A man of state (I don't remember his name) was very ill. One day he gathered a lot of sympathetic people near his bed and told them "Friends, an angel of the Lord spoke to me last night and told me I will soon get well". The people were exalted and left his house hoping for the best. Then his butler asked him "Sir, we both now you will soon die, how could you lie to all this people?". "If by chance I'll get well, everyone will say I'm a prophet and a man of God. If I will die, they will say I was a liar, but I won't care about what they'll say anyway, because I will be dead!".
The entire Bible follows this way of thinking.