A prophet of God is not someone who merely tells you about the future. A prophet is not someone who tells you the team that will win a football match or when ASUU will call off their strike.
A prophet is not someone who tells you beforehand, the candidate that will win in a democratic election or whom you will marry.
In fact, a prophet of God is not someone who interprets your dreams.
Some of these may come as a surprise to many of you reading this.
A meteorologist who tells you exactly when it will rain and when it will not can be said to be predicting the future, but that does not make him or her a prophet(ess) of God.
A political scientist and analyst could predict the candidate that will be most likely favoured in a free and fair election, after evaluating critically every piece of data in line with the political situation of the time; but that does not make him a prophet of God.
Same as those who predict tsunamis, hurricanes, football matches through betting. . . They are not Prophets of God.
We have soothsayers, fortune tellers, and magicians even in the Bible. . . They could tell the future and even predict information about a person’s personality, but that does not make them prophets of God.
What we often forget is that we are not only bodily beings, we are spirit beings. There are many powers and gifts in each of us that we are not even aware of. . . But being able to harness such gifts does not make us prophets of God in the strict sense of the word.
The word prophet has its origin in the Greek compound word προφήτης (prophḗtēs). It simply means to speak on behalf of someone or what we can call in our language today “spokesman”.
Exodus 7:1 threw more light on this.
“Then the LORD said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.”
Let me explain that passage.
Earlier, Moses complained about his difficulties in speech and how he might find it hard to talk to Pharaoh. So, God made Aaron his Prophet. . . You can substitute the word prophet for “spokesman” and you will still be correct. This means that Aaron will ONLY say what Moses wants him to say.
So, a prophet of God is one who speaks on behalf of God. And so, the key point is not whether what was spoken is about the future or not, but the key is that what is spoken must be what GOD HIMSELF SAID.
Again, we know that God’s words are about our salvation. This is why the greatest of all prophecies is about the coming of the Saviour. There is NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING that anyone can prophesy that will be bigger than that. All the major prophets talked about the coming of the Messiah. . .This is why John the Baptist is, to a greater extent, regarded as the last prophet.
In a democratic election, God won’t suppress the free will of the people. There won’t be the need for PVC or voting if God is the one that is voting for us. God gave us free will and sense, our choice remains our choice. If all of us join hands together and vote an id!ot, so shall it be.
Anyone coming out to tell you that GOD SPOKE to him or her concerning who will win the Nigeria election is a BLOODY LAIR.
This coming election, please leave prophecy out of it. And if there is any prophecy at all, it will be “Go and get your PVC and vote the right candidate according to your godly conscience.”
