This is a question that plagued me back during my high school years ago. I searched all kinds of churches looking for one that could answer it. That's when I first checked out the JWs...and they didn't fit the criteria in any way. In fact, there's only one that did and now, 40 years later, there's still only one that I can find, anyway.
The Catholic church has long sought for a way to reestablish communications with God, but has been stymied, as have other faiths. When the New World was discovered, many Protestant denominations fled here for religious freedom. After the American Revolution, they battled each other for converts placing faith on the fear of God and eternal damnation to support their various doctrines and dogmas. Instead of relying on Christ for authority as did the early Christians, they relied on the Bible. In 1945, with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library, an ancient Christian library consisting of 52 books (many of whom were Gnostic). Even so, many quotations from the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas have been deemed to be authentic sayings of Jesus. One of these sayings includes this well known parable:
Jesus said: The kingdom of the Father is like a woman carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking on a distant road, the handle of the jar broke and the meal poured out behind her on the road. She was unaware, she had not noticed the misfortune. When she came to her house, she put the jar down and found it empty.
As in other parables, the Kingdom of God is likened to a woman; and in this one the Kingdom’s contents were the spiritual gifts that defined the church Jesus created. After Christ’s death, the Kingdom fell into apostasy as prophesied (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3). By the time Rome seized control of the church, the spiritual gifts had been lost. There were no more healings, no more raising of the dead, no more visions, angels, revelation and baptism had changed.
But one reason I believe God to be real and to have spoken anciently is the profound and consistent messages that are delivered. From the law of Moses down to the Gospel taught by Christ, the scriptures, prophecy and teachings of the prophets not only are profound, but life changing. Christianity, as taught by the Master, completely eclipses Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and the other “isms” of the world, including the religious teachings of great civilizations such as the Aztecs, Mayans and Peruvians.
But why in our day, when we need Him most, does the great God of Heaven hide? When the Lord God will do nothing save He reveal it unto His servants the prophets are there no prophets? Jesus warned that there would be false prophets, but he never actually said there would be no prophets. But if He were to raise prophets in our day, where would He raise them? If a prophet knocked on the doors of Bethel or appeared before the Western Baptist Convention, what kind of reception would they get? Or if an apostle knocked on the doors of the National Council of Churches, what weight would his words carry?
Churches have hierarchies and creeds, and they cannot be easily cracked by outside claims. In fact, anyone claiming to be a prophet in today’s society would immediately be branded a kook. If I, now, here, claimed to be a prophet or apostle? What credence would I have? None. And what would a prophet have to do, today, for YOU to believe his or her claims?
That’s the problem, see? In the end, it’s easier to have an established dogma, with creeds, than to have new prophets. Yet in Revelation 11, we’re told that two prophets will be called to minister to the Jews in Jerusalem in the last days; so it’s hard to argue that no prophets will be called in our day. These two could be two ancient prophets like Enoch and Elijah—or they could be new prophets. But to say no prophets will arise appears to be unscriptural.
