Prophets and Nations

Many prophets have had their fingers burnt predicting the outcome of the US presidential election. This is not surprising, because predicting the outcome of elections is a mug’s game, like predicting the sex of babies before they are born. You have a fifty percent chance of being right, so even if your prediction is right, you were probably just lucky.

Elections predictions do not help God’s people understand what to do and how to live. They seem to be mostly about boosting the ego of the prophet. That said, God needs prophets who can explain to his people what is going on in their world, so that they will know what they should do and how they should live. They need to know what God is doing, so they can join with it, and what the spiritual powers of evil are doing, so they can resist and not be deceived. In a world that is dominated by political power and facing tumultuous events, a true prophetic voice will need to address these things. That is what Jesus did.

However, this type of prophecy is a tough call that only a few prophets will have the maturity/purity to handle. In addition to being able to hear God speak, they will need to be able to leave the political loyalties that they grew up with behind (Jesus disciples could not do that so they could not understand what he was saying).

These prophets will need to rise above the left/right thinking that dominates discussion in the media. They may need to shake off incorrect end-times thinking that they absorbed as young Christians. They will need to be able to get above the petty issues of the day-to-day world and get the big picture of what Jesus is doing.

In these times when the church is struggling and confusion abounds, we need this prophetic role more than ever, but looking at the current state of the prophetic movement, it seems further away than ever, too. Hopefully out of some serious soul-searching about the current debacle, a purer prophetic voice to the nation(s) will emerge.