When The Prophets Are Wrong
- Larry Kutzler
- May 28
- 4 min read
1 Kings 22:5-6 And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Inquire first for the word of the Lord.” Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Shall I go to battle against Ramoth-gilead, or shall I refrain?” And they said, “Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.”
This story goes on to tell about one Prophet who spoke just the opposite of what the majority of the Prophets were saying. Today, it is all about conformity and unity, yet we have to ask, “What are we conforming to and what does our unity believe in?” In this story, the majority of those who spoke for God were in error and dead wrong in their advice.
Trends in the Church can be one of those slippery slopes that many Christian leaders are not willing to address. I have experienced all kinds of trends in my journey with Christ, where the emphasis was more about benefiting self than it did building God’s Kingdom. Many times, these trends have the attention of a good portion of the Body of Christ … so the influence is pervasive. This story mentioned addresses when the majority of leaders, (Prophets) who speak for God were wrong.
The story is found in 1 Kings 22, where two kings, wanting to know if it was God’s will for them to attack another kingdom. When all the Prophets got together, they said, “Yes, God has given it into your hand.” This is a good case that illustrates when the confirmation of the many may not be correct. There are whole denominations that set policy and doctrine on issues that are not correct according to God’s Word, yet because the majority accept it the error becomes standard.
This is played out when Christians accept abortion as a choice of mercy for women who do not want a pregnancy. The majority of Americans may accept abortion as a woman’s right, but it is still wrong in the courts of God. Since 1973, 60 million babies have been aborted since Roe vs Wade. In the United States, we have killed more babies than all the causalities combined from all the wars, we, as a nation, have fought. In fact, the statistics are that we have killed 51 times more babies than all the deaths from our wars combined. How can we justify this before God? How can any God-fearing person ever say this genocide against the unborn is a righteous act before God? You would have to be delusional to think God is okay with abortion.
My question is, “Why don’t our pastors break from the trends of the day where the uncomfortable is addressed, and people are forced to face the harsh realities of what they have accepted as normal? I once heard a story that was told by the Benham Brothers where an old man from Germany told them how his Church in Nazi Germany ignored the extermination of the Jews. His Church was located near the railroad tracks where Jews were taken by train to the concentration camps. In order not hear the cries of those Jews as those trains passed the Church, they would sing their hymns that much loader. This is such a sad and sick story, but we are no different when we go along with the majority and accept a practice that is an abomination before God.
The bigger questions are, “Has all the conviction on moral issues in our day grown cold among our churches? If the conviction is silent, how can we brag about God being among us? How can God dwell among people who do not allow the conviction of the Holy Spirit to work? The first work of the Holy Spirit is to convict us about sin. That is the cleansing process God where God dwells, and if that is not an ongoing process, then I wonder if His presence is absence from the premises? Is it any wonder then that most Churches are losing members, while others may be gaining them through the slick trends of modern worship and personality driven leadership?
I believe if the Church is conviction-less the trends will never save it.
If we are more concerned about people liking us like it is on Social Media, rather than preaching the convictions of the Word, then we have joined the ranks of the majority of the Prophets in 1 Kings 22.
Challenging the Culture with Truth … Larry Kutzler