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A recent online news report said the Ghana Police Service has announced that: “The law is against false publication, thereby if you make your prophecy publicly without any evidence then you have breached the law and the law will deal with you” (Ghanaweb.com, 26 October). It was further reported in the same article that the police had held deliberations with religious leaders in the country “to streamline the prophetic ministry”.
This move by the police should not be resisted with a misplaced fear that “Christianity is under attack”.
We have become used to annual, end-of-year competitions among “prophets” as to who will “prophesy” the death of the most popular or famous personality in the coming year.
That these “prophecies” cause fear and panic to the targets, their families and their loved ones was made sharply clear in an attack on the church premises of one of these “prophets” a few years ago.
The Word in the spotlight
Despite the obvious and manifest dangers caused by these actions, religious bodies have failed to regulate their own activities in line with the dictates of Christianity. The burden therefore falls on the police, the body responsible for law and order, to do so.
The possible claim that these “prophetic” practices are mandated by the “office of the prophet” must be subjected to the scrutiny of the public document upon which this practice is allegedly based – the Holy Bible.
In the Bible, declarations of the impending death of an individual are limited to private pronouncements, or for cause and to bring about an effect. The Prophet Nathan prophesied to King David that God said he was going to die. God gave the reason that David had caused the death of Uriah to hide his own sin of adultery with Uriah’s wife, resulting in her pregnancy. David repented and God lifted the death sentence.
The Prophet Isaiah also gave a prophecy from God to King Hezekiah that he was going to die. The reason was that Hezekiah had showed off the treasures of God to God’s enemies, who subsequently seized them in a war. Hezekiah repented and cried out to God, and God suspended the death sentence for 15 years.
Now, both of these prophecies were given privately to the person in question. The “fear and panic” caused was private and resulted in godly sorrow, which brought repentance unto salvation.
Reluctant prophet
On the other hand, several biblical prophecies of death and destruction made in public were given to nations and their leaders for the sins of those leaders and nations.
Many such were given by prophets to the kings and people of Israel, but the most notable biblical account of a public prophecy of death and destruction to a nation is that of Jonah to the city of Nineveh.
For the sins of the people of Nineveh, God sent Jonah to preach the coming death and destruction to the city. Reluctantly, Jonah complied, as recorded in the Bible. “And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ ” – Jonah 3:4
The result was an exceedingly great “fear and panic”, if ever there was one, falling on the king and citizens. The king then declared a total national fast by every living thing, from the king down to livestock, to make the city repent of its sin. God was moved, and the city was saved.
Keeping the peace
These are the circumstances under which the “fear and panic” caused by a prophecy from God is good. When it comes to matters of salvation the word of God tells us to work out our salvation with “fear and trembling” (Ephesians 6:5). To individuals, however, any such “prophecy” must be delivered in private.
It has been claimed that “prophecies” come spontaneously and that the “prophet” can do nothing but declare them whenever and wherever he receives them. Referring to the Bible again, this is not indicative of the operations of a Christian prophet.
The Apostle Paul, who should know more about this than any living prophet, wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:32-33: “The spirit of the prophets are subject to the control of prophets, for God is not a God of disorder but of peace.” Paul wrote this at a time when the same issue of disorderly use of prophetic expression was sweeping through the Church in Corinth. This is exactly what the police are determined to do – to restore and maintain godly order and peace in Ghana.
On the other hand, by the same God’s standards, declarations of death and destruction to a nation must be given publicly: and yet, on the cause of abominable and unrepentant lifestyles, of which there are many in our nation today, many “prophets” are surprisingly silent.
These are grounds on which “fear and panic” may be warranted and can be defended in a temporal court of law. The police say they need evidence in order to warrant such prophecies. Such evidence abounds in the Holy Bible, on which any accused prophet could swear in giving evidence. The Bible is already a court document, so the police will have no choice but to accept it as such.
It is my submission that, going by the Christian God’s ways, any prophecy of death to an individual must be for a declared cause of sinful lifestyle, but it must be given privately.
The practice of publicly declaring, prognosticating, foretelling, predicting or announcing in any other manner the impending death of a person is unchristian and must be criminalised, no matter what kind of religious practitioner is involved.
Reverend Captain Michael Yao Foli
Captain Michael Yao Foli is the founder and leader of Back to the Rock Ministries in Accra
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