General News of Wednesday, 4 April 2018
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
2018-04-04
General Overseer of Glorious Word Power Ministry International, Rev. Isaac Owusu Bempah
Not only God sees the future, the devil also sees the future, the reason all Christians must be wary of which prophecies to believe and not to believe, General Overseer of Glorious Word Power Ministry International, Reverend Isaac Owusu Bempah has said.
Speaking on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana show Tuesday on the proliferation of prophets and ‘doom prophecies’ in the media in recent times, Rev. Owusu Bempah stated that regardless of the fact that God gifts prophets to ‘see’ hidden things and reveal them to the world to be fulfilled and in some cases to avert evil plans of the devil, some individuals, for personal gains make their own predictions using God’s name, instilling fear and panic in the process.
He held that anyone can give predictions and portray to the world as though they were prophesying when in actual fact they just want to look ‘powerful’ or draw fame to themselves. Rev. Owusu Bempah explained that Satan knew about Christ’s birth though the details were hidden from him, the reason it is very pertinent that all Christians discern for themselves through prayers which voice is of God and which is not.
“For me, if a prophet prophesies and it happens, it means that prophet or prophecy is genuine, not all of them are genuine. Even thieves can prophesy but it is not from God…God is not the only one who knows the future, the devil also knows the future.”
“Even the devil predicts, he knows but not the specifics. He knew Christ will be born, to save the world but he couldn’t pin point the specific person. That’s why when he possessed Herod, he caused him to kill a lot of children between 1 to 2 years but Jesus specifically whom they were after, they couldn’t find. Satan predicts but God prophesies. We have predictions and we have prophecies”, he said.
According to him, God doesn’t always prophesy good things into the lives of his children. Sometimes he says, prophecies come through men of God to forewarn particular individuals, a group of persons or a nation of an imminent event which they ought to pray about to avert. Citing examples from the Bible, Rev. Owusu-Bempah said,
“Prophecy can be evil…Agabus prophesied to Paul. He took Paul’s sins and said whoever’s sins these are, they’ll arrest him and kill him, the same prophet prophesied about hunger and yet he was a divine prophet of God. Isaiah telling Hezekiah about his death, it was not a good prophecy, it was as though to cause fear and panic so there are a number of such prophecies. Even Jesus prophesied about his death and rebuked Peter when he tried standing in his way. If even Jesus was able to, no one is bigger than Jesus. There are somethings that are predestined by God. Sometimes God reveals such to prophets and yet they are evil. It’s not all good things that are from God. Somethings are evil but they are from God. Ahab’s death for instance was predestined by God and so you can’t blame such an instance on the devil”.
The well-known man of God, however, bemoaned the situation where certain individuals portray themselves as prophets, leading Christians astray with their ‘concocted’ predictions.
“Nobody can say he is the only prophet in Ghana but some of the prophecies I hear amuse me and make me know that in this case, it’s not God speaking. I have been in the prophetic ministry for so many years, I began at the age of 16 so I know that sometimes when people prophesy, they are doing so to acquire fame or just so they can also be acknowledged because at some points, it appears the more a person sees, the more powerful they are. But sometimes, a person may not have seen or had any vision but is more powerful just based on his teachings. So you don’t necessarily have to be a prophet to know that God is using you or to know you are very powerful”
“Some people call themselves prophets but they don’t understand the ministry of a prophet. God reveals hidden things in the spirit to you as a prophet because the devil and his gang always plan to cause evil on this earth. God reveals so that the prophet can pray and revert it but sometimes even when people don’t see, they say they have seen”.