‘Clairvoyant Christians’ and the Trouble With Some ‘Prophetic’ Ministries
On Monday morning, I received an email from a publicist who claims a “devout lifelong Christian” is also “a clairvoyant, empathic psychic medium and psychic investigator with consultation on more than 100 missing person and cold case files on his resume.”
Troy Griffin claims he communicates with people who have died and is using his gifts to help authorities “solve the unsolvable cases where tracks had run cold.” In fact, he calls this his life’s work.
The trouble with this type of prophetic ministry is that it violates Scripture. I have no doubt Griffin is talking to spirits—familiar spirits who know everything about the deceased person.
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Why these familiar spirits would cooperate in solving crimes, I do not know. What I do know is necromancy—which Merriam-Webster defines as “conjuration of the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events”—is an abomination to the Lord. And that didn’t change with the New Covenant. Deuteronomy 18:9-13 says:
“When you enter into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you must not learn to practice the abominations of those nations. There must not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or who uses divination, or uses witchcraft, or an interpreter of omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or a spiritualist, or an occultist, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination to the Lord and because of these abominations the Lord your God will drive them out from before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God.”
That is crystal clear.
Griffin’s publicist claims he kept his psychic gifts “in the closet,” for fear of being ostracized by his Christian community. He counts pastors, Christian authors and other strict religious devotees as part of his beloved family and insists he’s a devout believer.
“God gave me this gift. I didn’t create it on my own,” Griffin says, speaking of his “psychic calling.”
Of course, he’s accustomed to Christian leaders disagreeing with him—but he is quick to answer that a Christian’s job is to love, accept and preach to all people and not just those who suit the conventional paradigm.
“I take the basic information and then I can pick up on the person and begin to see pictures, places and things visually in my mind,” Griffin says, explaining how he helps investigators. “Going online to Google maps and Google earth helps me put a visual framework to what I am getting in my mind’s eye. I can look at an area, pick up clues and assist in that way.”
Griffin apparently does not hesitate to let Christian themes spill over into his readings. He sees it as a way to comfort and restore faith in clients who are deeply grieving the loss of a loved one.
“Many of the readings I do for private clients are people who have lost children to suicide or to other tragic events, and this has caused them to lose or doubt their faith,” he says. “They’re looking to repair their faith and my religious background plays a role in helping them on that journey.”
This is a tragic deception. The Bible tells us “to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor. 1:4). That comfort comes from the Holy Spirit.
Christians are not supposed to turn to psychics or prophets to get in touch with dead loved ones. Prophets are not supposed to get prophetic words from any other source but God, yet in this hour we are clearly seeing these and other troubling trends emerge among those who call themselves prophetic. This should not surprise as Paul warned Timothy, “But evil men and seducers will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13).
Griffin is working to change common perception by opening up a public dialogue in the media regarding his “work as a medium and his Christian faith not being in direct conflict, but actually (complementing) one another.” With psychic mediums, clairvoyants and intuitive people coming forward more and more, and their abilities becoming more widely accepted in society, Griffin feels it is time to address Christianity and psychic phenomena.
“It’s a conversation that needs to be had,” he says.
Perhaps it is. But it’s a conversation that needs to be had with an open Bible.
The Bible says “You shall not eat anything with the blood in it, nor shall you practice divination or fortune-telling” (Lev. 19:26). The Bible says, “Do not turn to spirits through mediums or necromancers. Do not seek after them to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 19:31). The Bible says, “When they say to you, ‘Seek after the mediums and the wizards, who whisper and mutter,’ should not a people seek after their God? Should they consult the dead for the living?” (Is. 18:19). The Bible says, “The person who turns to spirits through mediums and necromancers in order to whore after them, I will even set My face against that person and will cut him off from among his people” (Lev. 20:6).
I could go on and on but we’ll stop there. Prophets, can we please do what the Bible says? Christians, please beware of psychics, mediums, familiar spirits, tarot card readers, crystal ball readers, palm readers and the like. They may claim to serve God, but they are tapping into the spirit realm illegally and offering false comfort and fearful predictions that probably won’t even come to pass.
Beloved, stop listening to Jezebel’s puppets and starting praying for their deliverance.
