PROPHETIC CONFUSION
Ben Peters
Dec 4, 2008


www.ohmint.org

Greetings Saints,

It's about 6 degrees Fahrenheit at the moment, but the sun is shining beautifully on the sparkling new snow. It's lovely from the inside looking out. Fortunately, I have a conference in Florida to attend next week and I'll be heading down there on Saturday, stopping in Henderson, Kentucky for Sunday services there. I'll have to suffer the loss of the beautiful snow, but don't feel too sorry for me.

Meanwhile, Brenda arrived safely in Seattle last night and will motor on eastward to Soap Lake to be with her 86+ year old parents for a few days.

Please pray for us during this season. We can't share much, but we do need prayer for certain situations.

Also, continue to pray for truth and righteousness to prevail in America. Pray that what is being hidden by forces of wickedness will be revealed and that God would truly have his way in our land. It is our job to pray that His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. If it happened automatically, Jesus would have not asked us to pray for it to happen.

I want to share another article I wrote and sent in to the Elijah List. It may not get published, but I want to share it with our mailing list. I'd love to hear your comments.

God bless you all,

Ben, Brenda, family and OHM team



PROPHETIC CONFUSION IN TIMES OF TURMOIL

Ben R Peters

I received a letter recently from a sincere woman who was struggling deeply with the fact that so many prophetic voices were saying such radically different things about the election results and the economy. She no longer knew whom to believe. Her spiritual discernment was overtaxed and unable to give her any clear answers. Like her, we have heard of some prophetic people pronouncing nothing but judgment on America and the church, and others pronouncing unprecedented prosperity and peace. Some want to accept the president-elect as a gift from God, and some probably want him to die a premature death before January 20, 2009.

The lady who wrote me is just one of multitudes of Christians who are looking for someone in the prophetic movement to lead them out of the State of Confusion and into the Place of Peace that Passes Understanding. Passing understanding means to me that we not only understand what is happening, but we are actually moving on to get involved in the next event on God’s calendar, because we have peace in our hearts for what is going on in the present.

REASONS FOR PROPHETIC CONFUSION

1. Deception

Whenever God is ready to make a major move on the earth, the enemy will use whatever tricks he can to bring confusion into the camp. He always finds vessels he can use. These are usually the ones who really want to become known as “prophets” of God. They want to impress people and they listen to any voice that comes to their spirit and mind. They don’t intend to deceive. They believe they are hearing from God, but their motives and pride allow deception to come in. They will usually be very heavy on the judgment side or the grace side with little understanding of the heart of God.

2. Extrapolation

The biggest reason for the confusion, in my opinion, is not the completely deceived prophets who are on the fringe, because not many people pay that much attention to them. The biggest reason for confusion is that prophets that we DO respect often see just a part of the whole picture and try to build a bigger picture from the one small piece. It’s the kind of thing that evolutionists do all the time when they find one or two dinosaur bones.

Also imagine someone giving you one small piece of a one thousand-piece puzzle and asking you to recreate the whole puzzle picture from the single piece. If a thousand people tried to do that, they would come up with a thousand different pictures. Prophetic people often get a word or a picture and draw unwarranted conclusions from a small piece of the whole. The problem is that they have no idea how big the whole picture is. Often we assume our piece actually IS the whole picture.

For example, some prophets are seeing a whole lot of judgment coming on America very soon. They feel that it is too late to change our ways. We need to bunker down and get through it. There are others who see Jesus coming very soon to rapture the church, so we can escape the tribulation, while others see us going through some or all of it before Jesus returns.

Others see the vision of a new wave of blessing coming on America. They extrapolate from this that we will not have to go through the judgments of God and we will enjoy a new season of restored prosperity for the rest of our days.

3. The Need to be Right

The biggest reason that we can’t clear up the confusion for the poor folk who are looking to us for clarity is that very few prophetic ministries have demonstrated the humility needed to admit when they have been wrong or when they have extrapolated from the small part they have received to produce what they felt was the whole picture. All of us are born, it seems, with the need to be “right”. We feel that we will lose respect if we admit we were wrong. Prophets are no different. We have seen many prophets’ words fall to the ground without them offering so much as an explanation, much less an apology.

For the sake of the Kingdom of God and its progress on the earth, we must remedy this source of reproach. True prophets and prophetic ministry are critically needed in these last days, but Christians who are taking a serious look at the prophetic movement are quickly turned off by this lack of integrity. Others, who still reject it outright, find excuse to mock and attack. The unsaved find more reasons to reject Christ and the Father’s heart is caused more grief.

A PERSONAL TAKE ON CURRENT EVENTS

Before the elections and the economic implosion, I felt that God had given me several revelatory words regarding these subjects. Some came from biblical examples as downloads while I was speaking or preparing to speak in church revival meetings. These were my personal encouragements that kept my faith strong that we would see the results that we and others were earnestly praying for.

I was also getting much input from highly respected prophetic leaders like Lou Engles and Dutch Sheets. I also have a highly prophetic friend who must remain anonymous at this time. In addition, I was hearing of dreams and visions from close, but not well-known, friends. These all indicated to us that we would see the desired results on election day. I published my expectations in our newsletters and waited for a major upset on election night. God had promised a surprise, and I was ready for a last inning miracle rally.

The next day, after the results were in, I published an apology for missing it. I told our readers that we, in the prophetic movement, still have a long ways to go to learn to hear from God more clearly. My prophetic friend, was also in shock after the elections and determined to find out what God was saying and why he had missed it so badly.

In the next few days, he had some radical encounters with God and shared some of the details with me. What God shared with him would clear up much of the confusion regarding the elections and the economy. The biggest problem seemed to be that we had all put God in a box and assumed that His answer (His surprise) would come on election night. It seems that God had a better plan and a bigger surprise.

We continue to wait on God and get ready for whatever happens in the next few weeks and months. I believe God has heard our cry for mercy and will hold back major judgment, but we will surely go through some very rough times and chaotic situations to cause us to cry out for help. I believe strongly that there is a huge harvest to reap and a tremendous transfer of wealth coming to empower the harvesters and it will come out of the ashes of economic chaos. I believe God is setting the stage in ways that man has not yet figured out. Yes, I do believe I am right, but if I am not, I will be quick to apologize for adding confusion to the prophetic mix.

SOME CONCLUSIONS

We should be slow to judge and quick to forgive those who are speaking things that don’t pan out the way they expected. We all see only in part. Even Paul included himself in this. At the same time we need to be quick to repent and admit our own limited spiritual vision.

If prophetic people learn to listen to each other, they may see more of the big picture and lead fewer people into deception. We must lose our right to be right and regain our right to love out of a pure heart fervently.

True humility will go a long way to extricate the prophetic movement from the State of Confusion and bring us safely into the Place of Peace that Passes Understanding. Then we can get on with God’s agenda for the coming days, weeks, months and years.