Have you ever had the privilege of meeting a prophet? I am not speaking of someone who brings an occasional word of prophecy but someone who lives in the presence of God, and brings His insights to bear. We have received various words that have brought vital steering touches, reassuring us that the Lord not only knows our path but is actually directing it. Like the time we spent with Alex Buchanan shortly after we were married. He foresaw the times of intense testing and trials that we would be called to go through for the Lord. Thanks Alex! But there has always been the underlying assurance, that this really is the word of the Lord. May we be as much and do as much for others!

What did the Lord intend Israel to be? A demonstration to the nations of the world of what a righteous society living under the rule of God could be like. In His plan the prophets had a vital role to play. ‘The Lord used a prophet to bring Israel up from Egypt: by a prophet He cared for him.’  Let’s not be afraid to use the word: God appoints them, we need them and every church and organisation needs them. And even though we may not be full-blown ‘prophets’ ourselves, we should undoubtedly be seeking to become more ‘prophetic’ in all we do.

Prophets are the ‘eyes’ of the church. The trouble is, the way we see things tends to be so different from God that He has to take us through a whole series of upheavals to help us see things His way, and to apply the word of the Lord accurately.

The good news: the Lord promised that He will do nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets . Whenever He needed to warn or to restore Israel, He raised up prophets to do the job. In times of crisis, it was the Word of the Lord through the prophet that, again and again, saved the nation from its enemies . The prophets had a vital role to play in God’s plan for Israel after He brought them out of Egypt .

More good news: the testimony of Jesus is (still) the spirit of prophecy , and He invites, instructs even, His people to be eager to prophesy. But just as that Moses’ ministry reached maturity in the wilderness, rather than when he was a pampered prince in Pharaoh’s palace, so the Lord will need to take us through some form of rigorous training programme. That’s good news too. But it may not feel like it at the time. We’ll look at the process in more detail later. For the time being, let’s take a step backward to consider the prophetic ministry.
 
1.1 The prophetic ministry today
 

It was the end of the meeting. A group of people gathered round a man from the church who was paralysed and suffering from MS. Everyone except the visiting preacher, Heidi Baker, knew that he had had a dream six years before that he would one day walk again. But how many believed it would be in this life? After all, he had been prayed for more than six hundred times with no apparent effect. The group continued to pray for a full half hour. Something was happening. Feeling was coming back, now to the left foot, now the other. Suddenly it happened. With the aid of others, he stood to his feet, and soon was walking. Within days he was pushing other MS sufferers around in their wheelchairs. Within two weeks he was playing football! An incredible miracle had happened. And the speaker declared: ‘This is a sign of God’s desire to bless the paralysed church in the United Kingdom. The power of God is at hand!’

In this section we are going to look at various aspects of the prophetic ministry. Our purpose is both to be more open to be used by the Lord ourselves, but also so that we can welcome the input of those to whom God has given a special ability to listen.

God loves to prophesy! He does not speak lightly or aimlessly but sends His Word in order that His plans should come to pass. He always has a deliberate objective in mind.
 

The spirit of prophecy is much in evidence from the very beginning of the Bible records. ‘Let there be light . . . Let there be a firmament’ . God could have just thought the world into being; He chose to speak it. In C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew there is a magnificent account of the creation of the imaginary world, Narnia, in which Aslan (who stands for the Lord) sings creation into being. It is a beautiful concept!

God not only loves to speak, He loves to have His people both listen and prophesy.

Jesus is prophet, priest and king. He will share His glory with no other  – yet when He speaks through fallible human beings, something of His own power and authority are released. When the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, Jesus declared that the words He spoke were spirit and life . The whole of His ministry demonstrated this: by a word the blind were healed, the paralytic walked, the dead restored to life and evil spirits cast out. By the word of Paul’s mouth a spirit of divination was cast out of a slave girl, and the eyes of a sorcerer were temporarily blinded . By the words of the apostles lame men walked, the sick were healed and the dead were restored to life .

1.2 All ministries are to be ‘prophetic’
 

When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to Me by taking from what is Mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is Mine and make it known to you. (John 16:13-15)

Wouldn’t it be tragic if God gave up speaking? Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel . . . what giants these Old Covenant prophets were: giants with well-tuned spirits! In Jesus’ day, however, the prophetic voice had long been silent until John the Baptist ‘emerged.’ There was a widespread expectation, however, that there would be a revival of the prophetic flow before the day of the Lord. On the Day of Pentecost, the promised Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church, and His blessing became a gift that all believers could exercise.

Although God sets aside certain people for the office of the prophet, the Lord wants all of us to wait on Him concerning the things that we undertake. The sensitive pastor will be concerned to bring an inspired word to his congregation, just as the teacher will wait on the Lord to discover exactly which passage of Scripture the Lord wishes him to expound.
 

To teach doctrine ‘x’ when God is emphasising aspect ‘y’ of His kingdom is still to be technically true to the Word of God, but in reality to miss the heart of what God was wanting to communicate or direct His people to. To be prophetic is to walk in step with what God is doing now. To bring a teaching with a prophetic edge is to be breath-takingly up to the minute and full of power because it means we are in in line with what God is doing in the hearts of His hearers. It is so much more satisfying, as well as relevant, when we are in tune with the things that are on God’s heart.

Although God sets aside certain people for the ‘office’ of the prophet, the Lord wants all of us to wait on Him concerning the things that we undertake.

Living prophetically involves far more than just speaking words from God. From first reading of the biblical prophets, it is easy to assume that they were receiving words from God day in and day out, but in reality their oracles were probably more like scoring a goal in the edited highlights of ‘Match of the Day’ rather than a minute by minute experience. When Mother Teresa recognised God’s heart for the people of India and gave her life for them, surely she was being every bit as prophetic (and in all probability far more fruitful) than people who bring ‘words’ from God at every meeting.

In His great task of restoring His Bride, and bringing in His Kingdom, God is raising up a people to make Him known in our land; a New Testament equivalent of a prophetic nation .Wise is the church that recognises and nurtures those who have particular gifts and burdens, whether they be creative gifts for the body of Christ, for their professions, or for the wider community. I believe that God appoints watchmen who have a special burden for their professions as well as for their churches or their geographical regions. For more than twenty years I worked with outstanding musicians who allow the Lord to express and reflect His heart through their music and in the process bring the presence of the Lord close to His people.
 

For Reflection If you are in leadership, what provision are you making to train and nurture those who have prophetic callings?

1.3 Nurturing the prophetic Calling
 

The real prophets of our day, are those who can perceive what is happening in modern society, see where it will lead us, and give a value judgement upon it . . . We should not just absorb facts, but think about their significance. (Richard Foster, The Freedom of Simplicity, SPCK)

So significant is the ministry of a prophet, that the actual moment of commissioning of many of the biblical prophets is recorded for us . Such men were love-gifts from God. Even when the message they brought was a hard one, it was out of God's mercy and kindness that He showed people how things really stood.

The Church in Antioch included prophets as well as teachers in the ministry team, so why shouldn't we? Our nation has long nurtured a relative abundance of Bible teachers. Now is the time to welcome those the Lord is raising up with a prophetic insights for the Church, for specific issues or professions, to help us grow in the beauty as well as the knowledge of God.

1.4 Prophets are the ‘eyes’ of the Church . . .
 

Now Moses said to Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law, ‘We are setting out for the place about which the Lord said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things to Israel.’ But Moses said, ‘Please do not leave us. You know where we should camp in the desert, and you can be our eyes. If you come with us, we will share with you whatever good things the Lord gives us.’ (Numbers 10:29-32)

Once, when we had been going through an exceptionally turbulent time, with shocks and difficulties coming at us from every angle, I arranged to meet with a couple of prophets who have often been used in the past to speak the word of the Lord to me. These men work best by knowing least. We turned to prayer and immediately sensed the Spirit of the Lord moving through the garden we were meeting in. The Lord recognised the pummelling we had been through and spoke profoundly of His love and of imparting a new level of authority. It was the intimacy that these men have in God that makes it easy for them to pass on such profound encouragement.

The prophet’s relationship with the Lord is itself an asset for the body of Christ. Their insights and experience will likewise be invaluable in leading the people of God into seeking the mind of the Lord over specific issues, as well as for leading congregational prayer and intercession.

For Reflection Is there an example from the past that God would use to encourage you in the challenges that you are currently facing? Or is there someone He would have you go and encourage with a hope-filled perspective?

Prophets see with the eyes of faith and hope – and therefore can believe for things which humanly speaking appear completely impossible. One way to communicate this prophetic perspective is to stoke people’s memories with the recollection of what God has done in the past. God specifically tells people to remember great deliverances that He has done (Psalm 105:5, Josh 4:4-7, cf Neh 9:17, Psalm 78:42). By drawing attention to God’s character through these (without in any way becoming nostalgic) people can use them as a springboard for faith in the future.

1.5 Prophecy is not divination
 

Prophecy does not consist exclusively, or even chiefly, of predictions concerning future events. The future is the Lord’s concern, and He will show us the way when He feels that it is right to do so.

It is obvious that Satan has some insight into the future (as well as a detailed record of our past), all of which he is quite prepared to share with anyone who will compromise their soul through involvement with things that are contrary to God’s word. Psychics and those hosting familiar spirits are able to reveal details of family history and suchlike with great accuracy. But horoscopes, palmistry, tarot cards, ouija boards and so on are nothing but devilish counterfeits: nothing compared to the peace and security that we as believers can find in our relationship with God. An important part of our prophetic task is to turn people away from such things and to the water that truly satisfies. We are to exercise the gift of discernment, and steer ourselves and others well clear of all such practices and to pray deliverance for those who have had past involvement with them.

Fortune tellers, new age prophets and a host of others involved in cults and the occult declare insights that, strictly speaking, may be true but they are not helpful. The evil spirits recognised who Jesus was before the disciples did, but the Lord silenced their testimony.

1:6 The matter of timing
 

Few things cause more confusion or need more careful handling than the matter of timing.

The many biblical prophecies have multi-layered fulfilments, referring to specific events in the near future and then to far more distant ones - we were never meant to chart how all the details will work out. They are usually pointers, whose meaning becomes clear afterwards. Who, for instance, could have predicted the events of the Nativity from the references to Bethlehem in Micah 5? There is a warning here for those who try to predict the exact details of the end-time prophecies in the Bible. A fresh set of circumstances may have to develop before a prophecy can be fulfilled.

1.7 Levels of inspiration
 

True prophecy is usually inspired proclamation concerning the character and majesty of God and the principles by which He works. Only occasionally does it take the form of specific commands or directives. Prophecy that is essentially God-sanctioned personal encouragement is entirely different from warnings, which if ignored can cause us to seriously miss the mark or even totally shipwreck. This calls for care and accountability. Whereas a word of encouragement can never do any harm, a wrongly given word of correction or so-called direction most certainly can. Much wisdom is required here. Ponder words that you have received (either directly from the Lord or through others). What ‘level of inspiration’ would you say they belonged to?

Pastors are enormously aware that a word, once spoken, has enormous power for good or ill. If something is said which does not prove to be correct, people may have considerable difficulty shrugging off the effects of this false word and may, as a result, be less willing to heed genuine prophecies in the future.
 

If we are sharing a prophetic word with someone, the manner in which we deliver it and the language we use can make all the difference to people accepting or rejecting it. David du Plessis' advice is to submit (rather than impose) a word of prophecy to someone for testing – and preferably in the presence of someone who knows them well. That way, if anything is shared which does not ring true, it is easier for them to shrug it off. They will also be more confident to accept an authentic word from God. This simple advice has helped to avoid much hole-in-the-corner foolishness.

The way in which we deliver words from the Lord can have enormous consequence.

Graham Cooke and others speak of the need to test ‘heavier’ words with the pastorate before speaking them out over a wider fellowship. This has the advantage of avoiding certain things being exposed in public at the wrong time or in the wrong way. It is the equivalent of an early warning system that saves people the heartache of having to cope with an invalid prophecy. On the down side, this approach removes the Body from the loop, and leaves all testing in the hands of those who are, hopefully, experienced in this field.

1.8 So where does the Bible say that then?
It is obviously important to stress that prophecies should be scriptural, but since many are of a personal, local or specific nature, they may not always have clear-cut precedents or parallels for them in the Bible.
 

What we can say is that no true prophecy will ever contradict Scripture.

It is significant that some of the world’s most powerful religions - Islam and Mormonism for example - had their origin in prophecies which purported to be from heaven, but which fail to pass the test of biblical standards. Above all, these religions deny the uniqueness and the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

For Reflection

It is always wise to beware the grandiose! Suppose someone had come to Billy Graham when he was a few weeks old in the Lord and told him he would one day be leading countless thousands to Christ. The word would certainly have been correct, but would it have helped the young convert to focus on developing his walk with the Lord? Beware endless words that have lots of noughts on the end. All to often there is a high admixture of presumption and wishful thinking!

Here is a simple guiding principle. Be especially wary of anything that makes you out to be too special, especially if it also slags off other Christians. The scene is then set for seeds of division and disunity!

1.9 Praying prophetic visions into being
 

The message they heard was of no value to them because those who heard did not combine it with faith. (Hebrews 4:2)

All too many Christians and churches through the centuries have shared the fate of the ancient Israelites. They had too much head knowledge of Christ but too little desire or ability to apply that knowledge by faith. As ‘partners’ with Him in the vision, it is important to sort out what only He can do, and what we should be doing. Prophecies of blessing need to be prayed through to fulfilment, just as warnings should be heeded in order to avoid judgement.
 

For Reflection The clearer we are in recognising what the Lord is asking us to do, the more passionately we should respond. The word enthusiasm comes from the Greek ‘en theos’ – literally ‘in God’.

Most prophecies are best considered as being conditional rather than deterministic (automatically bound to happen). What are they conditional on? Our faithfulness, our obedience and sometimes our repentance. Jonah's doomsday words against Nineveh appeared to present the city with an inescapable ultimatum. But when the people repented, disaster was averted. 

Realistically, many visions are never fulfilled because people sit on words that need to be prayed into being. If we accept that a word is from God, we must be prepared to pay the price to pray what God desired into being. We are not called to sit and wait to see what happens, like Jonah sitting under his broom tree hoping against hope that God would zap Nineveh.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about trying to fulfil prophetic visions by our own efforts. Too many of us have tried that and come unstuck as a result. Ever seen a cat spring to catch a bird and miss? They put on a ‘I wasn’t really trying’ sort of expression and do their best to restore their composure! God’s promises can never be realised by our own efforts alone. But if we refuse to move in the direction that God is pointing us to, we can most certainly prevent His promises from being fulfilled. There is nothing worse than being an armchair critic who misses genuine opportunities that the Lord was quite prepared to grant had we only had the faith to step out as He was urging us to do.


2 ~ The Prophetic Imagination

2.1 The Imagination: God’s gift to us
Are you one of those people who pop back to the house as you set off on holiday to check if you really did turn the cooker off? If that’s you, then you may take a bit of convincing that the imagination really can be considered a blessing! Let me convince you by quoting what Hannah Hurnard has to say about the imagination – it may change your whole approach to it.
 

Personally, I believe that far and away the best and most glorious and most blessed function of the imagination is to make it possible for the invisible and eternal things to become real to us . . . If we would but picture Him as vividly and as clearly as possible as He is revealed to us in the Gospels, and if we spoke to Him as we would if we actually saw Him, we would find all the unreality vanish away. Some people are honestly terrified of using their imaginations in connections with their faith in the Saviour ‘But it is a very dangerous thing to imagine things [they say]. Imaginary things are not real, we make them up ourselves.’ But of course when we pray we do nothing of the kind. For nothing is more sure and more attested to in the Scriptures than the fact that our Lord is actually present with us in some lovely and mysterious way, and therefore, we are meant to behave and to speak exactly as we would if we could see Him. We do not try to make Him present and real when we use our imagination, because He really is there, and when we happily and thankfully use this God-given faculty it simply makes the wonderful truth more real. Half the time those people who complain that spiritual things are so unreal to them, and that they cannot realize the Lord’s Presence, do not understand that is simply because they are afraid to accept and believe the glorious truth, that the Lord really is present with His people. Nobody can pray drearily or despairingly to their Saviour, or think of Him as unreal, if they saw Him close beside Him. Through the eyes of our imagination, we may see Him, vividly and gloriously present. An imagination used as God means it to be used, in order to visualize true things described to us in the Scriptures, does indeed make us a soul ‘full of eyes, within and without.’ (Winged Life, pp 53-54)

For Reflection
 

Harnessing the imagination is all about practising the presence of God. By living and acting ‘as if’ He were close to us, we can be assured of His real presence with us, however we may be feeling (cf. Heb 13:5).

2.2 The prophetic draws out and releases new giftings
 

‘Greater is He that is in us than he who is in the world’  – and greater are God’s purposes than most of us we have yet perceived. Years ago, at university, I used to look at fellow students who had received certain spiritual gifts and wonder how it was possible for anyone to do all the things they were doing. The next stage of spiritual growth always seems impossible – but once God equips us it becomes a normal part of our walk with Him. Right from the start I made it my aim that I would do my best to listen to Him, even if I made a lot of mistakes in the process.

I have seen people receive words promising them some new gift, and then watched as it began to operate immediately. The Lord told a friend of ours, who works in the media, that she was going to meet people who would develop an international dimension to her work. A few hours later she felt the Lord prompting her to tell someone she met on a train about her television work. The person turned out to work for Sky News and to have the precise skills she needed.

2.3 First steps in allowing ourselves to imagine

If you are one of those people, like so many sincere evangelicals, for whom the mere mention of the word ‘imagination’ is enough to make you wince you probably have excellent reasons for being wary. After all, so many of the imaginations of our hearts are a mixture of the self-deluded and the hopelessly impractical. Were God to grant our wilder requests, we would be the first to be dismayed a short time later.
 

Were God to grant our wilder requests, we would be the first to be dismayed!

God spoke in Noah’s day of all the imaginations of people’s hearts being evil , and He reminds us through Jeremiah that the heart is deceitful above everything else . Flick a switch, give an inch and there most of us are – only too willing to indulge fancies and fantasies that place us firmly centre-stage. We may dress up our ambitions in spiritual clothing, of course, but that only makes them all the more insidious. But to suppose that all the thoughts of our imagination are so bad that God cannot speak to us is far too gloomy a picture. We must never allow the awareness of our sinfulness to loom larger in our thinking than the grace of God, and the delight it is to Him to lead His children.

If we are instinctively afraid of rocking the boat, or have had unfortunate experiences in the past, we may find ourselves inadvertently resisting the call of the Lord. When a person suggests a new or different way of doing something, all too many churches, organisations and institutions react with a backward defensive stonewalling. People look askance; fearing ‘what people would think,’ they change the subject and put the person who first brought the challenge firmly in their place. They are dismissed as being presumptuous or cocky.

Alternatively, people may use the excuse that the idea is a good one but the timing is wrong – or that it worked elsewhere but would not be suitable here. Even genuinely worthwhile ideas are dismissed out of hand, instead of being weighed, ‘customised’ and enthusiastically embraced.

The chances are that we will at some time face something like this. If Moses had heeded the ‘wisdom’ of his time, he would never have set out on his mission. After all, he was way beyond the conventional retirement age!  And how about Abraham’s call to father a son? Family Planning for the over Ninety’s?

How do you fare in this respect? When God gives you a new commission, are you inclined to take an initial step backwards into the supposed safety of the tried and tested? Or are you open to act on what God is showing you? In the Shetland Isles, where we live, people are researching alternative forms of energy by harnessing wind, wave and tidal power. Let’s make it our aim that the Lord will harness our imagination powerfully and effectively to discern gifts in people that are not yet outwardly visible, opportunities where doors are not yet open and wisdom where situations are currently deadlocked.

2.4 Enlarge the Place of your Tent (Isaiah 54:2)
 

And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain.’ So God granted him what he requested. (1 Chronicles 4:10 NKJ)

Almost overnight, millions of Christians have begun praying what has become known as the ‘Prayer of Jabez’ after Bruce Wilkinson published his hugely successful book on the hitherto somewhat overlooked passage tucked away in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles. It has almost reached the point where we could say, if you are not praying the prayer, then why not?! To pray to make a real impact and to have an increasing influence for the kingdom is an entirely worthy aim – and so very much richer than seeking our own self-aggrandisement! Praying Jabez’s prayer can help us to live prophetically by opening our hearts to God’s perspective – even if following His leading takes us into entirely uncharted territory.

I might make a Jabez prayer for this book along the lines of: Lord, I pray that these writings will stir peoples’ spirits – not just to grasp the salient points, but to experience real intimacy with You as You lead and direct their paths. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Try ‘crafting’ your own ‘Prayer of Jabez’ to match your particular situation. It will make an excellent platform from which to face each day.
 

How utterly imaginative You are Lord! Who but You would have chosen to act in the ways You have done and through the people you have chosen? Thank You that You are always at work – always guarding, guiding, opening and closing doors. Forgive our mistrust, baptise our imaginations, and grant us grace to follow Your leading. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

3 ~ Prophetic Wisdom

Some Bibles highlight the words the Lord Jesus spoke in red. No wonder. His words are the most important God has ever said to mankind. But don’t forget all the other Scriptures in which God speaks in the first person.

An in-depth study of the writings of the prophets will go a long way towards helping us see how we too can develop a truly prophetic outlook on life. Resist the temptation to skip over these prophetic oracles in search of more familiar pastures. They can bring us an immense awareness concerning God’s sovereign working and the response He is looking for from us. Even a lightning overview of some of the prophetic books will show us something of the Lord’s heart and ways and that is what this chapter is about. We are in for a treat!

3.1 Seeing and perceiving: The Sovereignty of God

The finest truths of Scripture are not placed together in convenient charts and graphs. They are more like pieces of buried treasure waiting to be discovered and put together. The prophets urge us to look beyond purely economic or military considerations and open our eyes to the God of first causes.
 

An in-depth study of the writings of the prophets will go a long way towards helping us see how we can develop a truly prophetic outlook on life.

It is supremely Isaiah who shows us the God of first causes, and who declares, ‘I am (this or that) and I will (do this or that)’. It is He, not economic or military might, who raises men up or who casts them down . Though Isaiah, in a sense, leads the charge in this respect, all prophets have a living understanding of the sovereignty of God. It was the Lord who brought Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Crete and the Syrians from Kir – just as it is He who delivered Israel from the tyranny of the Baals – and us from our own many scrapes! 

The more we immerse ourselves in the real world the prophets operated in, the easier we will find it to trust the God of the prophets in our own lives – whether concerning apparently irresolvable problems that we are facing, or in search of biblical parallels to contemporary situations that we are going through as a church or nation.

Before you read on, why not ask the Lord to deepen your understanding of the prophetic writings? It will help you to be on the same wavelength as ‘giants’ such as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos. Don’t worry if your knowledge feels a bit patchy or threadbare – it is about to be extended!

3.2 The prophetic brings to life
 
All over the world, the Lord is drawing people into His presence and giving them visions of eternal realities and of the kingdom of God impacting the world today. And God uses those with special prophetic gifting to get us looking in the direction He would have us focus on.

The task that every prophet faces today, as Isaiah, Jeremiah and all the prophets faced, is how to set about convincing people to address issues that God is concerned about, but to which they are blind and deaf. Because these people have stood in the counsel of the Lord, they are well placed to understand the link between cause and effect and to explain His heart.

We have already looked at how prominently Isaiah viewed the sovereignty of God. Everywhere in his utterances we see that the Lord Himself is the underlying bulwark of all history (which, of course, is His story). It is here that we see God’s lordship over life and creation spelt out most clearly, in language that reaches sublime spiritual and poetic heights. If you read chapters 40 onward in the light of this thought, it can hardly fail to expand your perception of the sovereignty of God.

Or take the prophet Amos. How could he get the people of this day to see the danger their ways had brought them to? First things first, he had to get his hearers ‘on side’. The skilful (and no doubt popular) stratagem he used was to denounce the sins of the neighbouring nations. It would be rather like an Englishman pointing out the shortcomings of the French! But then the prophet pays out some rope and begins to address the sins of Judah. We are dealing now with the equivalent of Scotland or Wales – and his hearers are no longer certain whether to jeer or to start getting afraid!

3.3 The Blessings of Bad News
 

Even God’s judgement is a mercy.

Finally, Amos does what he was wise enough not to have done at the outset. He tightens the noose and springs the trap. Israel (or ‘England’ in our analogy) you are no better! You stand under judgement too!  The people had no leg left to stand on. Amos’ skilful tactics had sowed necessary doubts into the hearts of his complacent hearers, and now he could proceed with his message. God has no ‘favourites’. His judgement affects us in proportion to the light we have received. Have we have responded to the opportunities – and the warnings – that have come our way? Then we have little to fear. But if we have dodged issues and cut corners, we will find God saying to us what He said to ancient Israel.

Those who minister healing to the soul must do so with a pure heart; so too must those who bring challenges from the Most High. Amos, like his great successor Jeremiah, is living proof that we have no right to denounce the sins of others unless they are also prepared to weep and pray for them. In chapter 7 we find Amos pleading for his people. His prayer mitigates the severity of the judgement, but it cannot prevent it altogether. The sins of the people have reached too high a pitch. Judgement, in the form of a terrible earthquake, would still visit the nation. But in His mercy, God gave a glimpse of blessing beyond the shaking. Even when individuals, churches and nations are ‘levelled’ by God’s chastisement, they can rise again and serve Him with greater holiness and humility.

What can we learn from Amos’ seemingly roundabout approach to tackling really thorny issues? Prophets often prefer to hint at issues and to leave it to people’s conscience and intelligence to decide what to do next rather than spelling everything out in detail. At other times, hints are not enough and matters need to be spelt out plainly. Ask God to give you wisdom to know what God is saying in a particular situation and how to speak words of life into the challenge you face.

3.4 ‘Why aren’t You doing something, Lord?’ (Habakkuk)

Just as Amos’ intercession was unable to prevent the earthquake, from time to the Lord may warn us that certain outcomes are going to be immensely distressing. Let’s drop in on the prophet Habakkuk, who was working late at the office one night, pouring out his heart in complaint to the Lord about the violence that was so marring society (sound familiar?). The answer he received to his complaint was so surprising, and so disturbing that God had to go into overdrive to convince His prophet that the message he had received was genuine. The conversation went something like this:
 

‘Lord, things are in a terrible state. You’ve got to do something about it.’ ‘I am, Habakkuk. But if I were to show you what I am about to do next, you wouldn’t believe it.’ ‘Want to bet on it, Lord? Try me for size.’ ‘All right then. I’m raising up the Babylonians to be the scourge of My people.’ ‘What??? You wouldn’t do that, Lord. You’re far too holy to use evil people like that to fulfil Your purposes.’ ‘I did warn you that you wouldn’t believe Me. But you need to take the message on board because that is what’s going to happen!’

What adjustments Habakkuk had to make! To his credit, he did get over his initial shock, and eventually worked his way through to a profound place of trust and acceptance, despite the horrors that were going to assail his nation.

Have you known times when the word of the Lord is as unwelcome to you as it was to Habakkuk? It happens from time to time. The quicker we accept what He says, and refuse to tinker and compromise, the wiser we will be – and the safer too! May we respond as well as Habakkuk did and continue to seek and praise the Lord even when there are no proverbial figs on our trees or cattle in our barns.

3.5 ‘The Weeping Prophet’ (Jeremiah)
 

Hear and pay attention, do not be arrogant, for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God before He brings the darkness, before your feet stumble on the darkening hills. But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly, overflowing with tears, because the Lord's flock will be taken captive. (Jeremiah 7:28; 13:15-17)

The book of Jeremiah portrays a sad epoch in the history of Judah. It also draws us intimately closer to the life and struggles of this heroic man than we get to any other of the other prophets. There was nothing easy about his calling. The Lord warned him from the outset that he would face opposition and even informed him that the people would not listen to him. He said much the same thing to Isaiah and Ezekiel.

Measured by our ideas of what constitutes success, which would presumably be the turning of the nation to the point where God could bless it rather than judge it, none of these prophets had any greater measure of success than their predecessors had done. But God does not judge by such standards. He calls us to wholeheartedly embrace the tasks He gives us to do, and to leave their outcome to Him. Is a saint who dies young on the mission field less of a success than the one who completes his three score years and ten in active service?

In the meantime, we must find ways to cope when people prove reluctant to hear the word that God has given. Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah all had to set their faces like flint to fulfil their calling, they guarded their hearts, for the most part, against bitterness and remained grief-stricken but compassionate towards the people’s stubbornness. They could see all too clearly that the people’s attitudes would lead the nation to suffering and captivity. It is not so different today.

3.6 ‘I am with you’ (Haggai)
 

Prophets stand in the courts of the Lord, and are given insight into why things are happening as they are.

By the time we reach the book of Haggai, we are into an entirely different scenario. This is a generation that has experienced judgement and exile - a nation who knows just how terrible it is when God calls time on sin. Any prophet speaking in these circumstances at least had the advantage that people believed that God could judge them. The trouble was, the pendulum had swung so far the other way: they had come to believe so much in God’s discipline that they no longer had much expectation left that they would ever know what it was to live again in the light of God’s pleasure. God may have miraculously moved to bring the first of the exiles back to Israel but their mindset was dominated by all the difficulties they set their eyes on: a ruined land, a crumbling infrastructure and a Temple that was just a pile of ruins.

But God, who had specifically taken His people into exile on account of their sins, wanted them to rebuild the nation. He didn’t want them to absorb the compromised spirit that prevailed amongst the people who still dwelt in the land. But the people were so discouraged and self-centred… How would God start to reach their hearts? Study the two short chapters of Haggai and you will be much the wiser.

Prophets stand in the courts of the Lord, and understand why certain things happen. They then have to find a way to communicate what they have learnt. They have to help people address the real reasons why things are as they are. Haggai’s questions are pithy and pertinent; they push through people’s weary self-centredness and force them to consider why their resources are drying up and why even their best intentions to rebuild the house of the Lord are proving so spectacularly unsuccessful.

The answer is simple. In their discouragement, the people had ended up looking after ‘number one’ rather than attempting the seemingly impossible and trying to redeem the nation for the Lord. It was time to reverse the pattern. If they would only put the Lord’s work first then their own needs would be met!

No sooner had the sorry truth begun to dawn on the people than the Lord hastened to reassure them that He would be with them in the days to come. To be sure, the task looked impossible, but if they were prepared to put their hand to the plough, His presence would be with them. That was it: the simplest of reassurances – but it was all it took to get the people trusting, hoping and working again. Almost overnight things turned round. Within an astonishingly short space of time the house of the Lord was rebuilt – and all because a prophet asked people the right questions and motivated them to start working again.

For Reflection

We will often come face to face with people who feel disheartened and discouraged. To kick-start faith’s engines back into action is a fine achievement! Ask the Lord to help you ask the right questions in the right way at the right time. Above all, it is His presence that rekindles hopes and releases His power. There is little more important than drawing these discouraged ones back into the Lord’s direct presence.

3.7 ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord’ (Zechariah)
 

History is 'His Story'.

God is into teams! When He raises up one, He often calls another to provide friendship and support. Two are better than one, and prophets work best when they are not obliged to ‘go it’ on their own. The succinctness of Haggai is matched by his better-known contemporary, Zechariah. His prophecies are a delight, revealing not just God’s hatred of sin so much as His heart for His people.

Zechariah encouraged the returning exiles that God was a ‘wall of fire’ about His people, and that He would do for them what they could not do for themselves. Countless times, as we face situations that are beyond our immediate resources, we will lift up our hearts and repeat the Lord’s promise to Zechariah: ‘not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord.

Zechariah’s experience is more overtly ‘charismatic’ than Haggai. He talks with angels, receives numerous visions and ends with the finest overview of the end times in the Old Testament. Chapters such as Zechariah twelve to fourteen are key pointers to what God is doing in unfolding His purposes in history.

3.8 ‘I’ll ask the questions and you can answer them!’ (Malachi)

For our final example from the Minor Prophets, we will move on to consider Malachi. Here is another example of the message being more important than the man, about whom we know precisely nothing. But he, like his predecessors, had to find a way to communicate a fundamentally unpopular message to a people who would not want to hear it. The strategy this messenger of God hit upon was brilliantly imaginative. He envisaged an imaginary dialogue between the people, who thought they were all right as they were, and God, who thought otherwise.

With high drama, wisdom and insight, Malachi’s rhetorical questions stressed not only how much God loved His people, but revealed the extent to which the people had become smug and lukewarm. How easily this happens when we no longer face any immediate threat to drive us back to God!

In much the same way, the Lord Jesus asked questions of His hearers. With consummate skill He turned back on His interlocutors the issues with which they were using to try to trick Him. He pierced their delusions and drew them on beyond their prejudices to reveal eternal truths.

It is not only children who ask questions. It can only be right to ask the Lord for prophetic wisdom to know how to proceed when you are faced with challenging issues.

3. 9 Understanding God’s heart for Israel

Zechariah presents us with a stark overview of what will happen to Israel at the end of this age. To understand this, however, we need to understand how Scripture ‘works’. There are many today who claim that the Church has inherited all the promises God made for Israel. When they do this, however, they are highly selective in which promises they adopt. It is as though they claim that all the ‘good’ promises belong to the Church – but the ones that spell out warnings and judgements are left in Israel’s court! This is poor exegesis, to say the least. It makes me want to say: ‘Don’t play dodge ball with the Scriptures!’
 

Being ‘chosen’ involves special responsibilities. To whom much is given, much is also expected.

The fact is that there are more than seventy references to Israel in the New Testament. In all but one of these, it is unequivocally clear that Israel stands for the actual nation of Israel. To start substituting the one for the other has causes much needless error and confusion. People schooled in today’s even-handed approach may not like it very much, but God selected the Jews for much the same reason that He chose us: to be a demonstration to the world of what He can do through a small, stubborn and insignificant people. Israel is His first-born son; we, by grace, are ‘grafted in’ and have full citizens’ right in the kingdom of heaven because of what the Lord Jesus did on the cross. But that does not necessarily mean that God has forgotten His first-born son.

Understanding God’s heart for Israel opens up a whole new vista for our understanding of the world. What it must not let us do is become bigoted in any way. The Lord loves Palestinians as well as Jews – and Israel is every bit as susceptible to judgement as any other nation. Special ‘chosen-ness’ always implies special responsibilities in the Scripture: to whom much is given, much is expected.

The history of Israel in both Biblical and more recent times is a microcosm of God’s dealings with mankind. No wonder Paul tells us to consider both the mercy and severity of God . Zechariah shows us that the spirit of supplication that will be poured out on Israel comes at a time of intense national distress. At long last the nation will come to believe and open their hearts to the one who came to save them, not to be an elite nation but from their sins.

3.10 Understanding the Second Coming

A major part of the prophetic thrust in Scripture is to prepare people for the return of our Lord Jesus in glory. For every prophecy in the Old Testament that points to the coming of the Lord Jesus there are far more that speak of His return. If every a would-be prophet needs to be a student of the prophets, then every Christian needs to devote time and energy to the subject of the second coming. After all, this is what the whole of history is leading up to!

Don’t worry - I’m not going to go into huge detail chasing the weird and wonderful doctrines and ‘time lines’ that so many have put forward concerning the sequence of events in the end times! Studying the doctrines of a-millennialism, pre-millennialism raptures and post-millennial tribulation is useful up to a point but can distract us from daily discipleship.

It led David Pawson to declare himself a pan-millennialist – it will all pan out in the end! What will help our understanding of the prophetic ministry, however, is to look at Mark 13:4, where Jesus speaks about the end of the world. At first glance, the time-scale appears as confusing here as it does everywhere else. No wonder Peter warns that there sometimes millennia rather than minutes between a word and its fulfilment! 
 

In prophetic utterances, time is often ‘telescoped’.

The key is to realise that Jesus was actually looking at two events. When we understand that, everything else begins to make sense. Within this one chapter, Jesus foresaw the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, and the end of the world and His return in glory to Planet Earth. Verses 18 and 29, for example, refer to AD 70, whereas verses 24 and 26 refer to the time of the end.

Not surprisingly, Jesus’ disciples found it hard to differentiate and sort out the two events. Why did Jesus speak in this way? Is it simply because, as so often with prophetic utterances, time is ‘telescoped?’ It is as though you look through a telescope and see the mountain peaks that stand up highest, but pass over the valleys in between. Thus AD70 was a critical event, the regathering of Israel as a nation was another such moment as, of course, will be Jesus’ final return to Earth. Jim Graham draws a helpful distinction when he speaks of the general future and the specific future. The general future refers to the fact that many people will be led astray in the last days – not just because they are taken up with pleasure-seeking but because they fall prey to perverse cults and deceptions. Minds will fall prey to delusions of all shapes and sizes even as hearts are thrown into turmoil and confusion by the world-shaking events that characterise the last days (vs. 5-8).

The gospel must be preached to all nations but this will happen against a backdrop of intense opposition. And let us bear in mind here that three languages out of four in the world today currently have no Scriptures available.

Verses 9-13 speak of a great persecution that will stem from both religious and political sources. It is heart-breaking when evil rulers hold sway over a nation. It is even worse when religious leaders oppose the work of the Spirit. The Pharisees, of all people, should have welcomed the Lord Jesus. Instead they resisted Him implacably. We find the same thing throughout church history. Those who are on the cutting edge of God’s Spirit come up amongst those who are unwilling to alter the established order of things. Even those who have been greatly used of God can prove hostile when God moves in new ways. How we need to keep our hearts humble and sour spirits attentive to what He is doing, so that we can stay on track with what the Lord is doing.

Hard though all this is to bear, verse 12 highlights the betrayal that comes from family members and those we thought were our friends and colleagues. This is the worst pressure of all. No wonder Jesus tells us emphatically to: ‘Stand firm to the end’ – a refrain that is taken up again throughout the book of Revelation.

Verses 14-23 take us back to a specific historical event: the dreadful destruction of Herod’s Temple, which occurred in AD 70. Jesus mentioned a specific sign that His followers were to watch for, so that they would leave the city before it was put to the sword. And this is precisely what happened nearly forty years after His prediction. When Jerusalem was besieged, the Roman troops retreated at one point to go in search of more supplies. Instead of being caught up in the general euphoria, the Christians used the interlude to leave the city. It is thought that there were no Christians left in Jerusalem when the Roman general Titus returned to the city and put it to the sword in a blaze of violence.

Jesus then went on to give simple pointers describing the general state of affairs in the world before His return. He also made it clear that His return will be highly visible. Nobody will be left in any doubt as to whether or not it has happened – a safeguard against the lunatic claims of so many cults that Jesus had already mentioned. In the phrase ‘If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would have survived’ we see the kindness of the Lord in saving us from truly intolerable suffering.

This is a splendid example of what is sometimes referred to as the ‘prophetic past tense’ – something we find from time to time in Scripture when an event is so certain to happen that it is described as if it had already happened. Although the date remains known only to the Father, this is not a conditional prophecy. It will undoubtedly happen, and it is right for us to live in such a way as to be always ready for His coming – and to echo in our hearts the longing of Christians through the ages by crying ‘Maranatha, Come, Lord, come!’


4 ~ Hidden Training

4.1 The training of a prophet is rigorous
 

I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful . . . If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to My Father's glory, that you bear much fruit. (John 15:1-2, 6-8)

I am always interested in how God prepared His servants for their prophetic ministry. How many years, for example, from the moment Samuel informed David that he was going to be king for it to come to pass? More or less two decades! There is nothing in the least bit unusual in that. Receiving the call is only the starting point; it is the equivalent of kneeling down on the starter’s blocks in readiness for the race to begin.

God saw the potential in David, just as he does in us, affirmed it clearly by giving precious promises – and then began a spiritual training programme, the rigour of which matches that of the SAS. The strange thing about this training is that much of it appears to take us right away from the direction the Lord had called us to. The more we humble ourselves and yield to God, the sooner we will come through this process.

Look at Jacob, who was called and blessed but exiled and made to suffer for fourteen years at the hands of Laban, the harshest of masters. Or Joseph. How could this youngest son be elevated above his brothers? There simply was no way in a hierarchical society for Joseph to usurp the hereditary succession. God had a plan for doing so, but so convoluted and painful that one would scarcely have dared to script it for a film. It involved being betrayed by his brothers and being imprisoned for a prolonged period of time for a sin he had resisted rather than committed.

If the young Joseph strikes us as being on the brash side who exalted perhaps a little too much in the ‘great things’ that God had promised him, we find maturity in him later - when it really mattered. And we can trace the reasons for this maturity precisely to the things that he had suffered. Suffering either causes us to give up – or to grow bitter – or it develops the necessary steel in our character that will enable us to prosper in the ways of God.

If the reversal of Joseph’s future is a dramatic foreshadowing of the greatest miracle of all – the resurrection of Jesus from the Cross – then we should note that Jesus taught so much on the need for perseverance, precisely because what God asks of us is always bound to seem impossible at first sight. Giving birth to a vision requires great stamina!

If listening to the Lord were a natural part of our lives, the Church would do all it could to welcome the watchmen and gatekeepers the Lord raises up. Unfortunately, ‘because our sins are so many, and our hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac. The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Israel, yet snares await him on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.’

If Paul was made to suffer for his discernment, when he expelled the familiar spirit from the slave girl in Acts 16, we can take it for granted that we will suffer too when we challenge vested interests or error, whether in the Church or society. The opposition can be intense. Satan’s hordes are strong and tenacious – but they are as nothing compared with the host of heaven.

What visions are you in the midst of birthing? The Lord give you grace to persevere through the ‘pain gap’ until what He has promised comes to birth – and wisdom and discernment to know which battles are ours to fight.

4.2 God is careful in what He allows to come our way
 

Bob Gass once made the profound and thought-provoking comment that ‘Jesus needed Judas as well as the beloved disciple John in order to fulfil His destiny!’

If you have had a problem with a particular person or situation, have you noticed how God seems to send a similar person or situation into your life at a later date? It doesn’t mean that God has given up on us, merely that He is testing us to see if we are able to handle them in a godly way – and so He sends us a rerun. He would not have allowed these things to come our way if they had been too difficult. In God’s heart, there is grace for our failures but a realistic expectation of our success.

But hearing can be a delicate matter, and specific words that people say to us can cramp and block our spirits. A respected leader challenged a friend of mine: ‘How do you know the Lord speaks to you?’ The challenge may or may not have been well-intentioned, but the effects were devastating. Although the Lord continued to speak to her in the course of the day she found doubts creeping in, to the point where she lost the desire to sit with the Lord and ask Him what He was doing.

The Lord spoke to me about this. He showed me that it was a specific ‘mid-spectrum’ blockage in her ability to hear the Lord. It turned out to be part of a recurrent pattern. When she had been a teenager she had begun to minister in healing, but had stopped doing so after her best friend urged her to lay off ‘because it was so embarrassing.’ The Lord prompted me to ask about her birth. It turned out to have been traumatic and life-threatening. The ‘squeeze’ mirrored the spiritual clamping that had occurred and gave us a key to pray for renewed freedom in the Spirit.

God is careful in what He allows to come our way – but it will often take the eye of faith to see our circumstances in the light of God’s sovereignty when we are going though the mill. The Body of Christ is full of wounded healers, exhausted burden bearers and those whose confidence to listen has been severely dented by all manner of discouragements. Make no mistake about it: this is a central battle area.

4.3 Testing for idolatry
 

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols (1John 5:1)

It is as well to be aware that the enemy is adept not only at using our weaknesses against us, but also turning our strengths against us. This is such an important issue that I feel the need to return to it. The enemy does not necessarily have to concoct new sins for us to fall into; he simply pushes buttons that expose and attack existing weaknesses in us. The devil’s aim is to get us to think, say or preferably do things that will get us into trouble – even to the point where God has to exercise a measure of judgement against us Himself.

The moment we begin to put anything, even the needs of others or our ministry, ahead of our relationship with the Lord we begin to lose our cutting edge. The trouble is, we have taught ourselves so effectively to say ‘the Lord comes first’ that we rarely recognise this process happening.
 

Judgement begins when discipline is ignored.

Try this simple test for where your heart loyalty lies. Given that the thing that most dominates our mind effectively runs the risk of taking God’s place, how would you feel if God were to ask for it (or that special person) back again? If you find that the thought provokes fear or anger, could it be that there is a potential idol in your life?

Because the Lord is a jealous God, He may need to take painful action, drastic even, in order to get us to refocus on what matters most to Him – the undivided devotion of our hearts. The more we yield willingly, the less painful we will find it. After all, it proceeds from His heart of love and is designed to refine and sharpen us, not so much to knock us out. Painful as it may be, it is born of the same passionate love for us that inspired Jesus to the cross and, as with the cross, it is for us, not against us.

4.4 Time Out: Sin Bins and Desert Zones
 

If we do not respond to the discipline God sends our way, He has to send a larger dose of it. Isn’t this the way any parent disciplines a child?

God sometimes has to pull us up short and sharp, because He sees that we are going to go badly off course if He does not. We cannot afford to be naïve or sentimental about this. If we are ever tempted to think that we are in some way so special to God that He would never have to discipline us then we are as foolishly deluded as the people in Micah’s day who thought that God would never deal with them that way. 

For Reflection

Judgement only begins when discipline is ignored. God is extra stringent with those who speak in His name and move in His authority. How can we minister if we are inwardly hungry for forbidden things? Or minister to brokenness, sorrow or of the pain of being rejected if we have known nothing of these things in our own lives?

If it takes serious humblings and major setbacks to bring us to a place of greater anointing, God is not squeamish. He will do all that it takes to make us men and women after His heart. The process is our qualification – not our note of dismissal.

Think how close Nineveh came to being judged. All because a certain prophet took exception to God’s clear command and ran away from his mission. God had more difficulty getting his reluctant prophet Jonah to go there in the first place than He did in convincing the citizens of that most hard-hearted of cities to repent before Him. But many of us argue and fight against His calling in just such ways.

Nebuchadnezzar spoke from first hand experience when he declared: ‘Those who walk in pride He is able to humble.’  How is God shaping and humbling you? Has He ever had to do to you something as drastic in its own way as what He did to Nebuchadnezzar? Only once? May we be flexible tools in His hands!

4.5 Prophets without Honour

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everybody appreciated the efforts we make on their behalf and the words and ideas that we bring? Trouble is, it doesn’t always work quite like that! Because we will often be called to challenge the status quo – to uproot and tear down as well as to build and to plant  we are sure to face misunderstanding and opposition. When this is through our insufficiently thought out plan or presentation, we deserve what comes our way. But the cost of bringing the ways of the Lord remains high.

Prophets see new ways of doing things, and make suggestions that threaten the way people have always done things. Which is easier, to embrace the new or to make life uncomfortable for the would-be prophet? When we have done all we can to minimise misunderstanding, and to explain most carefully what we believe God is saying, certain people may still prove unwilling to respond along the lines that God is ordaining. That is not our responsibility! We are answerable to God and must go on saying what God is saying, without fear or favour.
 

When a prophet is deified, his message is lost. The prophet is only useful so long as he is stoned as a public nuisance, calling us to repentance, disturbing our comfortable routines, breaking our respectable idols and shattering our sacred conventions. – A.G Gardener

4.6 The Matter of our Vindication

We have made it abundantly clear by now that prophets in training are in for a white-knuckle ride. A substantial percentage of us will experience nervous breakdowns at some point in the carrying out of our tasks and even end up being rejected by our church or organisation. What will enable us to continue when the going gets tough?
 

 A strong confidence in God’s call.  A dogged refusal to allow a foothold to bitterness or cynicism in our hearts.  A spirit of praise.  A sense of humour.  A least one sound friend who believes in us!

We must face a simple fact: people’s expectations of prophets and the prophetic ministry are often impossibly high. One departure from the high standard expected of us and people can be down on us like a ton of bricks. One reason for this is that people – not least pastors – are often subconsciously jealous of anyone who appears to have a closer walk with the Lord than they do and are quick to chastise any apparent inconsistency.

Nothing can stop people from saying the strangest things about us behind our backs. But if our attitude is gracious and forgiving, there is every possibility that many of them will eventually relent. Some may even become friends! In the meantime, we must pray for the Lord to make our hearts sharper rather than harder through the things that we suffer.

Many times I have known in my spirit that I am being spoken against. Sometimes the Lord has shown me who is doing this and has given me the grace to go and talk to the person or people concerned, which has sometimes served to clear the air. At other times there seems to be no alternative but to trust the Lord to be our ultimate vindication. Who said it would be easy?

For Reflection

Since the Lord often seems to lead us in ways that appear strange to the outsider (as well as to us!) we are wise if we leave the matter of our reputation firmly in the Lord's hands – especially if we are leaders!  The Lord alone vindicates our words and our calling. In the meantime, how do you guard your heart against feelings of self-pity when misunderstood or misrepresented? 

Be careful not to build such strong walls around you to protect yourself that you inadvertently end up keeping both the Lord and His people at a distance.

4.7 The way up is often the way down

I used to think it a tragedy that Watchman Nee, after years of fruitful sacrificial ministry, was thrown into a communist jail for nearly a quarter of a century and made to study Maoist doctrine. He was finally released only in order to go home and die. What a waste of twenty-five precious years. Or was it? All the time he was imprisoned, his writings were influencing countless Christians and sowing seeds from which there has been glorious ongoing revival.

God has designed it that we can only reach the place where we bring abundant life to others by going through some sort of a death experience ourselves first. ‘What you sow does not come to life unless it dies,’ Paul wrote, graphically illustrating Jesus’ teaching that it is only when the original seed dies that the real harvest comes.

If Joseph found that the way up often appears the way down, then so will we! It will feel at times as though God has forgotten all about His promises to us. But He has forgotten nothing. His eye is still on us. He will find ways to demonstrate His love and commitment, and to bring about the utterly impossible. Meantime, as we pass through our own ‘dungeon’ experiences, God trains us in spiritual warfare and teaches us new skills. We are not only not our own: we are bought at a price and we are being led by the Lord.

For Reflection

I believe that many of us have not progressed as far as we could with the Lord because we hold back at some point from yielding to His purposes. We are inclined to make bargains with Him. ‘If You will do this, then I will do that . . .’ We cannot afford any ‘no go’ areas in our life. It is poor discipleship that says, ‘I am willing to do anything and to go anywhere except ...’ Wisdom lies in letting the Lord have His way - unreservedly. He knows exactly what He is planning to do.
 

Lord, the process of making such a complete surrender appears daunting, but what could be more foolish than to hold back on You when you have our very best interests at heart? You never take anything from our lives without putting something richer back in its place. May we be stripped of our inclination to doubt and to grumble whenever You call time on something that has meant a lot to us in the past. Thank you that you are always thinking of us, and always leading us on. Please complete the training programme that you have in mind and bring real breakthroughs as a result. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

5 ~ Thus saith the Lord
 

Everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort. (1 Corinthians 14:3)

Here, in one short sentence, Paul summarises how the heart of God can be communicated to the people of God. Paul said, ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming’  Prophecy is all about putting courage into people.

5.1 A Burning Fire in our Hearts
 

Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has My word speak it faithfully . . . Is not My word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? (Jeremiah 23:29)

The word of God was burning so strongly in Jeremiah that he could not hold in, even though it would bring him repeated pain and rejection. At a less intense level, have you never felt your heart beating faster when the Lord is alerting you that He wants you to speak out? Fearful though you probably were, it was usually easier, and certainly far more satisfying, to give the word than to keep it in.
 

Father, help me not to be so impatient or over-excited that I miss the details of what you are saying about a situation. Give me grace to remain in Your presence, and not to go beyond what You are sharing.

Sometimes the leader of a meeting declares, ‘I sense God wants to speak’. How can they be so sure? Why are they spelling it out instead of just letting it happen? To impress people by how sensitive they are? Hopefully not. Rather they are declaring what God wants to do as a stimulus to encourage people who are ‘sitting’ on a word to speak it out. We may be given just a short sentence, or a very simple picture, but that may be exactly what somebody needs to hear. It often happens that the Lord reveals to us just the gist of a message. It is sometimes best to ‘hold on’ to it for a few minutes to see if the details become clearer and stronger. At other times we have to speak out in faith, not knowing exactly what we are going to say. We need to be especially careful then that we are indeed being led by the Spirit of God, rather than carried along by the excitement of the moment.

Don’t be in too much of a rush to pull away from the Lord’s presence to share what He’s been saying with others. He may have something more to say to you! Here’s a way to picture it. It’s a bit like getting an e-mail from God, complete with title. ‘Great!’ you say, and promptly rush to tell people you’ve had an e-mail from God. But if you had waited a bit longer you could have read the main part of the e-mail that the Lord was wanting to share with you! Sharing too hastily might be rather like receiving the title of an e-mail and forwarding it on instead of waiting for the body of the text to arrive.

Pluck up courage and act on God’s promptings. As your words are accepted, so you will gradually come to have more confidence that God can and does indeed speak through you.

5.2 Drawing others in: Prophetic Etiquette and Courtesy

Being prophetic means getting away from the structured safety of having one man, or one team, in charge, with all slots, activities and spaces neatly accounted for and pre-programmed. For leaders to hand over to the Holy Spirit means trusting the people in their charge. The reality is that it may well not always work out well. The prophetic craft can be as messy as any other apprenticeship. Resist the temptation to retrench when things go wrong.
 

The prophetic craft can be as messy as any other apprenticeship. Resist the temptation to retrench when things go wrong.

Wise are the leaders who learn to sense when God is asking them to involve others and to stand aside. For example, you sense the Lord’s anointing on someone to contribute. Make a platform for them to share. If you are not entirely confident in their abilities, invite them to share a contribution rather than handing over the rest of the meeting to them!

Pray for opportunities to share words of blessing into people’s life, but in such a way that it will help them to grasp the positive and to deal with the negative without straying into flattery, condemnation or delusion. Encourage people to carefully test what you share. Likewise, take hold of words that have been given to you: weigh them first then weave them into the way you approach life. What’s the use of the Lord speaking if we do not take them on board and commit ourselves to what He has said? May all the Lord has spoken over you come to pass!

5.3 When people don’t want to hear
 

These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction. They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets, Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel! (Isaiah 30:9-11; cf Jeremiah 7:28)

Isaiah’s listeners were prepared to listen to him – but only if the content of his message was trimmed to suit their own desires. Jeremiah’s hearers were more inclined to scoff. But prophets have to keep speaking God’s message faithfully. True, we may sometimes be able to shape what God has shown us (to find the best way to present it), but we can never afford to dilute it. Let’s face it: God wouldn’t be God if He didn’t show us home truths we are reluctant (or incapable) of seeing. What matters is how we respond.
 

Wisdom is knowing how best to package the message. It only becomes devious when people try to manipulate facts or emotions.

Wisdom is knowing what to do with the message God has given us. Deviousness is to try to manipulate crucial facts. Paul became all things to all men in order to win them for Christ  but he didn’t present another Christ in the process. His approach to the Athenians (who had no knowledge of the God of Israel) was very different to when he met the Bereans who were made up of orthodox Jews.  Paul deployed all his God-given wisdom to reach his hearers. Isn’t that precisely how the prophets sought to reach their audience?

We can lose our audience entirely by presenting matters one way, when another approach would have won their hearts. For example, much that we receive from the Lord can be introduced into prayer or conversation without necessarily being prefaced by a ‘Thus says the Lord’. But there are limits. To find God’s angle for sharing a message is sheer wisdom; to ‘doctor’ or dilute it in order to make the message – or the messenger - more acceptable ends up compromising the non-negotiable and misrepresenting the Lord altogether.

Neither are we wise to adopt a style that is simply ‘not us’ unless God clearly tells us to do so. When Billy Graham first went to Cambridge he switched from his normal style and tried to adopt an academic approach to present the Good News. When he met with little success, he reverted to his normal style of preaching - and far more students were won for the Kingdom!

There is nothing wrong with giving considerable thought to the matter of presentation and to study literary styles and other forms of communication. Many of these will become familiar and intuitive for us once we have grasped the principles that lie behind them. You may find my publication, ‘The Art of Creative Writing’ helpful in this respect.

5.4 Listening for Others: Crafted Prayer and Prophecy

Graham Cooke has recently published a series of short books including an excellent one on Crafted Prayer (Sovereign World). The concept of crafting a prayer about situations that we face, or for people who we care for, is an excellent one. I have adopted the model he used in a workshop in which he divides people into pairs (often with people who have never met before) to wait on the Lord for that person. As the Lord begins to speak, carefully record these insights and thought associations, but without saying anything to the other person. After a few minutes, work these ideas into a ‘crafted’ prayer for the person as if writing a letter back to God, asking Him to do the things that He has already told you He wants to do. Before you share this with them, however, go one stage further and turn it into a word as if it was coming directly from the Lord. That is, take time to share with the person both the prayer and the ‘prophecy’.

It may sound a somewhat mechanical and calculating approach – presumptuous even – but I have found this a most valuable way to help develop the word of the Lord. Certainly the first time I did this exercise, the Lord spoke to me clearly through the person praying for me. It has proved a consistently worthwhile tool to work with.

We can apply the concept of crafted prayer to complex subjects and topics as well as to individuals. Why not chose such a subject or a person and have a go?

5.5 The prophetic draws out and releases new giftings
 

‘Imagination is the greatest of all the gifts which God has given us. It makes us full of eyes, without and within.’ (Alexander Whyte) ‘One in the eye is worth two in the ear!’ (Boxing Manual)

People often assume that the prophetic ministry is primarily concerned with addressing people’s faults and failings. It would be nearer the mark to claim that it is even more about seeing the best in each other and finding ways to draw out these qualities in them. It is a wonderful gift to be able to see beyond a person’s sins and shortcomings to see their deep heart longing to be different and better. True prophecy strengthens and treasures what people can become in Christ rather than just what they are.
 

God sees over the horizon. He wants us to be able to discern giftings and callings that are not yet visible to the naked eye.

When the Lord called Gideon a ‘mighty warrior’, it hardly sounded like an objective comment, least of all to Gideon himself. But God saw what Gideon could become and spoke it into being. The Lord sees potential where we see only weaknesses – the oak tree that the little acorn will become. The prophetic addresses the treasure that God has placed within people, things that they themselves may be entirely unaware of. His words release us into an entirely new level of confidence and sphere of anointing to do things that would previously have been completely beyond us.

What a privilege to be, as it were, embarked on a glorious treasure hunt to identify and help release God’s gifts and blessings into people’s lives.

The Lord is always looking for people to raise up and promote. Just before our first wider prayer conference, our pianist fell ill. Everybody we invited to replace him was unavailable. I was really upset! Walking in town the day before the conference was due to begin, I bumped into someone who had been part of a group I had led. When I asked him why he had come a day early, he replied that he had felt prompted to come and offer his services as a pianist. I had no idea he even played the piano! As we watched him leading worship the following evening, someone had clear discernment that this marked the beginning of a wider ministry for him. The whole conference was greatly enriched because the pianist had waited on the Lord and received instructions to come early. Sure enough, his ministry has long since gone from strength to strength.

Elijah's final commission was a truly prophetic action: to appoint a young farmer called Elisha as his own successor. Whereas Saul had hounded David, his potential successor, at the point of his spear, Elijah would do everything he could to develop the ministry of his young apprentice. The contrast between Elijah's nurturing spirit and King Saul's insane jealousy could hardly be greater. Any church or organisation that is failing to plan ahead to raise up its successors is lacking in its vision. The Lord is always thinking of the next generation. Who are you reaching out to mentor or be mentored by?

5:6 The prophetic enables us to discern strongholds

Just as we are to see potential in people, so the Lord also wants us to uncover the roots of historical and spiritual blockages. In the wings of the political and social stage today lurk many dangers and wrong practices the Lord would want to alert some of us to

When there was prolonged famine in Israel, David sought the Lord. It was revealed to him that it was due to the Israelites’ violation of their promise to spare the Gibeonites. Not until this had been atoned for did God again answer prayer on behalf of the land. Coverdale delightfully translates this last verse ‘God was again at one with the land’ – the true meaning of at-one-ment.

It is important to realise that ‘ordinary’ prayer would not have been sufficient in this instance to end the famine. Why? Because there was an underlying cause which needed to be brought to light and attended to. Prophetic insight should therefore be a natural part of our prayer. So many of our prayer meetings concentrate on what has already happened. We rush to prayer action-stations in response to some trouble or need, rather like a fire-brigade racing off to put out a fire. Prevention is better than cure!

When God judged Judah through Nebuchadnezzar after nearly forty years of warning from the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord declared that it was primarily for the sins Manasseh had let loose in the nation that the nation was being judged. But Manasseh had lived nearly a hundred years before! What’s more, the sins of Manasseh’s day, had, to some extent, been reformed under King Josiah. In the Lord’s eyes, the repentance had clearly been insufficient. Jerusalem fell, and the people went into exile.

Before we translate this scenario into a contemporary setting, and complain that it wouldn’t be fair for us to be judged today for something that was done at the turn of the last century, it is important to grasp that it is not for isolated misdemeanours but for accumulated sins that nations are judged – ‘for three sins, even for four’, as Amos puts it. Our own society may have long since left behind the worst excesses of the appalling working conditions that prevailed in the mines and factories of the Victorian era, but has it really repented of the grasping, exploiting attitudes that lay behind these outward social ills? The evidence is clearly against it. And the Bible tells us that we reap what we sow.

The good news is that nothing here is fatalistic. As a nation Britain sowed the wind through the unspeakable atrocities of the slave trade. Many years ago the Lord led intercessors to pray for the cities which had been at the heart of the slave trade and which, at the time, were showing signs of acute racial unrest: Bristol, London and Liverpool. We believe the Lord has answered prayer and is bringing new life to these cities despite the guilty past. God is in the business of redeeming. Prophets like Martin Scott and many others are working hard on praying for bad roots to be removed and the power of God to visit our physically affluent but spiritually needy communities.
 

Lord, grant us Your discernment concerning the events of our times, to recognise real dangers and to respond as You call us to pray. May we play our part in the spiritual war to save our nations. Continue Your work of training those with prophetic giftings in secret places in preparation for the day when the Church will again be ready to receive Your clear directives. May Your voice be heard, Your insights be received, Your people be willing to turn from their own interests and comforts to pray for Your will to be done – and Your ways be followed. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

6 ~ And all the people replied . . .
 

Do not quench [put out] the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22)

So you’re pretty sure you’ve heard God say something to you? That’s great! The next stage of the process is to know what to do with what you’ve heard.

6.1 What next?
 

Knowing what to do with what we hear is a separate art from receiving it in the first place

Some churches are so unfamiliar with the whole dimension of prophecy that they do not know how to respond. In all too many other cases God’s words are not taken seriously enough for a rather different reason: they come so thick and fast that there is no mechanism for pondering them. We hear and accept His words and yet would be hard pushed to remember them only a few hours or a few days later. We are not unlike the people of Ezekiel’s day who heard the prophet’s words, approved of them wholeheartedly, but did nothing to change their way of life. 

The flesh may scream that we should share some word that we have just received now (after all, it gives us a certain kudos to be able to present such a powerful word!) but the wiser course of action is often to wait. Many of the words the Lord gives us can be written down, tested and presented later when we have had time to see what else the Lord wanted to say about the matter in hand.

All this points to a huge need to record prophecy carefully and to weigh it properly. God wants us to take the key promises and messages that He sends us seriously. These will come in different forms – Bible passages, specific prophecies, or illustrations that we hear which we recognise as having a specific relevance for us. We need to meditate on what God gives us, and let its message reach right down into the depths of our hearts. And then, having pondered its relevance for us as individuals or as a wider grouping, we must look to see it outworked – without falling into the trap of trying to bring the vision to pass by our own efforts. God will bring it about in His way and in His time, but it is right that we pray and work towards it.
Sometimes God says things just because He wants to! Not everything needs to be spoken out or even prayed about. Some things, it seems, are just God sharing His heart because He wants to.

6.2 The Fitting Forum
 

Lord, help us to remember to ask You to show us the right forum in which to share the words You give us. Amen.

Sometimes the Lord uses a particular meeting as a window of opportunity in which to release a word in our hearts but that does not automatically make it the right forum in which to share the word. If it is always right for our first question to be what are You saying, Lord, our second should be when and how do You want us to pass this word on to others? Should I speak it now? Does something else need to happen first?

Christine Larkin shared how the Lord gave her a word one January about something bad that was going to happen in the autumn. She did not say anything at the time because it might have induced fear. After the bad thing had happened, however, she was able to share it – not as a prophetic word about what would happen in the future but, as God had intended all along that it should be a message of comfort in a difficult time.

Have you known times when God has shown you something that is best kept in prayer between yourself and God? That is something we should increasingly expect as the ‘overflow’ of our intimacy with the Lord. At other times our best course of action is to take what we have been shown to our leaders rather than to share the matter immediately with all and sundry. To share certain warnings in public might excite fear or gossip. If the prophetic and pastoral are working together in tandem, we can leave it to the discretion of the leaders how they respond to what God has said.

It is always worth remembering that what we are given are only ever partial words or understandings about people and situations. They may not even make any sense to us, but if we pass them on with as much accuracy, love and wisdom as possible (resisting the temptation to elaborate or exaggerate what God has said) we will often delight to discover that these insights give a great deal of strength and confirmation.

6.3 Let no word fall to the ground
 
Prophecy comes to the whole church. The responsibility for recognising that the Spirit of the Lord is speaking, and for acting on the word given, lies with the leaders of the meeting, who are acting on behalf of the whole Church. Some churches delegate this initial testing to those who have shown themselves to be particularly gifted in this realm: a prophetic team in other words. This is an excellent idea – so long as this prophetic team does not ‘stifle’ contributions from other people by approving each other’s words and frowning on anything that comes from a different quarter.

If we fail to test prophecies, we are actually failing to do what the Lord has charged us to do. I have seen churches warned through prophecy of dangers which they have refused to face up to, just as Saul did not heed Samuel’s rebuke and was ultimately rejected by God as king over Israel.  ‘If you will not listen I will weep in secret because of your pride,’ the prophet says.  There are always serious consequences when societies, professions, cultures and individuals do not heed God’s wisdom.

For Reflection

Taking the word of God seriously means finding ways to ponder it, distribute it and then to pray it into being. Would the Lord show you some way of improving this vital aspect of the prophetic ministry? How do you and your fellowship test words, personally and corporately?
 

Father, may we run with the specific promises and directives You have given us, and not be swayed by that which is best left to one side. Help us to tell the difference! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

6:4 Hold fast to that which is good

Leaders must be free to do as they think right with a prophecy. If they are happy with it, they can release it to the wider body. If they do not feel comfortable with it, the kindest, as well as the wisest, thing to do is to spend time with the person who gave the word, explaining why they do not feel able to release it wider. After all, the person concerned probably required considerable courage to share it in the first place. Loving feedback will help them grow and develop in their gift. It is nonsense to think we can learn to prophesy accurately overnight. But prophetic skills can be refined and, to a considerable extent, taught.

We saw earlier that prophets are the eyes of the Church. Blessed are the pastors and leaders who make room for that gift – and who stand by people who sometimes ‘run out of words’, or who ‘continue beyond their anointing,’ and make inevitable mistakes as they develop their ministry. At the same time, leaders must be on hand to reassure the fellowship by preventing false words from being acted on.

If Paul tells us specifically to hold fast to that which is good , the implication is that there will be other parts that are not worth holding on to. There have been times when people have ‘dumped’ on us words that owe more to their particular outlook on life (or to wishful thinking) than to the authentic word of the Lord. If we can identify these ‘words’ for being what they are – something much less than a full-blown word of the Lord - they will not do much harm. But that is a big ‘if’. It requires considerable courage to affirm that they are not right. We are right to be cautious of rejecting a genuine word of God, even whilst needing to guard against the spurious.

Sometimes it is even more complicated. For example, the spirit behind the word may be sound, even if certain aspects of the prophecy stray beyond the anointing. If so, we are wise to separate out the over optimistic without dismissing the whole thing.

6.5 Grace to step out

In change management theory, certain types of people are seen as facilitators whilst others are resistors. So much will never come to pass as long as people resist the Spirit’s leading and refuse to step out.

Jackie Pullinger highlights our fear and our reluctance in the whole realm of listening to God by pointing out that when a tongue is given in a meeting, almost everybody immediately begins to pray for somebody else to be given the interpretation! Many of us have held back in such ways and as a result have not developed the gift that