1) I as a Christian am only a hypocrite if I claim to be sinless. If I claim to be a sinFUL follower of the sinLESS Lord Jesus Christ, where is the "mask", the deception I put on?
For the record, I claim the latter, not the former.
2) Yes, God will judge Pat Robertson.
Deuteronomy 18:18-22 --
18I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.' 21And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?'-- 22when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.(I forgot that the death penalty was prescribed in v. 20 in my last post.)
And this is indeed the crux of the question. Would God use as his prophetic mouthpiece a man who prophesies EVEN ONE THING incorrectly? How then could His voice be clearly communicated to His people? Obviously knowing this, God provided, in OT Israel, for the death penalty of a so-called prophet who would say something that would not come true. Even one time is enough for execution.
God takes this deadly seriously. While I don't think Pat R should be put to death, shall we believe him to be a prophet of God? And even Pat R has admitted that his tsunami prophecy was wrong and says "I have a relatively good track record; sometimes I miss."
But Pat, it's not YOU speaking, supposedly. It's on behalf of the Lord that you presume to speak. Does God say "Oops. Well, I'm still around 80%"?
Given that, as a friend noted, this petition is the most loving thing we could do for Pat, to turn him back from God's impending judgment for misusing God's name and Pat's own public recognisability.
3) Another concern seems to be that the petition is asking Pat R to go away into hiding forever and never to speak again. It is not. Read it again - it's asking him to stop making "prophetic" statements.
"...we respectfully and earnestly exhort him to stand down from his self-appointed position as "prophet" -- that is, one who receives God's own words and speaks them to the world apart from established Scripture -- and apologize to the church, and on behalf of the church to those who have witnessed his abuses, for his on-going representation of himself as a mouthpiece for God Almighty."
It's not calling for CBN to pack it in.
4) The guy won't stop. Look at that link again...
"Pat Robertson said Tuesday God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in 'mass killing' late in 2007.
'I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear,' he said during his news-and-talk television show 'The 700 Club' on the Christian Broadcasting Network. ' The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.'"
What will he say when he's wrong this time? Is it not possible some might scoff at the "God" who would make false predictions?
If you care to, sign the petition.
If not, thanks for reading.
4 comments:
My question concerns the usefulness of this endeavour - getting a petition up and all. The man is pretty obviously bonkers, and even apart from his flights of prophetic indigestion seems pretty marginal. So what's the motivation? He, as you pointed out, will almost certainly not listen to you, and it does not seem very likely that his followers will either - after all, if you thought your leader spoke with God himself, how willingly would you throw him over for an e-mail?
Two benefits, one pretty sure, one pretty doubtful.
1) To show the unbelieving world that we don't buy what he has to sell and that we don't accept him as a prophet.
That one's the pretty sure option.
2) To ask Pat to reconsider his blasphemous and false activities. Obviously, he's pretty invested in what he's doing so I don't necessarily expect him to. But I still ask. That's my responsibility.
Warning him seems fair, but how many of the unbelieving world are going to see this? That's what I meant by saying he seemed fairly marginal already... do you think that people who are really interested in the subject (and hence, likely to read this petition) will need to be told Mr. Robertson's not orthodox?
I tend to think not; of course I could be wrong. And certainly there's nothing wrong with the petition, as far as I can see, it just doesn't sound that helpful. But as you like - it's a free country.
One of the biggest obstacles for me in talking to some of my unbelieving friends are people like Pat Robertson, Robert Tilton, and the others who flagrantly glorify themselves in the name of the only One who is worthy of glory. They make me want to scream. But instead I signed the petition.
There are sooooo many good pastors out there,even on TV. Why do we have to be tormented by these false teachers? Why are there so many gullible Christians?
Dad
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