This story begins in a small Texas town somewhere between ?the middle of nowhere? and ?welcome to hicksville?. Just another tumbleweed Texan town where the wind still whispers the grand stories of the glory days of oil, the Pacific Railway, and of army garrisons. A town that only the locals seem to know exists. A dusty dot on a map ? just passing through - you can't seem to recall if indeed it IS ?somewhere? OR ?nowhere?.

Ohh, Texas! Are you still the ?wild, wild, West? You, who have always taken the law into your own hands - with a ?hang ?em high? attitude; you who have consistently practiced a type of statewide vigilanteism: a twisting of the laws of the land to validate what you call ?Texas Justice?. Backwards and yet, forward. Will you eventually reap what you have sewn?

Today, the talk is about a man who many believe to be a prophet. The town is divided. The year is 2008. He is about to stand trial. His crime: Preaching from the Bible. Some are calling it a modern day ?witch hunt?. Others, well, others just say, ?he deserves what he gets?. What makes this particularly interesting is that the trial is in the Rosary Belt of the Lone Star State. Every one here reads their scriptures. They know it through and through, inside and out. What makes this trial particularly puzzling and most perplexing is the fact that, although they know their scriptures so well, they can't even recognize or determine if the man is a prophet OR not.

A prophet? Well, before one casts a stone or wrongfully convicts, I would like to encourage the townsfolk to look a little closer into the scriptures that they treasure so dearly and make righteous judgments according to the bible and not judgments based on emotion, reaction or passion. The matter could be settled after considering 3 things:

(1) Deuteronomy 13:1-3 How To Identify a False Prophet

?If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, but then he says, ?Let us follow after gods (which you have not known) and let us serve them, You must not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams.?

(2) Deuteronomy 18:22 How To Identify a False Prophet

If what a prophet speaks in the name of the Father does not come to pass, or does not come true: that is a message that the Father has not spoken. That prophet has deliberately, willfully and knowingly spoken what is not true. Do not reverence him.

The third point to consider is that prophets have NEVER been well liked or readily accepted. Many prophets have come and gone over the past 4000 years and most were beaten, mistreated, wounded, stoned, reproached and murdered. Jeremiah was thrown into a pit. Zechariah was stoned. Micah was punched in the face. John the Baptist was beheaded. Reread the history of these prophets and be reminded of the hatred that confronted them from the people they were sent to save. Stephen said in Acts 7:52 ?Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?? In Luke 13:34, the Messiah laments and cries out, ?Jerusalem! Jerusalem, the city that murders the prophets, and stones those who are sent to you!? Jerusalem (which means: people or habitation of peace? was an example for us ? to remind us that any peaceful people could turn against a man sent by the Father.

A prophet? Maybe, just maybe.