Rick Wiles Continues To Lead His Flock Down the Pathway of Dreams

“I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in My name, saying, ‘I had a dream, I had a dream!’ How long? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart, who intend to make My people forget My name by their dreams which they relate to one another, just as their fathers forgot My name because of Baal?  Jer. 23 26-27 NASB

The amount of fraud, deception, and manipulation which takes place in the church today under the pretence that it is the work of the Holy Spirit, is truly staggering. The gifts of the spirit are being counterfeited. Outright lies are peddled from internet ministries in their broadcasts and dressed up as special revelation from God. The gift of prophecy, a thing of excellence in its uncorrupted state, is being degraded into a morass of dream interpretation. The gospel and the risen Christ take a back seat to showmanship in this circus of vanity and puffery, as the ministers responsible seek the prophetic glory for themselves and their ministries.

The Bible is quite clear in stating that we cannot ever know the mind of God. God’s ways are not our ways. Scripture is also clear that human dream interpretation, when used by us as an attempt to discover what the future holds, is an occultic practice akin to divination, and thus is an abomination to the Lord. Why then is there such a large movement thriving in Christian ministries today, especially on the internet, telling us that we can use our dreams and visions to accurately determine what God’s plan is for a city or a country or a people? And further than this, that we can use the dreams and visions of others who we do not know and will never meet, to come to this determination, and complete the abomination by putting God’s name on all of it? Why are dreams being given out to the body of believers in churches and ministries as spiritual direction and advice?

This  movement in the church today is leading Christians to believe that the thoughts inside their own heads are not only revelation from the Father Himself, but also represent His personal directions to each of us. People change jobs, move to different locations, even different countries, because of what someone else’s dream revealed, believing it to be a revelation from God. While the Holy Spirit is certainly capable of revealing something to us, and God can and does give us direction in our personal life situations, great caution needs to be used before just indiscriminately passing on to the whole body of believers the dreams of people as special revelation from God. This is one of the most telling signs of apostasy in the church today, and is antichrist in nature. For what is the spirit of antichrist? It is the elevation of humans to a position to receive the glory that is only due to the Father.

The ministers who tell us they know the future are usurping something that only belongs to God. They want themselves and their ministries to be the focus of attention. They love it when the internet chat rooms and forums are abuzz with talk about what was revealed on their programs about the future. They want you to believe the power lies in them to tell you what you must do. They want to be your survivalist counsellors in helping you to plan your escape from what they tell you is coming. Fellowshipping with our brothers in sisters in Christ and spreading the good news of the gospel don’t factor very highly with the prophets of doom. They know they can get alot more attention by telling us when the calamity is coming and how to escape it than by preaching the risen Christ..

Selling Dreams Can Be Very Good For The Bottom Line

The people who run these internet ministries also have a great deal of financial expertise. They know that to keep a steady flow of donations coming in to their ministries they need to dangle the carrot to the listeners that their shows reveal the future. In all of history, nothing has held more sway over the emotions of man than the idea that some of us can know the future, and if we just listen to the right people, we too can acquire this knowledge. Careful listening to their programs is required, they say, as God unfolds this drama to them on a weekly basis. Their ministries are built in the thorny soil of human visions and dreams, and yet they portray themselves as staunch defenders of the faith and purveyors of wisdom to today’s Christians.

They understand what is written in 2Timothy 4:3:

³  For the time is coming when people will not endure sound^[a] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

Ministries like this know this rule: that the vast majority of people want to hear something that suits their own passions rather than sound biblical teaching. The shephards  are more interested in elevating and exalting themselves and their ministries than in just delivering the gospel to a broken world. They have a better, newer, more modern plan for what the church should be doing in the endtimes. Lets all log and evaluate and compare our dreams, they say. This, they think, will be a good way to know God’s mind. Placing our hearts and our values on these things of the human mind is not a way to know the Lord. Instead of looking at our lives with eternity in mind, they would have us all just plot ways to save ourselves from suffering in this world and escape God’s judgement in these hard times ahead. These people have something to sell you, and its not the Gospel.

⁸ Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. Jude 1:8 ESV

Rick Wiles Presents a New Showcase of Dreams

A case in point that serves as an example of just how fruitless this practice can be is Rick Wiles of the Trunews ministry. Rick Wiles has a 14 year history of claiming that God reveals to him, along with certain guests and listeners of his radio program Trunews,  intimate details of His judgements and plans for future judgement on divinely specified areas of the world.  This revelation is supposedly granted to Mr. Wiles and friends for the most part through dreams and visions. He often speaks about spending time in fasting and prayer, and this, he tells us, allows greater communication with God about future events.

Some may be familiar with his claim that the Holy Spirit came to him in a time of fasting and reflection in early 2010, and revealed to him that America would be devastated by a nuclear explosion in the last three months of 2010. We can only wonder how many of his listeners took his words at face value and fled from the country, deeply scarring and uprooting their families, all because of a man’s vision being represented as revelation from God. No apology ever came for that fiasco, and Mr. Wiles is back at it again, hoping people have short memories.

On May 24th 2012 Mr. Wiles released a group of what he labels “prophetic dreams”, http://www.trunews.com/may2012.htm , but this time he has been quite deliberate about stating these are the dreams of people he has been in contact with, not his own dreams. He is seemingly not getting prophetic dreams himself, or if so, is not releasing them to us, but is able with great conviction to state that this group of dreams from others is revelation from God. Carefully he sets the bait, and then makes sure he has an out. The “out” here being, of course, that when none of this comes to pass, he can defiantly announce to his audience: “listen, folks, I told you clearly at the time that these were not my dreams.”

Prophecy by Majority Rule

Wiles is like many on the internet these days in making great presumptions and unbiblical leaps in logic. Listen to this excerpt from the recent Trunews “revelation” dated May 24th, 2012:

God commissioned me that day in April 1998 to warn the American people that time was running out for this nation to repent and return to obey God’s commandments and ways. I have spent the last 14 years in full-time ministry proclaiming that message.

Since the beginning of 2012, I have detected a marked intensity in the warnings from God. They are coming to me from various sources and ways. Many people are experiencing disturbing dreams. Others are seeing visions. In recent weeks the warnings have taken on an alarming new level of urgency. Reports of prophetic dreams and visions are flooding into our offices daily in recent weeks. Without a doubt, I am convinced that one or more catastrophic events will strike the USA before the end of 2012.

“Reports of prophetic dreams and visions are flooding into our offices daily in recent weeks.” Is that what true prophecy is about today? Is it prophecy by concensus? Where in the Bible do we find any kind of link between what the majority of a group of people are dreaming, and true revelation from God? If we are claiming any dreams to be divine revelation, on what basis are we to assume that themes that recur frequently among groups of people are likely to be more “accurate” than a single prophetic dream given to one sole person would be? Does God do more preparation before sending a prophetic dream to a group of people than when he sends a dream to only one? Is the Lord less careful paying attention to detail when sending prophecy to a smaller audience then when He releases something to a wider number of recipients?

The Unbiblical Assumption That Bad Things Happen To Bad People

The assumption that underpins all of the doomsday preaching and “prophetic warnings” today is that bad things happen to bad people. (And inversely, that good things happen to good people.) If we repent, we may stay the course of God’s judgement, they tell us. America is certainly being judged, according to these ministers, because, well, just look at how wicked it is. For these people, it is written in stone that God always brings hardship to wicked people, and makes smooth the pathway for the “righteous.” Lets look at how well this holds up to what Scripture teaches.

In the book of Job, we see a wonderful story of faith that endures through good times and bad. When Job was afflicted with so many setbacks, three of his friends came to him and pronounced that surely God must be displeased with him. Previously, when things went well with Job, these same people thought surely he must be a righteous man because of his great wealth. These human judgements that the three friends made were clearly wrong. Why do we think today we can determine any better than in the time of Job what is God’s judgement, and what is not? Too many today are quick to point out the sins of others, or even the governments of the world, and rush to say that they are so wicked God must be sending judgement upon them. We cannot know this. For anyone to state categorically that any particular event is judgement from God is tenuous and unbiblical enough, but to label events that have not even occurred yet as His judgement is an even further leap.

When Jesus passed a man who had been blind from birth, his disciples asked Him “who sinned, this man or his parents?” Jesus responded that it was not either him or his parents who had sinned. It was so that the works of God may be displayed. God has a way of making things that we think are so horrible work out for His glory, and for our good.

Likewise in the gospel of Luke we read about the tower in Siloam that fell and killed eighteen. Jesus left no doubt that this calamity did not fall on them because their sin was any worse than that of others. These doomsayers who think all calamity is about to come crashing down because of the sin of the nation would do well to learn the lesson Jesus was teaching here.

Scripture tells us that God is kind even to evil people. (Luke 6:35) Many of the people afflicted in the worse ways by calamity like storms, earthquakes, economic downturns, political upheaval and bloodshed are the God-fearing and kind among the population. These are the ones you see praising God after the storm hits. To think that the Christian life is an assurance of easy times is not Scriptural.

Romans 3:10 tells us:

There is no one righteous, not even one.

In God’s eyes, we are only righteous because of the completed work of Christ on Calvary. It is not because we have struggled to be good that God has given us His blessing. Likewise, it is not because we have struggled with sin that we find ourselves facing hardship. We receive blessings and face hardship for the same reasons: because we are believers who live in a fallen world, and God is working on a plan for us that is far grander than anything we can conceive with our minds. Hardship can come to us for any number of reasons, but we can be assured that God is in total control. In the same manner, when blessing comes our way, it does not necessarily come in the form of an earthly material reward. It comes in the form of eternal life, and all of God’s assurances that He will never foresake us.

……..the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. ……..time and chance happen to them all.” Ecclesiastes 9:11

The point is, we must all repent, or we will surely die. That repentance doesn’t come on our own terms, that we dictate to God, asking for assurances that evil things will not come our way. Our repentance cannot be based in any way on ourselves or our wants, or it is ineffectual and worthless.

The Ruse Of “Unless God Intervenes”

Here is another excerpt from the “warning dreams” released May 24th 2012 by Rick Wiles’ ministry:

Several days ago I received three more prophetic dreams from two people who listen to the Trunews radio program. They arrived in my email box simultaneously. I was stunned by the dire warnings of imminent judgment, bloodshed, and captivity. Unless God intervenes, I do not believe the USA will be a free nation beyond November 2012.

Well, lets look at this closely. The thing that stands out right away is the phrase “unless God intervenes.” This obviously is inserted in here in case nothing that can be tied to the dreams happens. It can be pronounced with great authority that God changed His mind, because enough people repented to stay His hand of judgement. This is a convenient escape clause which allows modern day prophets to deny any responsibility for their false prophecies. If it doesn’t happen then we, through our great efforts and righteous works, convinced God to change His plan. Wouldn’t the Lord have known the people would repent, and at least have issued the prophecy as being conditional?  I don’t see anything in any of the dreams that would indicate that was the case with these prophetic dreams. In the Old Testament the prophecy given to Jonah concerning Nineveh was clearly issued from God as a conditional prophecy. Is there a way of telling if any of these dreams are conditional prophecies? But I guess if the dreamers and their representatives tell us they are conditional, then it must be so.

Is the part that says  “beyond November 2012”  a phrase that God used or that man inserted in an interpretation inspired by the human mind? God gave a maximum time frame limit of November? Where was that in any of the dreams? Is this from God or is this a hodgepodge mixture of divine revelation with the human mind jumping in to provide details?

The next thing to note is this statement that these dreams arrived in his inbox from listeners to his show. He takes these dreams from people he doesn’t even know, other than that they listen to his show, and without a moment’s hesitation, he elevates this information  to stand alongside scripture in terms of authority. Since he is presenting it to be from the Lord, then it would have the same legitimacy as the Bible itself. Since he is suggesting leaving the country as a possible option for many, surely there must be a solid grounding behind these dreams or this would be a highly irresponsible act. But does the Bible itself encourage this kind of thing? This in my view is akin to those heretical churches around these days which allow anyone in the church  to step forward in front of the congregation, and relate as genuine revelation from God, whatever happens to be on their minds.

Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. Jer 29:8

When Wiles says “I do not believe the USA will be a free nation beyond November 2012”, he is clearly setting a timeline for these events. Further, to make it perfectly clear that this is prophecy with a date, he goes on to say:

Christian men and women are privately telling me that God is strongly telling them to have everything in place in July or August. Many of them are selling everything and fleeing the USA.

The second date is fall 2012. Many of the dreams and visions indicate that great woe is coming to the USA in November – notably shortly after the presidential election. In particular, many of the prophetic dreams hint at trouble during the Thanksgiving holiday season.

For a ministry to be setting timelines for the occurrance of events depicted in dreams is so far removed from what we as believers in the church today should be doing. If there was actually a divinely dictated timeframe for these events, I find it highly unlikely the Lord would deliver prophecy using vague periods of time like “July or August” or “the fall of 2012” or “shortly after the presidential election.” You see here how the human feels free to jump right in on the prophecy and inject his own details. Wouldn’t a real dream sent by the Lord Himself be something to be honored and left in its original, uncorrupted state?

This is an example of the great apostasy that is occurring today in our churches and ministries, which was spoken of by the apostles in the New Testament.  This  is pure poison to the hearts of all Christians who cannot discern the truth. And sadly, such little discernment that would be required to see through this, is lacking in many in the church today. The spirit of antichrist is in those who would have us pay more heed to these passions and matters of the flesh than to the calling that Christ commissioned us all for.

Different Dreams, Same Old Story Line:

Once again, just as in the “nuclear devestation of the USA in 2010” prophecy of two years back, Trunews and Rick Wiles strongly hint that we should consider leaving the country because of these dreams.

“Many of them are selling everything and fleeing the USA.”

How many believers will now foresake their fellowship and  the calling of God in their lives and renounce everything for the sake of the dreams of listeners to a radio show? Their plan is to attempt to outrun what is being presented as a judgement from God. And we are not talking about their own dreams, where God may have indeed spoken to them in some way concerning their personal situation, but we are talking about the dreams of anonymous people.

We went through this in 2010, with Mr. Wiles telling us that “those who are healthy enough should consider leaving the country.” Wiles also told us back then that God told him he would be leaving the country by the end of 2010. He didn’t leave the country then, and he probably won’t leave it now. In fact I don’t think any of the internet prophetic ministers calling for this kind of destruction in the U.S. are actually leaving the country. Frequent Trunews guest Nathan Leal, of Watchman’s Cry fame, prophesied in a vision a mushroom cloud rising 50,000 feet above the city of Spokane. He continues to live with his family less than an hour’s drive away from that city.

The golden calf of all these false prophets is donations from listeners, primarily in North America. In other words, listeners who have become addicted to the doomsday utterances they have come to believe are from God and are therefore vital to hear. They are not about to leave that behind. Don’t expect them to be following the same advice they are suggesting as options to their flocks. Get Rick Wiles or Nathan Leal to leave just because of some revelation from God about a mushroom cloud or the end of freedom in the country by November? No. Not on your life.

Lets all be aware of several points at this time:

Point one: If the dreams are not fulfilled, the representative of the dreamers, Mr. Wiles, will tell us that nothing happened because God changed His mind; Again, nothing in these dreams would indicate a conditional nature to them, except the disclaimer tacked onto the dreams by Mr. Wiles himself. If God was sending us a prophecy which was conditional, I think He would make that clear.

Point two: Mr. Wiles also has the potential to escape responsibility by telling us that we shouldn’t complain to him, because he didn’t have the dreams.

Point three: Any unusual event, no matter what it is, will be claimed as the fulfillment of the prophetic dreams. In the aftermath of the failed 2010 prophecy, one year later on the anniversary program aired on January 8th, 2011, he stated that the introduction of invasive body searches and body scanners at the nation’s airports could have been the fulfillment of his prophetic vision of the devestation of the country. The body scanners caused the devastation of the U.S.? This is the kind of logic that will be put into play to claim fulfillment. So there you see the writing on the wall: the prophetic dreams will be claimed to have been fulfilled no matter what happens.

Point four: While not hesitating to imply to his listeners that the coming events might warrant leaving the country , don’t expect Mr. Wiles to go anywhere soon.

Where Is the Holy Spirit In All This?

The mention of the “pouring out of the spirit”  in Joel Chapter 2 is what causes many in the church today to assume that they can rely solely on their dreams for direction and guidance from God. This passage refers to the day of Pentecost, and the gifts may continue today, but not in this way. The gifts do not rain down on us as they did in the time of the apostles after Pentecost. We do not walk as the apostles did, performing miracles as we travel from town to town. We are not apostles. The last apostle died about 1900 years ago. We should stop trying to counterfeit what they did. The foundation of the church has been laid down. No structure has two foundations. We have our own calling in the church today. Lets cut through all the confusion that people like this put in our path, and get about the business of the Kingdom.   

The Holy Spirit is actually very far removed from this kind of prophetic free-for-all circus. The Lord is a God of order, and there is nothing orderly about this. Their story changes constantly, to keep the audience hooked on listening to the broadcasts. Watch how this story morphs into something else when the time frame for all this comes and goes.

Where Are The Details? 

When people tell you that God spoke to them, whether in dreams or visions or any other manner, but they do not give any details or specifics, or they just present to you symbolism as contained in dreams, then be wary. Always subject everything you hear which is  presented as being from God to scriptural testing. God is not vague. He is able to make Himself perfectly clear to anyone. The vagueness of so much of what is passed on through the internet should raise the alarm to any discerning Christian. Some prophecy is so general in nature that just about any prophetic word could be claimed to have been fulfilled.

Biblical prophecy, which is obviously the only model we have for true prophecy, indicates clearly that true prophecy is not short on details and specifics. God would have no trouble whatsoever making Himself clear. Is not one of the most fascinating things about God’s word the staggering number of prophecies which have been fulfilled right down to the last detail? Don’t listen to those who claim God just doesn’t provide much detail these days. They don’t have any details to give you, because they are not hearing from God.

Sooner or Later Chance Will Give Them A Near-Fulfillment, And Then, Look Out!

The Lord in His wisdom gave us the science of mathematics when He created the world. Contained within this framework is something called the Law of Probability. In simple terms, this law tells us that the more times we swing the bat, the higher the likelihood we will eventually hit the ball. To put it into prophetic terms, the more times certain things are predicted, the greater chance something akin to what is being foretold will actually occur.

This is why I look on with great concern when I see that people who have time and time again proven themselves to be false prophets are granted free license by their followers to keep issuing information they claim is from God. In true prophecy, there is a zero error rule. In addition to the biblical rule about the lack of vagueness in prophecy we discussed above, is the principal that nothing that is from God is in error in any way, or incomplete or lacking. God’s timing is never off. These are false teachers that tell you “ooops, I just got the dates wrong. I wasn’t receiving God’s message clearly.” Or they take a snippet of scripture and tell us “we only know in part, and prophesy in part.” God is without error, and so is His prophecy. God would be full and complete in passing on any message to His prophets.

When God wanted someone to do something, He told them and they heard and understood. Period. They didn’t always like it, and they didn’t always obey, but they heard. How could they not? Were they more powerful than God? Are you? Is there anything within your power or imagination that can keep God from getting a message to you?  Who do we think we are? ……….Bill Mackinnon

When the inevitable happens, and one day something actually does happen that even remotely calls to mind anything these internet dreams speak of, to the ends of the earth people like Mr. Wiles will be trumpeting to all how prophetic their ministries are. The last decade of misses will be quickly forgotten by the masses of followers who so desperately want their hero to be declared a modern day prophet.

Anyone who has ever in their life issued a prophecy that they declared to be from God, and that prophecy was not fulfilled, is a false prophet. There are no exceptions. Unless such a person had really undergone a hardening of the heart in the interval since the failed prophecy, he would never have anything to do with prophecies again. If he was a minister, he would immediately pledge before God that he would never use his ministry in this way again. He claims his ministry is one that teaches repentance, but does it practice what it preaches?

Rick Wiles told us all two years ago that he would humbly bow out of the business of prophecy if the 2010 nuclear bomb prophecy proved false. In the time since, he has continued to barrage the internet with prophecies, dreams, and visions of all kinds in interviews he conducts on his show. In fact, this has been his bread and butter for the 14 years of his ministry. The odd thing is, if he  had just stuck to being a secular newsman from the very beginning, he would probably have been a very good one. Instead, he has tried to blur the distinction between reporter and Christain minister. The result is he is no more than a fair newsman, and a disaster as a minister. 

It is impossible to truly count the damage done, in terms of taking the Christian focus away from Christ, and onto the things of this world. Away from the word of God, and onto the words of man. This represents the main focus of what Jesus warned us against in His earthly ministry.

“I do not believe the USA will be a free nation beyond November 2012.” ……..Rick Wiles

I do believe the USA will be a free nation beyond November 2012. Time will tell. Whatever happens, we will still not know what is God’s judgement and what is not, notwithstanding the dreams of Rick Wiles’ friends. And please, Mr. Wiles, lets not count Obamacare or the body scanners at the airports as your proof that we have lost our freedom. Nobody will buy it anymore. 

I love the words of Bill Mackinnon, writing in an article called “No Voices In My Head”, on the topic of whether we receive new revelation from God from the voices, dreams, and visions inside our heads:

If you email me and tell me I’m putting God in a box I swear I will hunt you down and kick you in the shin.  This isn’t about what God can do.  This is about what we can teach.  And (hopefully) we can agree that our teaching authority and doctrine comes from the Bible, not the voices in our heads.  God can do whatever He wants.  But we can’t teach whatever we want.

 What we should do is read our Bibles. You want to hear God speak? If you have a Bible, you have thousands of years of God-inspired instructions, messages, exhortations, rebukes and praises right at your fingertips. Why do we think we need more than that? God’s will for your life is written there. God’s instructions for living are there. To want them piped directly into your brain is just foolishness and laziness. Worse, it opens you up to the worst kind of doctrinal errors.

 

All blessings in Christ,

JD Ellis