propheticmoments

Issue #27
June 9, 2009

WE'RE BEING PREMATURE

Recently I have read prophecies of a powerful earthquake coming to middle America. This in addition to increasingly dire predictions from more and more people of mass death and destruction on an apocalyptic scale. An earthquake in middle America is inevitable. It's not judgment. It's geology. These things happen periodically on a roughly predictable pattern. In the winter of 1811-12, the central Mississippi Valley was struck by three of the most powerful earthquakes in U.S. history - over 8.0 on the Richter scale. It has happened. It will happen again and it may be just about due.

That being said, we all need to be in prayer right now to balance all these gloom and doom prophecies. These kinds of words have a tendency to build up with an energy all their own. Jeremiah 23:30 contains a warning, "'Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,' declares the Lord, 'who steal My words from each other.'" We have a tendency to get caught up in the excitement and intensity of what we're hearing from others and then build upon it until what seems to be the prophetic word has become something else entirely.

My point? Yes, there will be an increase in natural disasters around the world. Yes, we're in for some hard times because the earth can no longer bear up under the weight of the sin and violence of mankind. But we need to back away from prophesying the level of apocalyptic mass destruction that so many seem to have built up to. We're feeding off of one another and magnifying things as we go along. The result has gone well beyond the true word of the Lord.

There is yet time. God will restrain His hand until Matthew 24:14 has been fulfilled: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come." According to Matthew 24 we will indeed see a build up of trials and troubles until that time - including earthquakes, wars and famines - but even in the midst of that increase God must preserve a world like that in Roman times, connected and peaceful enough to facilitate the spread of the gospel to every tribe, tongue and nation. As He did then, He will do now, using the world's historic connectedness through travel and communication to reach people groups that have not yet been reached. Not all the nations have yet heard.

So back up, prophetic world. We're being premature.

Our job in these days of increasing trouble is to preach the gospel, lead people to Jesus and be doing our Master's work when He comes. The warning to shepherds and the way in which we must prepare for any level of tribulation is that we must lead our people to repentance, healing and selflessness while there is still time.

I've been a pastor 34 years and have been in the prophetic movement since 1958 when I was 7 years old. I remember the 1970s and early '80s when prophetic voices were telling people that California was going to slide into the sea. Pastors who trumpeted warnings about that impending apocalyptic event generated a lot of fear. Some led their entire congregations to move en masse to places like Idaho and Colorado. I remember dire warnings of destruction if the European Union reached ten nations because that would be a fulfillment of Revelation, the rise of a new Rome and the precursor of the end. How many are there now? 17? And nothing that was prophesied then has come to pass. I remember many well known prophetic voices predicting doom and gloom over Y2K. People began storing up food and buying survival kits. I know of people who moved to different states in anticipation of what the prophets said would happen. Whole churches mobilized. Nothing happened. Nothing at all.

It is true that we must prepare for disasters to come, but I think not in the way our faulty logic might dictate. This is a time to be winning souls, preaching the gospel of the Father's love through Jesus, lovingly leading people to repentance, investing in missions as never before and so on. Prophecies of fear tend to distract us from that focus. Matthew 6:33 stands for all time and all circumstances: "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." If we're absorbed in doing the Father's will, our Lord will take care of us.

When so many prophecies of apocalyptic doom and gloom are given so much press and then don't come to pass, or when pastors lead their people to prepare for things that never happen, credibility is lost. Much prophetic credibility has been flushed down the toilet in recent years by all the prophetic words that have not come to pass. A friend of mine said recently that if something doesn't change, the prophetic movement will be over in five years.

This is why I issue this cry for balance.

(Prophetic Moments is an occasional bulletin produced by Pastor R. Loren Sandford, New Song Fellowship, Denver, Colorado. )

AUDIO CDs of messages by Pastor R. Loren Sandford, preached at New Song Fellowship, Denver, Colorado can purchased by clicking HERE.

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AUTHOR'S COMMENT: If you're hungry for another way of doing and being church, this would be it. It's the hunger in God's heart and in mine! It applies to every believer and the role he or she plays in advancing the kingdom of God. You just might find your destiny on these pages. Endorsements by Graham Cooke and John Paul Jackson.

The key is in the subtitle: "Breaking Free from the Spirit of Self-fulfillment". This book is more poignantly and prophetically relevant now during these uncertain times than when it was published in 1995. IMPORTANT STUFF! Endorsements by John Arnott and John Paul Jackson.

Foreword by John Paul Jackson. A virtual handbook for prophetic ministry. Great for those called to prophetic ministry as well as for those who would benefit from, relate to and nurture prophetic people. Endorsements by Marc Dupont and James Goll. To read reviews posted on AMAZON.COM click HERE.

Original music for listening, worshiping and soaking. Includes studio projects and live recordings of worship at New Song Fellowship. Click HERE and check out the sound samples!