Into The Darkness Part 2: Be Careful Of Who You Listen To Series

Into The Darkness Part 2: Be Careful Who You Listen To

Scripture: Matthew 16:21-23; 24:10-11; Acts 8:9-10; 16:16-19; 1 John 4:1

Introduction

Last week I spoke to you about walking in the darkness. I told you that walking in faith means that we must get very comfortable being in the dark because to walk in faith means we will deal with situations where the outcome will not be known to us. However, although we may be in the dark as we walk by faith, the One with whom we are walking knows what is going on. So we turn walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7) and not having the “sight” into a situation is okay because we know by faith that it will be all right. At the conclusion of the message last week, God led me to share with you what I had seen on TV earlier that week. When I thought about it, I really did not think that it truly fit with the message, but I knew I was supposed to share it. So, at the close I told you about the infomercial I saw about a man called “The Prophet”. I did not fully realize the impact of this until God brought it back to me this week.

The infomercial was about a man who is called “The Prophet”. Rev. Ike (famous for the slogan: “You can’t lose with what I use.”), Rev. Al Sharpton, Russell Simmons, the author of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and Judge Hackett were all giving praises to this man who had changed their lives through his prophecies. As I watched this, my mind immediately went to a place where I was thinking about how these people, having good intentions, were actually in spiritual darkness. Although I believe that there are true prophets of God in the world today, I did not sense that this man was one of them. My spirit could not come into agreement with him or what I was seeing on the TV. All of the testimonies were about how the prophet was able to help them financially. On the infomercial you could call in and request your first “free prophecy” and once you were hooked, you could purchase others. What I found interesting was that all of these people said that every prophecy he had given them had come to past – yet they had to purchase them. I cannot find no where in the Bible where the prophet charged for the prophecy and gave you one for free just to get you started.

This is what God brought back to my memory this week – that there are good people being led astray because they are following the wrong “voices” while they are in the darkness. When God spoke this to me, He also told me that this was only the beginning. He reminded me of Christ’s warning in Matthew the 24th chapter. In verses ten and eleven of that chapter Christ speaks of what will happen in the last days – our days. He says “At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.” These false prophets will mislead many because the people walking in faith will seek out and listen to anyone that will bring them to any type of “enlightenment”. Again, because many of us do not like being in the dark, we do not want to wait on the Lord, but rather engineer our own escape. We are entering into danger times. Because we have a great need to know what is happening around us when we are “supposed to be walking in faith”, we will seek out anyone who will tell us what we desire to hear while ignoring where God is trying to take us. The one point that God stressed upon me was that not everyone who speaks a word into our situation is speaking from Him. What am I saying? I am telling you that many good people will speak something that is not from God into our situations and if we are not listening for the voice of God, those words that we accept can wreak havoc upon our lives.

Paul warned Timothy of this time in which we are living. He said “….the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4) When we seek out and listen to the voices that speak to our own desires, we will find ourselves in situations that God never intended for us to be in.