I recently attended the Firestarters adult Sunday School class at Bethel Church in Redding, Calif., and was alarmed by many of the teachings, including the teaching that people should prophesy from their imaginations. Another troubling teaching is that it's OK for people to make mistakes when they prophesy. As one of the class leaders told the students seated at the table with me, during the discussion time, "If you're right, you're right. If you're wrong, who cares?"

To illustrate his point, the leader shared a story about a time when he got it wrong, giving five prophecies to a woman. All were inaccurate. Later he asked God how that could happen and he felt that God told him, "How do you know those words were for her?" In other words, the prophetic words he received were from God, but they were intended for another person. If he would have listened a little more closely he would have known they were for the person standing behind her or perhaps for the next person to walk by.

During testimony time, a woman told the entire class about an incident that had occurred the previous week. She said she had never prophesied to a stranger before, but felt prompted to tell a man seated in a car that God wanted her to encourage him. She went up to him and said, "Is your name Dan?" It was Darryn. But no matter. "It's pretty close!" she told the other students, clearly proud of her progress in learning to prophesy. I wonder what other names she would count as close enough.

Later in the class, a young woman volunteered to take part in a "prophetic activation" exercise, in which she and three others went to the front of the room to prophesy publicly for the first time. They were told to each pick an individual to prophesy to. When her turn came, she said God gave her two pieces of information (a.k.a. "words of knowledge") that would identify the individual in the room He wanted her to prophesy to. He gave her the name Anthony and the date July 17.

"Does that mean anything to anybody?" she said, looking around the room. Only silence.

After a few moments, a young man spoke up, "My birthday is July 17."

From somewhere in the room someone called out the question everyone else was thinking: "Is your name Anthony?"

"No, it's Xavier."

His name wasn't even close to Anthony.

Yet, undaunted, the young woman said, "Let's take July 17," then proceeded to prophesy to him.

When people on a ship triangulate, they have three fixed points to let them know where they are. In this case, you had only two points being used to identify a particular individual in the room. The first point was a very broad indicator (a date without a year). The second point was perhaps a more specific indicator (the name) that turned up nothing. She was plain wrong.

And there were other problems with her prophecy. For example, I estimate that there were 60-70 people in the room. This means there was at least a one-in-six chance that her word of knowledge about July 17 would be accurate, if speaking about birthdays alone. But the identifier of July 17 wasn't even specified to be a birthday. If every person in the room listed "special dates" -- birthdays, birthdays of loved ones, anniversaries, special appointments, travel plans, etc. -- then the odds are increased to 1 in 1, or greater, of that date indicating something to someone.

Her prophesy was also unfalsifiable. That's to say, you could never know if it was wrong. Maybe there was an Anthony in the room with a July 17 birthday who didn’t speak up. Maybe the words of knowledge were intended for someone else -- perhaps a girl sitting in the audience who prayed, “God I really want to get married -- please let this prophecy be about my future husband.” In which case, she may interpret “Anthony” as being her future husband’s name and that she was going to meet or marry him on July 17.

The bottom line is the young woman's prophecy was wrong. And you might wonder how anyone could ever trust prophecies given by people who know they could be totally mistaken. The short answer, according to God, is you can't. That's what He told Moses.

But 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. And if you say in your heart, "How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?" -- when 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. (Deuteronomy 18:20-22).

See Part 1 and Part 3 of this series.