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Welcome
Enjoy... But remember
"Don't give in to winning the argument
and losing one of your eternal crowns..."
God bless you...
Enjoy... But remember
"Don't give in to winning the argument
and losing one of your eternal crowns..."
God bless you...
Gift of Prophecy 
Prophecies (Wahshing)
Curiosity (Royston Ong)
No scripture says prophesy has stop (True Light)
Prophet & Prophecy (Wahshing)
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Some questions we need to ask: Is the gift of prophecy exactly like the prophecy we see in the O.T. for example, or has the gift of prophecy ceased for today's church?
If prophecy is still valid, then how is it to be used and how do we really know if someone has the gift of prophecy? Does prophecy always have to do with telling future events? There are two basic positions which many in the church take today concerning prophecy. 1) The first group are known as Cessationists. These are evangelical Christians who believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as prophecy, have ceased with the death of the last apostle and are no longer valid for the church today. They would refer to these type of supernatural gifts as Apostolic gifts. 2) The other group falls into the broad classifications of Charismatics and Pentecostals. These Christians believe that all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including the gift of prophecy, never ceased and are designed for the edification of the church today. Within this second group, (Charismatics; Pentecostals), are varying views as to what these supernatural gifts are and how they are to be utilized within the Body of Christ. The gift of prophecy is a gift from God. 1Co 13:1 "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." For anyone to use a gift in the Body of Christ with the motive of showing everyone how spiritual they are or to use it to place ourselves above others, while at the same time slighting those who may not have the same gift or gifts, is not love. The gifts of the Spirit are given by the Spirit to unify us in the Spirit so that the Body of Christ may be built up for God's glory. Though some churches, who claim to be Spirit-filled, may place more emphasis on the experiences of the gifts over the truth of God's infallible word, many traditional churches have erred equally as they promote an orthodoxy devoid of certain legitimate works of the Spirit. I believe the Scriptures teach a balanced approach to all of life. Jesus told us that we must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. That is not limited to a worship service. Rather, all of life should be an act of worship for the Christian and the Christian must approach all aspects of living for Christ, as he or she relies on the truth of God's written word, coupled with a total reliance on His Spirit who enables us to walk in that truth as we surrender our lives to Christ as our love gift to Him. When we look at O.T. prophets of God we usually consider men like Isaiah, Moses, Daniel, Jeremiah and others. But when we look at these men we should ask certain questions, like: What was their purpose? How much authority did they have? What happened if someone dared to disobey them? And did they ever make mistakes? O.T. prophets main function was to be messengers of God. They were given messages by God and then they would take those messages, word for word, to the people of Israel. Those same messages were then to be a permanent written record for all time. In the case of Balaam we see what God desires of His messengers in terms of what He wants them to say. NUM 22:38 ..... "I must speak only what God puts in my mouth." And so "a true prophet is one whom the Lord has truly sent (Jer.29:9). But false prophets who prophecy lies are ones whom the Lord says, I did not send them.' "(Jer.29:9) Now the reason that this is important is because these prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord carried with them the authority of the Lord Himself. In other words, the origin of the message came from God Himself and they are the actual words of God. It's very common throughout the O.T. to see the phrase, "The word of the Lord, which He spoke by his servant the prophet." (1Ki.14:18; 16:12; 2Ki.9:36; 14:25; 17:23; 24:2; 2Chr.29:25; Ezra 9:10-11; Neh.9:30; Jer.37:2; Zech.7:7; etc.) "To disbelieve or disobey an O.T. prophet's words is to disbelieve or disobey God Himself." And so when we look at the prophets of the O.T., whom God chooses, what we see is that when they spoke in the name of the Lord none of their utterances were to be questioned. It's not as though the listeners were given permission by God to evaluate what was said, as either being good or bad, and then decide for themselves whether they should obey the message. If the message came from God, through the prophet, they had no other choice but to obey. And they must view God's prophet as the authoritative spokes-person for God. And so we read that "when Samuel was established as a prophet, "the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. (1Sa.3:19). Because Samuel was a man of God, (that is, a prophet), Saul's servant could say in 1Sa.9:6, 'All that he say's comes true.'" This means that when a prophet spoke in the name of the Lord, even if one prophecy did not come true, or one message he claimed as coming from God was proved to be false, he was a false prophet.' This is what we read in Deut.18:22 "If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him." In fact, the office of prophet was so awesome as carrying the responsibility of giving God's actual message that the penalty for false prophecy was death. DEU 18:20 "But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death." "And so what we see is that what God spoke through the O.T. prophet had absolute divine authority, extending even to the very words the prophet used." In Theological terms this is referred to as plenary inspiration. This is not to say that a prophet could not sin or that the prophet himself was infallible. But, when he spoke in the name of the Lord, as God gave him utterance, the actual words from God, through the prophet, are infallible and carry the full weight of divine inspiration and authority. And so when it comes to the O.T. every part is God's very words spoken through His messengers. And so what the O.T. says, God says, and to disbelieve or disobey it is to disbelieve or disobey God Himself. When we come to the N.T. "we might expect that N.T. prophets would be just like the O.T. prophets. But when we look through the N.T. itself this does not seem to be the case. There is little if any evidence for a group of prophets in the N.T. churches who could speak with God's very words (with absolute divine authority that could not be questioned) who had the authority to write books of scripture for inclusion in the N.T." "On the other hand, there is a very prominent group of people in the N.T. who do speak with divine authority and who did write most of the books of the N.T. These men are called not prophets, however, but apostles. In many ways they are similar to the O.T. prophets." It's interesting to note that throughout the N.T. there are several times when apostles are connected with O.T. prophets, but the gift of prophecy in the N.T. is never connected with O.T. prophets in the same way. That doesn't mean that reference isn't made to the apostles as giving prophetic utterance in the N.T. sense, but that doesn't equate a N.T. prophet with an O.T. prophet. "What's interesting though is that Paul, for example, never appeals to a gift of prophecy to establish his authority--something which would have been very natural and very easy if all N.T. prophets had been commonly thought to speak words with absolute divine authority. Rather, when Paul wants to establish his authority, he always appeals to his status as an apostle." 2Co 1:1 "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:" Gal 1:1 "Paul, an apostle--sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead--" He say's the same thing to the Ephesian church, the Colossian church, and addresses Timothy in 1st and 2nd Timothy the same way. "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ", so as to identify his authority which must be adhered to, because what he spoke on behalf of God he spoke with divine authority, just as the O.T. prophets. Like the O.T. prophets who spoke divinely inspired words of God, to be obeyed by God's people, the Apostles were divinely inspired by God Himself to give us the very words of God that we might know who God is and the salvation we can only have through Jesus Christ. In fact, Peter recognizes that when the apostle Paul wrote on behalf of God to the church, he wrote words which were the exact equivalent of the O.T. scriptures, which are the very words of God. 2PE 3:15 "Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." But, like the O.T. prophets, the words which God has given us through His apostles are meant to be taken as Gods very word which must be obeyed and followed because the God of the universe desires for us to know Him and walk with Him, without compromise, according to His word and the power of the Spirit, which we are not to quench by avoiding such power through unbelief and rebellion. Prophecy is something that originates with God, but there is a difference between prophecy and prophets in the O.T. and the N.T. But the common thread throughout the entire Bible is that God has given us His very word through the apostles of the N.T. and the prophets of the O.T. Of course, the prophet of God did not give just messages of the future, which we often think of when we use the word prophecy. To prophesy actually means to speak with inspiration. Whether a prophet in the O.T. was given a dream or vision by God to share with the nation Israel, or he was given a command by God to admonish or rebuke the nation for disobedience, it was all a form of prophecy, because the prophet was speaking by inspiration of the Holy Spirit as God gave him utterance. And so when we speak of O.T. prophets and N.T. apostles from this perspective we mean those who speak on God's behalf under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit with the express purpose of recording God's very word which we have as the Bible, the scriptures. This Bible is no longer being added to since God completed it. What we have in our possession is the entire revelation of God's very word in the Old and New Testaments as He desires us to have it. This distinction is important if we're going to understand the N.T. "gift of prophecy", which is part of the list of gifts found in Rom.12:6; Eph.4:11, and 1Co.12:28, which were not to be limited to the apostles, but were to include anybody in the church whom the Lord chose to gift. Any gift from God is to be used for His glory and should never be used to puff oneself up as though we earned or deserved such a gift or that we should be proud in an arrogant way. This was part of the problem in the Corinthian church during aul's time and he addressed it in 1CO 4:6 "Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written." Then you will not take pride in one man over against another. <7>For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" If God has gifted, you don't act as though you created this ability yourself. A gift is a gift. It's something someone else gives you that did not belong to you before and that you didn't earn or deserve. When God gives gifts to His people we are to humbly acknowledge it as a gift of grace and use it to glorify Him and edify the body of Christ. Each person in the body of Christ has been given gifts for service by God Himself. Not everyone has the same gifts any more than an orchestra is only made up of one instrument. Each serves a purpose and each is very important. And if God gives each of us a gift to be used in the body then we must use those gifts because it pleases God. Some in the church have placed prophecy in the same category as the prophets of the O.T. who spoke the very words of God which were not to be questioned. Some Christians today will often preface their prophetic utterance with the phrase, "Thus saith the Lord" and proceed to speak with an authority which God did not intend with this gift. This is one of the reasons that those who practice the N.T. gift of prophecy, as though it were the equivalent of O.T. prophecy, find themselves presuming revelation which can be, in practice, on an equal par with the written word of God, which the Lord delivered to us by His prophets and apostles. This is why certain of the teaching coming out of some Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches places more emphasis on these revelations from God than on the written word. When the word of God is diminished we open ourselves up to all sorts of strange teachings which are supposedly "revealed" by the Spirit. And what we end up with is anything other than the true practice of the gift of prophecy. To suggest that the gift of prophecy is the equivalent to O.T. prophecy denies the closing of the Canons of scripture by God when the last part of the N.T. was delivered, and allows us to add to the word which the apostle John warned we must never do. The N.T. gift of prophecy must never be used to take the place of scripture, nor should it be placed as the most important gift in the church, outside of scripture. Some churches want nothing to do with the gift of prophecy, or any other supernatural gift from the Spirit, they deny their existence by teaching they were only for the first Century church. We must teach the whole counsel of God and teach the proper use of such gifts. COL 3:23 "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, <24> since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." excerpt from Calvary Chapel..
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