Prophetic Standards Statement Replies to Trump Prophecies -

PROPHETIC STANDARDS STATEMENT. As of April 30, 332 ministries have signed the “Prophetic Standards Statement”. One of its originators, Michael Brown, calls it in part a response to the “failed” Trump prophecies. He says these prophecies have caused many believers to “become spiritually disoriented.” The Statement seeks to protect believers from the “powerful influence” of unaccountable prophets.

The signers include Randy Clark, James Goll, Loren Sandford, and many other famed ministers. They also include two who have apologized for their Trump prophecies, Jeremiah Johnson and Kris Vallotton.

However, many Trump prophecies did not specify that Trump would resume office on January 20. We cannot deny that God is able to re-install him if He so chooses. And Trump is already the clear Republican front-runner for 2024.

But all of us can benefit from this comprehensive, carefully-articulated Statement. In fact, it contains nothing that the five above signers, and many others, have been teaching for decades. It just puts those teachings into a concise, easily referenced 4-page form. It can serve a basic outline for prophetic training for decades to come.

When has the five-fold ministry ever evaluated a prophecy?

Yet we might ask the hundreds of signers, do you have a plan for putting the Statement into practice? It says that prophets depend “on other five-fold ministry leaders for the interpretation and application of the revelations they receive.”

But in all the 32 years that I have tracked with prophetic ministries, I have never heard of a prophetic word that underwent interpretation and application by an apostle, evangelist, pastor and teacher. Or by “a presbytery of peers and seasoned ministers” that the Statement says is essential for a prophet.

Surely such judgments of prophetic words must have happened from time to time. But I can’t remember hearing or reading of a specific example before the 2020 Covid and Trump prophecies.

With our Belize Prayer Network of intercessors, I tried to make that happen several years ago. I called together intercessors with prophetic gifts and said, let’s form a prophetic company. We can learn together, prophesy together, and evaluate prophecies together. The others seemed to make it work for one night. But like Moses’ prophetic company, “they did not do it again” (Num. 11:25). One reason, I think, is that people find it more exciting to prophesy than to evaluate prophesy.

Even in the New Testament, we do not see a single example of the five-fold ministry judging a prophecy. (However, 1 Timothy 4:14 may imply that the “presbytery” evaluated a prophetic word for Timothy.) In Acts 21:11, Agabus prophesied that Jews in Jerusalem would bind Paul and hand him to the Gentiles. So what happened? No one evaluated the prophecy. Instead, they “began begging him not to go up to Jerusalem” (v.12).

Afterwards, the prophecy turned out to be inaccurate. The Jews threatened Paul, but did not touch him, and the Gentiles took him into custody (22:22-24).

Prophetic ministry needed for the coming end times

The Bible says, “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the other pass judgment” (1 Cor. 14:29). And “do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess. 5:19-22). But we rarely follow either of these Scriptures.

The church will need more accurate prophetic direction as we navigate toward the end times ahead. The book of Revelation speaks of functioning “prophets” eight times. Let us pray that this Statement stirs this key ministry to improve, mature and endure to the very end. For all our sakes, and for a great final “testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 19:10).