moves of God – warning sign #5 – counterfeit gifts
In Acts 16, the apostle Paul had an encounter with a girl who accurately predicted the future and followed him around telling everyone something true about him, that he was a servant of God and preached the way of salvation. But Paul did not endorse something evil, just because there was correct information being given. He discerned between the spirits.
Early in the summer when we were back in the U.S., I was walking along a beach over 360 miles (600 km) from Atlanta. As I went along, I heard our family name, “Sculley”, spoken from a group of young women who were talking and laughing together. At first I thought maybe I had just heard the wind blowing. But then as I passed right in front of them, one of them looked me in the face and said, “Karen Sculley.” I scanned their faces and didn’t recognize any of them, but knew in my spirit that something was wrong with the situation. I did not let on to them that they had named my name, but calmly continued on my way. I somehow knew that if I had said anything, some kind of false prophecy would have ensued. It was clearly demonic. The Lord used this experience to impress upon me the importance of being discerning about spiritual gifts, especially those that are outwardly impressive. Supernatural encounters are often what attract people to any purported move of God. It’s good to be hungry for God, but let’s be sure we are hungering for the real thing, and not an imitation.
I love prophecy, I’ve participated in and organized prophetic groups, God occasionally gives me prophetic words or insights, I’ve received life-changing prophetic words . . . yes, we should be eager to prophesy and carefully listen to prophetic words that come from God. But we need to use discernment. If someone says or does something that does not have 100% alignment with the Word of God [a.k.a. The Bible], run away, run away fast! There are a lot of false prophets around; often false teaching is very subtle. The enemy seems to frequently use impressive counterfeits to lure people away from the simplicity of seeking God and studying His word. We wouldn’t consider eating cake if we knew there was just a little dirt mixed into it; why would we feed our spirits with anything less than truth and purity?
