Quite a few of the Old Testament prophets didn't care too much for their calling.
Imagine, for example, Ezekiel's experience. Cooking over a poop-fire. Laying on his left side for over a year. Doing weirdo things with models. Crawling through holes in the wall.
Sounds great, no?
So, enter Brandon Biggs, who said President Trump would have an assassination attempt and his ear would be involved. Very convincing, yes?
When in doubt, don't believe it. It's too much power you're giving to these people to influence your life. — Mike Winger
That's an incredibly long video, but if you or any in your circle are all on board the modern prophet train, it's worth watching. Some of the things Mike Winger points out for this instance are common to what I've seen in other folks claiming to be prophets.
If I were going to fake being a prophet, I would:
Become an avid news reader.
Find geopolitical, financial, science, and historical wonks who have a good grasp of what is happening the world and take notes on what they were saying would happen.
Follow various Bible prophecy teachers (including some of the strange ones) and take notes.
Have a basic understanding of Biblical patterns and actual Biblical prophesies.
Compile it all together and tag "God told me" at the beginning with enough caveats at the end to have back-out wiggle room.
Make lots of prophecies so over time something will come true sort of in some way at some point so I can use that as a proof I got it right hoping people don't see all the times I didn't get it right.
Reference prophecies I never made after the fact but pretend I told all of my friends about it (if I had friends).
Sprinkle my writing and videos full of "I warned you all" so that whether I did or did not, I'd pound it into the audience's head so much they'd be gaslit into thinking I had.
Repeat Biblical warnings about listening to false prophets and the need to stay in God's Word and make sure all prophecies line up with that Word to confuse the audience with just enough truth to maintain trust.
Put the burden back on the person listening so that if things don't happen, the audience didn't pray enough.
Prophets in the Bible generally weren't embraced. I don't know that they'd have huge YouTube followers and platforms. I don't know if they'd make ad revenue off of their videos. I don't know that they'd make enough money being a prophet that they could have fancy homes and cars. (Well, maybe Balaam. But he was a false prophet. See Jude 1:11 and 2 Peter 2:15)
Zechariah, Jeremiah, Uriah—not such happy endings.
I believe God still moves today just like he did in the past. I don't want to mock people who are sincerely hearing from God in their own lives and, on the occasion, prompted to speak to people. I'm not a cessationist so I believe it can still happen.
The problem is greed and the insatiable lust for being known.
We are absolutely desperate creatures when it comes to being relevant, known, leaving a legacy—whatever else it is, we want to make sure our lives weren't lived in vain or had no meaning or purpose. But in the entire history and billions of people who have lived and died, it is impossible, outside of resting in the understanding that God made each of us unique, knows each of us, and loves each of us individually. Yet the desire to stand out and be known is hard to resist.
Perhaps, in the same way we want to tell people about our weird dreams, some folks are taking to YouTube to do so and very dangerously wrapping them in the "God told me" wrapper. Maybe what was for them only they shot-gunned out to the world for mass application. Maybe it's all made up and based on an approach like my cynical list above. I don't know.
Regardless, it's dangerous, because when you claim to speak for God and aren't...it's a pretty bad deal, as you can see.
In the video Mike Winger carefully made, it's clear Brandon Biggs has gotten most things wrong, and even the prophecy about Trump's ear wasn't correct.
God's true prophets are incredibly specific and accurate in the Bible. There's no wiggle room for backtracking or adding things after the fact. God said, they repeated or obeyed, and that's what happened.
There are few things I'd rather not mess around with than pretending to speak for God.
Sometimes it seems like everyone wants to be special, someone of note, noticed, that we matter, that we're above or better than the hoi polloi. So we get influencers, YOLO idiots with insurance claims I can only imagine, and false prophets who are "more important" than rank and file Christians just chugging along faithfully making little splash noticed only by God. However, out of the three, that last one gets a special mention in God's Word and so, no thanks.
So is Brandon Biggs a false prophet? God knows, and that's the main thing. I won't say more on the matter.
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