“PSYCHIC GUILTY!”

Jurors took just five hours to find Rose Marks guilty of masterminding a $25 million fraud. Marks told clients of her psychic business that she could foresee the future, fix the past and even control the Internal Revenue Service.

The four-week trial in South Florida featured bizarre testimony from former clients, including best-selling romance novelist Jude Deveraux, who testified that Marks and her family exploited their vulnerabilities, and their religious and spiritual beliefs, to fleece them. 

The jury found 62-year old Marks guilty on 14 charges, including fraud, filing false tax returns and money-laundering conspiracies. Bond was refused and Marks was imprisoned, pending sentencing on December 09. Prosecutors told South Florida Sentinel that Marks can face up to 20 years in prison.

Deveraux, who was swindled as much as $20 million, said she went to Marks to help her get out of an abusive marriage and continued seeing her for 17 years through a series of crises, including failed relationships, several miscarriages and the accidental death of her eight-year old grandson. Following the trial Deveraux said to a reporter concerning anyone in a similar vulnerable position, “Reach out to your friends, get professional help... don’t go to a psychic.”

Upon hearing the verdict, Marks’ family members were shocked to witness the demise of the family matriarch. One family member threw a Bible in the courtroom, yelling, “I hate this Bible...I don’t want this Bible anymore.” 

That behavior would seem to suggest that the Bible played a role in the family’s psychic practices. I would really like to see where in the Bible the family found endorsement for their fraudulent practices. Unfortunately, the Marks’ family will not be the last group to use the Bible to fleece others.

Nostradamus (16th century French psychic), along with clairvoyants like Jeanne Dixon and Edgar Cayce, mediums, spiritists, and others, often make remarkable predictions, though rarely with more than about 60 percent accuracy. Such levels of accuracy could not satisfy the standards set for biblical prophecy.

Some scholars believe approximately 2,500 predictive prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible. Each of these prophecies must satisfy a 100% standard of accuracy set in the Old Testament: "If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him (Deuteronomy 18:22). 

Biblical predictive prophecy can be defined as “a declaration of future events, such as no human wisdom or forecast is sufficient to make - depending on a knowledge of the innumerable contingencies of human affairs, which belongs exclusively to the omniscience of God; so that from its very nature, prophecy must be divine revelation.” 

Biblical prophecy must possess sufficient precision so as to be capable of verification by means of the fulfillment. Some Christian researchers believe some 75 to 80% of biblical prophecies have been fulfilled, meeting the 100% standard of verification. People are named before birth, kingdoms are outlined before their historical existence and the outcome of battles have been announced before the wars began. 

In interpreting the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Daniel predicted three kingdoms that would succeed Babylon over a period of hundreds of years. Today we can confirm from non-biblical history, that Daniel was accurate in describing the kingdoms of Medo-Persia, the Greeks and the Romans. 

In the New Testament, Jesus predicted that the Jewish Temple would be destroyed (Mark 13:2). Based on the date of the writing of Mark’s gospel, we know that Jesus’ prediction was documented before the Temple was actually destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. In other words, within 40 years His prediction was fulfilled to 100% accuracy.

Furthermore, unlike the Marks’ family, biblical prophecy was never intended for the benefit of the prophet. The actual meaning of a prophet is “one who speaks on God’s behalf.” In other words, the prophet never spoke on his own behalf and for his own benefit. Peter, a disciple of Jesus understood this when he wrote, “...that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20-21).

For this reason, it is safe to conclude, even when the Bible is used, much of what is predicted today, does not meet the standard of 100% accuracy, and should not be considered to be biblical prophecy.