Examining a tour de force of absolute nonsense regarding the prophetic...

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I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds. -- Jeremiah 23:21-22 (ESV)

https://www.charismamag.com/spirit/prophecy/39015-steps-every-believer-can-take-to-activate-their-prophetic-gifts

Dr. John Veal calls himself the senior pastor/prophet of Enduring Faith Christian Center and the CEO of John Veal Ministries. He is an author of the book Supernaturally Prophetic: A Practical Guide for Prophets and Prophetic People. He authored the above linked article entitled, "Steps Every Believer Can Take to Activate Their Prophetic Gifts." Since the underlying assumptions contained within such a title are so wildly unbiblical, I thought it prudent to once again reason together to show what God says versus what the NAR and the false signs and lying wonders movement is trying to teach our youth today.

'"Follow after love and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy" (1 Cor. 14:1). Whether you know it or not, as a Spirit-filled believer, you are inherently prophetic. Inherent is defined as "belonging to the basic nature of someone or something." In essence, your gift was given to you by God to bless others. The gift of prophecy is quite literally embedded within your genes on a deep, spiritual level. It belongs to you, resides in you, and should flow from you organically and supernaturally. When you walk in continued ignorance of the gift at your disposal, stagnation and alienation of your God-given prophetic process occurs.' -- John Veal

Says no biblical text anywhere. This is the starting point for the false prophets of today. They open schools to teach the gifts of the Spirit; which is akin to blasphemy. Beloved we are inherently evil. We inherently need a savior. Our hearts are inherently deceitful and wicked. We are most certainly not inherently prophetic. This entire premise was made up in the wickedly deceitful heart of John Veal and whoever taught it to him. It is cute that he references a biblical verse and does no exposition on it because he knows the context destroys his premise and chosen beliefs:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. -- 1Corinthians 12:4-11 (ESV)

Does this set of verses even come close to implying that everyone has the same gifts? No! There are varieties of service! One is given an utterance of wisdom and to another an utterance of knowledge. To another healing and to another prophecy. If what Veal is teaching is true this verse would say to ALL prophecy. Notice that last verse? Who decides when and to whom the gifts are apportioned? Not John Veal. The Holy Spirit does. When you insist that you can apportion or teach the gifts of the Spirit then you are in fact committing the same sin that ended with Lucifer being cast down from heaven. Aspiring to the throne beloved is not something to be taken lightly within our faith. If we want even more proof, let's skip down towards the close of this chapter:

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. -- 1Corinthians 12: 29-31 (ESV)

There is an element in each of these statements within the Greek that renders them as rhetorical questions. Essentially this should read -- are all apostles? No. Are all teachers? No, etc. Veal gave you one verse because the remainder of the chapter eviscerates his entire teaching.

"How to Activate and Exercise Your Prophetic Muscle. Prophetically speaking on the Lord's behalf is not only germane to the prophet, but it is a divine right given by God to every believer. If you are around prophets or prophetic people long enough, prophecy will rub off on you! If you're too close to it, you will catch it. I have found that prophecy is contagious and easily passed to others. Everyone has a spot inside them just waiting for the prophetic to completely fill it. A seer seed in all of us germinates once watered by prophetic activity. In order to move your prophetic genes, they need to be activated and exercised. You can do this through prophetic activation, which is simply a stirring up of the gift that already dwells within you. I liken it to strengthening the human muscles through resistance training. The more resistance placed upon a specific muscle area over time, the stronger and more developed it becomes. Your gift of prophecy will respond in the same manner. The more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes." -- John Veal

Prophecy is a muscle now? Oh wait no; it apparently is a virus that you need to catch. Well that is closer because false teaching is like a virus in the system of the body of Christ and the only medicine that will cure it is the bible. Just think of the sheer lunacy of the statement above. That every single believer is supposed to speak on behalf of the Lord. No beloved, every single believer is supposed to obey the Lord. Every believer answers to the Lord. God does not need us to speak on His behalf. Yes there is the need to spread the Gospel but even that is done by people called to teach and preach. There are too many people teaching and preaching without that call and gift. In order to move your prophetic genes they need to be activated and exercised? Show me the chapter and verse that deals with activating prophetic genes. I found some verses that deal with it. Just look at the key verses for today. God does not send these false prophets yet they ran to speak. He did not speak to them yet they prophesied anyway. If they had actually stood in the council of God then they would have proclaimed His words -- the Gospel! John Veal is not the least bit interested in standing in the true council of the Lord. He is too busy activating imaginary muscles and exercising gifts he does not possess.

"Activations are paramount to this process. Not only do they increase the capacity of your gift, but they also help increase the intensity of your gift. Activations assist in not having to rely on someone else to hear God for you. It augments your innate ability to hear Him for yourself. These activations can cause your spiritual ears to tune into the Lord's frequency and access your inherently prophetic nature. I've seen many people who were not necessarily prophetic but who became prophetic through activation exercises. Not only does an activation ignite the prophetic gift in them, but the subsequent shaking causes other gifts around it to be stirred up as well. After one such activation, one woman told me her hands felt hot. I discerned that this was a sign of the gift of healing and told her so. Later, she began operating in the gift of healing. This type of thing has happened in nearly every activation that I've ever done. Many wonderful testimonies of prophetic awakenings have resulted from these prophetic activations." -- John Veal

The Lord's frequency?? Is He a radio program now? If you want to "tune in" to the Lord all you have to do is read the bible! Since Veal is being purposefully obtuse and vague, allow me to translate some of his super-spiritual gobbledygook. Activation simply means listening to the deceitful heart you have and blaming it on God. I watched Bethel do this once with their worship leaders because they felt all worship leaders were prophets, I kid you not. They would teach then to empty their minds during moments of free praise and "listen." The first thing that popped into their heads was deemed from God and they were encouraged to sing it out as "prophetic worship." So the reality is that whatever their foolish and wicked hearts dumped into their brains was branded as from God when it was far more likely to have come from the devil. I saw this live once at a local church where an itinerant speaker chanted for 15 straight minutes about jumping into the river to get a hug from Jesus. Beloved the spirit wills His gifts -- not man. Once given by the way, they do not need activation or exercise. How much carnality does it take to assume that a gift of the Holy Spirit would need some kind of maintenance from man?

"Anything You Don't Exercise Weakens Over Time. During one of these activation sessions, I had a revelation. As I laid hands on a woman to activate her prophetic gift, I saw three gifts inside of her, each varied in size. They actually looked like gift-wrapped presents, bows and all. One gift was bigger than all the others, which seemed to be her dominant gift. I believe that everyone has a few gifts, but usually one is primary or bigger than the others. For example, I discerned a prophetic gift as the largest of her gifts. The other gifts, such as healing, faith, and discernment were relatively small, often due to infrequent or even no use. Again, this is very similar to the human muscle. Through consistent, prolonged neglect, muscle atrophies or shrinks. The smaller it gets from a lack of activity, the weaker the muscle becomes. Your God-given gifts operate in much the same manner. The less you use them, the smaller or weaker they become. The gifts the Lord gives you never go away, according to Romans 11:29. "For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable." The Lord will not give you something and then demand it back. However, gifts might decrease in strength if they are not used. Anything you don't exercise weakens over time. Your heaven-sent abilities are a key to someone's breakthrough. Many are waiting for them to manifest in you. You might not be called to everyone, but you are called to someone." -- John Veal

Except for the fact that the entire muscle analogy was simply made up! Don't you think that if God wanted us to exercise our prophetic and spiritual muscles that there would be at least one verse in the bible telling us to do just that? Note the blame and guilt as well. If you are not moving in multiple giftings it is because you let your own muscles atrophy. How ridiculous. It is true that the calling and gifts are irrevocable but the underlying false assumption is that everyone has the same gift that just needs to do calisthenics. The last line is typical purpose driven slop. We are called to God not to man. Yes God may use us if He wills to spread His Gospel but the notion that there are people out there waiting for you to exercise your imaginary gift of prophecy and God is somehow limited by our response is borderline blasphemous as well. God doesn't need our help with anything. He has chosen the church as His vehicle to spread the Gospel but He is not limited by His own bride. He is not limited by the apostate imposter that poses as the church in this country. He is God, all by Himself. Veal concludes:

"Feeding Your Spiritual Gifts. My advice to emerging prophets and prophetic people is to use your prophetic gift as much as possible. The more you use it, the more robust it becomes. Think about it. The longer you do anything, the better you become at it. When your gift is stretched, it strengthens! When it's pushed or pulled upon regularly, it increases in depth. The weight of your gift becomes heavier, and the gift is now characterized by fatness from being consistently fed over time. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing" (Isa. 10:27, KJV). The context of this verse includes the ox becoming so fat (anointed) that the yoke breaks. Similar to "eating" the Word of God, you feed your gift every time you use it. When you routinely neglect daily Scripture reading, you might find yourself becoming spiritually weak. In Matthew 4:4, Jesus told the devil that "But He answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'" The Bible is the living Word of God, and you need to eat of it daily in order to provide sustenance, making you fatter in the spirit. Fatness equates to weightiness, which is a positive thing spiritually. Likewise, if you go a week without food, you will feel worn out, depleted and lethargic. You must be nourished both physically and spiritually in order to maintain a synergistic level between the spiritual and natural aspects of your prophetic gift." -- John Veal

This is how little fear these people have for the majesty of the Lord. When you read "use your prophetic gift as much as possible"; who is God in that scenario? You are! Instead of waiting for God to say something to you, John Veal and his ilk think that prophets should practice speaking on behalf of the Creator of the universe! In the aforementioned worship leader training, Bethel encouraged them about getting it wrong! Minimizing speaking wrongly on behalf of God Almighty! This isn't a game beloved. If you spoke wrongly on behalf of God in the Old Testament you were put to death yet modern day false prophets claim a 65% accuracy rate is a strong prophet! That 35% of the time someone could be flat out wrong makes them strong in prophecy? That's just insanity.

The closing sentiment is correct but too late! What good is it to dismiss and abuse the bible for 90% of what you write and then in the last 10% stress the importance of reading your bible! The truth is if you read your bible then you will know that not everyone has the gift of prophecy. It is not inherent within us. There are no prophetic genes that need to be exercised. There is only our wickedly deceitful heart and the enemy that tries to convince us that eating the fruit will make us like God. Beloved the Gods we serve is always on His throne and He is not giving it up anytime soon. Hold fast to solid teaching, mark the false prophets for who they are, and hold up everything you hear to the word of God to see if it is consumed or confirmed by His truth.

Reverend Anthony Wade -- October 26, 2018

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.