southern Baptists generally assert that God does not speak to Christians today by means of direct revelation through prophets. So, it would be impossible, or at least extraordinary, by definition, for a professing prophet to be a true prophet today, even if he utters a prophecy that is found to be true by biblical standards.”
And since the Bible is the standard by which prophecies should be judged, then the standard itself negates the present-day need for the office of biblical prophet, Carrigan believes.
Whether false teachers are on the rise is not a question Carrigan feels qualified to answer. “But what is clear is the seemingly infinite number of false prophets who spin their deception on the worldwide web. The Internet is the go-to place for all things informational, even all things spiritual. This is all the more reason to study carefully the Word of God and to be ready to demonstrate that one is fit to divide rightly the Word of God and not be ashamed in this day of deception,” he said.
“In sum, prudence demands extreme caution today when someone claims to convey direct, unmediated revelation from God,” Carrigan said. “So, in this present era of Christian history, beware of the self-proclaimed prophet?period.”
