An article from Pastor Paul Boutan.
Back in 1993, while I was serving as a Youth Pastor in the Wheat Ridge and Arvada area, a leader of a well-known missions organization in the same part of town, claimed he had a message from God, that he saw in a vision. According to this man, the world was going to END in September of 1993. Many people were panicked by this “prophetic word,” but September of 1993 came and passed, and lo and behold the world did not end. Then came Y2K, once the calendar rolled from December 31, 1999, to January 1, 2000, airplanes would be falling out of the sky, the stock market would crash, and the world would effectively end all because of a supposed computer bug. Even yours truly got caught up in the hype of Y2K and I stocked up on water and non-perishables just in case. But when the clock struck mid-night, the ball in Times Square dropped, but the bottom did not drop, and the world didn’t end. By the way, if you’re a collector of Y2K memorabilia, could I interest you in a couple of gallons of vintage bottled water dated from late 1999? Fast forward to the year 2018 when there was a Blood Moon and the planet Jupiter would be the closest to the earth’s orbit it’s ever been, many Doomsday Prophets were once again calling for the END of the world.
Most recently, a new “prophetic voice” emerged on social media and YouTube. Back in December of 2019, a pastor named Dana Coverstone came on the scene with a prophetic warning of“Brace Yourself.” Evidently, he had a vision of a calendar that indicated something catastrophic would take place starting in March of 2020. Many believe he predicted what we now know as the COVID19 pandemic. Later, on June 24th of 2020, Coverstone released another video on YouTube that has been viewed more than 1.2 million times. This video predicted major chaos from the elections in November. He claimed he saw “soldiers from Russia and Asia, as well as troops from the United Nations, on United States soil.” Coverstone was predicting that from September through November of 2020, there would be civil war, violence, and economic collapse. Based on what he claims to have seen in a vision, his advice to Christians was to do three things. Number one, he said“Christians need to be preparing food.” Number two,“make sure you have alternative forms of currency like gold.” Number three,“make sure you have ample supplies of guns and ammunition.” Albeit while the election did spark a wave of division unlike anything we’ve seen in our nation in recent times. Nevertheless, America did not collapse. Armed troops from Russia, Asia and the United Nations have not commandeered cities throughout our country.
As Bible believing Christians what are we to do with these warnings from the so-called “Doomsday Prophets?”Are we to ignore them altogether? Or should we believe their every word and stock-pile food, gold, guns and ammo, and head for the hills? According to the Bible, we are to test them. In other words, we are to take their message or prophetic warning, and test it against what the Scripture says. Here are a few passages to consider.
1Thessalonians 5:21 says,“Test all things; hold fast what is good.”
1Corinthians 14:29 says,“Only two or three prophets should speak, and the others should judge what they say.”
1John 4:1 says,“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
Basically, the Bible teaches that not everyone who claims to be a prophet really is. Likewise, not everyone who claims they have been given a dream or a vision from the Lord, really received it from the Lord. In Jeremiah 14:14 it says,“The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the LORD. ‘I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.” In other words what these prophets were seeing were not dreams and visions from the Lord, but rather these were just “delusions from their own minds.” In fact, the prophet Jeremiah goes on to say, “They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD”(Jer 23:16).
Therefore, based on these verses it’s important to test these dreams, visions, and messages from our modern day “Doomsday Prophets.” When it comes to “End Times” prophecy or even dreams and visions about the end of the world. There are certain Biblical principles we can use as a barometer to test those prophecies. For example, when it comes to knowing the date of the Rapture or of the Return of Jesus Matthew 24:36 tells us “No one knows the day or the hour, not even the angels of heaven know.” Likewise, in Acts 1:7 Jesus said, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.” Back in 1988, when Edgar Whisenant wrote a booklet titled “88 Reasons The Rapture Will Be In 1988.” When 1988 came and went and none of us were raptured, what did Whisenant do? Did he recant and publicly admit he was wrong? Nope! Instead, he wrote a follow up titled “89 Reasons The Rapture Will Be in 1989.” Now a biblically literate Christian should’ve immediately recognized this as “false prophesy” because it clearly violates what Jesus said about not being able to know the day or hour, or even the times and seasons.
What about the “Doomsday Prophets” who tell Christians that things are going to get so bad, they need to stock-pile food, gold, and ammo and run to the hills? What does the Bible say about that?
Interestingly, the Bible does tell people that a catastrophic day is coming, where the suffering will be so intense, that they should “run to the hills.” However, it is NOT Christians who are being warned in this passage to run to the hills, rather it is NON-CHRISTIANS. Mark 13:14 says,“So when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not’ (let the reader understand), ‘then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” The phrase abomination of desolation is describing an event during the 7-year Tribulation period when this one world political leader known elsewhere in the Bible as the “Anti-Christ,” breaks his 7-year peace treaty with the Nation of Israel, then goes into the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and desecrates it. We should keep in mind, the Bible teaches that those of us who are Christians, will NOT be on the earth at that time, we would have been raptured already. Therefore, Jesus in Mark 13 was warning those who are being judged during the Tribulation period that things will be so devastating, and intense, they better run to the hills and hide. However, you will be hard pressed to find any verse in the Bible telling a follower of Jesus to stock up on guns and ammo as if to prep ourselves for a war against this world. On the contrary, the Scriptures teach us that our battle is in the spiritual realm not the physical, “For the weapons of our war fare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds”(2Cor 10:4).
Regarding how a Christian, a follower of Christ is to conduct themselves as we get closer and closer to the “last days,” nowhere in the Bible are we told to “hide” from the cataclysmic darkness that approaches. On the contrary regarding the end times Jesus told us to “occupy until I come”(Luke 19:13). Perhaps a better way to render that would be to say, “Do MY business until I come.” What is Jesus’ business? What are we to be “occupying ourselves with” until He comes back? Answer: the gospel. Keep in mind before He left and ascended back to heaven, He gave you and I a commission, we call it The Great Commission. Mark 16:15 commands us, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” The worse this world gets, the more the world needs us to proclaim the good news of the gospel. Jesus told us we are the “light of the world, a city on a hill cannot be hidden”(Matthew 5:14). The darker our times, the more this world needs us to shine. We are not to run to the hills and hide. We are to be the city on the hill that shines.
In my opinion, any so-called message that distracts us from our Great Commission. Any prophetic word that causes us to hide from the darkness, instead of being a beacon that shines His light into the darkness, that message may be coming “from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD”(Jer 23:16).
Many of these messages from the Doomsday Prophets seem to be fear based, causing many to build underground bunkers and go off the grid. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind”(2Tim 1:7). We do not need to live in a state of fear believing there are forces out there conspiring to take away our freedoms, enslave us and ultimately end the world. Jesus said “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”(Matt 10:28). Even if there is a conspiracy at work, our trust needs to be in the Lord. 1 Peter 3:14 says, “But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. ‘And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.’”
So, the next time you hear a “Sky is falling” message from a so-called “Doomsday Prophet” before you run to the hills, and stock up on ammo, let me encourage you to apply the words of the famed Bible Scholar Aaron Rodgers (Quarterback of the Green Bay Packers), when he said,“R-E-L-A-X… Relax.” Take a deep breath. Trust in the Lord. Stand on the solid ground of God’s Word. Don’t allow the darkness of the world to cause you to hide your “light under a bushel”(LK 11:33). Remember it’s not about fearing the great conspiracy, it’s about fulfilling the Great Commission.
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