You know, at some point I really ought to just stop looking for "free" answers from anyone resembling or pretending to be a prophet.
Every time I think I might have found some site or book that could help me understand what God wants me to know or do with my life, I am asked to "donate" or give money to their particular cause; in other words, all of these self-proclaimed "prophets" are out to make a profit from their "inside" knowledge.
I blame my bad (as in "incorrect") upbringing in that falsest of all modern religions, the Mormon Church, for my fixation on wanting to believe that some mortal has answers for these impending dark days in America, but I am consistently as disappointed in these new sources as I am with Joseph Smith's lies.
The latest gaff I made was thinking a book called "The Harbinger" by one Jonathan Cahn might contain some of the answers to my queries about God. The book made some really great connections between Isaiah's prophecies about the fall of ancient Israel and modern day America, and I was anxious to learn more. I went to Cahn's "Hope of the World" (what a great and promising-sounding site!) hoping to get some direction, inspiration, hope and so on. I really hoped that perhaps Cahn really had been communicating with God and that he would let the rest of us know what the heck was going on. But sadly, as with other false leaders, I went to the author of this book's web site and - sure enough- he was asking for donations and would not share his complete "messages" with me without me first making a donation.
What the heck? I'd already paid $14 to buy the book; what was going on?
Did Moses stand in front of the downtrodden children of Israel and say, "Yes, I got a calling from God to come deliver you ... but first, a word from our sponsor" and then maybe his brother Aaron (his mouthpiece) steps forward, leaning on his staff, and says, "My brother Moses said God has asked that I pass a bushel basket around and only those who put their two shekels in can hang around and hear the rest of the deliverance message. If you can't afford the price, please head on back to the mud pits. Thank you for coming, and good luck digging your way to the promised land!"
Really? Think about it. What TRUE PROPHET OF GOD ALMIGHTY is going to charge admission to a divine revelation? Are you getting my drift here? Obviously, a true prophet does not, cannot, and WILL NOT make a profit off of revelations.
So, although the "Harbinger" author makes some great points, he does not practice what he preaches. He made a web site and delivers the message only to the shekel payers, and I'm all "shekeled out." It is for this same reason that I eschew any and ALL organized religions, especially the LDS church in which I was raised, because I saw the faces of the poor being ground into the earth; I heard the snide remarks about "well, if you were really living a righteous life, you would be blessed with not only children but the money to care for them, and care for them very well!"
But I saw the same money changing going on in every other church as well. I shrank from the passing platter in both Baptist and Methodist churches. I shuddered at the immense wealth of the Catholic church and its grandiose cathedrals. And television ministries tell the ultimate lies to sucker people when they preach "seeding" one's way to heaven by paying funds up front to the slick TV preachers. It is everywhere and it all leads to ... no where.
A true prophet of God, then, will not ask for a donation or a tithe, which is actually a very private matter, a covenant, between a person and their God, and is not meant to fund any other person's lifestyle. ALL tithing, 100 percent of it, should go to a general fund to help those in need, period. No churches built, no missions funded and no corporate investments, the way the LDS (MORG) church has done by building shopping malls and other things on its way to becoming one of the top ten corporations in the United States. No, no and no.
Where, in ANY part of the gospel of Jesus Christ, is it written that he ordered churches to be built? Where in any part of his ministry did he ask for donations to feed or clothe his disciples or himself? Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you" and instructed people to love one another and to give alms to the poor, sick and unfortunate.
On the other hand, he clearly demonstrated that his Father's house of worship was not the place for business when he angrily threw out of the Jerusalem temple those who made profits from temple goers, and he compared a rich man getting into heaven to a camel getting through the eye of a needle. Any church that teaches that worldly wealth is a sign of God's approval or favor, then, is lying because of all the people who ever lived on this earth, surely the Son of God should have been graced with these "signs" of God's approval, n'cest pas?
Okay, I have ranted on long enough about this matter. I'll let Ralph Waldo Emerson, a much wiser and more astute student of human nature than myself, sum this all up:
We spend our incomes for paint and paper, for a hundred trifles, I know not what, and not the things of a man.
Our expense is almost all for conformity. It is for cake that we run in debt; 'tis not the intellect, not the heart, not beauty, not worship, that costs so much.
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32) By the same token, truth from God is given as a gift to all of mankind, and therefore should always be shared in the same spirit. We are told to let our lights so shine that all men and women can be enlightened. We are not to hide the light but "let it shine", as in "share it all." As sunshine is free for all to benefit from, so is the word of God, and ANYONE who makes a profit from that selfsame knowledge sent from God is not a true prophet, but a selfish, self-serving thief and a money changer grinding the faces of the poor.
Selah, and Amen, to Bro. Cahn and anyone else who profits from playing prophet.
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