Whom Should We Follow?

 The Old Dispensation had a simple formula for understanding prophets: the true prophets directed the Hebrews to worship Jehovah, the one true God, a spirit not represented by fabricated images.  The false prophets held up multiple gods, shaped from the materials of the earth.  The false prophets were shown to be impotent, while the true God of Israel kept his people or delivered his people from idolatrous tyrants.  It was pretty much a simple test to separate the true God from the false gods, therefore the true prophet from the false.

In the New Dispensation, beginning with Jesus, the authenticity of prophets was harder to decide. When Jesus was declared a false prophet, he would point to his works of mercy as a sign of his affiliation with the one true God. When it came to prophets, he also believed they would be proven by their actions, not by their theology:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-20)

In another place Jesus warns us about the false prophets of the end times.  There will be plenty of them.

And if anyone says to you at that time, "Look! Here is the Messiah! There he is!---do not believe it.False messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. (Mark 13:21-22)

So how do we recognize such people? And how do we recognize true prophets, if there are any?

I am the last person to identify the false from the true, but I do know one thing: everyone who declares himself or herself a prophet does not automatically make the cut.  We have been warned by Jesus and therefore should keep our eyes open for the unqualified. How many people have declared themselves the messiah or the prophet of the coming of the Lord since the resurrection? I do not know, but I'll bet plenty. I'll leave that for historians to count.

What about the good fruits we can expect of the true prophets? I'll use the Apostle Paul as my source for fruits: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Galatians 5:22). I'm not positive this is what Jesus meant by the "good fruit" of true prophets, but it seems like a good approximation.

This is where I get hung up on a President being the instrument of  God's will.  I could argue that Franklin D. Roosevelt, with his inspired social programs was a latter-day Isaiah ("every valley filled and rough places a plain"),  delivering the American people from the Depression, but I won't. It wouldn't matter that F.D.R. had only a nominal faith and imprisoned thousands of Japanese-Americans needlessly, if he was God's

instrument.  But anyone can prophesy anything about a sitting President. It doesn't make it true.

I would sooner follow John Lewis as a prophet anyway. He bled to make American great: on one occasion in Rock Hills, SC getting off a bus riding for the right of Black people to ride the buses, May 9, 1961, beaten bloody by white men with clubs; then beaten nearly to death in Selma, AL, March 7, 1965 on the Edmund Pettus Bridge marching for voting rights. And numerous other times jailed and beaten. He not only spoke, but put his body in the way to demand justice.

Maybe we fling around the word "prophet" too much anyway. Jesus had big sandals to fill. Even John the Baptist did not try to fill them.  We may be naming prophets, because we think it will hurry the arrival of the Kingdom of God. For twenty-one hundred years we have not managed to speed it up.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Whenever you're ready, Lord.

Acts 24: 14-15 I believe everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets, 15 and I have the same hope in God as these men themselves have, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.