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A high tower
God speaks like a radio broadcasting tower “The name of the Lord is a strong tower,” (Proverbs 18:10) whichever way a prophetic person is “pointed” in their mindset and desires is the type of words they will be connected to receive the easiest. Thus a prophet can be receiving true words from God, but they are still acting like a false prophet to teach that one part as if it is the whole. For example: prophetic words always being only grace or only wrath. God has to condescend to our level of understanding when giving revelation. If we hold false beliefs, God may not necessarily correct them while using us. For example, most of the Old Testament prophets did not have a clear picture that there is an afterlife and God had not yet intended to reveal that to them. They believed we simply go to “the grave” (Sheol) upon death. Only after the Jews began to piece together the puzzle and realize there is a resurrection was God able to speak to them on this matter in revelations and prophecies. Our false beliefs put limitations on what God can speak to us! We need an open mind to be corrected from the limitations we put on God.
Watch your connections
1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.”
The types of prophetic people you listen to will affect how you release words when you are listening to or associating closely with the wrong crowd. If you are following positive-only prophets your words start to become like theirs and if your buddies are young immature wrathful prophets your voice becomes corrupted like theirs.
Young Pride
2 Timothy 3:6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.
Psalms 25:7 Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.
When we our young we are ruled by the flesh, beginning especially from the teen years. Over time we learn to subject flesh to spirit which is the process of maturity. Making the right choices in hard circumstance, trials, fasting are all a part of this process. God often pours out the anointing while we are still young however and this leads to a difficult scenario where you may have a successful ministry, but without the inner character to hold out long-term. The young pride is thinking you are going to change the world with your words or start a revolution. Thinking your revelations are the greatest.
I remember one quite anointed prophet who taught that you need to read the bible out loud and that as your mouth moves this is like “eating” the word and that this would be “the revelation” that would transform the church. As helpful as it is to read Psalms out loud, or read a passage out loud while memorizing, this is just one tip of many, not something special. We always want to feel like our revelation is “THE ONE” which will transform the world. Well its not.
Another youthful pride is always preaching roughly, resulting in the sheep being discouraged. Too often using “you” instead of “we/us” when preaching against sin. Always wanting to preach/prophesy wrath and judgement. This is just the testosterone of the flesh which is confusing the real message God is trying to speak through you.
There is also the flip side where you may essentially “goof off” in the prophetic. This is something the “New Mystics” group does. God is not a joke. He does not want us clowning around just to prove that we are under grace. Another example is knowingly releasing words with incorrect spelling/grammar below what you are capable of, perhaps to “troll” the religious spirit in certain more uptight believers. This is not good. We are not meant to cause unnecessary division. The true word is already divisive enough without us doing anything extra. The true word already offends the religious spirit. Show respect and reverence for the holy God in your prophetic words. Write them professionally with the best spelling/grammar you are capable of; to the same high standards as if you are writing to have it formally published. God requires our best as his offering.
Old Pride
Thinking your traditions and ways are the best and cannot be changed. Thinking that because you have been in ministry for ____ amount of years means you are entitled to be the top dog and do not have to listen to anyone else. Having the good-old-boys club self-appoint you as an apostle because you have been in the ministry for a long time and have good administration/management skills, even if God never appointed you as an apostle. Old pride is what slipped into Moses when he wanted to stick with the “old ways” of striking the rock when God was trying to do a new thing and asked him to speak to the rock. As a result, God had to replace him with Joshua because Moses had lost his flexibility to move to the newness of what God is doing. To defeat old pride requires a mindset where you are willing to sometimes learn from someone younger and acknowledge that they too release God-words even if they have not been established formally in a large ministry.
Personal affairs
When someone wrongs us in our personal lives it is critical to ensure that we are not holding anger and unforgiveness. This will carry over into ministry and cause you to give mixed words as the flesh rises up over the spirit and begins to leak into the prophecy. You might have to take break from prophesying any directive words and just do teaching until being healed properly from personal wounds. If we make a false prophecy, it might just take only a few minutes for us, but that person may hang onto it for many years and base major decisions off of it. You can ruin a person’s life with a fleshly directive prophecy without even having intended to.
Soothsayer
This is far too common among prophetic persons who have been accepted onto major platforms. They could care less about God’s heart and priorities. They are always speaking blessings and comfort. Their catchphrase is “judge not.” Their “new year’s word” is always gushing with fluff and positivity. Their main goal is popularity in their circle; as many Facebook “likes” and “amens” as can be had. 2o2o was sure an embarrassing year for these deceitful individuals. Many of them have probably already tried to delete the words they gave at the year’s start.
Make sure you have not unintentionally fallen into the soothsayer trap by having “selective hearing” spiritually. We cannot pick and choose which words of God we will listen to and which we will ignore or block out. God is speaking words of change, exhortation, and repentance, not just positivity and comfort.
Attention seeker
Constantly posting on social media non-stop. Can be edge-lords whipping up controversy over unimportant details. People looking for spectacular revelations, secret knowledge, predicting dates and times, anything that will impress everyone and show off your authority. Oftentimes God is speaking more related to repentance and bringing the church into his order. The best ministry a prophet can do is often just old-fashioned preaching against sin. Not trying to blow everyone’s minds with future predictions. We have to go back to “what is the heart of God speaking?” “What things are important to God that we are overlooking?” “How have we offended God without realizing it?”
Beware the flatterer
This person will act as your biggest fan, ‘like’ all your statuses and ‘amen’ your every word. They want to climb on the bandwagon of God’s move and feel as if they are part of the ‘in’ crowd. They are not interested in changing their life around or repenting though. They only want the HIDDEN REVELATION you have. They want to pick the cherry off of the top and throw away the rest of the cake. The young prophet is especially susceptible to this.
Overconfidence
In Matthew 16 Peter received the revelation that Jesus was not just a “good teacher” but in fact the Son of God. He received a special commendation for this and was given the keys to heaven and earth. A few verses later he is harshly rebuked, being called “satan” by Christ. How the so sudden change? He became overconfident from his track record of correct revelation and assumed that what he was hearing the second time must be of God, even though it was demonic. We have to be careful when on a “roll” that we do not get careless and start assuming everything coming into our mind is of God.
Confirmation bias
Oxford Dictionary defines this as such:
Confirmation bias: the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.
When you hold strongly to a certain doctrine or way of thinking, it greatly limits the ability of God to speak against that through you because you mind will block out the word before it even reaches you. The parable of the sower mentions this when the word falls by the wayside and is devoured by the fowls before it can even sink in. OPEN-MINDEDNESS is crucial. You have to be willing to follow the lamb wherever he goes. Perhaps God gives you a word about someone, you may interpret it in a negative way if you have prejudged and already a negative opinion of that person. Maybe God is speaking something that needs to change, but you already think it is perfect. So your confirmation bias warps the word into what is acceptable to you.
Copycatting
Copying the style of your mentor or favorite mega-minister. If the prophet you look up to has a harsh style with a lot of judgement and correction, you may feel that is the correct way a prophet should be and you write your words in more judgemental tones as well. If the prophet(s) you listen to are more grace-centered and casual, your words end up being more about love and grace.
A prophet is unique from birth and you can never feel like there is a “right” style of words by looking at someone else. We all have our own lane in this race. Which words come naturally to you from your relationship with God? God doesn’t speak wrath through everyone, nor comfort. Each person has their own dominant type of words they will receive. One of the reason Ahab’s 400 prophets (1 Kings 22:6) spoke the same false word is because they were too busy looking what each other were speaking rather than what God is speaking.
An example of this: Rick Joyner prophesied that there would be “civil war in the church” and always referred to the devil as “the accuser of the brethren.” All of a sudden many other prophecies began to appear talking about civil war and using “the accuser” as their primary way of referring to satan. Some of them may have been genuine, but many of these prophets will have been either intentionally or unintentionally copying their star they respect so greatly. The truth is there has always been civil war in the church ever since the reformation and that is why we have so many denominations. There is nothing new under the sun. We have to guard against unintentionally being overly influenced by the people we look up to and letting this taint our words.
There is a temptation for a novices to "piggyback" off of an established prophet's words when you do not trust your own accuracy fully. For example: hearing a word from an established prophet, then releasing a similar word without actually hearing from God yourself on the matter, or asking God to give you a similar word so you can look wise in front of your friends. For example, your friend who is an advanced prophet hears a word from God that a certain disaster is about to happen. You assume it is true and pray and ask God to give you a word about the disaster also. This means you are already praying with a biased mindset. Also, if God does not reply back or give you a word, perhaps you keep asking until you start hearing things (the flesh/devil) and then post your “word” resulting in total humiliation and embarrassment when it does not come true. You have to prophesy at the level you are ready to operate in and be patient. We are not meant to release the awe-inspiring words right off the bat. Trying to hitch a free ride and base your word on someone else's is the crime of TAKING THE LORD'S NAME IN VAIN as God never actually spoke to you on the matter.
Modes of God speaking
We all tend to have a more dominant mode in which God speaks to us. Some of us he shows pictures to in our mind to provide the message. Others will hear a 1st-person “thus saith” prophecy. Sometimes God will just give a flash of insight or deep “knowing” of a message without saying it in direct words. The problem comes up where you feel that only one way is correct. Unless you get a “thus saith” word, you may feel like it is not worth it to prophecy and ignore the other ways God is trying to speak to you. You might really stretch to get that 1st person prophecy and thus make an error when you are straining so hard to hear it that your flesh speaks instead of the Spirit. We do not ‘strain’ ourselves to hear God’s word when we are in the Spirit. Accept the style of speaking God chooses to do to you whether it be hearing/seeing/sensing and don’t feel like it is lesser than another method.
We often think of prophets as fortune tellers whose main job is to predict the future. The Greek word for “prophet” is dual-world which also means “preacher.” If you are preaching in line with the word and what God has placed on your heart for that season this is still a form of prophecy, even if you don’t use “thus saith” or predict future events.
Political shill
This is one of the most common. You are horrified of the great evil of liberals’, but swing the extreme opposite way and begin defending every single thing conservatives or Republicans do, even when they are plainly wrong. God cannot properly use a biased mouthpiece. It also destroys your credibility in front of others. No one is going to trust a person who is constantly releasing one-sided political messages treating one person/party as if they have no mistakes, and endlessly bashing the other side as if they never have any good ideas. We need to show maturity and balance and be a mouthpiece people can trust.
Conclusion
We have looked over many of the ways in which hearing God’s word can become tainted by our human ways. We have to always be on guard against each of these because they will naturally creep up if we are not constantly looking for them.