Acts of a False Prophet

Instead of holding the false prophets accountable for what they say, a strange thing happens to their faithful followers. They try to find some obscure meaning to what they once thought was a clear prophecy. The followers of these false prophets say they just misunderstood what was meant in the prophecy so they twist the meaning to mean something else (followers of Nostradamus love this trick). Or they say that the prophetic event changed due to human intervention. If that could be proven to be the case, then logically all prophecy about future events would be totally worthless.

Another method the false prophets use to keep their following after the time for the prophecy has come and gone is to say that the precise timing of the prophecy can change (even though they previously put a date on it). They say the events will still happen but of course they never do unless their fulfillment in time is obvious. If gullible people are going to believe these types of excuses, then how can any prophet ever be proven false?

If the people of today lived in ancient Israel, the directive by God to stone false prophets could never be carried out by the generation that was given the prophecies. They would have to wait for all the excuses to expire. Using today’s rationale for God’s directive, we could only stone the false prophets after they died of natural causes.