Season of prophecy or deception?

suit the social lives and of their audiences.

Those who attend today’s charismatic churches often have to prove their spiritual worthiness not exactly by the measure of holiness or righteousness in their hearts and their lives, but through how much money they give in obedience to the instruction of the celebrity preachers who often style themselves in fancy titles like Apostle so and so, Prophet so and so, Dr Apostle so and so, with the humbler ones choosing the more neutral title of Pastor so and so; mainly using only first English names, like Pastor George or Pastor Michael, never ever Pastor Ticharwa or Pastor Panganai.

If you are the old fashioned Christian who believes more in the doctrine of uprightness and holiness, and your idea of giving is somewhat limited to a few dollars every Sunday, the celebrity preacher will waste no time declaring you a sordidly parsimonious wretch who needs tonnes of deliverance in the most important area of giving, itself the pathway to earthly riches, according to the doctrine of today’s prosperity gospel.

This writer has serious problems with today’s idea of prophecy, less for the doctrinal sense of it, but more for the vulnerability of the people prophesied unto, particularly the unsuspecting poor and the destitute, whose quest for solutions to life’s challenges is exploited by fraudulent religious wretches masquerading as men of God.

We are told in glowing emphasis that we are now living in the season of prophecy, whatever that means. When you question the authenticity of some of the things being done today in the name of prophecy, you are either reminded how vividly and explicitly God told all of us not judge other people, or you are simply labelled an emissary of Satan.

Matthew 7 vs 1 comes in handy whenever one raises an issue about the prevalence of false prophets today. “Judge not, that you be not judged,” we often are rebuked and reminded, as if by merely not judging the acts of others we will survive the judgment to come.
First John 4 vs 1 says: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

Today we have numerous manifestations of what is called prophecy, from the forth-telling of supposedly hidden personal details like home addresses, telephone numbers, names, places of employment, names of relatives, the car one drives, or any such other personal information as the prophet may choose, to the foretelling of issue like TB Joshua’s infamous death prophecies.

These forth tellers or soothsayers title themselves as prophets and often they warn against anyone who dares despise “the voice of the prophet,” even sugar-coating the threats with strings of impressive Bible verses and examples of people who got in trouble for despising one or the other of the Biblical prophets.
While Matthew 7 vs 15 says: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves,” Romans 16 vs 17-18 admonishes us not to be naïve when it comes to false teachers of the word of God. It says: “I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.”

Ordinarily it is vacuous to imagine God in the business of surprising people by guessing right their residential addresses or telephone numbers. Just try to say “Thus says the Lord Jehovah, your mobile number is 077234765,” and listen to how silly it all sounds. Vacuous this kind of childish prophecy may sound, but that is not to say it is not attractive. In fact attractive is an understatement, because this “he sees it as it is” prophecy is immensely popular with many people, especially those who have lost all hope because of the hardships of this world, and their only solace is longing for the intervention of a superior being. Hopeless people are easily deceived by any semblance of hope.

In prospering countries hope for material survival often lies with politicians and governments and it is not too easy to promise people prosperity on the strength of prophecy, or saying “God says this and this about you.” It is in crisis ridden societies like Zimbabwe where people find it irresistible to cling to any form of hope that may look like a way out of the hard times, especially if such hope emanates from a church pulpit. Somehow false prophecy and superstition go hand in hand.

They are like gossip and lies.
It is quite sad that we have an increasing number of con-preachers masquerading as anointed servants of God, when all they are after is self-aggrandisement.
2 Peter 2 vs 1-3 says: “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”

In July this year one Pastor Michael Njoroge of Fire Ministries in Nairobi was reported by NTV as having hired a prostitute to give a fake testimony in his church, after the pastor himself used information provided by the same prostitute to “prophesy” about her past in front of a packed auditorium. Apparently the prostitute, one Esther Mwende, had tipped off the media and went on to posture as one with a deformed mouth, before pretending to have received a miraculous healing from

Pastor Njoroge, giving a moving testimony about it all in front of the church and media cameras, with Pastor Njoroge braggingly claiming credit for the “miraculous” healing.

The most surprising thing in the whole saga was the defiance of the busted pastor and some of his followers, some of whom later assaulted the prostitute on behalf of the pastor.

In June this year Bishop Bamidele Abraham of Eagle Kingdom Church in Nigeria was arrested after he and accomplices, Pastors Chucks Kelvin, Chiwedu Okosis, Samson Prince, Osita Chuckwu, Samuel Ike and Mwenanaya Anthony Ikechukwu were caught stage managing healing miracles in a fully packed stadium. Some team members were posturing as mermaids purportedly coming from the oceans, some as blind people, some as deaf people, some as cripples and many “miracles” were being performed.

After being busted and arrested Bishop Abraham had this to say: “This is not robbery, its pure professionalism. Every profession has its way of surviving. The police have their way, the lawyers have their own way; even you journalists have your own way; what I did is pure business and survival instinct.”
Just how many of these bishops and pastors are in the gospel for “pure business and survival instinct,” only God knows.

We recently read in the Zimbabwe media of young celebrity prophets who claim they can pass God’s blessings to all others even through their shirts and socks, only after one seeds huge sums of money to purchase the blessing-carrying pieces of clothing. If such reports are true, the only comment that can be passed is that the prophets have become awful rogues unrepentantly preying on the vulnerability of spiritual weaklings. You simply cannot auction God’s blessings. It is plain heretical.

This seeding doctrine while biblically correct in concept; has been hijacked by unscrupulous con-preachers who believe they can milk other people by making them seed their hard earned cash in anticipation of miracles and other earthly gains, literally trading God’s blessings for a profit.
When these people are not posturing as close friends of God who even periodically get invited to heaven, (just to quote the outrageous claims of one of the young prophets stationed in Harare), they sometimes give earth-shaking testimonies which only them can ever verify. Some of it is absolutely ludicrous, but the charming deceivers seem to have a way of getting away with it anyway.

On the 8th of September, 2010 one 20-year-old United States prophet by the name Manasseh Jordan gave a testimony saying when he was in Texas he instructed a couple to seed US$1000 for deliverance. He then told them the seed money was for the deliverance of one Glenda, a relative to the couple.

According to him, the couple took back the money in anger because Glenda had died “a couple of hours” earlier and they reportedly labelled Jordan a false prophet. According to the testimony, the couple went out of the church, only to receive a call that Glenda had risen from the dead after she heard Prophet Manasseh Jordan’s voice. No single US media unit ever got wind of this resurrection miracle. The congregation went ballistic with joy.

On January 23, 2011, Prophet Jordan gave an almost identical testimony, this time saying he was in the same place in Texas and a couple came forward to seed US$2 000, and this time the prophet says the person to be delivered was one Kathy. Again the couple took back the money and left the church in anger. The pastor of the church is said to have told prophet Jordan that Kathy was the mother to one of the two and that she had in fact died “a couple of hours earlier.”

The couple in this testimony also received a call from the hospital that Kathy had resurrected after hearing Prophet Manasseh’s voice. Again there was raucous joy from the congregation, apart from those who were following Manasseh to investigate the authenticity of his powerful testimonies.

All efforts to verify the existence of Kathy or Glenda or finding their records in the hospital mentioned failed to authenticate the two testimonies, or is it one lie of a testimony told in two different ways, as the investigators concluded?
The salvation of Jesus Christ is not as cheap as attending an exciting church service, or listening to an impressive pastor with legendary oratory skills. Salvation is about the righteousness of the heart and holiness of the body, itself the temple of the Lord. No one can ever prophesy their way to eternal life in heaven, and we cannot prosper our way there, neither can any miracle worker work out a miracle for us to end up in heaven with the angels.

This writer is saved by the salvation of the power of the cross of Jesus Christ, washed by His blood, spirit-filled and a practising Christian after the grace of the living God in Heaven. This writer trembles with indignation when poor and vulnerable people are taken advantage of, when the unjust deceive the just, and when the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ is manipulated for selfish ends. It is infuriating.

This author is a political writer after a just world where no man survives by treading on the rights of others, where no man pursues selfish ends by exploiting on the vulnerabilities of others, and where no religion is used as a vehicle to exploit others.

When our politicians fail us the way things turned in Zimbabwe in the last decade, the role of the church is not to deceive us in manipulative falsehoods, but to give us a true sense of hope where poverty is alleviated by the efforts of all others, not exacerbated by the greediness of a few, more so if the few include men of the cloth.

It is not surprising that we read revelations about a Zimbabwean pastor turning himself into a love match maker and a facilitator of a pervert sexual relationship just because one of the participants happened to be a high ranking politician with loads of cash and a very loose waste. Clearly money became a higher priority than Christian values and the pastor had no problem with that.

The clergy has been hijacked by ravenous crooks and the season we are in is a season of ruthless deception where we have some churches pastored by hard core thieves and egregious rogues.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome! It is homeland or death.