As someone who lives in Africa, where religion is the business of the day, I feel like we would have less and less fake men of God if we learned to question these people, especially in front of their congregation when they give out fake prophecies.
I mean, there have been countless fake pastors who have given fake prophecies; some have even gone as far as predicting elections that ended up not happening as they said, and yet the next Sunday, you still see hundreds of people marching down to that same church, almost as if nothing happened.
But a lot of that probably wouldn't be happening if the next Sunday the congregation refuses to worship with that pastor unless he gives them an explanation why his prophecy didn't come to pass. If they did that, a lot of these fake pastors would be too scared to do a lot of the rubbish they do today, and many people wouldn't be too gullible to fall victim to their scams.
The first time I probably experienced fake prophecy was on this fateful day when my mom had taken me to this church program with her, and somewhere during the prayer, this pastor had given her a prophecy about her sister that was pregnant or something.
This was years ago, so I don't remember the details of the prophecy, but what I do remember was that on our way home, I had asked her if she had any sisters that were pregnant, and her answer was no, but rather than question the prophecy, she had shrugged it off and said something about how she would still reach out to her siblings just to be sure.
It was almost as if she was trying to cover up for the pastor, maybe so that I don't lose faith at such an early age. Well, I can't help but feel that the moment the pastor made that prophecy, if she had quickly told him that such a person doesn't exist in her family, then maybe something else would have happened that day; maybe some of his members would have been liberated and gone home knowing that their pastor was a fraud.