Prophets after the fact.

Today is 1 March 2026, the day after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, and reportedly killed Ali Khamenei, its supreme leader. I wrote and posted this before today’s Sunday morning church services in the United States—at which I guarantee prophets are gonna get up and tell us what they believe God told ’em about yesterday’s events, and the future of Iran.

I can also guarantee some of ’em are gonna start talking about all the End Times stuff this war either fulfills, or is gonna trigger. This, despite our Lord Jesus’s own statement to the contrary—

Mark 13.7-8 NET

7“When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. These things must happen, but the end is still to come. 8For nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines. These are but the beginning of birth pains.”

—but you know how some Christians follow their End Times timelines instead of the bible. But I digress; I’m talking about prophecy in general, not just the End Times fans.

What you’re gonna see in church today, is what you see in churches after every major disaster. After every war begins, every terrorist attack happens, every horrific fire, every natural disaster like a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, landslide, volcanic eruption, tsunami, anytime bad stuff happens. Immediately certain prophets step forward and declare, “Thus saith the LORD…”

And my response, and really all our responses, should be, “The LORD knew this was coming. Why didn’t he forewarn you? And if he did forewarn you, why did you sit on this information?”

When we deal with legitimate prophets, God should’ve told them what’s coming. Because he does that with the people whom he called to serve him as prophets, to share God’s messages to his people, who legitimately listen to him for this purpose. Exactly like he told Amos of Tekoa to tell the Israelis.

Amos 3.6-8 NET

6If an alarm sounds in a city, do people not fear?

If disaster overtakes a city, is the LORD not responsible?

7Certainly the Sovereign LORD does nothing without first revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.

8A lion has roared! Who is not afraid?

The Sovereign LORD has spoken. Who can refuse to prophesy?

I’ve heard some after-the-fact prophets claim this prophecy totally applies to them—because in some translations, like the KJV, verse 7 doesn’t say “without first revealing his plan.” True, but not every bible translator has understood how to rightly translate Hebrew verbs. The imperfect verb יַעֲשֶׂ֛ה/ya’ašéh means “is doing,” which means we should translate verse 7, “For the Lord YHWH isn’t doing a thing when he’s not revealed his counsel to the prophets his slaves/servants.” God withholds his action till he’s first revealed his intent to his people. This way, people don’t have to guess at how involved God is, or why he did as he did; he already told us. He reveals, then acts.

Any prophet who claims God could act first and reveal second, either doesn’t understand this verse… or doesn’t wanna understand this verse, ’cause now they have to explain why they were not listening to God when he wanted to forewarn us of a coming disaster.

I know, I know; you just wanna call all of them false prophets.

Plenty of people don’t believe God talks to anyone anymore; that he stopped talking to people once the New Testament was completed. Others figure God certainly does still talk to people—they might’ve experienced him talking to them, at one time—but they’re loath to believe he talks to the self-proclaimed prophets they see on Christian internet and TV channels. Especially the ones neck-deep in the prosperity gospel movement, or who are heavily partisan and nationalist.

If you’re dismayed at prophets who promote Mammon or earthly kingdoms instead of God’s kingdom, I’m right there with you… but I remind you Balaam ben Beor Nu 22-23 prophesied for money, tried to prophesy on behalf of Moab, and nonetheless heard the LORD. Heck, Cain the first murderer heard God. Ge 4.9-16 Good behavior and correct beliefs, much as we’d like ’em to be, are not prerequisites for hearing God! Some prophets are truly awful human beings, which absolutely disqualifies them from Christian leadership. But they do hear God, and when their track record proves this, we can’t simply dismiss what they have to say. God can use them despite their lack of fitness—same as he did Balaam’s donkey. Nu 22.28-33

So we can’t simply say after-the-fact prophets are false prophets. Sometimes they’re not! Again, look at their track record. Has what they previously prophesied come to anything? If so, better listen. If not, or if they’ve been right only part of the time, they’re only pretending to hear God; feel free to ignore them.

’Cause sometimes after-the-fact prophets actually do have a message from God. True, they weren’t listening to him before the disaster, like they should’ve been. They were sleeping on the job, so to speak. They’re irresponsible prophets. Doesn’t make ’em false prophets! A sleeping security guard is still a security guard… for now.

But now that the disaster has got their attention, they turned to God for answers, and he gave ’em some, and that’s what they’ll be sharing today. That’s fine. Would’ve been way more impressive if they prophesied before the fact instead of after. It’s a massive missed opportunity to uplift the name of Jesus, and that’s on them. They’ll have to eventually answer to God for that. But they’re back on the job, so listen to what they have to say, and judge and confirm it like usual.

And okay, sometimes after-the-fact prophets didn’t hear God before the fact, because they don’t hear him period. You can usually tell because either their “prophecies” come to nothing, or because their “prophecies” are just encouraging platitudes which are worded in such a way where it doesn’t matter if they come to nothing: The phony prophet filled them with so many conditions—“If you do x, God will do y, but if you don’t do x, God will do nothing”—that they’re never gonna happen, because we’re never gonna do all that, because we suck. Again, judge and confirm what they have to say, and discern whether this is someone to listen to, or a clever fraud.

Likewise with any “prophecy scholars” who use this, or any other war or disaster, to try to promote their politics and End Times beliefs. If their previous guesses about how “no, this event is definitely a sign of the times” never came to anything, you can be sure this one won’t come to anything either.

I realize some of you might figure, “Okay, he’s been wrong every time before, but what if now he just stumbled into being right?” You know, the whole broken-clock-works-twice-a-day phenomenon. To which I respond: When a clock is that unreliable, you fix it or throw it away. When your “prophecy scholars” are the same way, stop making excuses for them, and expel them from your church like you would any unrepentant false teacher. Or, if your church leadership refuses to do that, you leave. Stop letting these people poison your faith.