Restoring Prophets (4) Prophet to their Nation

Only a few of the prophets who fail will have been called to operate as a prophet to their nation. The role of prophet to a nation is a challenging one on many levels, so few are called to it. I have described it more fully in Prophet to a Nation. The prophet with this calling should be settled in a church where the other elders understand the calling and free them to move into it. The calling is not a full-time job, because often there will be nothing for them to speak. While they are waiting for the season when God wants to speak to the nation, they should continue to work in the church or business world.

Speaking to the nations, or the rulers of their nation, is a tough task, so the prophet needs strong prayer support and encouragement from the other elders in the church. They will need other prophetic people around them who they can bounce ideas off and trust to test their words when this is needed. They might need to be challenged about a direction they are taking. In the age of the Spirit, a prophet to the nation should not be operating in isolation as in the Old Testament.

The Holy Spirit will usually only lift prophets up to speak to their nation if they have achieved a high level of maturity, so mistakes should be relatively rare. However, because the political and spiritual pressures are much greater when operating at this level, mistakes will occur from time to time. The government-spirits that control nations will be vicious in their attacks on those who challenge their power, so even with strong spiritual support, prophets to their nation will occasionally make mistakes.

Too many people have stepped up into a role as prophet to their nation before God has finished his preparation. Many made mistakes because they were not prepared for the role they were taking. Some of those will need to review their calling.

God only needs a few prophets speaking to each nation. Hundreds or more speaking become a cacophony of confusion that can easily be ignored. Three or four, speaking a consistent message from different perspectives, will be more effective.

When a prophet makes a mistake when speaking to the people of the nation or to the leaders of the nation, the consequences are more serious than for other prophets. These mistakes give people of the world a wedge to condemn the church, and to complain about God. This is why prophets to their nation who fail have an even greater need to stand down and pass through a process of restoration (this will be similar to the process described in the previous section)

When the prophet to the nation makes a mistake, their sense of failure will be greater and their pain more intense. If the consequences are bad, the spirit of the prophet could be broken, and they might feel like giving up. The shame of the failure might prevent them from prophesying again, but we do not want these failed prophets becoming too cautious and careful, as it could hamper God’s work on earth.

The people helping to restore the prophet should be sensitive and compassionate, so they don’t add to the condemnation that they are already carrying. They will need wisdom and insight to understand why the prophet misheard what God was saying and got his message wrong. A person is unlikely to have been called to be a prophet to their nation without God having done some serious work in their life, so it is less likely that the problem will be sin or emotion hurts, although pride could be a problem that leaves a prophet open to deception.

I suggest that the flaw that is most likely to cause a prophetic failure at the national level will a false understanding of the way that God works in the world and how his plans are being accomplished through nations. In prophetic blind spots, I have described some of the common blind spots that can cause a prophet to the nation to make mistakes when speaking God’s word.

I am fairly certain that with the US presidential election, a false understanding of the role of political power was the primary reason that the prophets got it wrong. If they understood that God does not bring in his Kingdom by using human political power, they would not even have bothered predicting the outcome of the presidential election, because they would understand that it does not matter for God’s purposes.

The restoration process for the prophet to their nation will have two aspects. The first will be the correction of their incorrect understanding of the way that God works in the world. Dealing with the problem will require study and discussion about God’s purposes. They might need to take advantage of people outside their circle, or at least read their writings, to get a different perspective and change how they think. Some study of political theology might be helpful.

At the same time, the elders will be praying that the Holy Spirit will release insight and encouragement to the prophet who failed. They urge him/her to keep prophesying and encourage him/her to persist in their calling. If the prophet is sensitive, dealing with the discouragement and lack of confidence might be the hardest part of their task. Correcting the prophet’s understanding is pointless if they give up on their calling.

Delivering a prophecy to a nation will be a challenging experience for any prophet. Getting it wrong publicly will shake their confidence in their ability to hear God. The prophet will have received the word that later proved to be incorrect in the same way as they have received all the other words they have shared, so being wrong will make them doubt their ability to hear accurately. If the elders respect the prophets calling, they will want him/her to continue in it with confidence, but greater discernment.

The restoration process will usually depend on the type and seriousness of the failure. The purpose of the stand-down and probation period must be the restoration of the prophet to their calling, so it must not be set in a punitive way. The elders do not necessarily need to publicise the scope and the scale of their probation period, but the prophet might choose to explain to people why they are having a pause from prophesying to their nation.

Many Christians in the US are really upset that the people of the world assume that the big-name media prophets who have behaved badly in the current season represent them because they have claimed to speak on behalf of God in Jesus name. I can understand their frustration at the way Jesus has been misrepresented and they feel like they have been tarred with a very ugly brush. The prophets who admit their mistakes will probably need to apologise to other Christians for the embarrassment they have caused.