Confusion is marketed as revelation. Counterfeit voices crowd the spiritual airwaves. The Revelationary War by Amanda Grace cuts through the noise with a bold, uncompromising message: discernment isn’t optional—it’s essential. Grace is joined by Donné Clement Petruska, daughter of prophetic pioneer Kim Clement, to separate the “Showmen” from the “Shepherds” by exposing the rise of false ministries and spiritual manipulation that masquerades as divine truth.
But this isn’t fear-mongering—it’s empowerment. You’ll walk away with practical tools to sharpen your spiritual senses, test the voices claiming to speak for God and stand firm in biblical truth when others fall for smooth-sounding lies. If you’re tired of fluff, fakes and flashy distractions parading as prophecy, here is your wake-up call. It’s time to stop playing defense and start fighting back with wisdom, discernment and the Word. Because in a world of deception, truth is revelationary—and it’s time the battle is joined.
The Shepherds and the Showmen
On one side of the plumb line are the showmen, the false prophets deceiving people by watering down and twisting the Word of God. On the other side of the plumb line are the shepherds.
At Ark of Grace Sanctuary, I have two sheep, Archie and Moses. When they came to be residents here at the Ark, the Lord said to me, “I am going to teach you firsthand why I call My people sheep.” Oh boy, was I in for it.
Archie escaped a farm in Georgia as a baby, and by the hand of God he survived the backwoods and was found very close to Passover by a family when he wandered onto their property. They kept him for a while when he was a baby; how-ever, the time came when he was growing and needed a permanent place, so they asked us to take him. Archie was my first, and he has a personality. If you touch him and he is not in the mood, he will headbutt you. Much more caution must be used with Archie, but once he warms up to you, he can be quite agreeable.
Moses is our Passover baby. Two years ago, he was born on a local farm during Passover. His mother rejected him, and the owner of the farm found him half dead and intervened with lifesaving measures. Moses needed a lot of care, so he was brought to us. Moses lived in our home the first four months of his life. Our dog Missy mothered him, and Moses thought he was a dog there for a while, not a sheep—kind of as the biblical Moses thought he was an Egyptian for a while, not a Jew.
This was my Psalm 23 experience, learning what a shepherd is. What I learned through both Moses and Archie translates to the church and the shepherds.
Sheep know the voice of their shepherd. John 10:27–28 says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand” (NASB). Moses and Archie both know my voice. Moses sees me, and he runs to me; I call to him, and he calls back. Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know” (NASB).
Sheep pens can be very dirty, and they need to be kept clean. Otherwise, the door is opened for illness and for invasive weeds that do not belong to grow. The sheep, as their wool grows, must be sheared. This especially applies in the warmer weather, to protect them. This is all the responsibility of the shepherd.
Sheep need boundaries from the shepherd and to under-stand the shepherd is the one leading. Boundaries protect sheep from predators, from bodily harm, and from fighting with each other. The shepherd establishes the boundaries, and the sheep must come in line. In fact, when a sheep within the flock continues to challenge the shepherd—and what I am about to tell you, I had to do to Moses when he was about eight months old or so—the shepherd must take the sheep, pin it to the ground, and hold it there until it stops struggling. This very clearly signals to the sheep that the shepherd is much stronger than it is.
This is important in the world of livestock because there is an alpha system. One sheep or one pig or one goat submits to the other because they understand that physically, they are weaker than the other sheep or pig or goat. The same concept applies with the shepherd. The sheep must be held in place until it stops struggling so it experiences the dominance and authority of the shepherd. When the sheep stops struggling, the shepherd can let the sheep up, and the sheep will indeed submit. Because sheep are herd animals, they tend to follow each other. So, when the alpha sheep submits, the rest will follow suit and submit to the shepherd.
Shepherds do not welcome in wolves, lions, bears, or any other predator to just ravage their flock. They eliminate the threat. A threat can send a flock into complete confusion and panic, which can oftentimes give predators the upper hand to steal what does not belong to them. The shepherd maintains order and knows exactly what to do when danger attempts to approach.
Will the Real Shepherds Please Stand Up?
A shepherd must be a leader, not an entertainer. Experience is one of the best teachers when it comes to leading. Shepherds must guard and care for the flock God has given them the same way I guard and care for Archie and Moses. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” (Ps. 23:1, NKJV). The sheep do not want because they are fed properly by the shepherd and given appropriate cover and boundaries. The sheep do not want to stray to try to find what they think they are missing.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me be-side quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (Ps. 23:2–3, NASB). The shepherd leads, restores, and guides in paths of righteousness. A good shepherd does not lead the flock down a path of folly or delusion or deception but one of uprightness and maturity and truth. A good shepherd challenges the sheep when immature behavior rears up and deals with the one who has the potential to taint the flock.
In Galatians 5:22–23 the fruits of the spirit are presented: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law,” (NKJV). Not only do true shepherds bear this fruit in their lives, but they also make the conditions right for the flock to bear fruit in their lives. They do this by maintaining a solid biblical standard that is not lowered for the sheep to stay nice and comfortable in their sin. The standard is maintained, challenging the sheep to mature, which then helps them bear fruit. The pastors and prophets—actually anyone in the fivefold ministry—should be staunch in their resolve in the culture and environment we find ourselves in at present.
We have an epidemic today of Bible colleges bringing in young men and women and trying to make them fit the mold of a shepherd when they were not created to be such and are often too young. David slew Goliath as a teenager, but he did not become king for another 15 years, after the Lord took him through a wilderness experience. Much of the younger generation has not been through the experiences they would need to successfully pastor a congregation. A three- or four-year program with no real-life experience does not give pastors the foundation, the experience or the emotional maturity they need to lead. If they are sent into this ravenous world un-prepared and too young and then given a flock, the majority of those unprepared pastors are going to impact that flock not for the better.
Too many of the younger generation of pastors today want to circumvent the process of maturing in the Lord altogether. They are often placed in leadership while they are still thinking like teenagers, their convictions are still somewhat superficial, and they are blown around with every wind of doctrine and popular cause. They join the ranks of the showmen and sell out to wokeism, perversion and so on.
Showmen rewrite or twist the Word of God to make acceptable the things they sold out to. They manipulate Scriptures to make rebellion acceptable. Rather than a shepherd, they become a publicist God never wanted, putting a spin on deception to make it seem like the truth. Believers are meant to have boundaries and be deeply convicted by the Word of God, but that won’t happen if shepherds are turning into showmen and trying to make the Word of God socially acceptable and digestible to the masses. The showmen are putting the sheep on a road of perdition that leads to bondage, confusion, anxiety, anger, doubt and a lack of discipline and emotional maturity.
Showmen have caused the sheep to believe that Jesus was and is a pushover and that almighty God is just a harmless, cute kitten. He is the Lion of Judah—let us not forget! The showmen have stripped the fear of and reverence for God from the flock. Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the be-ginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding,” (NKJV). The goal of the wolves and serpents is to get the shepherd to raise a false standard, speak a false word and preach an alternative gospel so the deceptive air of credibility is presented before the people.
Shepherds are meant to be steadfast with biblical standards, not lowering them for sheep who throw tantrums or wolves who manipulate the flock or serpents who slither in with very tempting pieces of fruit. In this day and age if you stand for nothing, you will indeed fall for everything and be-come a schizophrenic voice for the almost daily-changing agendas.
The world of social media has added another problematic layer to being able to effectively shepherd the flock. The sheep biting and the wolves attacking can now remain faceless with nothing more than a fake screen name and an avatar. Wolves generally hunt in packs and try to surround their prey. There is a faction of those wolves called trolls and bots; they attack and apply pressure to overwhelm shepherds so they will put down their staffs and stop their defense of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The attack can be overwhelming as they try to force shepherds to change their standards and change their message to accommodate the agendas of the kingdom of darkness.
To Thrive In Days of Darkness by the Light of Jesus
At their core these are not political issues we face. These are biblical issues that modern-day spin doctors working on behalf of the enemy have turned into political issues to divide the body of Christ and deceive shepherds into becoming showmen.
The enemy knows there is much power in agreement, which is why one of his tactics is to cause division.
The agenda of the kingdom of darkness has caused the church to face off against itself, but it has revealed who the true shepherds are—the ones who face the wolves, the lions, the serpents, the trolls and stand their ground with the belt of truth tied firmly around their waists.
James 4:7 states, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” (NKJV). In an hour of Simon the sorcerers and superficial showmen, will the real shepherds please stand up?
Amanda Grace founded Ark of Grace Ministries in 2014. In addition to providing biblical prophecy and teaching, Ark of Grace is an animal sanctuary that currently houses 60 rescued animals. Grace cares for her husband, Chris, who miraculously survived a traumatic brain injury. Through their testimony, they teach others how the Lord can move powerfully in every circumstance of life. Her new book, The Revelationary War, released last month and is available now on amazon.com.
