Restoring Prophets (5) Dazzled by Power

The biggest danger for a prophet to a nation is being dazzled by political power. The prophet can easily fall into pride because they enjoy having an influence on the powerful people in their nation. They begin to enjoy being in the room when big decisions are being made.

Being dazzled by power seems to be the main reason that many prophets failed during the latest episode during the American presidential election. Too many were dazzled by political power and came to believe that they could influence it to advance the Kingdom of God. They were dead wrong.

Moses and Paul are great examples. They are the two people with the greatest achievements in the scriptures, yet they remained humble and ambivalent about political power.

• Moses probably had more political power than anyone who has ever lived, yet he remained the most humble (not seeking advancement) person on earth. God had made called him to be the leader of a new nation and reinforced his support with many signs and wonders. Moses had no interest in retaining political power for himself.

  Early in his ministry, Moses pushed his power down and spread it around to the head of families and tribes. He said they should only come to him for problems that he could not handle (Deut 1:9-15). He did not create a political or administrative role for his sons. He exercised the power that he held very begrudgingly. He would only do this job as long as God promised to go with him. Moses knew that political power is impossible to exercise without God, and almost impossible with God, so he did not seek after it.

• Paul is another example of ambivalence towards political power. Paul was trained up to be part of the Jewish establishment and had the additional advantage of being a Roman citizen. He used this privilege to get out of trouble a couple of times, but he never attempted to use political power to support the preaching of the gospel or to advance the Kingdom of God. When the people of Iconium thought that Paul and Barnabas had been sent by the gods, Paul did not try to get himself established as the ruler of the city so he could bring in the Kingdom. Rather he challenged the people with the gospel and then fled the city (Acts 14:1-20).

Being dazzled by prophetic power is a big problem for the prophetic movement.

Without an understanding of the futility of political power, prophetic involvement in the political system will be on shaky ground. Fascination with political power can prevent Christians from seeing what God is trying to do. They will tend to get obsessed with getting the right people into power because they fall for the deception that the next election is the most important in their nation’s history. This is a political lie designed to enhance political power.

Political power has become an idol for far too many prophets. God will not use an idol to advance his purposes. Faith in political power leads them to focus on changing the political leaders of the nation in the false hope that this will bring the Kingdom of God closer. Unfortunately, most efforts to bring political change usually lead to disappointment.

God does not work through political power. His Kingdom cannot be established by political power. Jesus never suggested that his Kingdom could be advanced if the centurion who demonstrated faith when his servant was sick was appointed governor in Pilate’s place. He focussed on advancing his own Kingdom.

The accumulation of political power amplifies the authority of government-spirits in the spiritual realm. This means that political power is actually an obstacle to God achieving his purposes. He prefers to work through thousands and thousands of small kingdom communities in local neighbourhoods because that stretches the resources of the spiritual powers of evil so thin that they become ineffective.

Prophets who have been dazzled by political power will need to humble themselves and develop a clearer understanding of how God works in the world. Unless they change their way of thinking about political power, they will continue to be vulnerable to deception. This will be a huge challenge for the prophetic movement, which will be difficult to overcome. I suspect that many prophets will struggle to do it.