Careful, Ramon will say you are judging.
I have an idea for a thread now.... Hmmmmm.
Something along the topic of false prophets and how to approach them maybe???
And no I don't have Jonathan in mind when thinking of this, but some seem to think that even if someone is preachign a false doctrine then Christians shouldn't "judge"
That would be a good thread, and normally I would welcome such a thread.
However, as I have been on this group for quite awhile, and have from the first day offered words from the Lord, I have been judged as false, many times because the words were not palatable, by some because they believe that there are no prophets.
Whenever someone who claims to belong to Jesus Christ calls someone else who also believes in Jesus a devil, a liar, a false prophet, then there will never be righteousness. We know that there will be false prophets, Jesus warned us of them. (He did not say to castigate them though.) He did not say that there would not be prophets, just that false prophets would rise and to beware of them.
Here is what happens when a person who is trying to grow in Christ and in His Spirit is discovered by the church of today. He is first considered to be slightly delusional. If he is persistent in his supposed delusion, then he is roundly condemned and called false. It is hard to imagine just what response this brings about in a person, especially one who is seeking to be true in all his ways. The younger one is in their path of learning to hear the Lord and speak what He says the easier it is to goad him into overreacting and saying something doubtful if not false.
I use the word goad on purpose. When I am being goaded, I am reminded of what mean children do to a dog who is pinned up and cannot defend himself. Poking at him with sticks and throwing rocks and generally causing frustration and anger. (I do not defend the anger or the frustration, but neither do I justify those who goad.)
We need to learn how to deal with this as God would have us act, because this will happen more and more often as the day draws nearer. The Holy Spirit is seeking almost any mouth that He can use, to tell us of the things to come. Jesus promised us that we would know of the things coming before they came, because He loves us. However, the general consensus among most of the church is that God does no such thing, that He does not speak to us. (The reasoning for this is that if one speaks for the Lord then it is scripture, and this is totally false. The premiss of this reasoning is that all that God has ever said or will ever say is contained in the bible. Very little thought is needed to see that there is no way that every word of God is contained in the bible. We, each and every one of us here, has spoken more words than are contained in the bible. And we have only lived a very short time compared to God, who has no beginning or end.) It is my belief that God would speak to us all the time if we would open our hearts to hear.
The only way to handle the situation as seen here is to be lead by the Holy Spirit. He knows whether Jonathan is called as a prophet, or even if he has the gift of prophecy. (These are most definitely not the same thing.) And the Spirit knows how to bring one called as a prophet into his office, and how to teach one called to prophecy into the gift. And we have the Holy Spirit, who is pleased to reside in us as teacher and leader and even as the Spirit of Christ.
It is unforgivable to destroy one who is young and not learned or experienced with our judgment. If we do this, we will answer to God. This is on par with misleading a young believer in Jesus into false doctrines in order to cause them to fall or never be fruitful. Jesus does not consider us by our earthly years, but by our spiritual growth. And He is very protective of children, of little ones.
Maturity is Christ is considered to be maturity in the knowledge of scriptures. This shows not maturity, but knowledge. And it is true that if we think we know anything, then we know nothing as we ought. Maturity in Christ is knowing the Father. I pray for all of our growth in Jesus Christ.
