ARE YOU CALLED TO BE PROPHETIC?

What is God saying NOW, to the generation of today?

..."It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' " Matthew 4:4 (NKJV)

The Bible exists because God spoke and the Bible tells us He still speaks.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. John 10:27-28 (NIV)
If you know Jesus, you can hear His voice.
There is no doubt that God speaks clear simple messages to us.

"'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. 

• Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 

• Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. Acts 2:17-18 (NIV)

• When God says He speaks, then He means what He says and He says what He means.

How do you know what God is saying and what comes from your own mind?

• Our spiritual hearing and our spiritual discernment is often imperfect. We are aware of fragments of messages, a word here or there, a phrase, an internal visual impression in our mind.

Some people find this scary. They would rather not listen at all if they think they might get it wrong.

• Under the Old Covenant, a prophet who made a false prediction of future events should be stoned to death as a false prophet. 

• Some people are afraid of any kind of prophecy because this is so terrifying.

However, we are not under the Law of Moses.

• The Apostle Paul urged ALL believers in Corinth to EARNESTLY DESIRE to prophesy.

Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. 1 Corinthians 14:1 (NKJV)

• If you pursue love and prophesy in love to build people up, we will avoid many mistakes because God is love and He always want to encourage His children.

In the same chapter, Paul writes:

I wish you all spoke with tongues, 

•  but even more that you prophesied; 

for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification. 1 Corinthians 14:5 (NKJV)

• In case you think speaking in tongues is not important, note that Paul wishes that all believers who speak in tongues but even more that they would prophesy.

Paul then goes on to say that ALL may prophesy.
But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all. 1 Corinthians 14:24 (NKJV)

• If the penalty for making a mistake in New Testament prophecy is death by stoning or severe church discipline, why would Paul so recklessly encourage ALL to seek to prophesy?

So what is the safeguard against misleading messages which seem to come from God but do not?

Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. 1 Corinthians 14:29 (NKJV)

The more believers are trained to hear God’s voice and to prophesy, the better they will be able to judge and discern the accuracy of inspired words given by others.

• I recently visited a church in Germany where prophesy was encouraged, where anybody in the congregation could share a prophetic word or pray out loud, just as they did in the New Testament.

One of the church leaders (not the preacher for that day) would listen to what the Holy Spirit seemed to be saying through the worship music, through the sermon, through testimonies or spontaneous prayers and through prophesies. 

This leader would write notes during the meeting and then stand up and summarise what he or she thought were the main things the Holy Spirit seemed to be saying through people.

If someone shared an inaccurate or incorrect prophecy, the leader could correct it, ignore it or emphasise only the part of the message which was true.
With prophesy and preaching, there will always be a mixture of divine inspiration and human thought.

Nevertheless, God chooses to speak through imperfect people.

GOD WANTS HIS CHURCH BACK

God appointed His son Jesus to be the shepherd of His church. The sheep belong to Jesus alone. 

"I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. John 10:11 (NASB) 

The sheep are one flock. 

"I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. John 10:16 (NASB) 

The “sheep of this fold” refers to the Jews who follow Jesus as Messiah and the “other sheep” are the non Jews, which means most of us.

• Think about it. One flock means unrestricted fellowship between all believers in one undivided community.

The Apostle Paul wrote of the unity and equality of all believers.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 (NKJV) 

God said there must be no distinction or restriction of fellowship between Jews, Greeks, slaves or free men, men or women. 

How can we read this text and yet isolate ourselves as we do into factions or denominations, with only limited fellowship between different brands of believers?

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he clearly saw all believers in that city as one church. 

• They met in different houses yet Paul addressed them as one church. The same is true for Paul’s letters to other cities. Yet when the church in Corinth was still quite new, believers had begun to form factions.

Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ.” Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not! 1 Corinthians 1:12-13 (NLT) 

The same is true today. 

We believe we are all members of body of Christ on earth, NOT THE BODIES of Christ. 

• Yet in practice we think and speak and behave as if Christ had a Baptist body, a Methodist body, an Assemblies of God body, a Lutheran body and a Catholic Charismatic body.

Nearly 500 years ago, the Christians of Western Europe were ruled by a single church organisation directed by the Pope in Rome. There was a kind of unity imposed by force. The Pope was like an Emperor and High Priest who dominated Europe and decreed who could go to heaven or hell. 
When the Reformation came, Catholic priests like Luther and Zwingli declared independence from Rome. They translated the Bible into German, so everyone could read the Word of God. This lead to a rapid chain reaction. Within a generation, the Bible translations were available in English and several other West European languages. 

At that time, only a small percentage of Europeans could read. The availability of the Bible encouraged many people to learn to read. 

• Nevertheless, the a great many believers remained illiterate and dependant on preachers. 

• Why is it that so many modern Christians are still over dependent on preachers, since nearly everyone can now read the Bible? 

Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and other leaders formed new churches, independent from Rome but still strongly under the control of priests, now called Pastors. 

In addition, the new churches depended on political patronage and protection from German princes, Swiss provincial governments and later English kings. 

• Why? Because the alternative was a brutal invasion by Catholic armies, leading to widespread massacres of Protestant believers. This actually happened several times in the centuries leading up to the Reformation. 

The Reformers also argued over theology, so Lutherans and Calvinists could not enjoy fellowship with each other. 

• Luther and Zwingli brutally persecuted Baptists who “rebaptised” believers and declared independence from the new Protestant church empires. 

• Since then, Protestants have split and split and split until we have thousands of churches.

We do not have to go on being victims of church history. 

Every believer is your brother or sister. The fellow believer in your street or workplace is probably from a different church or tradition. That makes no difference. 

Embrace your brothers and sisters in your street, your workplace, your Facebook network. Embrace them in practice, in fellowship, in friendship, in the prayer of agreement.

"God wants His church back." (Quote from Kathie Walters).

WHEN YOU NEED COMFORT ...

We live in a world where families are falling apart. Children are broken hearted. Many men and women with grey hair are still broken hearted children inside. 

• We so much need the healing power and love of God.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3 (NIV) 

Jesus experienced the pain of rejection over and over again. 

When He was about 18 months to 2 years old, His earthly parents had to flee the country and live as refugees in Egypt. When Jesus was still a little boy, His parents returned to Israel and lived in a village with a bad reputation. 

Everyone knew Jesus was conceived before Mary married Joseph. Religious people can be very cruel and village gossips destroy lives.

The Father in Heaven loves you and me. He sent His only Son to live the life we live, to experience the pain of rejection with us and for us.

He is like a father to us, tender and sympathetic to those who reverence him. Psalm 103:13 (TLB) 

The prophet King David cried out to God.

Feel my pain and see my trouble. Forgive all my sins. Psalm 25:18 (NLT)

• When Jesus came as the Messiah, He answered this prayer in full. God was not a cruel father to send Jesus to be tortured to death on the cross. Jesus volunteered and willingly offered Himself for you and me.

When Jesus spoke about His intention to die on the cross. His disciples didn’t understand.

John 14:6-7 (NIV) 6  Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7  If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." 

• When you see Jesus suffering on the cross, you see the Father loving you.

FAITH, HOPE and LOVE are FOREVER

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV) 
If we read this verse quickly, we may miss the glory of it. 

• We know the love of God is forever. 

• We know eternal life is saturated with eternal love. 

• We know we need faith now because we must trust where we cannot see God face to face. 

We live by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7 (NIV) 

• We know there is a better world and a better life to come and we hope for what we have not yet seen.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:24-25 (NIV) 

• We live in hope for God’s process of complete salvation to unfold in supernatural perfection.

While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. 2 Corinthians 5:4 (NLT)

• If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. 1 Corinthians 15:19 (NIV) 

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 (NIV)

But my hope is not only for myself, to leave this world for a better world in heaven. 

• I pray for my loved ones and friends, my workmates and neighbours, that many others will come to know this wonderful new life in Jesus, with this wonderful hope of a better life in a better world.

But even that is not enough. I see this whole world belongs to God and He has an amazing plan to restore all things to goodness and peace.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. Revelation 21:1 (NASB) 

• So when all these things come to pass, we will be united with God in perfect love.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:3-4 (NIV)

• So when Paul writes of FAITH, HOPE and LOVE, does he mean that love is eternal but faith and hope will one day no longer be needed? 

1 Corinthians 13:12-13 (NIV) 12 NOW we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13  And NOW these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 

The repetition of the word NOW would seem to indicate that Paul is only speaking of our PRESENT need for faith and hope.

• But Paul uses a different Greek word for NOW in verse 13. Paul is actually saying that FAITH, HOPE and LOVE are all eternal.

When you see God face to face, you love Him with perfect adoration, just as He loves you. You will also trust Him with complete trust. 

• Not only that.

Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end....Isaiah 9:7 (NIV) 

• There will always be something new and something more to expectantly hope for.

God is the eternal CREATOR. Creativity means new things all the time. The nature and character of God never changes but that also means that with God, there is never mere repetition but always new creation.

HOW DID JESUS THINK?

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. John 5:19 (ESV)

How did Jesus see the Father doing things? 

This is a deep mystery. Jesus had an amazingly deep and clear perception of what was going on in the spirit world. This should not surprise us if we believe that Jesus was God living as a human being on the earth. 

So did Jesus live on earth with complete divine omniscience? Clearly He did not.

And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men. Luke 2:52 (NIV) 

Jesus grew physically from a baby to a man. Jesus also grew in wisdom and this also seems to imply that He grew in knowledge. 

He learned as a child learns. He could not learn if He already knew everything with the mind of God. 

We believe Jesus was God in a human body but that it not all. He was God who lived as a human being with a human mind. 

Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV) 
5  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 
6  who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 
7  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 
8  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 

• When Jesus became a human being, He did not stop being God but He emptied Himself of His infinite abilities, His omniscience and omnipotence. 

• However, He did not give up the goodness of His divine character or the love of His heart, which was and is the loving heart of God.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8 (ESV) 

Jesus became an embryo in the mother of Mary and then a baby boy in Bethlehem. Why? Because of His love for you and me.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 (ESV) 

Jesus was born with the body of a baby and the intellect of a baby. As He grew up, He had to learn to think and know things, just as we do.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men. Luke 2:52 (NKJV) 

Jesus was a MAN. 

If He was God in a human body, He could have known everything as God does and made everything happen as God does with His own unlimited power.
But Jesus said:

Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son CAN DO NOTHING of Himself, 

• unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. John 5:19 (NASB)

The key word hear is CAN. 

• Jesus had surrendered His unlimited abilities which He had as God before He became a human being.

• Jesus lived by faith. He lived on earth as a man to show us how to live by faith as human beings.

12  "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. 

13  "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. John 14:12-13 (NASB) 

• If the miracles of Jesus were demonstrations of His own Divine omnipotence, how could He reasonably expect us to follow in His footsteps? We are not God.

• But if Jesus worked miracles as a man, by trusting in the power of His Father’s Spirit, then we can do the same through His grace. 

Remember the Grace of God is not just His mercy but also His transforming power which works in us and through us but only as we choose to trust and believe and give Him the glory.

WHO IS A FRIEND OF GOD?

Jn 15:15 (NKJV)  No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 

You are a friend of God if you know what God is doing. 

• How can you know what God is doing? 

Only if God Himself tells you or shows you.

• How can you be sure of hearing the voice of God?

Jn 15:14 (NKJV)  You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 

God speaks to you because He loves you and He wants to be in an intimate relationship with you. 

But God also wants to help you to live a heavenly life. 

• You can only know how to live the life of Heaven on Earth if you are listening to the direction of the King of Heaven AND you are willing to follow His direction. 

Why do we often have difficulties hearing from God? 

• It may be because we have not fully believed the last thing God said to us. 

How do you know if you have really believed? 

• Only if you ACT on the last thing God said to you.

The great English preacher Smith Wigglesworth was a man of faith. We know about his faith because of his radiant holy life and the continuous stream of healings and miracles in his ministry. 

• Smith Wigglesworth said: "The Acts of the Apostles was written because the Apostles acted!" 

Jesus speaks to a lot of people but many do not hear His voice because they are confused by doubt or they do not want to believe and obey what God says to them. 

You can know what God is doing if you walk through life in His presence.

Amos 3:3 (NKJV) Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?

You cannot walk together with God unless you agree with His truth, unless your thinking is dominated by Bible truth. 

• However, there are many who are full of the Bible who are not at all in agreement with the heart of the Heavenly Father.

Jesus said to religious Jews:

You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. 

But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. John 5:39-40 (NKJV)

Do you think this only applies to Jews? I don’t think so. 

• How many Christians study the Bible so they can attack and condemn other Christians who disagree with them? 

• How many Christians use dogmas and Bible texts to bully other Christians? 

• Church members bully pastors and pastors bully church members. It makes God sick and it also makes non-Christians sick, so that many don’t want to believe in Jesus. 

Amos 3:3 (NKJV) Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?

The Hebrew word for AGREED also means MEET TOGETHER. 

• It is not enough to agree with Bible texts. It is not enough to memorise and declare Bible truths.
• We must have personal encounters with the God who speaks in the Bible. We must KNOW HIM.

Jesus said:

• I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. Jn 10:14 (NKJV)  
• My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 
• And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. John 10:27-28 (NKJV)

I thank God for good pastors but I have had to learn that JESUS is my Pastor.

If the pastor of your local church controls your life, you are in deep trouble. 

I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. Jn 10:14 (NKJV) 

The words SHEPHERD and PASTOR mean exactly the same thing. 

Church pastors have the high calling of helping people to become friends of THE GOOD SHEPHERD, so that each believer is personally directed by JESUS. 

FINDING GOD IN THE DARKNESS

He made darkness His secret place; His canopy around Him was dark waters And thick clouds of the skies. Psalm 18:11 (NKJV) 

You look around you and you see darkness, you see storms and disasters, you see the storm clouds of war and corruption obscuring all hope, you see a constant stream of bad news in the media. 

But GOD..

But God is in there somewhere. God made this world and He has never left. 

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16 (NKJV)

God is waiting for you to cry out to Him. He is not hiding FROM you. He is hiding FOR you to find Him.

for in Him we live and move and have our being ...Acts 17:28 (NKJV) 

We know the visible world is made of atoms which are too small to see. We know this because we trust in the teachings of science.

We know that God loves us and is always with us because God sent His Son Jesus to show us what the Heavenly Father is like, even though our natural eyes can’t see Him. 

Many people say they can’t believe in God because of the suffering around us but the Bible says God put men and women in charge of this world and that is more and more obviously true, as science and technology give human beings more power, for good or evil. We have messed up this world which God has given us. 

• Many people say they cannot believe in Christianity because of the horrible history of cruelty in religion, sadly including the Christian religion. We cannot dispute the terrible facts of history. 

• But science has also produced a tragic mixture of good and evil, through the good and bad application of technology. We know about Weapons of Mass Destruction but most of us still believe in the basic teachings of science.

Christians and Christian churches have done much good but also much evil but very few people would suggest that Jesus was not good.

If the darkness in this world has invaded your personal life, you cannot see clearly to perceive the light of Heaven. 

So why not cry out in the darkness? Why not call out to Jesus?

• He loves you.
• He died for you. 

He is alive in Heaven and His Spirit is with you, waiting to answer when you call.