Being Wary Of Prophetic Words Spoken Over You

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False prophecy involves deliberately prophesying to turn people away from Christ, to worship other gods and to be involved in sexual immorality. It is not a modern person making a mistake with a prophecy. There are instances of prophecies being wrong in the Old Testament but the people giving the prophecies were not put to death, so they didn't violate the false prophecy law.
Those who are accusing modern prophets of giving false prophecies are accusing them of getting believers to commit idolatry and to engage in sexual immorality. I don't know of any modern prophets who are doing that, although I take some of their prophecies with a grain of salt. A proper reading of the Bible helps.

In Deuteronomy, the death penalty was for those who prophesied things in the name of the Lord that did not come to pass. We might modify our understanding of that by looking at other passages. The Lord relented after Moses interceded. God may change His decree in response to repentance, etc. But hearing God wrong and telling other people that God said it is a sin, whether the one doing it is doing so deliberately or self-deceived.

What prophecies can you think of that were wrong as in the Lord did not speak it, that were given by positive role models in the Bible? Ahab had court prophets who told him what he wanted to hear. After the sacrifice on Mt. Carmel, they were doing so in the name of the LORD rather than in the name of Baal. But he knew they weren't real prophets of the LORD.

 

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Its not the prophets themselves but the people that are not seeking the Lord for a second testimony
I corinthins 12-14
Prophets are subject to other prophets

Need a second personal word......

Same as listening to a pastor without checking the word for yourself

In the flow of the argument there in I Corinthians 14, doesn't it make sense to interpret 'the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets' to mean that the prophet's gifts are subject to them, so the prophet should not claim that he is not able to stop prophesying to yield the floor to another sitting by who receives a revelation?

Sometimes in church, two people get the same prophecy? If that happens mid-prophecy, the prophet can stop and let the one sitting by prophesy (rather than hog the floor) which allows all to prophesy one by one.

I'm not against getting a second prophecy as confirmation. That happens quite a bit, too. But I don't really see a case for it in this particular passage.

 

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Oscarr,
Why would a prophecy spoken in the name of the Lord by someone who is self-deceived and not hearing God be divination and not false prophecy?

Is it divination? Maybe, if it is done by the wrong spirit. I suppose it depends on what translation you use. Maybe if you use the Darby translation of Leviticus 20:27 you might call it divination. This verse prescribes the death penalty as does one of the passages about false prophesying. When I hear 'divination' I think of the ANE practice of cutting open animal livers and reading the filaments, the Roman practice of trying to predict the future by the flight paths of birds and things of that nature.

Whatever we call it, this is a pretty heinous thing, to falsely claim that God said something. On the one hand, we should be zealous for spiritual gifts and want to operate in them. On the other, we should be very careful not to prophesy falsely in the name of the Lord or to dishonor His name in any way.

 

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I am flabbergasted at this OP.
Prophesy should not be conducted outside the decency and order of a proper disciplined Pentecostal
worship meeting.
The gift of prophesy is one of the three Spiritual voice gifts for use within the Church at meetings -
when ye all come together!
Read 1 Corinthians 14: to clarify the exact guidelines for the proper use of prophesy within a
Pentecostal church service.
diversities of tongues, followed by interpretation, followed by prophesy.

Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.
1 Corinthians 14:29

Have you ever been to a Pentecostal church that actually followed all the instructions in I Corinthians 14 for prophesying (which requires having the gifts flowing enough to allow for it.) Pentecostal churches tend to be pastor-focused and sermon-centered, which is not an underlying assumption of I Corinthians 14. How many Pentecostal churches let 'every one of you' have a doctrine in church? Preaching usually comes from the preacher or assigned speaker.

When it comes to prophecy, have you ever been to a Pentecostal church that practiced 'let the other judge'? What about if a prophet is speaking and one sitting by receives a revelation? Have you ever heard a prophet hold his peace for that? And what about letting 'for ye may all prophesy' one by one'? Some of the Pentecostal denominations take 'let the prophets speak two or three' as a maximum limit of three prophecies per church meeting, an assumption which prevents all from prophesying one by one.

Pentecostalism tends to be rather preacher-centered and relies quite a bit on Protestant ideas of order of service, with a Pentecostal twist in terms of style. It seems like Azusa Street was moving toward I Corinthians 14 meetings, but the idea did not really make it's way into Pentecostal doctrine very much.