THE SPIRIT
7. Does God Speak Today?
If I told you that God speaks to me, would you be offended, amused, intrigued?
Well, does not the Scripture teach that His Spirit is to live in us? Then should it not be assumed that He will speak? You say, He already spoke, through the Bible. Yes, He did, and in that Bible He points us to a living relationship equivalent to a branch being attached to a vine. If we reduce “abiding in Him” to the reading of a Book, we do Him and ourselves a disservice, in my opinion. He lives, right? He lives within me.
Consider the following. It came to me as I was quiet before the Lord, listening. You will see in this collection of thoughts a little Scripture, some C.S. Lewis and even more. You could say they are “my” thoughts. My thoughts received in various places and situations. But my thoughts, organized and drawn out by a loving God to speak encouragement to me at a given moment. It may even bless you. Some call this “prophecy.” Some do not. Here’s what I heard in my inner man…
“Be still. Stop talking. Listen. Trust Me to put the right thoughts in your brain. Stop trying to ‘feel’ delivered and healed. Stop trying to heal yourself. Listen. Listen to my thoughts from this day. Your own thoughts and efforts will fail. Your wife and all her efforts will fail. Your job will fail you. Your friends will fail you. That new Bible class will fail you. The arm of flesh will always fail you.
“But I will never fail you. Listen hard for My thoughts. As much as lies in you, think nothing of your own, but wait for the Spirit to bring His message to you. Wait. Listen. I have heard your prayers again and again. I have answered you. You will see. Now listen to My “prayers.” Answer Me. I have been waiting for you to be quiet long enough for Me to speak. Are you ready?”
Yes, Lord.
“Listen. Real men listen. You want to be a real man. Begin by listening. You are whole. No longer claim the imperfection. Claim the completeness. [You are complete in Him. Colossians 2:10.] Don’t rely on the philosophies of men. All of God is in Jesus and all of Jesus is in you. You have everything that you need. I the Lord have healed you. Enjoy your health and walk in it. Let it manifest daily more and more.
“Be careful of vain repetition when talking to Me. Be sure you are in agreement with the words from your mouth.
“Relax and rejoice in My creation. All is well in My Kingdom.
“Unnecessary chatter will weary you. Let not your thoughts or your words race.” [Ecclesiastes 5:2]
So, what think ye of this? Was I merely encouraging myself in the Lord? Was God actually talking? Was there anything said that can be contradicted by the original Word of God?
I offer this “word” and the accompanying questions as a springboard from which you can dive into the serious matters facing the church in this day regarding the nature of revelation and what God is and is not doing. I know of no more serious subject.
8. What Can I Expect From the Spirit?
I have said it often and will always say it: God’s people must be a people of the Book. I am not intimidated by that. I do not consider a “Word” person to be Old School, Pharisaical, or legalistic. The Word is good. All of God’s “good guys” have been men of the Word. No Word, no Church. Read my lips.
Nevertheless, we must also, at the same time and in equal measure, be a people of the Spirit. It was the Spirit who spoke to our fathers the apostles, gave them the foundational truths. The Spirit is not changing His mind.
And the greater secret is out. The mystery that some never hear. God wants to pour out His Spirit on anyone thirsty. God is no respecter of persons. He gives the Spirit to those who obey and ask for it. He wants to come and live Himself inside of you. God.
When people hear of such a thing, they want to know what to expect. Jesus gave the eleven disciples a taste, a down payment, of what to expect, when He breathed on them (John 20:22) and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. This was before Pentecost. But God is not bound by our perceptions of timing. The Spirit has been involved in true believers’ lives from the days of Genesis when Enoch walked with God. Is it possible to walk with God without the Holy Ghost?
He spoke through David and all the prophets, and of course found His fullest expression in Jesus. All of this before Pentecost. So you will not be surprised to know that the disciples were given a sip or two of the new wine. Reminds me of how dogs are given a sample “whiff’ of a particular substance they will be hunting so that they know when they have found it.
On Pentecost, there was no question in the disciples’ minds as to what they were experiencing. They had tasted already. And this “feeling” inside felt curiously like the personality of the One with Whom they had shared so many close experiences.
What did they experience? Love. Joy unspeakable. Power. Supernatural gifts. Jesus Himself. Is there any reason why we should not expect the same? When God Almighty enters the human soul and spirit, won’t there be a human reaction, a noticing? Of course!
But when all is said and done (and relatively little of what I have just described is said and done in most places today) the thing that Jesus leaves as a pure deposit in every believer’s life is truth.
Shocking statement? Isn’t the noise and energy the thing? Isn’t it the incredibly warm and wonderful Presence that we crave and need the most? All of this must be present, and will be for those who seek with the whole heart. But it is Truth, Reality, that is the final product.
Three times in His closing remarks to the eleven, Jesus names the coming Helper, “The Spirit of Truth.” Those today who are claiming they know Him, but not walking in the light of His truth, are liars. Per John.
It is possible to manufacture noise and giftedness in public while living in the darkness of immorality and defeat at home. God is after truth by which we can live and grow. Truth that shows us our own sinful self and truth that shows us Who He is and what he wants to make us. Truth that eventually becomes flesh and blood, a whole person.
If I may be so bold as to compare knowing Jesus in this way to the knowing of human intimacy, the intimacy was meant to be a wonderful thing, and is. But its ultimate goal is the production of another human being, the reality called a child.
So, what to expect? Expect the Spirit to give great joy, hilarity, drunkenness if you please. Let Him overwhelm you with Himself and wow you with gifts you never dreamed of. But when you get up off the floor, hangover-free, healed, happy, overawed that you have truly met God, be sure to go home and hug your wife. Go to work and shine for Jesus. Give your money and show up in church and pray. Read His Word. Grow.
Be sure you understand why God trusted you with His closeness. He’s bearing children. You are today’s “Mary,” saying yes to the Lord, bearing His seed, producing Jesus in your world.
9. Signs and Wonders
It’s a strange world when the pagans believe in signs and wonders but the Christians are not “allowed” to by their religious leaders. I can even show you in the Bible where pagans had this bent, and for a good reason: they had actually seen them. And they weren’t “demonic” signs and wonders. They came from the God of Heaven!
Check it out. These guys are both in the book of Daniel.
Nebuchadnezzar is in Daniel’s chapter 4, among other places. He’s the king of the mighty Babylonian Empire. Babylon was surely full of miraculous things. Man-made stuff. A whole litany of false gods no doubt showed themselves from time to time. This Emperor understood the unusual. One night he had a frightening dream. The interpretation given by resident prophet Daniel was that he, the Emperor, was to lose everything for awhile, including his sanity. He’d grow claws, be sent outside to the fields, eat grass. Be humbled.
It all happened, and when it was finished, the now-wise man sent a letter to the world. You can do that when you’re emperor. In it he bragged about the signs and wonders that God worked in him. “How great are His signs, and how mighty His wonders!”
Fortunately, Nebuchadnezzar’s theology did not allow for the cessation of the miraculous.
Then there was Darius. Poor guy. He liked his faithful servant Daniel, who had managed to survive the Babylonian demise and was now one of the Persian chiefs! But Daniel’s religion almost got in the way of his continued favor, and some of his peers got him in trouble with the new King. Darius stayed up all night worrying about the man that he had had to sentence to death by devouring. Lion-style. You know the story. He couldn’t sleep. Daniel did. He spent the night fasting. By God’s grace, so did the lions. In the morning, Darius too wrote a letter to the world. (It’s a king thing.) He talks about a living God who delivers and rescues, and works signs and wonders!
Two pagans, two letters to the world. The fact is established. God is a God of signs and wonders.
In another letter written to the world, we call it the book of Acts, the same phrase is used quite a few times. Author Luke must agree with Nebuchadnezzar and Darius that our God has not changed. Randomly I pick Acts 14:3, where God is “bearing witness to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done” at the hands of the apostles.
700 years of this. From Babylon to Persia to the Roman days. I heard it’s happening today too. Unless your group doesn’t think so. Then it’s not happening in your church, probably. But where people believe in this living God, signs and wonders still live. And why not? Jesus said, Nothing shall be impossible to you, right?
IS CHURCH LEADERSHIP CHANGING?
10. Where Are My Leaders?
One of my duties as school counselor in that final year before retirement was to deal with the discipline issues of some of the primary students. To that end I made it a habit of stopping in some of their classrooms and just hanging around. Sometimes I got caught up in what the teacher had assigned and assisted her in her plan.
It was a second grade class I was visiting that morning when I had a brainstorm. The students were in varying measures engaged in the creating of a written report. I stepped to the front of the class and announced,
“All my leaders, you will get to come to the front and share your papers with the whole class.” My intention was to motivate students to get engaged if they were not, and to hurry along those who were in slow gear.
“So, who are my leaders?” Six hands went up. Not bad. At least six people would be moving on. But I had forgotten a key point about the make-up of a second grader. They are all things to all men. You need leaders, I’m a leader. Their hands just go up automatically. I could have asked for shoplifters, carpenters, or artillery men and gotten the same response. The hand was waved to get attention and approval.
In this particular half a dozen, I noted that only one was actually doing work. Most of the rest had nothing on their paper at all, nor did my enticement change that fact.
I began thinking of the climate of the church today. Lots of opportunities to go here and go there, and a lot of folks answering the calls. “Send me, Lord!” The common denominator in 90% of these dearly beloved is that they are “so excited.” They will tell you that as they make their plans and raise their money. “We are just so excited!” Makes you think of the second graders. So excited to be called to leadership, but…
The excitement does not always remain. The service of the Lord is compared at least 3 times in Scripture to a man taking honey into his mouth, then having a bitter stomach afterwards. Jesus’ warnings about the cross and persecution and rejection are oft forgotten and/or ignored. Those who are the most empty and hollow will fold when the trouble comes.
Nevertheless the Lord is not finished with us after one fold! Or many, I think! True to His nature, He does not destroy a broken reed or discard a smoking flax. Aren’t you glad?
So, do I see any hands?
11. Qualifications for Apostleship
It was said of the Ephesian Church that they had tested those who claimed to be apostles and found that some of them were not, but were in fact liars. Bravo, Ephesus! This church ends up getting a rebuke for lack of zeal and fire, but not for this particular activity of apostle-testing. No, checking out men, and now women, who wear this title is an honorable calling and should persist to our own day.
Unfortunately, not every congregation or city has a Paul or a Timothy or a John to apply the test. Those three men were among the initial leaders of this Greek city. We must not call them pastors in the normal sense, for they were by now first and foremost apostolic. Their job was to establish and move on. They taught their people how to discern what was a true and a false apostle as a part of their education.
We have bits and pieces of the information that they were scattering, mainly from Paul, the no-nonsense totally qualified apostle who helped lay the foundation not only at Ephesus but at a series of other churches, and to a greater degree, for the New Testament church as a whole. I would think that his direction can still be followed.
Paul’s word unfortunately has to come up against the word of modern disciples calling themselves apostles. I heard one such man recently saying that apostles are to be followed in every generation because seasons change. Though this particular brother is solid in the Word, his claim would lead one to think that an apostolic teaching in our day might have to be obeyed over a similar teaching from a first century leader.
I know he would deny such a thing. He would say that the cardinal doctrines have been laid down and are unchanging. Not all today’s “apostles” would do so. But it’s not the cardinal doctrines that concern me at the moment. It’s a whole host of lesser issues that seem to be up for grabs. Women in leadership. Holiness (Did I say “lesser”?). Music/worship.
Consider the season, say our apostolic friends. Consider the move throughout the church to this or that position. Move accordingly. Don’t get left behind.
Rome said things like that. Rome allowed pagans to come in with their falseness and corrupt the church of the first centuries. An entire new organization was formed. It took over the political world of its day, but was Christ calling out and sanctifying a people in this way?
The bishops of Rome were now said to be successors to the apostles. The church is a living thing, we were told. Go with the flow. Don’t hang on to first century books when we have right-now apostles.
What happened in Rome is a tragedy.
What is happening among us today? Are there truly apostles we should follow in this new season? Are there apostles at all?
Before we categorically rule them out, we have to deal with missionaries. A totally not-in-the-Bible name if ever there was one. But most groups that send missionaries would fight for their right to be.
Simple solution here. Change the Latin word missionary to the Greek equivalent, apostle, and you see that there truly are apostles in the church. They are sent. They preach the Gospel. They establish churches all over the world. Sounds pretty apostolic to me. But no one wants to use that term because of the implications. If these men are truly apostles, they have authority…
Well, in their countries of service, they do wield this power. But no one claims that they have an authoritative teaching right to the Body at large, as some of the other apostles claim.
Enough. Better now that I simply give the standards Paul gave for all men who would call themselves apostles/missionaries/sent-ones.
Paul’s response to the challenge that even he was not an apostle (!) is recorded in II Corinthians. He intimates the following requirements, though no list is given, as for pastors and deacons. Seems that an apostle is one called directly by Jesus Christ and therefore men cannot make rules for them. Hence no such list for apostolic leaders. Fair enough.
Let’s make that requirement number one: Called by Jesus. Paul did say that a number of times, right? Not an imaginary call to the inner man, mind you, but a clear-to-the-Body calling borne out by miraculous encounter and/or confirmed by gifts of the Spirit, as when the Spirit publicly called Paul and Barnabas at Antioch.
Requirement number two is, without a doubt, signs and wonders. A man who is not working in the miraculous may be a fine saved brother, a teacher, a pastor, but probably not an apostle. Hmmm. That limits the field. I’m talking about persons who literally lay hands on the sick and see them recover. Open blind eyes. Cause the deaf to hear. Cast out demons. Know anyone like this? I mean you have seen the miracles yourself?
3. That’s another thing. An apostle does not, should not, commend himself. The proof is in the power. Not his words.
4. He probably will not be charging money for his services.
5. He will be persecuted, yea hated! Even by much of the church! Condemned to death. The off-scouring of the world. Filth, they will say.
Paul says that’s how it was with the true apostles of the first century. We “ordinary” believers have often thought that all these things apply to the whole Body, when in fact Paul often was talking about himself and the apostles when he mentioned such things. He made a clear difference. Not to say we are not to suffer. But these men, and they were all men, suffered first.
No, second. Jesus suffered first. Then he appointed a group of men to suffer next, as Christ, in leadership. They were to pass the baton on to other leaders who would bear the pain that they did.
Somewhere along the way it became an honor to be an apostle, a privilege for the few. And people began to fight for that honor, and even murder. Obviously these were not true apostles.
Which brings us back to the present moment. Where are these true apostles today? Are they leading us to the cross of Christ, or to some fascinating new teachings about Christ? Are they calling us to die or to live it up? Are they committed first to the original apostles or to their own agenda? Are they supermen in their natural strength, or weak men filled with the power of God? Are they specimens of male humanity, or do they sport a thorn in the flesh at which we cringe when around them?
So weary of the false in my own life, in my church, in my world. God give us the true. Give us your men. And give us grace to follow them.
12. Nathan Didn't Die
We hear a lot of rules these days about what is allowed to happen in our generation, and what is not. Gifts, they say, are out. At least the ones that would require the miraculous intervention of God. Strangely enough, people who believe this never see the miraculous. People who do, are seeing it on a regular basis, even experiencing it.
One of the teachings being handed down is the concept of the differences between Old and New Testament prophecies and prophets. In the Old Testament, they say, prophecy had to be without flaw or the prophet was cursed, run off, and/or killed. In the New Testament times, "they" also say, it just ain't so. If he or she gets it "close" or even flat out wrong, he or she is just in training, and will eventually get it right.
Brings up a lot of possibilities. Like going to a surgeon who is in training. Or flying with a pilot who is in training. Life or death. Please let me deal with only the experienced, Lord!
Nevertheless, it is true that "prophecies will fail." People will get it wrong. Those who believe that prophecy is preaching know of a certain that pulpiteers have often blown it. None of them died at the hands of their people, to my knowledge.
There is another class of prophets, Old or New, who definitely are under the curse. I'm sure you are aware of the Old Testament guys and the passages that refer to them. But have you read the book of Jude or 2nd Peter lately for a glimpse of what God feels about the false prophet today? Yes, I said "false", not "mistaken" or "immature". There are prophecies that will fail, and others that will be damned, along with their speakers.
Jude: "...certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for condemnation, who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny the Lord..."
So much for the "New-Testament-prophets-can't-be-cursed" notion.
But wait a minute. Even the Old Testament rule has its exceptions when it comes to the intent of the speaker. Remember Nathan, David's personal prophet? Great man of God, right? Hit David between the eyes with a word from God after the Bathsheba thing. Remember.
But there was another Nathan incident. David wanted to build a house for God. How this man loved the Lord! David and Nathan agreed, this is a God thing. "Do what is in your heart," said the prophet of God. And David took it as a word from the Lord.
But it wasn't. It was a word from Nathan's own spirit. He meant no harm. It was a great idea. But it was not God. God corrected him, the message was passed to David, and things were put in order.
Meaning? First, Old Testament prophets of a good heart who "missed it" simply got the correction and moved on. No sudden death! But in that same time period, false prophets were cursed. Nothing has changed as we come to the New Testament times. To this day, men of evil intent fall under the curse of God, and can be told so.
And others? Those who continue to speak, as did Nathan, from their own spirit - and in my opinion this covers a vast amount of the "prophesying" going on today - need to be taught to wait for the Word of God. They also need to read certain passages in Jeremiah and Ezekiel to see how God looks at this sort of prophecy. In many cases those folks would do well simply to quote appropriate Scriptures to those seeking a "word" from God. Others ought to be quiet altogether.
We must never rule out the miraculous. We also must forever discern. This is not a day for blanket acceptance of men's ideas.
13. How False Teachers Come In
A few weeks ago I read a book about missions that totally excited me. One of my colleagues at work had handed it to me months before.
I immediately began to check out this author and the mission organization he represented and founded. I was impressed with the names of persons who spoke well of him. I was doubly impressed with some of the ideas he presented and the cost-effective plan he used to carry out the Great Commission in foreign lands.
I joined. I committed some income. And I decided to sit in on a weekly streaming prayer meeting that the group put together. I was blessed to find that the author himself was leading this meeting.
But I started getting nervous a little ways in. He shared with us that the image of Jesus in the Book of Revelation is not of One who will come and murder all His enemies, but rather, the Lamb.
That's odd, I thought. Both images are clearly in Revelation. Lion and Lamb. Why did he center on Lamb? But I continued. I don't need to be in perfect agreement with someone's eschatology to believe he is a good man and doing the work of the Lord.
Then he talked about how the church ought to be communion-centered, and not Bible/preaching centered. Hmmm. I remembered how Acts 2 mentioned they continued (first) in the apostle's teachings. I see Paul preaching until midnight. Preaching and teaching are specifically mentioned in the Great Commission.
The Lord's Supper was to be in the church for sure, but not as central. This was a development of Romanism, with its accompanying rituals and rules that eventually bound the hand of God to reveal Himself intimately to His people - in most cases.
But by far the most serious issue that the good director brought up was actually at the very beginning, but I did not know it at the time. He said that we all should see a movie that had not been shown for many years (he never said why), named "Journey to the Sky."
It was an old ken Anderson film. Usually reputable stuff. I looked for the movie immediately following the prayer session, determining to purchase it immediately if possible.
I had never heard of the movie, nor of its subject, one Sadhu Sundar Singh. Wow, where have I been, not to have heard the name of one obviously so important to the work of God, I thought. For, in spite of the doctrinal problems I was having with the leader, he himself said things and seemed to live and practice things, that I felt were just the kind of messages the Body of Christ needed to hear. Certainly the Lord was leading me...
Oh my. This is how false teaching spreads. We little birdies with our mouths wide open just waiting for someone to drop a juicy worm. Thankfully I had the presence of mind from the Lord to keep checking things out.
Who was the Sadhu? Sadhu is a title given to certain holy men in India and elsewhere. Born in 1889, Mr. Singh grew up under the influence of both Christianity and Sikh (outgrowth of Hinduism) mysticism. In connection with the very painful loss of his mother, Singh converts to Christianity at 16, and yet still considers himself a part of Sikhism so that he can win Sikhs to Christ.
All well and good. But as he continues on, he begins to build his spiritual life around visions. Or so we are told. There were no eyewitnesses to much of his life's activities, as he chose to work alone. Not only was he unmarried, but he disdained fellowship with most all humans. Yet he was considered a "holy man", a sadhu, by the Indians. When he came to America he wore Eastern garb here too, and repudiated much of the Western lifestyle.
Up to this point, we are still willing perhaps, to give him the benefit of the doubt. Western lifestyle among Christians is pretty corrupted when compared to the book of Acts. He wants to work alone, be unmarried like Paul, be all things to all (Eastern) men. Fine.
Then we see more about his visions and revelations. He is in contact, by visions, with Swedenborg, the spiritualist teacher of 200 years earlier. He calls Swedenborg a "seer of clear visions," says that he "occupies high places in the spiritual world," and he "thoroughly recommends him as a great seer."
So I now needed more info about Swedenborg. I found that he believed he was called to reform Christianity in the 18th century. He visited heaven and hell, talked with angels, talked with demons. He taught that the last judgment occurred in 1757, along with the second coming. He believed his written works were divinely inspired. He talked with spirits from all the planets, except Uranus and Neptune, which had not yet been discovered! Go figure. He taught that the Trinity exists in one person, namely Jesus, and that faith and good works are necessary for salvation. 'Nuff said?
Again, Singh thoroughly recommends Swedenborg. In addition, Singh gave little importance to public worship. He said that the holiness of one's life is the basis for salvation. He taught that hell's punishment is not eternal since after this life we are given another chance to be made good. It might take several ages to do this, but it will happen. Shades of reincarnation.
Worst of all, Singh was a universalist. Not Jesus, not a particular confession, but holiness, was the basis for entry into Paradise. He fully expected to see his "holy" but unsaved mother in Heaven. He planned to ask God to send him to hell if he did not see his mother in Heaven. He desired above all things to be re-united with his mother.
Gulp. What had I walked into?
A little more research and I find that Todd Bentley, tattoo-toting evangelist of our own day, had a vision of Singh! Bentley now tells people in his meetings about this holy man, a model for God's people today.
See how it happens?
Swedenborg filled with the enemy spirit. He or his impersonator contacts Singh in visions. Singh contacts moderns either by dreams or movies, and sincere followers of the Lord - we must assume for this present writing - buy into it and pass it on. It's a virus that can take out many lives.
Be not deceived! How many times has that simple medicine been prescribed by Bible authors? I pass it on to you now. Perhaps you will want to pass it to others...
Oh yes. I did withdraw my support from that group. Sadly. I did not want to be a part of passing on the mis-information that was being disseminated that night. Other very godly folks stay on. I understand, and we must never condemn. But oh let's be careful where we invest God's dollars!
14. The New Testament Prophet
Proposition: All Old Testament prophecy is judgment, and all New Testament prophecy is encouragement.
That’s not my idea. That’s an idea that’s been floating around the church for quite some time now. Reason bein’, a justification for modern day prophecies.
I have to say up front that I believe that people can truly prophesy through the Spirit of God in our day. I have grown out of the days where I allow my puny mind to speak with conclusiveness about an entire planet and what is going on there. I read no clear statement in Scripture that denies prophecy in my day, so I believe in and defend prophecy’s existence.
But in the midst of the true there seems to be an abundance of false, as there was in the days when the true prophets wrote. Jeremiah and Ezekiel in particular knew how to identify the false guys. By the way, these quotes are from true prophets. They are not subject to error or correction. Listen carefully…
Jeremiah 23:16-17. “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless. They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. They continually say to those who despise Me, ‘The Lord has said you shall have peace.’ And to everyone who walks according to the imagination of his own heart, ‘No evil shall come upon you.’ ”
Ezekiel is told in 13:2, “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy out of their own heart, ‘Hear the word of the Lord!’… ‘Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing!’ ”
What a perfect picture of some modern day prophets and prophetesses who learn techniques for prophesying out of books, and not always out of the heart of God. Almost never will one hear a prophet of this nature saying anything negative. You are cool. You do cool things. All will be well. Not sure this is you? they ask. You’ll grow into it. In other words, I cannot be wrong here…
The teaching goes that prophecy is to encourage. Though this is true, per Paul, we assume he would not encourage someone in their sin.
We must look at all the encounters of the New Testament before we hush up the negative voice. Was it not the spirit of prophecy that sent Ananias and Sapphira to their graves? That cast a demon out of a servant girl who was praising God? That forecast an awful famine? That predicted Paul’s serious fate? That’s all New Testament.
No, friends, New Testament prophecy is not always nice and sweet. But it is always true. The fact that Paul allowed prophets to be corrected lets us know that any falseness in prophecy is still under the judgment of God and needs to be dealt with immediately. The integrity of God’s House is at stake. Who will return to a fellowship where clearly false predictions were emanating freely?
The “Oops, I missed it!” mentality was never envisioned by the apostolic church of the first century. God’s truthful men and women must be a given from the times of Enoch on down through any prophet of today. Allow that word of correction!
Well, one thing I have not done is prove that all Old Testament prophecies were not negative. Oh my, how many wonderful things were predicted by the prophets! Isaiah’s visions of Jesus come to mind first. “A child is born who will be a wonderful counselor, the mighty God Himself.” Pretty positive stuff, right?
Jeremiah was the crying prophet, but oh, did he ever get a blessed message one day. Chapter 3 is one of my all-time favorites. He outlines the policy for divorce and remarriage. He says that, hey, once that woman is out of your life, she’s out, right? She was unfaithful. Forget her. Right?
Wrong. Oh, God, how wonderful your response. No! Not true, Israel. You’ve been so faithless, so awful to me. But I plead with you… return! Come back! I love you so much!
That’s Old Testament, folks.
You see, our God never changes. He’s been speaking joy and judgment from the beginning. Life and death. Heaven and Hell. Don’t put him in a prophetic box. If there’s a member of the church that needs to hear the truth of God on him, even if it be to send him to an early grave, speak forth!
(By the way, those of you who can’t deal with the whole idea of prophecy in our day, I suggest this. Have you ever wanted to share a particular Scripture with a particular person for a particular reason? Don’t be surprised if the Lord blesses that as a “prophetic” message. Who would have put that idea on your heart, do you think? Once you are sure the Lord is speaking to you to pass that Scripture along, and you are sure you have no other motivation, do it. Things like that can change people’s lives. And that is one thing that prophecy is for.)
So, original proposition: false. God says, “I am the Lord, I change not!” He’ll say what He wants, whenever He wants. We must not stand in His way. When you do, you will be set aside, and God will find another person to speak the truth.
