False Prophets?
There is a lot of talk about false prophets these days, with many having judgments of this one or that one (well known ministers). This can cause confusion, division, fear, doubt, and other negative things. This is not to say that we should not seek spiritual discernment, judge fruits, be wise, etc. But, to overcome the negatives mentioned, we need a proper perspective of the issue of "false prophets."
Let me first go through a few very common fallacies concerning the methods people are using to determine if a person is a false prophet.
1. Some determine that false prophets include Christians who have the supernatural occurring in their ministries and meetings. Those who judge this way do so because they sincerely believe that the Holy Spirit stopped working supernaturally and miraculously in the midst of believers once the entirety of Scripture was composed and available together, both Old and New Testaments. These believe the gifts of the Spirit and such ceased long before today. I shouldn't have to point out how convenient this view is for those who want to be seen as anointed leaders of God's people, but don't walk in the manifestation of God's power that proves anointing.
2. Some are accepting of certain gifts of the Holy Spirit or supernatural manifestations, but rejecting of others. These classify manifestations as "of God" or "of the devil" based on outward appearance of the manifestation. For example, at a meeting, someone starts shaking, falls to the ground as if dead, and continues shaking on the ground. Some will dismiss this outright only based on outer appearance, regardless of the result or fruit. I call this the preconceived factor. They have preconceived ideas of what God at work by the Holy Spirit looks like when affecting human flesh. One of the common arguments is that a manifestation is not found in Scripture or that it is disorderly. The person screaming, then shaking and falling to the floor is considered "disorderly" and so it must have been the flesh or the devil, it could not have been the Holy Spirit coming on that flesh to cause that, as "God would never do that." So goes the arguments, though such a people may believe in some supernatural works of God for today, just not those that make them go, "Huh?" or feel uncomfortable. For example, one may be comfortable with praying for someone who is sick and they get healed, but when something like praying in tongues is brought up, or practiced in their presence, they get uncomfortable and draw the line. I should not have to point out both the hypocrisy and pleasing of the flesh that this reveals in people.
3. Some determine a false prophet if any portion of his message/teaching does not match their mental understanding of Scripture. These come at it from a "theological" standpoint and debate. If someone does not agree fully or mostly with their "theology" then they must not be from God. This fallacy causes men to believe that their natural mind, and only they and those who agree with them, is that which is blessed with the right understanding of Scripture, and all others are deceived. I shouldn't have to point out the obvious carnal pride of personal intellect that this reveals.
I'm sure we could think of more, but I'm just trying to give a sample of the most common I've seen. None of these are good reasons to call someone a false prophet/minister.
The primary way for the Old Covenant people to spot a false prophet, which I believe is still valid in the New Covenant way, is that a false prophet leads the people away from the one true Creator God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and leads people after false gods. Those were the ones Israel was told to beware of and not follow.
Some believe the test of a prophet is if all he says comes to pass or not. That is not quite true. First, prophecy can have multiple fulfillments, have layers of meaning, and even the first fulfillment may not happen in a short enough amount of time for that group or generation to label it as one that didn't come to pass. The prophets who wrote Scripture said many things that did not come to pass in their generations. That did not make them false. Those things came to pass later, or will come to pass still yet. Also, such test of a prophet would require that a true prophet must be a perfect man, never making a mistake or speaking incorrectly or speaking from ignorance. Since we know that no such man other than Yahshua of Nazareth has existed on earth, perfect in every way all his days, then no other could be a true prophet. What Scripture does warn us about is the presumptuous man who prophesies presumptuously. Whether they add to what God showed/told them, or just make up things he really didn't show/tell them, what they say is judged as false, and God says not to fear them.
An example of this in action are the many ear-tickling prophets that Israel had. They'd prophesy "peace, peace" when there was no peace in God's plan for Israel at that time. God was intending to punish his people and send them into captivity and the man-pleasing prophets were telling the people what they wanted to hear. This still goes on today, and such men are false prophets in that sense. They themselves are either deceived or crooked enough to do it knowingly just to be liked by people. Either way, we are safe in ignoring their message and them. But, these are not dangerous beyond giving people false hope that will be dashed soon anyway. They cannot stop what God is really going to do in that generation, and the people will soon see that they were lied to. According to Scripture, God actually sends an adversarial (satanic) lying spirit to be in the mouths of these prophets for his own purpose (1 Kings 22:20-23).
So, the opposite shows us what true prophets are like, who speak the Word of YHWH to people. First, they will always point people to the Creator God, by whichever name they know to point people to the one of Scripture. This now includes the Son and the New Covenant, so that anyone denying the Son denies the Father, and is preaching a false message (1 John 2:22). They will also speak as God tells/shows them, regardless of whether people like the message or not. They are not man-pleasers who just want to be popular and likeable.
Outside of that, true prophets as our examples in Scripture were often bizarre/peculiar/weird to the perception of others. At times their actions were strange, and at times their words were strange. A minister today being strange appearing and sounding does not make him/her false. At times God even had his prophets do things that were seemingly "wrong" to the people. Case in point is when he had his prophet to Israel go around naked. This no doubt caused those stuck on the letter of the law religious mindset to accuse such man of being lude, crude, perverse, indecent, sinful, etc. But, God did command that prophet to do such and he was being a God-pleaser rather than a man-pleaser, by obeying what God told him to do. Btw, all who had real faith relationships with God were able to communicate with God and get personal commands. Such a relationship always superseded the law of the letter. Another example of such is the prophet being told to cook food over dung and eat it. That was ritually unclean, but God told him to do it anyway.
So, the ministry of prophets can be strange. God often uses the strangeness of such to get the attention of people, like saying, "Hey! Can I have your attention please?! Look over here!!!" I believe he does this because the people become dull and need the shock affect sometimes just to get their attention. Not only do they not hear God speaking to them in personal relationship, but they would never stop to hear the prophets message if something didn't grab their attention. Back to Ezekiel and the eating food cooked over dung while lying on his side for many days - that shocking display was prophetic, and also used to get their attention. People walking by each day took notice. If he just stood there speaking words only, most would probably just tune him out and keep walking, not even paying attention to the message.
We will not be able to tell if someone is truly commissioned and anointed by God by their outward appearances or actions. God suprised the Israelites many times with men that did not seem right outwardly to their religious thinking.
We do best just to stick to determining if they exalt the Most High and his Son, the Messiah, and point people to head him and obey - repenting and turning to follow Messiah.
We will not be able to determine if a man is a false prophet because he sins, not even if it is grievious immorality. King David is a good example of this. He committed adultery and murder, but he was a man after God's own heart, and the greatest anointed King and one of the chief Messianic prophets of God's old covenant people. He was even the primary instrument God used to reveal worship in spirit and in truth through the type and shadow of the tabernacle of David, where the ark of the presence was not veiled and where sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise was in place rather than animal sacrifices and religious ritual worship. Furthermore, he was the one who's son, Yahshua, would one day take the Davidic throne forever, to rule the nations. This was a man highly favored by God, though God foreknew what great sins he'd commit in earth (flesh).
We will not be able to discern if he is false because his ministry was once thriving and then he fell and his ministry fell apart, or was once seeminly anointed/powerful but later lost it. Saul is a great example of this. He was anointed king and had the Holy Spirit upon him at times, even to prophesy. But, he was not of a right heart, and so after many chances he had rejected the leading of God's Spirit too much, and the Spirit being grieved departed from him, so that another spirit, an evil spirit, came instead and tormented Saul, even driving him to attempt to murder David, the successor God had chosen and anointed. Saul could have repented and once again been a man of God. And the fact that he fell did not mean he was never anointed or chosen by God. When a ministry falls, that does not mean the ministry was never of God. It could mean that it was originally anointed but kept rejecting the directing of the Holy Spirit, who then departed, allowing an evil spirit to come instead and destroy the man and the ministry.
Before I close this article out, I want to get to what I believe is the most important part. In the New Covenant, the best way to see if someone or a ministry is being used of God and anointed by him or not, is to look at the example of Yahshua and then to look at those who opposed the Son in the flesh among them, but who claimed to be children of God.
A person can know the letter of Scripture backward, forward, and all around, and still be false and deceived and a deceiver of others. This is because the plan of God for man since the beginning has never been for man to have a right relationship with him through the knowledge of good and evil, not even such knowledge given in Scripture. That is a stumbling block used to test the hearts of men, whether they really want God, or want to bypass God just to get some knowledge of good and evil that they think will make them like God, without true relationship and surrender to God.
It is very possible for people who know Scripture, even if they know it better than most other people, to not really know God, and to miss the work of God going on right in front of their faces. If we look at the examples of the Sadduccees and Pharisees, something we see is that their knowledge and understanding of Scripture was mostly legal, meaning to them it was all about this rule and that rule and the other rule, and doctrine based on natural understanding of the letter. By over-focusing on such, they missed the bigger picture and what it was all really pointing at. The sign of Scripture was pointing at the Son coming in the flesh and redeeming all of mankind, but when he came in the flesh they did not recognize him as the Messiah. They even accused him of being demon-possessed, a drunkard and glutton, and blasphemous false prophet.
The main thing about the false people of God that claimed to be his children was this. They were good in their own minds with God of the past and God of the future, but God right now operating in the present they rejected. Professing believers still do this today, and we should take note when we see someone with a pattern of believing the great things Scripture says God did in the past, and what Scripture says God will do that is awesome in the future, but they will not accept him working supernaturally in our midst right now. Cessationists are a great example of this. I find it impossible to know God truly and not only accept his works now, but love them and long for more. Those who seem to know Scripture well but are not about experiencing God right now are following a false religious mindset and leading others to do the same.
The other false people are those who try to point us to other gods. Those are very obvious, however, unlike the infiltrators, the tares, the wolves in sheep's clothing, etc. Those transforming themselves into ministers of light in Paul's day were revealed by their legalism. Their gospel was not all about what Yahshua did and finished on the cross, but their gospel was all about what man must do by his own efforts to be worthy enough to be accepted by God and saved. Paul had much conflict with these, even though he was once among them as a Pharisee of Pharisees, and so he sought help from the Apostles of the Lamb and elders at Jerusalem, who unanimously agreed with Paul and his gospel and wrote to the gentiles to ignore the false ministers that they were not sending out, who were spreading the false gospel of adding to the work of Messiah in order to be accepted by God and saved. Such false ministers look like they are of the light because their outward appearance seems righteous. But, like their real leader, they are really just transforming themselves into ministers of light, when darkness lies in the heart. Yahshua called such religious people things like "vipers, white-washed tombs, sons of the devil, sons of hell, unmarked tombs" and so forth.
This is often overlooked by God's people in making determination of which side is right. It really is helpful if you look to see if someone operates like the ancient true prophets, Yahshua, and the Apostles, or if they operate like the Sadduccees and Pharisees. Ironically, it is the latter two that are most often "sounding the alarm" against what is "false." Their whole ministry can even tend to be about warning the people of the false prophets in the land. Those 2000 years ago tried to warn the Israelites about Yahshua and his disciples. Most of the Jews listened to them and thus supported the crucifixion of Yahshua, who they called a "blasphemer." Do you know of ministries that attempt to use the letter of Scripture to point out "false prophets" and false movements, and that such is their main focus? They can claim to be watchmen and such all they want, but you the people need only look at the example of Yahshua's ministry compared to that of the Pharisees and Sadducees to see which modern minsitries are which.
The religious crowd can put on a really good outward appearance. But, in the end, it is revealed to be a form of godliness that denies the power (that accompanies true godliness in Messiah by faith). To look righteous, these ministers will point you to the "Bible" or "Scripture" constantly, and point the finger of judgment against supernatural ministries including healings, signs, wonders, and miracles. True anointed ministries of God will also exalt the use of Scripture for its scripturally stated purposes, but will also equally if not more so point you to the One with whom you are to have a covenant relationship with, and receive of His Spirit, and to become empowered witnesses operating in your own anointing and gifting for his Glory.
Remember, one thing they do to make themselves look good and be believable to the naive believers they want to influence is to pick specific ministries operating in the supernatural and tear them apart and prove them false. Don't be fooled. They say they are trying to save you. That right there should be a huge red flag. There is only one who saves - Yahshua the Redeemer and Deliverer! He is a good Shepherd and well able to keep his sheep, without loosing even one. Say no to the fear mongerers who deny the full saving power of faith in Messiah and the ability of the good Shepherd to keep his own sheep, who try to manipulate you with fear, doubt, and unbelief, to avoid the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit in our generation, however bizarre/strange/peculiar it may seem and how far outside of the traditional religious boxes it may seem. Remember, God is not in the business of further confirming religious sacred cows by operating only by such patterns man tries to conform him to.
If you come to a real relationship with God in Messiah seeking to be led by the Holy Spirit, he is able to keep and guide his sheep! His sheep hear his voice! He will lead you the way he has planned for you to go, and that is all you need to focus on. He may not have you go with one group or revival or something, and that does not make it false. In the new covenant, he leads each sheep as is best for that one's development. Your discipleship course may vary from another person's. This is because you have different weaknesses and strengths. The goal of being led by the Spirit is to reach maturity in Messiah and your destined calling among the elect and the ministry of witnessing and making disciples he has in store for you. It is not about everyone being clones of one type of "Christianity." For example, the Spirit may have led you through the Hebrew Roots and Sacred Names movement like I gleaned from as well, but that does not mean he wants to lead all of his sheep through such or that he intends for you to stay in such and form dogma out of such that you religiously follow in the flesh, apart from the fresh leading of the Spirit and fresh anointing of power from on high.
With love in Mashiach our King!
David
Let me first go through a few very common fallacies concerning the methods people are using to determine if a person is a false prophet.
1. Some determine that false prophets include Christians who have the supernatural occurring in their ministries and meetings. Those who judge this way do so because they sincerely believe that the Holy Spirit stopped working supernaturally and miraculously in the midst of believers once the entirety of Scripture was composed and available together, both Old and New Testaments. These believe the gifts of the Spirit and such ceased long before today. I shouldn't have to point out how convenient this view is for those who want to be seen as anointed leaders of God's people, but don't walk in the manifestation of God's power that proves anointing.
2. Some are accepting of certain gifts of the Holy Spirit or supernatural manifestations, but rejecting of others. These classify manifestations as "of God" or "of the devil" based on outward appearance of the manifestation. For example, at a meeting, someone starts shaking, falls to the ground as if dead, and continues shaking on the ground. Some will dismiss this outright only based on outer appearance, regardless of the result or fruit. I call this the preconceived factor. They have preconceived ideas of what God at work by the Holy Spirit looks like when affecting human flesh. One of the common arguments is that a manifestation is not found in Scripture or that it is disorderly. The person screaming, then shaking and falling to the floor is considered "disorderly" and so it must have been the flesh or the devil, it could not have been the Holy Spirit coming on that flesh to cause that, as "God would never do that." So goes the arguments, though such a people may believe in some supernatural works of God for today, just not those that make them go, "Huh?" or feel uncomfortable. For example, one may be comfortable with praying for someone who is sick and they get healed, but when something like praying in tongues is brought up, or practiced in their presence, they get uncomfortable and draw the line. I should not have to point out both the hypocrisy and pleasing of the flesh that this reveals in people.
3. Some determine a false prophet if any portion of his message/teaching does not match their mental understanding of Scripture. These come at it from a "theological" standpoint and debate. If someone does not agree fully or mostly with their "theology" then they must not be from God. This fallacy causes men to believe that their natural mind, and only they and those who agree with them, is that which is blessed with the right understanding of Scripture, and all others are deceived. I shouldn't have to point out the obvious carnal pride of personal intellect that this reveals.
I'm sure we could think of more, but I'm just trying to give a sample of the most common I've seen. None of these are good reasons to call someone a false prophet/minister.
The primary way for the Old Covenant people to spot a false prophet, which I believe is still valid in the New Covenant way, is that a false prophet leads the people away from the one true Creator God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and leads people after false gods. Those were the ones Israel was told to beware of and not follow.
Some believe the test of a prophet is if all he says comes to pass or not. That is not quite true. First, prophecy can have multiple fulfillments, have layers of meaning, and even the first fulfillment may not happen in a short enough amount of time for that group or generation to label it as one that didn't come to pass. The prophets who wrote Scripture said many things that did not come to pass in their generations. That did not make them false. Those things came to pass later, or will come to pass still yet. Also, such test of a prophet would require that a true prophet must be a perfect man, never making a mistake or speaking incorrectly or speaking from ignorance. Since we know that no such man other than Yahshua of Nazareth has existed on earth, perfect in every way all his days, then no other could be a true prophet. What Scripture does warn us about is the presumptuous man who prophesies presumptuously. Whether they add to what God showed/told them, or just make up things he really didn't show/tell them, what they say is judged as false, and God says not to fear them.
An example of this in action are the many ear-tickling prophets that Israel had. They'd prophesy "peace, peace" when there was no peace in God's plan for Israel at that time. God was intending to punish his people and send them into captivity and the man-pleasing prophets were telling the people what they wanted to hear. This still goes on today, and such men are false prophets in that sense. They themselves are either deceived or crooked enough to do it knowingly just to be liked by people. Either way, we are safe in ignoring their message and them. But, these are not dangerous beyond giving people false hope that will be dashed soon anyway. They cannot stop what God is really going to do in that generation, and the people will soon see that they were lied to. According to Scripture, God actually sends an adversarial (satanic) lying spirit to be in the mouths of these prophets for his own purpose (1 Kings 22:20-23).
So, the opposite shows us what true prophets are like, who speak the Word of YHWH to people. First, they will always point people to the Creator God, by whichever name they know to point people to the one of Scripture. This now includes the Son and the New Covenant, so that anyone denying the Son denies the Father, and is preaching a false message (1 John 2:22). They will also speak as God tells/shows them, regardless of whether people like the message or not. They are not man-pleasers who just want to be popular and likeable.
Outside of that, true prophets as our examples in Scripture were often bizarre/peculiar/weird to the perception of others. At times their actions were strange, and at times their words were strange. A minister today being strange appearing and sounding does not make him/her false. At times God even had his prophets do things that were seemingly "wrong" to the people. Case in point is when he had his prophet to Israel go around naked. This no doubt caused those stuck on the letter of the law religious mindset to accuse such man of being lude, crude, perverse, indecent, sinful, etc. But, God did command that prophet to do such and he was being a God-pleaser rather than a man-pleaser, by obeying what God told him to do. Btw, all who had real faith relationships with God were able to communicate with God and get personal commands. Such a relationship always superseded the law of the letter. Another example of such is the prophet being told to cook food over dung and eat it. That was ritually unclean, but God told him to do it anyway.
So, the ministry of prophets can be strange. God often uses the strangeness of such to get the attention of people, like saying, "Hey! Can I have your attention please?! Look over here!!!" I believe he does this because the people become dull and need the shock affect sometimes just to get their attention. Not only do they not hear God speaking to them in personal relationship, but they would never stop to hear the prophets message if something didn't grab their attention. Back to Ezekiel and the eating food cooked over dung while lying on his side for many days - that shocking display was prophetic, and also used to get their attention. People walking by each day took notice. If he just stood there speaking words only, most would probably just tune him out and keep walking, not even paying attention to the message.
We will not be able to tell if someone is truly commissioned and anointed by God by their outward appearances or actions. God suprised the Israelites many times with men that did not seem right outwardly to their religious thinking.
We do best just to stick to determining if they exalt the Most High and his Son, the Messiah, and point people to head him and obey - repenting and turning to follow Messiah.
We will not be able to determine if a man is a false prophet because he sins, not even if it is grievious immorality. King David is a good example of this. He committed adultery and murder, but he was a man after God's own heart, and the greatest anointed King and one of the chief Messianic prophets of God's old covenant people. He was even the primary instrument God used to reveal worship in spirit and in truth through the type and shadow of the tabernacle of David, where the ark of the presence was not veiled and where sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise was in place rather than animal sacrifices and religious ritual worship. Furthermore, he was the one who's son, Yahshua, would one day take the Davidic throne forever, to rule the nations. This was a man highly favored by God, though God foreknew what great sins he'd commit in earth (flesh).
We will not be able to discern if he is false because his ministry was once thriving and then he fell and his ministry fell apart, or was once seeminly anointed/powerful but later lost it. Saul is a great example of this. He was anointed king and had the Holy Spirit upon him at times, even to prophesy. But, he was not of a right heart, and so after many chances he had rejected the leading of God's Spirit too much, and the Spirit being grieved departed from him, so that another spirit, an evil spirit, came instead and tormented Saul, even driving him to attempt to murder David, the successor God had chosen and anointed. Saul could have repented and once again been a man of God. And the fact that he fell did not mean he was never anointed or chosen by God. When a ministry falls, that does not mean the ministry was never of God. It could mean that it was originally anointed but kept rejecting the directing of the Holy Spirit, who then departed, allowing an evil spirit to come instead and destroy the man and the ministry.
Before I close this article out, I want to get to what I believe is the most important part. In the New Covenant, the best way to see if someone or a ministry is being used of God and anointed by him or not, is to look at the example of Yahshua and then to look at those who opposed the Son in the flesh among them, but who claimed to be children of God.
A person can know the letter of Scripture backward, forward, and all around, and still be false and deceived and a deceiver of others. This is because the plan of God for man since the beginning has never been for man to have a right relationship with him through the knowledge of good and evil, not even such knowledge given in Scripture. That is a stumbling block used to test the hearts of men, whether they really want God, or want to bypass God just to get some knowledge of good and evil that they think will make them like God, without true relationship and surrender to God.
It is very possible for people who know Scripture, even if they know it better than most other people, to not really know God, and to miss the work of God going on right in front of their faces. If we look at the examples of the Sadduccees and Pharisees, something we see is that their knowledge and understanding of Scripture was mostly legal, meaning to them it was all about this rule and that rule and the other rule, and doctrine based on natural understanding of the letter. By over-focusing on such, they missed the bigger picture and what it was all really pointing at. The sign of Scripture was pointing at the Son coming in the flesh and redeeming all of mankind, but when he came in the flesh they did not recognize him as the Messiah. They even accused him of being demon-possessed, a drunkard and glutton, and blasphemous false prophet.
The main thing about the false people of God that claimed to be his children was this. They were good in their own minds with God of the past and God of the future, but God right now operating in the present they rejected. Professing believers still do this today, and we should take note when we see someone with a pattern of believing the great things Scripture says God did in the past, and what Scripture says God will do that is awesome in the future, but they will not accept him working supernaturally in our midst right now. Cessationists are a great example of this. I find it impossible to know God truly and not only accept his works now, but love them and long for more. Those who seem to know Scripture well but are not about experiencing God right now are following a false religious mindset and leading others to do the same.
The other false people are those who try to point us to other gods. Those are very obvious, however, unlike the infiltrators, the tares, the wolves in sheep's clothing, etc. Those transforming themselves into ministers of light in Paul's day were revealed by their legalism. Their gospel was not all about what Yahshua did and finished on the cross, but their gospel was all about what man must do by his own efforts to be worthy enough to be accepted by God and saved. Paul had much conflict with these, even though he was once among them as a Pharisee of Pharisees, and so he sought help from the Apostles of the Lamb and elders at Jerusalem, who unanimously agreed with Paul and his gospel and wrote to the gentiles to ignore the false ministers that they were not sending out, who were spreading the false gospel of adding to the work of Messiah in order to be accepted by God and saved. Such false ministers look like they are of the light because their outward appearance seems righteous. But, like their real leader, they are really just transforming themselves into ministers of light, when darkness lies in the heart. Yahshua called such religious people things like "vipers, white-washed tombs, sons of the devil, sons of hell, unmarked tombs" and so forth.
This is often overlooked by God's people in making determination of which side is right. It really is helpful if you look to see if someone operates like the ancient true prophets, Yahshua, and the Apostles, or if they operate like the Sadduccees and Pharisees. Ironically, it is the latter two that are most often "sounding the alarm" against what is "false." Their whole ministry can even tend to be about warning the people of the false prophets in the land. Those 2000 years ago tried to warn the Israelites about Yahshua and his disciples. Most of the Jews listened to them and thus supported the crucifixion of Yahshua, who they called a "blasphemer." Do you know of ministries that attempt to use the letter of Scripture to point out "false prophets" and false movements, and that such is their main focus? They can claim to be watchmen and such all they want, but you the people need only look at the example of Yahshua's ministry compared to that of the Pharisees and Sadducees to see which modern minsitries are which.
The religious crowd can put on a really good outward appearance. But, in the end, it is revealed to be a form of godliness that denies the power (that accompanies true godliness in Messiah by faith). To look righteous, these ministers will point you to the "Bible" or "Scripture" constantly, and point the finger of judgment against supernatural ministries including healings, signs, wonders, and miracles. True anointed ministries of God will also exalt the use of Scripture for its scripturally stated purposes, but will also equally if not more so point you to the One with whom you are to have a covenant relationship with, and receive of His Spirit, and to become empowered witnesses operating in your own anointing and gifting for his Glory.
Remember, one thing they do to make themselves look good and be believable to the naive believers they want to influence is to pick specific ministries operating in the supernatural and tear them apart and prove them false. Don't be fooled. They say they are trying to save you. That right there should be a huge red flag. There is only one who saves - Yahshua the Redeemer and Deliverer! He is a good Shepherd and well able to keep his sheep, without loosing even one. Say no to the fear mongerers who deny the full saving power of faith in Messiah and the ability of the good Shepherd to keep his own sheep, who try to manipulate you with fear, doubt, and unbelief, to avoid the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit in our generation, however bizarre/strange/peculiar it may seem and how far outside of the traditional religious boxes it may seem. Remember, God is not in the business of further confirming religious sacred cows by operating only by such patterns man tries to conform him to.
If you come to a real relationship with God in Messiah seeking to be led by the Holy Spirit, he is able to keep and guide his sheep! His sheep hear his voice! He will lead you the way he has planned for you to go, and that is all you need to focus on. He may not have you go with one group or revival or something, and that does not make it false. In the new covenant, he leads each sheep as is best for that one's development. Your discipleship course may vary from another person's. This is because you have different weaknesses and strengths. The goal of being led by the Spirit is to reach maturity in Messiah and your destined calling among the elect and the ministry of witnessing and making disciples he has in store for you. It is not about everyone being clones of one type of "Christianity." For example, the Spirit may have led you through the Hebrew Roots and Sacred Names movement like I gleaned from as well, but that does not mean he wants to lead all of his sheep through such or that he intends for you to stay in such and form dogma out of such that you religiously follow in the flesh, apart from the fresh leading of the Spirit and fresh anointing of power from on high.
With love in Mashiach our King!
David