The Empty Prophet

He showed me some men sitting on a bench, and another man sitting on a chair. And he said to me, “Do you see the men sitting on the bench?” “I see them, sir,” I said. “These are the faithful,” he said, “and the man sitting on the chair is a false prophet, and he ruins the minds of God’s servants. It is the double-minded he ruins, not the faithful. [a]

“So these double-minded people go to him as they would to a fortune-teller and ask him what is going to happen to them. And that false prophet, with no power of a divine spirit in him, talks with them to fit their questions and the cravings of their own wickedness, and fills their souls exactly as they want. He is empty himself, so he gives empty answers to empty people; whatever he is asked, he answers to the emptiness of the man asking. He does say a few true words now and then, because the devil fills him with his own spirit, hoping to break one of the righteous.

“So everyone who is strong in the faith of the Lord and clothed with the truth does not attach himself to spirits like these, but keeps away from them. But those who are double-minded, and who repent over and over again, go in for divination as the nations do, and by their idolatry bring a greater sin on themselves. Anyone who questions a false prophet about something he means to do is an idolater, empty of the truth, and a fool. “No spirit given by God has to be asked. It has the power that belongs to God, and it speaks everything of itself, because it comes from above, from the power of the divine Spirit. But the spirit that is questioned, and that speaks to fit people’s cravings, is earthly and flimsy and has no power; and it says nothing at all unless it is questioned.”

“Then how, sir,” I say, “will anyone know which of them is a prophet and which is a false prophet?” “Listen,” he said, “about both kinds of prophet, and test the prophet and the false prophet by what I am about to tell you. Test the man who has the divine Spirit by his life.

“First, the man who has the Spirit from above is gentle and quiet and humble. He keeps away from all wickedness and from the futile craving of this present age. He makes himself needier than anyone else. He gives no one an answer when he is questioned, and he does not speak in private; the Holy Spirit does not speak when a man wants it to speak, but speaks only when God wants him to speak. “So when the man who has the divine Spirit comes into a gathering of righteous men who have faith in the divine Spirit, and that gathering makes its intercession to God, then the angel of the prophetic Spirit who is assigned to him fills the man, and the man, filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks to the crowd as the Lord wants. That is how the Spirit that is from God will be made plain; and this is how great the Lord’s power in that Spirit is.

“Now listen,” he said, “about the spirit that is earthly and empty and has no power, but is foolish. “First, the man who seems to have a spirit exalts himself and wants the front seat. He is brazen from the start, and shameless, and a great talker, and he lives surrounded by luxuries and by many other deceptions, and he takes a fee for his prophesying — and if he does not get it, he does not prophesy. Can a divine spirit take a fee and prophesy? A prophet of God cannot possibly do this. The spirit of prophets like that is an earthly one.

“Then he never goes near a gathering of righteous men; he keeps clear of them. He attaches himself to the double-minded and the empty, prophesies to them in a corner, and deceives them, saying everything emptily, to fit their cravings; the people he answers are empty. An empty vessel set among other empty ones is not broken — they match one another. “But when he comes into a gathering that is full of righteous men who have a Spirit from God, and they make their intercession, that man is emptied out. The earthly spirit runs from him in fear, and the man is struck dumb and completely broken, unable to say a word. Pack a storehouse tight with wine or oil, set an empty clay jar in among them, and then decide to unpack the storehouse: the jar you put in empty you will find empty still. It is the same with the empty prophets. When they come among the spirits of the righteous, they are found to be exactly what they were when they came.

“You have the life of both kinds of prophet. So test by his deeds and his life the man who says he carries the Spirit. As for you — trust the Spirit that comes from God and has power, and put no trust at all in the spirit that is earthly and empty, because there is no power in it. It comes from the devil.

“So listen to the parable I am going to tell you. Take a stone and throw it at the sky; see whether you can touch it. Or take a water pump and squirt water at the sky; see whether you can bore a hole through it.” “How, sir,” I say, “can either of those happen? Both of the things you have named are impossible.” “Just as those things are impossible,” he said, “so the earthly spirits are powerless and have no strength in them.

“Now take the power that comes from above. A hailstone is a very small grain, and yet, when it falls on a man’s head, how it hurts. Or take the drop that falls from the roof tile to the ground and bores a hole through the stone. You see, then, that the smallest things falling from above onto the earth have great power. It is the same with the divine Spirit, which comes from above: it is powerful. Trust that Spirit, then, and keep away from the other.”