Prophecy simply means proclaiming God’s message. It is intended to give help, encouragement, and comfort unto men. 1 Corinthians 14:3, KJV, states, “he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort”. To edify, by the Dictionary, means to instruct or improve or uplift or enlighten someone morally or spiritually. To exhort is to urge, advise, admonish or caution earnestly; to give urgent recommendations or warnings. To comfort is to soothe, console, or reassure; bring cheer to. The whole idea of prophecy is for the revival of the church and regeneration of humanity towards righteous living. Any purported message from God that does not accord to edification, exhortation and comfort is simply a carnal message from a commercial prophet intended to edify oneself for personal gain. The Spirit of God is one and God is not the author of confusion. The mere fact that the avalanche of Prophets in Nigeria harvest different prophecies on the same matter is an eloquent testimony that majority of them are fake and are not operating under the inspiration of God while some hitherto genuine Prophets have decided to commercialize their gift as a means to make money not to edify the church.
We must understand certain things about prophecies. They are God’s messages not man’s. So God decides what should be said not the Prophet. I have listened with great disappointment and embarrassment how some so called Prophets will deliver prophetic messages and end them with, “I have spoken”. In the olden days, Prophets commence their prophecies with, “thus saith the Lord” to confirm and authenticate the source of their message. Prophecies are not bound to happen. They are not inevitable. The Creator has the power and sovereignty to change His mind and alter what He has purposed for or against anyone if circumstances surrounding the events or persons change. Prayers can be offered to change prophecies and you mustn’t need the prayers of the Prophet to change them. In other words, prophecies do not change situations, prayers do. When Hezekiah, King of Israel, became sick unto death, God sent Isaiah, the Prophet, to tell him that he will die. On receiving the message, he did not run helter-skelter to different men of God to seek help, prayers or counter prophecies, he simply prayed to God for divine healing. God answered and healed him. To prove to the whole world that God is in charge, God sent the same Prophet Isaiah back to him to tell him that he will no longer die but will live for another fifteen years. Why fear, when you can pray.
Even when a person commits grave sin and a prophecy goes forth to punish him, this damnation from God can still be changed through prayers. King Ahab usurped the land of his subject and killed him through his wife. God sent a Prophet to him with the warning that he and his family will be wiped out. Touched by this message, Ahab repented from the atrocity and embarked on fasting and prayers to appease the mind of God. Looking down from heaven in 1 Kings 21:29, the word of the LORD came to Prophet Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house”. King Ahab changed the situation through fasting and prayers, you can do the same. A lot of people have been traumatised by malignant prophecies intended to induce fear on the psyche of innocent, unsuspecting members of the public, particularly politicians, in order to defraud and extort money from them. Even if what the Prophet said was inevitable as in God has made up His mind, what will you benefit by fearing the inevitable. Whatever you do in life, you must die one day, so stop being afraid of death and stop paying attention to the extorting power of these merchants of the gospel whose belly is their God and whose end is destruction in hell.
The mere fact that someone can accurately foretell the future does not make him a Prophet of God. Witches and wizards can accurately foretell the future and anyone possessed with a familiar spirit or spirit of divination can exactly predict the future. When King Saul was to fight against the Philistines and God refused to answer him, he consulted the Witch of Endor and got accurate answers to his questions. He was told he will die and he died in the battle. In the new testament, when Apostle Paul and Silas were preaching the gospel, one maid with the spirit of divination encountered them and started announcing who they were. She was accurately describing them (Acts 16:16-17). When Apostle Paul got fed up with such expose he turned and cast out the spirit of divination that had been yielding money for her masters. The whole idea of most modern Nigerian prophetic ministry is not to edify the church but to yield money to the commercial prophets. An Octopus Paul had predicted accurately the winners of the 2010 football world cup in South Africa. Octopus Paul was an animal and his accurate prediction of the world cup winners did not make him a Prophet of God.
When God has made up His mind to destroy any person, there is nothing any Prophet can do. God is supreme and sovereign and can allow lying spirits to deceive the Prophets of any person He wants destroyed and make the person believe their lies thinking he is safe so he can get into his divinely programmed destruction. When the time came for God to take out King Ahab for all his sins, He stirred in the King the desire to fight another nation and assured him, through his prophets, that he will win. In 1 Kings 22:3, “the king of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?”. Hear what his prophets told him in 1 Kings 22:12, “And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, Go up to Ramothgilead, and prosper: for the LORD shall deliver it into the king’s hand.” The King took the advice of his prophets and went to the battle and was killed in the battle in contradiction to what his prophets told him. It took the words of a true Prophet of God to reveal what was happening in heaven. The Prophet said, “Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee”. See 1 Kings 22:19-23. This is exactly what is happening now in Nigeria. God has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these so called Prophets in Nigeria because God wants to punish them for merchandising the gospel. If you want to keep away from the wrath of God, learn to do good to your fellow human beings and obey the commandments of God rather than living under the false impression created by these commercial Prophets that whatever you do, provided you consult them, you will be free. Is it surprising that even thieves and 419 criminals consult the prophets to pray for them before embarking on stealing, robbing and cheating? Most of them get killed and caught while robbing or cheating despite favourable prophecies by the commercial prophets.
Nigeria has become a peculiar case. Every year people eagerly wait for prophecies from prophets to know what will happen. Since 1999, prophecies have changed from being instruments of revival in churches to instruments of commercialisation and political aggrandizement of individual prophets. This has led to the deplorable situation in which more than 90 percent of all prophecies each year are politically motivated. In 1999, immediately after the election of President Obasanjo, a “Prophet of God” prophesied that the transition was a hoax and a trap to kill Obasanjo. The fear created by this prophecy led to stampede at Oshodi which led to the death of some citizens as people rumoured that Obasanjo had died. He had to quickly come out to declare the popular, “I dey kampe” to calm the situation. Obasanjo not only was sworn in for his first term, he went ahead to finish his second term and handed over to his successor peacefully. He is still alive till date.
Recently, a “Prophet of God” prophesied that Gov Obaseki will lose in Edo State and President Donald Trump will win in America. He also prophesied that Atiku Abubakar will win the Nigerian Presidential election, 2019. They all turned out false but this did not stop him from chunning out more prophecies for 2021. This trend of commercialisation has even entered the orthodox churches which hitherto regard such practice as being not in line with their traditional way of worship. A popular Priest of an orthodox church organised a fund raising event in his church. He invited all the politicians who were vying for political posts in the next election and made it clear to them that the more money you bring, the more favourable prophecies you get. He thoroughly trashed the Vice Presidential Candidate of one of the two main political parties for not bringing big money for him. He revealed to him that he doesn’t need to wait till 31st December to get good prophecies. If he brings big money now, he will get favourable prophecies immediately. The politician pleaded that he will prefer donating privately as is his tradition but the Priest publicly rejected this not minding that the Politician’s stand was actually the scriptural standard which recommended that the right hand should not know what the left hand is doing. God prefers private and secret donations and promised to reward donors openly but commercial prophets prefer open donations in order to rake in more money from the politicians. The Priest maintained that the Politician will be disgraced in the next election if he refuses to bring big money and indeed celebrated the defeat of the Politician at the polls. The church has become worldly and the world has become churchous owing to the activities of these “Prophets of Commerce”.
One of the notable “Prophets” even rebuked a notable Politician who was recently released from jail for acknowledging the assistance and prophecy of his release from jail after 6 months from one Prophet while neglecting the assistance and prophecies of other notable Prophets. This reveals the deep rooted spirit of competition among these “Prophets” and indicates that there so called prophecies are simply a quest for money and fame. Is it not a shame that none of the so called powerful prophets in Nigeria prophesied accurately on the devastating effect of covid-19 on the world and Nigerian economy which affected everybody especially the poor and less privileged but they are very busy running after the pockets of Politicians in exchange for favourable prophecies. Those Prophets who are prophesying that no 2 shall be no 1 should be ready to see such changes in the church rather than in our political system because God is fed up with all these fake and commercial prophets who are doting our landscape with impunity. At least, the people have the choice and chance to change their political leaders every four years but have no chance to change the corrupt church leaders forever. But God is alive and this year will witness the sudden destruction of a lot of the so called men of God that have been troubling us with their false and commercialized prophecies. I am not the one who said this, God Himself said so in Micah 3:5-7 GNB. Hear God, “My people are deceived by prophets who promise peace to those who pay them, but threaten war for those who don’t. To these prophets the LORD says, Prophets, your day is almost over; the sun is going down on you. Because you mislead my people, you will have no more prophetic visions, and you will not be able to predict anything. Those who predict the future will be disgraced by their failure. They will all be humiliated because God does not answer them”. Enough is enough. What we need now is prayers not prophecies.