In all my studies and experience with prophecy – actually the gift of prophecy – I find the ones that ring true are not foretelling (fortunetelling) the future but are God giving us an immediate word “to edify, exhort, and comfort” (I Corinthians 14:3).

I'm not in a position to make judgments on Benny or Pat in this area, but I agree that we must be very careful we say, in essence, "Thus saith the Lord".  If it later becomes obvious that the Lord didn't "saith", our credibility both inside and outside the kingdom is severly damaged.  

I wonder if the old saying, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt" might have some application here.  These incidents have certainly refocused my attention on the incredible responsibility we assume when we dare to "speak for God" beyond simply quoting His written Word verbatum.

As someone who has spent many a new year’s day hearing Pat’s yearly word from God, I would say that the news media tend to take his words out of context and in the wrong spirit. But lots of people do that with Jesus’ words too (not trying to compare the two).

For me it’s difficult to judge whether Pat was being inappropriate, coming from a culture where it’s normal for the church to get prophetic messages. The guy was giving a warning, and it was conditional. Maybe instead he could have done a stylish MTV segment on his latest word and expressed it in a way that a post post modern media-drenched culture could understand, or maybe he should have just kept quiet and only talked to donors/employees. But still he is free to speak out what he believes. The church can test it to see if it’s a real word, or dismiss it accordingly.

If you’ve ever spent some time watching TBN, or flip through any of the psychics airing all over the place, you’ll find there’s a lot more wacky predictions out there. Blessings.