Art Katz was the first reputable person to tell Mike Bickle, that he thought Bob Jones was a prophet around 1983, if I’m not mistaken. In a sense, he was the first legitimizer of today’s prophetic movement that had its beginnings at IHOP-KC. Although Don Basham (A Handbook on Tongues, Interpretation, and Prophecy, 1971), Bruce Yocum (Prophecy, 1976), and John Loren Sandford (The Elijah Task, 1977), had taught about prophetic ministry before IHOP-KC, in terms of a long-lasting influence: Katz might be mainly responsible for today’s prophetic movement, because he gave the young Bickle the confidence to pay attention to Bob Jones and take him seriously. And yet, down the road, you can clearly see that in 2004, Katz had some misgivings about the direction that prophetic ministry had taken in the charismatic churches. This message was given right after Paul Cain was exposed for homosexuality and alcoholism. He published a book called The Prophetic Call: True and False Prophets. The main problems he saw with prophetic ministry today, are the following, using Jeremiah 23 as a point of reference:
1. Accepting prideful and honorific titles like Doctor, Prophet, Apostle, and Man of God.
2. Expressing shallow, sentimental, and cheap politically affirming statements about the State of Israel. Little token words that carry no weight, just based on recent political events, and which have no sense of grief and honesty about the state of sin among the people who live there.
3. Speaking happy-go-lucky messages marked by positive confession rather than repenting from PORN.
4. Cheap grace prophets getting the spotlight and lordship salvation prophets being called “false.”
5. Materialistic and affluently dressed prosperity prophets actually being taken seriously.
6. Shallow messages coming from prosperity gospel prophetic ministers: “its a cheapie.”
7. There’s no kabod, no spiritual weight, no holiness about the prophetic words: they’re all hype.
8. Dream-based prophetic utterances are rare: most prophetic words are just random thoughts that some guy made up on the stage.
9. Many charismatic prophets are all too eager to run up to the microphone without a real revelation.
10. Prophets with an all too relaxed attitude using “thus saith the Lord” for false and empty messages.
11. There’s not enough prophets doing contemplative prayer: “be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). But they just go and make up fake prophetic words and say “thus saith the Lord” anyway, falsely, casually, positively, rose-colored, and optimistic, in order to comfort their listeners in an ego-stroking manner, like a bunch of New Age fortune tellers.
12. Little gods heresy, positive confession, and prosperity gospel related prophetic words.
13. Most prophetic ministers are not aware of death, judgment, and Hell (Puritan soteriology).
14. No prophetic ministers with meekness, sacrifice, suffering, humility, spiritual maturity, and experience with God’s presence.
15. Prophetic ministers plagiarizing other preachers instead of getting words direct from the Holy Spirit.
16. Real prophetic words are lacking: words like a hammer, words with fire, words that shake people up.
17. Publishing books of dreams and visions just to make sales and be a charismatic somebody.
18. Informal, cute, shallow, light, sham, fraud, triviality, levity, non-serious attitude while delivering prophetic words–no sense of gravity, no otherworldly seriousness, no sense of God’s majesty and holiness, no spiritual mindedness, no conviction of sin, no fear of God about the prophetic words that are delivered.
19. Prophetic words that lack the awe and fear of God and the contrite quality of the book of Psalms.
20. Charismatic prophets that are prone to play-acting, showmanship, and putting on an uplifting performance.
