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This teaching series is primarily designed to make us aware of the false prophecy strategies that the devil uses so that we won't fall prey to them. But not all false prophecy is demonic. Some of it comes from the flesh instead of from the enemy. We have already looked at two of these in the previous lesson:
There is another false prophecy that we need to be aware of. That is when someone rebukes or condemns another person in the guise of prophecy.
False Words of Condemnation
There are two dynamics that can lead people to give false words of judgment and condemnation. The first category are is comprised of those who are emotionally wounded and who are reacting to their pain. This is usually personal in nature, directed towards someone who hurt them. But it can also be projected in nature, e.g., directed towards someone who reminds them of the one who hurt them. For instance, a person who had a lot of issues with their mother may "act out" their aggression with other female authority figures. The second category is those who are not impulsively ruled by their emotions, but those who carefully plan "revenge" against someone who hurt them.
THOSE WHO "PROPHESY" FROM THEIR PAIN
Let's look at the first category. Most of these people are so emotionally wounded that it is easy for others to see that they have problems. These people often come across as hostile and aggressive. If they give a judgment word, very few people would take them seriously. Most would view them as some sort of quack or flake. They are the kind of person that makes you feel like you need to "walk on eggshells" around them.
This type of false prophet is not really a big danger because their character flaws are so obvious that it is easy for others to realize that they are speaking out of their own personal woundedness. As a result, most people simply reject their words and don't even consider that they might be speaking for God.
This type of false prophet usually has a very critical nature. They are often hostile and aggressive, quick to judge others, and they anger easily. They are easily offended and they are run by their feelings. They tend to convert their feelings into harsh and negative words of warning, rebuke or judgment.
What would cause a person like this to give false negative words? Sometimes it is because they are so wounded that they cannot discern between God's Spirit and their own spirit (e.g., feeling offended, hurt, angry at the way they were treated, etc). This type of person usually has poor interpersonal skills and often ends up interacting with others in ways that make others avoid them. In short, they set themselves up to be rejected and then they feel hurt and angry when someone does reject them. They become offended. Their offense mills around in their hearts for a while and anger begins to kindle. They assume the anger and offense they are feeling comes from God instead of from their own hearts. It doesn't take them long to turn that into a rebuking or condemning word against that person they are upset with.
Others are able to discern the difference between their own feelings and God's voice. But when they get hurt or angry or offended by someone, they assume that God must be angry with the person who treated them like this. So they launch into a false prophetic word of judgment or condemnation.
Other people are just so emotionally wounded that they feel they need to find an outlet--any outlet--for their frustrations. So they take their frustrations out on whoever happens to be around when they need to vent. They have been molded by their experiences, and they usually had parents who ere critical and hard to please, and they were constantly put down and criticized for even the most minor things. So that is the pattern they learn for relating to others, and they see God as critical and very hard to please.
They have all this hurt and frustration built up inside of them and when they have to vent, they find a way to turn it into a judgment or critical word. The others target those who have offended them, but these people just target whoever happens to be handy at the moment they need to vent. This makes them a bit more dangerous, because the person they give the negative false prophecy to may not know about their unstable emotional nature.
So far we have been talking about giving false personal "words" of correction, judgment or rebuke. However, this group we just talked about (those who need to vent) might just as easily come up with a corporate word as a personal one. They might judge a nation, a people group, the church at large, a profession, etc. Remember, they are not trying to get even with a specific person who hurt them, they are just so frustrated that they need to strike out at anyone--at whoever happens to be there at the time. Sometimes that will take the form of personal words and sometimes it will take the form of corporate words.
Of course this practice of giving negative words because we are upset at someone or something is wrong. We should never say "thus sayeth the Lord" when the Lord is not actually saying something. It is false prophecy and Jesus will hold them accountable for it, but it is not demonic in origin. Instead it comes from the persons own woundedness and critical nature.
THOSE WHO "PROPHESY" TO INTEINTIONALLY HURT OR TO GET REVENGE
These are the most dangerous type of human-empowered false prophet. They aren't motivated by their own emotional pain of the moment, they are motivated by revenge. People who fall into this category are what psychologists call "passive-aggressive." In layman's terms, these are the ones who like to exact revenge, who carefully plan it and who are willing to wait a while until the victim is totally unsuspecting and unprepared for the attack.
Most passive-aggressive false prophets appear to be "normal," but some are sometimes cold and calculating. They do not appear to be ruled by their feelings. They usually have good social skills and they sometimes go out of their way to put their "prey" at ease before pouncing on them, so that their prey is more devastated by their attack. They go out of their way to intentionally hurt someone. They are not reacting to the pain of the moment, they are carefully exacting revenge from an earlier pain.
If you get a false judgment word from one of these people, it will seem out "of the blue" to you. You may have done something to hurt or offend them at some point. Since they are about revenge and not about venting their feelings, they won't appear to react to it at that time. They will wait until the "right moment" to get their revenge. It might be a week later or it might be two months later. Suddenly out of the blue they give you a word that rebukes you, puts you down, makes you feel that God is mad at you or that God doesn't like you anymore. That type of word can be devastating because it doesn't look like retaliation when it comes.
Mistakes By Prophetic Beginners
"Beginners" who are learning to hear God go through a learning curve and they sometimes make mistakes. They may hear wrong and as a result, they may share messages "from God" that are not really from God. Their learning-curve mistakes don't usually hurt anything when the hearer judges their words. They have no intent to mislead or manipulate or deceive. They simply heard wrong and shared what they heard.
As beginners, they should be probably following 1 Corinthians 14 guidelines, so it has been edifying or building or encouraging or comforting. The hearer is able to judge this "word" and realize that it does not relate to them. So most of the time, no harm is done by their mistake. Also, God will usually put His grace on beginners so that their mistakes will not have a big effect on people. A common beginners prayer is, "Lord please help me to be accurate and let any mistakes I make roll off of people like water rolls off of a duck's back."
We encourage beginners to be tentative in their words until they develop a good degree of accuracy in their hearing. We encourage them to say something along the lines of "I think the Lord might be saying ..." or "I am new at prophesying, so I may not be 100% accurate yet, but I am hearing ..." We encourage beginners to freely admit if they make a mistake or "miss it." That makes them more teachable. We encourage them to go back to God and debrief with Him when they do make a mistake. Some people learn more from making one mistake than they do from 100 successes. So sometimes God will allow a beginner to make a mistake in order to teach them something He wants them to learn.
We ask beginners to stretch in order to grow in their gifting. Most of the time, they will hear God and do well when they stretch. But sometimes they will miss it...that is part of the learning process. We want to be truthful in our feedback so they understand when they miss it. But at the same time, we don't want to discourage or rebuke them for missing it. We want to encourage them for stepping out in faith and trying, because that is how they grow in their gifting.
The truth is that mistakes are a part of the learning process and we must expect that beginners will occasionally make some mistakes. We expect beginners to acknowledge and learn from their mistakes, that they might grow in their gifting. We expect them to be humble and teachable, but we do understand that making mistakes is a part of the learning process. At the same time, we do expect beginners to grow in their gifting, to gain in accuracy and clarity of hearing and to eventually stop making mistakes, or at least not to make them very often.
We do not consider beginner's mistakes as being in the realm of false prophecy.