False prophets are funny.
     Unintentionally funny, of course, but funny.
     Take the latest dog and phony show reported from Colorado. Monte Kim Miller, (already you know it's funny because he's named Monte) and 50 members of his Concerned Christians group disappeared this fall. His message is becoming familiar – America is Satan and the government is evil. One of his followers who chose not to go along said, "He's so controlling, they would do anything he said. He has been prophesying the end of the world for so long. When it doesn't happen, he will have to find some way for their world to end." By the time this is published, they might turn out to be this year's Heaven's Gate or Solar Temple.
     One point to ponder: Cult-watchers say Miller started out as anti-cult and anti-New Age, and possibly as a simple scam that got out of control.
     Or take Rev. Lee Jang Rim of South Korea, who with six parishioners of the Evangelical Life Church was found dead in a burned-out van. Lee's sister said they had been "traveling to find a place to die for their belief." The national leader of their church spent a year in jail in 1992 for pocketing more than $1 million of his followers' money who gave up their assets in expectation of their trip to heaven.
     This visionary vaudeville has one connecting theme – a religious financial scam leads to spiritual confusion and the death of some hapless followers.
     They get drawn into their own drama, but it's really spiritual slapstick, full of prophetic pratfalls, pious prognostications and otherworldly burlesque. "Cult followers slip on cosmic banana peel!" It's crowd-pleasing entertainment for us media types, with more to come as the new Millennium provides a giant stage for their act.
     But God is not amused. So, uh, maybe it's not that funny after all.
     In Old Testament times, if a prophet spoke a word in God's name and it didn't come to pass exactly as the prophet had said, that prophet was killed, along with his family, and his writings were destroyed. As far as we know, that's still God's opinion on the matter.
     But if you survey the Christian landscape in America, modern false prophets are springing up like mold on leftover refried beans.
     Some examples:
     Benny Hinn told his congregation in 1989 that "The Lord also tells me to tell you, in the mid-90's about '94, or '95, no later than that, God will destroy the homosexual community of America. But He will not destroy it with what many minds have thought ... But He will destroy it with fire. And many will turn and be saved, and many will rebel and be destroyed."
     (Hey, if the Baptists had known about this, they wouldn't have had to pass their resolution against Disney.)
     Hinn also seemed blessed with the spirit of geological engineering.
     "The Spirit of God tells me an earthquake will hit the East Coast of America and destroy much in the '90's," he predicted. "Not one place will be safe from earthquakes in the '90's. Those who have not known earthquakes will know it."
     Surely, this was, uh ... predicting the Republican take-over of Congress in '94?
     For some reason, flaky predictions have been pouring out of the "Kansas City Prophets" movement in the nation's heartland.
     Two of these "prophets," Bob Jones and Paul Cain, said, referring to themselves, "No prophet or apostle who ever lived equaled the power of these individuals in this great army of the Lord in these last days. No one ever had it, not even Elijah or Peter or Paul, or anyone else enjoyed the power that is going to rest on this great army."
     On TBN in 1994, we watched John Hinkle, pastor of Christ Church in Los Angeles, say that God told him, "On June 9, 1994, I will rip the evil out of this world."
     Last time I checked, things still looked pretty bad.
     Gwen Shaw of the "Handmaidens of the Lord" dominion theology group in Jasper, Arkansas claims that their preaching will redeem not just people but the land itself, and even animals.
     "This healing power avails not only for us, but for the whole animal kingdom, and even for the redemption of the earth," she said. "All creation is waiting for us to set them free."
     Our cat Georgie was glad to hear this, but since she does just about whatever she wants to anyway, we won't be able to tell when or if her redemption ever happens.
     You run into this stuff everywhere.
     I recently received a long letter from one of our readers trying to convince me of the accuracy of the predictions of Nostradamus, the 17th century French seer.
     (Note to myself: Try to screen our subscribers more carefully.)
     If you type in "prophecy" on an Internet search engine, you'll come up with an incredible smorgasbord of opinions, including my favorite, a new book by Tim Cohen called The Antichrist and a Cup of Tea, which provides "hard facts" that Prince Charles is the Man of Sin and part of an ancient ploy by the French Merovingian dynasty for one-world control ... [His name calculates to 666 in two languages (!)]
     If that's true, we can all relax, because the Prince is a boring loser.
     But the problem of false prophecy isn't limited to these kinds of outlandish predictions.
     When we plan our careers, project into the future or make a resolution, no matter how sincere, we come dangerously close to becoming "God's counselor," something He doesn't need (see Romans 11:34).
     "It is finished," Christ said on the cross. That should be plain enough. "All the prophets and the law prophesied until John."
     The Holy Spirit will reveal only one thing – the indwelling person of the Son of God. "Christ in you, the hope of glory." That's all that's going on.
     So, let's resist the temptation to peek at God's daytimer. His Book of Life is the only one that counts.