I’ve been grappling with what to say, because I feel like I’m pouring over too many preachers at the moment, and I’ve been battling, “Lord, what do you want me to say?” And I really felt that this morning, that this was something I’m going to be sharing on, and I’m trusting it will be a key thing for us moving forward.

So the title of today is Demystifying Prophecy. Demystifying prophecy. And maybe just, I know this is Christmas time and I should look like Santa Claus or something, but we’re not here to entertain you. We’re here to equip you. Time is short. The Lord is coming back soon. So I’m trusting that even today this will be a time of training and equipping, of teaching us what God says about prophecy and how it should function.

I’m going to look at a couple of different things. There’s so much I could speak on, but I think these are key foundations. And one of them is, and I’m going to be using the Bible. If people want Bible teaching, this is going to be solid Bible teaching, so take out notes. Is prophecy for today? And I’ll explain what prophecy is just now. But is it for today? Should we see prophecy in our churches and in our homes?

I’m going to pick up on the difference between Old Testament and New Testament prophecy, because I think many Christians do not understand the vast difference between them. If a person’s not 100% accurate when they prophesy, are they a false prophet? That’s been bandied across Instagram and Facebook by those who are anti-prophecy. There is a massive attack on charismatic gifts, the charismata, in our day. It’s probably the most militant attack, since I’ve been alive, against what I think is biblical Christianity. So I’m hoping this will bolster us, give us some defense and faith in the face of these things.

And lastly, what the Bible says prophecy should mean to you. How should it apply in your life? So it’s going to be an interesting little journey, which is going to need a miracle to get done in an hour.

So maybe to start off with, in 1 Corinthians 12:1, and again, this is the Scripture, the Word of God. But here we see God speaking to us through Paul the apostle. “Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.” Do you know that prophecy is a spiritual gift? And we are told here that we should not be uninformed about how these things work. How is it that as a generation we may have Bible teaching coming out of our ears, but we are so illiterate when it comes to the spiritual gifts, when the Bible specifically tells us we shouldn’t be uninformed?

We need to know how this stuff works. We shouldn’t be confused by the mumbo jumbo. We shouldn’t be scared of it because we just don’t understand it, which is often what happens. We must know how prophecy and spiritual gifts work.

In some ways, this is a bit of an apologetic. I’m giving a strong defense here. I’m trying to give you ammunition, Bible ammunition, to bolster your belief, to bolster you when you get attacked, because you will be attacked for believing in spiritual gifts. At some point, someone’s going to think you did drugs or you lost the plot. And you need to know why the Bible says these things are important so that you can stand in that time.

And then again, I want to show how we should see this thing used far more. We should see this gift operating. There is a move away from this toward cessationism, and churches, people are streaming out of charismatic churches, thankfully not ours because we train guys, but streaming out of charismatic churches into Catholic, traditional, or orthodox churches, because people don’t understand these things and so they want to go to what feels safe.

But I want to say this: there is nothing about Jesus that is safe. There is nothing about Jesus that is safe. But we need to understand his ways so that we can follow them. Otherwise he becomes an offense to us and we actually resist him. And that’s quite a common problem for humanity. When he came to his own, what did his own do? “Get out of here. We don’t like what you’re saying.”

And let me just tell you, the Bible says in the end times what happened to the Jews is exactly what’s going to happen to the Gentiles. We will see the great apostasy, the great falling away. You might look at America and say, “Well, it’s not happening on our watch.” I’m telling you, America is falling away in the middle of this because she’s forming herself on a false Christianity. And it’s not just America. It is now around the world. We are in what I believe is the great apostasy, the great falling away. And I’ll get to that some other time.

So we need to know these things.

What is prophecy? Let me try and define it. This is my own definition, but I think it stands up to biblical scrutiny. Prophecy is when God speaks through a person and reveals his thoughts, his will, or his intent in a matter, including foretelling future things or future events. In other words, it’s when God speaks through a person into a scenario or to another person about what he’s thinking or what he wants to do. It’s quite a profound thing. And the Bible says, well, we’ll look at that just now, that we shouldn’t be uninformed about this.

One of the things that creates massive problems for Christians is that we confuse Old Testament prophecy and New Testament prophecy, and they are very, very different. So often people who attack Christianity, or charismatic Christianity, try to use Old Testament concepts. They say, “Well, you’re not doing that because actually in the Old Testament, if you got a prophecy wrong, you died.” Anyone want the mantle to prophesy? That’s a big shift. So we need to look at what the Bible says about that, and how come we are so comfortable with prophecy.

In the old covenant, there was a lot more fear and trembling around this gift. And actually there shouldn’t be fear and trembling in the new covenant about this gift. It is a gift from God, and God gives good gifts.

Let’s start in the Old Testament, the old covenant. In other words, the people of God in the Old Testament were God’s old covenant people. We now are new covenant people. We come into a different arrangement with God. He’s the same God; we just have a different way of relating to him.

In the Old Testament, prophets were literally God’s mouthpiece. You remember that in those days the Bible wasn’t written, or was being written. They were literally the word of God to the people of God, which means when they spoke, it was a really big deal. That time was a covenant way of God leading his people. We are no longer in that time. Prophecy today is not like that.

In the Old Testament, when a prophet spoke, it was authoritative and binding. If you didn’t listen to one of God’s prophets, you were going to be in trouble with God. They were, in the old covenant, the highest authority on earth. They were higher than kings. Kings had authority, and then you had prophets who held kings to account. In other words, in a court of law, what’s the highest court here? The Supreme Court. The prophet was the highest court in the spiritual land. There is no higher authority to appeal to. So when they spoke, Israel obeyed, and they spoke for God. You didn’t mess with the prophets, or you messed with God.

In the Old Testament, you had these guys who would come down the mountain, and when they pointed their finger at you, you got shaky legs because they were speaking on behalf of God, and they were authoritative. To disobey was to disobey God.

Deuteronomy 18:18–19 says, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to my people all that I command him.” In other words, God says, “I’m going to raise up certain individuals, and they will speak my words to my people,” the highest authority in Israel. Even kings would be removed or deposed if they didn’t listen to prophets.

In 2 Chronicles 36:16, this is what happens when you don’t listen to prophets in the Old Testament: “But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.” In other words, if you disobeyed the prophets, God’s wrath would be poured out upon you, and there’d be no remedy, no place for you to hide, because you disobeyed God when you disobeyed his prophets.

So it was like when he points the finger, you’re like, “Yes, sir.” It wasn’t America where we could vote. God chose. And because of that, there were tests for a prophet. Everyone was kind of keen to be a prophet. You’re the guy—you could just say, “Thus says the Lord,” and it was like, wow, everyone’s going to obey you.

So there were very strong tests to make sure that in the old covenant what they said really was God, that they were hidden in God when they spoke, because a lot of people claimed to be prophets but were false prophets.

Here’s one of the tests. There are two.

Deuteronomy 18:22 says, “When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.” In other words, if he says it’s going to happen and it doesn’t, then we know he’s false.

It’s interesting, though, that the way you defined whether he was true or false wasn’t by knowing intrinsically, because you’re filled with the Holy Spirit like we are. It was by watching what happened. But in the new covenant something changes. We are filled with the Spirit. We know how to hear the voice of God. So we can test differently. We don’t have to wait to see, is it going to happen? We who have the Spirit can sense, “This is God speaking,” because we know God and we know how to hear his voice, and I’m hearing his voice through you. So it’s a big difference.

Old Testament prophecy must come true. Again, it should come true in the New Testament too if it’s God, but it’s not a test that we’re given in the New Testament.

The second test is interesting. The first is, does it come true? But what happens if it comes true and he’s still a false prophet? And do you know that can happen? People say, “Well, if it’s...” Yes, the Bible actually shows that this can happen. One of the tests is whether it came true. There’s a second test if it does come true, because it coming true doesn’t mean it’s God.

It’s in Deuteronomy 13:1–3. If a prophet comes and prophesies something that comes true, and the sign and the wonder that he tells you comes to pass—in other words, he actually prophesies it and it happens just like he said, and it’s miraculous how it happened—so this is not just some vague thing; this is miraculous. He said it and it came true. But then he says, “Let us go after other gods,” you shall not listen to him.

In other words, it’s possible for someone to prophesy something but actually still lead you astray, to prophesy accurately. But if he starts pointing you to a different god, that’s another way you’ll know he’s not genuine. He’s got to point you to worship Yahweh, the God of Israel. He’s got to teach you to worship God as he is, as he reveals himself, not some imagined god. It’s been said that in the beginning God made man in his own image and in his own likeness. Unfortunately, mankind decided to return the favor. In other words, we want a God in our likeness. And when we have a God in our likeness, it’s probably not the God of the Bible. He’s pointing to a false god.

The consequence of getting it wrong is in Deuteronomy 18:20: “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.” Who kills him? The people of God do. The people of God are supposed to kill him. You’ve got to get rid of this guy. He’s dangerous. He’s going to lead people astray.

So it was a serious position. If you like power, it was kind of nice, but it was pretty serious. If you got it wrong, it was costly. Which meant there was a fear in Israel. And for a prophet, you had to make sure that what you said was what God was saying, not just your own presumption or imagination, because it could cost you your life. In some ways it was as authoritative and as binding as the Bible is to us today, because they didn’t have the Bible. So as we obey the Bible, they were supposed to obey the prophets in the old covenant.

Then everything changes in the new covenant because we see Jesus dying on a cross. We see the way into the presence of God break open. The temple curtain is torn. Suddenly God is no longer distant. Now he comes to live inside all who believe. We become the temple of the living God. One of the signs of the new covenant, one of the signs that salvation has broken out on a whole new scale, is in Acts 2:17–21. This is what happens on Pentecost, and Pentecost is the birthing of this new covenant. It’s the birthing of the church. It’s the birthing of what God is about to do. Everything changes from the cross, and this is just after the cross. This is the outworking of the new covenant. It’s starting to show us what this looks like.

Here’s what we see will happen post-Pentecost. When the nations will come to Christ, when we come to God through the Lord Jesus Christ, from the time of his death until now the Bible calls it the last days. The last days. You’ve got the last days, the last 2,000 years, and then you’ve got the last days, which we’re probably living in—the last days of the last days. But in the last days, this is what the Bible is telling us. God says, “I will pour out my Spirit on all people.” In the old covenant, the Spirit of God came upon the prophets. But now he’s coming on all who call on his name. The anointing of God is given for each and every one of us, not just for some select few. We are now called a kingdom of priests. We are called and anointed by God as we come into the family of God. So actually the gifting now comes to all of us.

And here’s what it looks like: “Your sons and daughters will prophesy.” So now it’s even the children among us who are going to start speaking the mysteries of God and prophesying. It’s no longer just the guy who comes down the mountain with the Word of God. Now your sons and daughters will prophesy. “Your young men will see visions,” which is a form of prophecy, “your old men will dream dreams,” which is another form of prophecy.

Now everyone, old to young, everyone in the house of God has these gifts. “Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.” If you come into the new covenant and the Spirit of God is on you, one of the ways that will manifest is that you will prophesy. And it’s for everyone.

Let’s carry on. “I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.” Now he’s moving toward things that are coming. Actually, these are some of the signs of the second coming. “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood.” So he’s talking about the time from Pentecost right through to the second coming of Christ, “before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.” In other words, prophecy is going to be in the church from Pentecost until the day we see him coming in the sky. Christians will prophesy.

So why don’t we see that happening? What’s wrong? Have we believed a lie? Have we not understood the wonder of what God has for us in this new covenant?

Old Testament: a select few got that kind of anointing. But now it’s no longer like that. Now we all can prophesy. And that’s what it said, literally, did it not? Everyone prophesying. And the whole of the New Testament is people prophesying, people having dreams, visions, people being told to go here, do that. The whole of our Bible from that point onward is that. It ends with John and the book of Revelation—a prophetic revelation. The whole book is prophecy.

It’s like prophecy is going to be in the church from Pentecost until we hear the trumpet and we see him coming in the sky. But prophecy changes now because a couple of things have changed. One of them is that now we all have the Spirit. Now we can all prophesy. Now we also have our Bible, which is a big deal. Something shifts, and we’ll look at that scripturally. Even prophecy moves from the position it had, and prophecy no longer carries authority like it did because now children are doing it, women are doing it, everyone’s doing it. So it’s different. And I’ll show you just now how different it is. Similar and different.

So the only scripture that people can use against this is this one. It’s their best shot at trying to say it doesn’t exist anymore. Let’s look at it, because if they’re speaking the truth, then we better not do it, right? I want to be a Bible guy. I don’t care what culture we like. I want to be a Bible guy.

“Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away.” Ooh, looking like they’ve got a point at this stage. “As for tongues, they will cease.” And they’re going, “I feel so good now,” because those are kind of freaky gifts. So they’re going to stop. “As for knowledge,” whoops, “it will pass away.” Hang on. So then why are you teaching the Bible? Because what is the Bible? What is this knowledge? So what is being said here? You can’t just throw away prophecy and tongues and say, “Well, we’re going to keep knowledge.” Churches built just on knowledge are actually churches devoid of the power of the Holy Spirit. We’ve cut God out because God is a God of power. So knowledge is going to pass away too.

And then it tells us when this is going to happen: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part.” What he’s telling us is that when you prophesy, you don’t know everything about the person. You can only prophesy what God shows you in the moment. So you are prophesying in part. But when the perfect comes—when does the perfect come? When Jesus returns. Isn’t that what Acts said? It’s going to be there until we see the great and glorious day of the Lord, until the very last of the last days.

So when Jesus returns, the partial—prophecy, knowledge, tongues—these partial things are going to fall away because when he returns we will see him and we will be as he is, and we will know as he knows. So we won’t need knowledge because we will know. It’s not like I need knowledge; it’s just that I know, like I know. It’s inside of me. It’s who I am. It’s because I’m made like God. And so I don’t need prophecy when he returns because everything is known. I know as he knows. So prophecy falls away. Tongues fall away. Knowledge falls away when he returns.

A few verses later: “For now we see in a mirror dimly.” At best, by the end of this preach, hopefully you’re going to think, “Oh, I get to see prophecy a bit better,” like looking at a mirror. But the mirrors then weren’t like our mirrors. Their mirrors were polished metal. It was like, “I think I look good today.” But then when the perfect comes, we’re going to see him face to face. “Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” When is the perfect? When the Lord returns. And until the Lord returns, we need prophecy. We need tongues. We need not to be ignorant of spiritual gifts.

And this is confirmed. People say prophecy is no longer. I’ve even heard some significant teachers say that if someone prophesies, they’re doing it by the devil. I’m thinking, man, you’re in danger of blaspheming the Spirit. You’re doing the very thing they said about Jesus when he was doing things they couldn’t understand: “He’s doing it by Beelzebub.” And the church is saying this about the church now. We’re in terrible times. I think we’re in the great apostasy, the great falling away. Brother will turn on brother and hate brother.

So John, in the book of Revelation, is looking forward from the end of the first century. He’s writing this around A.D. 95. He’s on the island of Patmos in prison, and he sees a vision of the future. As he looks toward the future, he actually sees the rise of the world against God, the compromise of the church, everything into our day and beyond. And as he looks forward, he tells us about one of the last things that will happen on planet Earth.

People say there are no prophets anymore. The problem is the Bible says differently. In Revelation 11:3, John is looking forward, after our day, because this hasn’t happened yet: “And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”

Who are they prophesying against? They’re prophesying against Babylon. They’re prophesying against the church that’s risen up. They’re prophesying against the compromised people of God. And God says, if Revelation tells us, and John is looking forward 2,000 years or more, and he’s saying there are guys who are going to prophesy in the very end, how dare we say that prophecy is gone when the Bible very clearly says that right at the end we’re going to have guys doing it?

In Revelation 18:20, the background to this is that there are also apostles. Again, you wonder why we’re so nervous of apostles because we don’t understand the difference between a first-century apostle and a modern apostle. There are guys about the new apostolic reformation, which we are not a part of, by the way, because I do think there’s some wack stuff in what they teach. But we need these gifts until we all reach unity in the faith and grow into perfection.

John is looking forward, and he doesn’t only say we need prophets in the last days. He actually talks about apostles in the last days in his vision. In Revelation 18:20, the church is being persecuted. And by the way, we are coming into a time of persecution where brother will betray brother, church against church. It’s coming. We’re in it. We’re already brother against brother. The internet is filled with Christians against Christians calling each other out, fighting. We’re in it now. I’ve already had that happen to me in Africa. I was handed over to authorities because I believed basic biblical truth. We’re in it.

John sees Christians being killed and persecuted and chased from their homes, and he says this to the future church. We’re not there fully yet: “Rejoice over her.” Now God is going to destroy Babylon, and straight after this happens the Bible says it’s the wedding feast of the Lamb. So we’re right at the end, and finally God’s breaking into creation again powerfully.

It says, “Rejoice over her, O heaven and you saints and apostles and prophets,” note, these are not those in heaven; these are those on the earth. We’ve just read about the two prophets. “For God has given judgment for you against her.”

She has judged you, and now God will come and judge for you against her. Which means we actually should see apostles right through until Christ returns, which again fits with what you read in Ephesians 4. So how come we don’t? Because we’re just like Israel, because we’ve fallen away from the truth. And because now that Christ wants to break back into his church, we’re saying, “Well, you can’t come that way because that’s not how we know you.”

I’m being strong today, but this is the Word of God. This is the Word of God. This is future.

So do you see this? Right through to the end, we need to see prophecy. Let’s break it down to us now as believers, because if we’re going to have it right to the end, what does that mean for you? What does that mean for you? The Bible has things to tell you about what he expects from you and what he wants for you. Let’s look at that now that we know it’s relevant.

We’re in it. In 1 Corinthians 14:5, “Now I want all of you to speak in tongues.” Did you get that? That was the Word of God. “I want all of you to speak in tongues.” So don’t just say, “Well, it’s not for me.” But even more than that, “I want all of you to prophesy.” Amen. Which means it’s something God has for you. He’s got it for little children, for goodness’ sake. So how come you’ve just settled with, “Well, that’s not for me”? I’ll tell you why: because you’re rebellious, or you don’t know. But you stand in defiance against the Word of God. You stand in defiance against the God of the universe. God says, “I want you to prophesy.” You better seek it.

1 Corinthians 14:1 says, “Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.” If you are not desiring it, you’re in rebellion to God. Listen to me. Listen to the Word of God. This is not Andrew. This is the Bible. It doesn’t get plainer than that. If it says, “Do not murder,” and you murder, you break the law. If it says prophesy, then wake up. Wake up. Wake up, O sleeping church. Wake up to what the Father has given you, what he died to give you.

I know for some of us, we don’t even know what that looks like. Good news. We’ll train you in the new year because it’s one of those gifts that all of us can do. And who wouldn’t want to speak mysteries over another person that can strengthen them in their faith, that can build their faith, that they would know that God is here? It’s for all of us.

So what is New Testament prophecy for? Because it’s different from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament it was corrective pretty much: “You guys are messing up and you better stop it because God’s about to come with a big stick.” That was Old Testament prophecy. I do think he’s coming with a big stick for the New Testament church too, by the way, because we are sons and he disciplines sons. I think we’ve taught a Jesus who doesn’t come with a stick. He comes with a big stick because he wants obedience in us. He wants our lives devoted and surrendered to him.

What is New Testament prophecy for? 1 Corinthians 14:3 says, “On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.”

Did you notice that the Old Testament is corrective, but there’s nothing corrective about prophecy? There are other correctives. I’m giving you a corrective today in some ways with the Word of God as an elder. But prophecies don’t bring corrective in the new covenant. They don’t have authority in the new covenant. In the old covenant, they were the highest authority. In the new covenant, they don’t carry authority because everyone can do it. But they do bring something beautiful, and this is why we should desire it. They come to build us up, to encourage us, and to bring consolation.

In the old covenant, they had the sheriff’s badge, and you don’t mess with the sheriff. In the new covenant, they don’t have the sheriff’s badge, but they do still speak for God. And when God speaks through them, you will know that God knows you personally. You will know that he loves you. You’ll know that there’s nothing about you hidden from his sight. You will know because he will utter mysteries that that person could not have known. So it strengthens you. It builds you up.

Last week we had MV here, and for some of us it was like, “What was that?” This guy singing over people, speaking over people, calling people out. He doesn’t know people from a bar of soap. Some of you, yes, but certainly not the people he called out. And so why don’t the two of you come up quickly?

Vitali was one of the guys. Both of these guys came to us. You came about four months ago?

May.

And the first time you came, you were singled out and prophesied over. I’m going to let you tell the story now. You came last week, and I think it was your second time?

Third time.

Third time. Wow. And did MV know you at all?

No.

Do we know you at all? Are we still learning who you are?

Yeah.

He’s coming in as a visitor. He’s checking us out. He’s obviously sensing something of God, hopefully, and that’s kept him coming back. So what happened when MV singled you out, called you out, and started to speak and sing over you?

I just want to give a little background about me. I come from a Christian family. I come from a very conservative background, but I’ve never truly known God face to face. Last week when Murf called me out, I was trembling. I was sobbing, breaking down. In the weeks leading up to it, and even that morning, I was asking God to speak to me, asking him to please show me that you’re truly who you say you are and speak to me personally.

When he called me out, I just couldn’t speak. My voice was quavering. I was sobbing. I truly felt God’s presence and God’s Spirit. I’m not usually a crier, but in worship I was just breaking down. The whole rest of the day I was trembling and breaking down and listening to worship, and I was just like, Lord, why me? Out of all people, I’m just a wretched sinner, but why did you choose me? Why did you tell me these things? It’s amazing.

You got what happened to you?

Yeah.

We’ve actually been friends for a long time. We grew up in the same background—Slavic Baptist, very conservative and strict. I started going to a non-denominational church with my wife, Anna, and we just knew something was missing. So God led us to this church. The first time was in May, and I remember everything about the church we loved. We were like, “Oh my goodness, I think this is our church.”

And then Andrew comes up and he’s like, “Hey, we’re going to have a prophet test here.” And I’m like, “What?” My walls went up right away. I’m like, these people are maybe crazies, I don’t know. How do we end up here?

But I’ve been changing my point of view on a lot of things, and I decided to wrestle through this with God. So we prayed, and we were like, “God, reveal to us if we’re wrong in our views here.” So we came one more week, and then we were like, okay, we’re going to come to this prophet test event.

We were sitting on this side, and I remember thinking I’m going to catch her repeating some stuff, and she definitely—there’s something wrong, right? So I’m listening, just staring her down. She leaves our section and is somewhere over here, and I’m still staring at her. She catches my eyes, and I’m like, well, if she has these powers, can she read my mind right now? My thought to her was, do you know that I’m doubting you? She thought about it and then comes back and invites my wife and I up here.

And as we come up, she was so accurate on so many things. I think there was literally one detail she was off on, but the thing was true, and what she said leading up to it was true. And we were like, wow, what’s going on? But the one thing that really stuck out to me was after she was done, Bill was talking. I’ve been questioning, am I really chosen? How do you know that you’re chosen? Like everyone thinks they’re chosen, you know? So Bill was like, “Hey, you’re not an accident. You’re not a constant. God has chosen you.” And that just freaked me out. Like, what? How do you know this? How does he know this? None of you guys know me. No one knows these stories.

We were just taken aback, and coming out of that and wrestling with the whole idea of gifts and how God put people in our lives and our families to actually bring out the answers as well, it made us more confident. We’re like, wait, this still exists. We’ve just been overlooking it. Praise God for that.

Thank you. Thank you guys.

I love these stories because this is what the Bible says will happen when prophecy is moving. In 1 Corinthians 14:24–25, listen to what the Bible says and then apply it to what they said: “But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all. The secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.”

That’s exactly what the Bible says, and that’s exactly what they experienced. Do you see the Word of God? Do you see how God moves? We need prophecy. It is a testimony of Jesus. And I guarantee you, for them there was a testimony: Jesus is alive. He knows me. He loves me. He knows everything about me. What is man that you’re mindful of him, God, that you would think of me? It’s fear, trembling, worship, and awe. And people say it’s from the devil. I’m like, what are you doing? This is the Word of God. So it’s normal. In fact, the Bible says our church services should see this in a very normative way.

Paul—it’s so normal in the Corinthian church that Paul is actually trying to pull it back because everyone is just prophesying and it’s chaos. So he’s writing to bring a little order to the chaos. It’s good that you’re prophesying. “I want you all to prophesy,” is what he says. But you’ve got to learn to do this in a way that isn’t nuts. If everyone is just prophesying and all screaming at the top of their lungs, nobody knows what’s going on. That’s really what he’s saying to them. But he says this to establish that it’s normal. He’s telling us how it should work.

“Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said.” Interesting. How do we test whether it’s true? Because we all have the Spirit. Others can weigh it. As a person speaks, others go, “I know the Spirit of the Lord. That’s the Lord’s voice. I know how to hear his voice. I’m hearing his voice coming through you.” But here’s the thing: let two or three prophets speak, and let others weigh. “If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and be encouraged.”

In other words, in the New Testament we’re all doing this, and we just need to do it in order. And we need to do it not so we can boast about how spiritual we are, because we can all do it. The children can do it. We do it because we strengthen and encourage one another, because the mysteries of their heart are suddenly unveiled as we speak God’s heart and mysteries over them. So that should be normative in churches.

Have you seen prophecy as being part of this church? Here’s a question: do you see prophecy as normative in every church? Why? Bad doctrine, comfort, convenience, the traditions of man. Matthew 15:6 says the traditions of man nullify the Word of God. You’re nullifying the very presence and power of God among you because you’re not obeying what the Bible actually says.

“I want you all to prophesy.” When you come together, we need to see these gifts moving. This one can get up and speak. That one can bring a word. We’ve settled for the substandard for so long. And God’s saying, “I want my church back. I want it back from the boards. I want it back from the senior pastor who’s the king. I want it back. I want to be King. I want to be Lord. And I want to move among my people. They’re a kingdom of priests.”

I am gloves off today. I’m sorry if I’m offensive, but this is God’s Word, for goodness’ sake. You can’t just ignore it. And it’s clear. It’s not like I’m trying to play with Greek and Hebrew.

The normative should be prophecy. So what does that mean? We’ve got to look at what that means. A few things. Prophecy now is not the Bible. It’s not the Bible. We don’t add to the Bible. People say, “Well, if you could prophesy, then God’s speaking, then it’s like the Bible.” No, man, for goodness’ sake. Prophecy in the Bible told us the Bible. We don’t add to the Bible. The Bible is the fabric and the foundation. We don’t go beyond what’s written. In fact, when we prophesy, we’re just doing what’s written. But we don’t add to what’s written. We just build on it. The foundation is laid. We just build on that foundation. We never add to Scripture.

No divine prophetic revelation is binding now or authoritative in itself. In other words, if someone says something to you, there is no authority in what they say. It’s not binding. They’re not Old Testament. Now you have the Spirit in you, and the Spirit inside of you is what must lead you. You keep in step with the Spirit because you’re a son and daughter of God. And if the prophecy aligns with what the Spirit of God is saying to you, then it becomes authoritative. But the word in itself, if it makes no sense, if it doesn’t give you peace, if it doesn’t edify you, you just say, “Well, thank you for that word. That was a great try. Good attempt.” You don’t have to correct them. Just thank them, and love them. Cover them in love. It was good that you were trying. I get that you want to encourage me. That’s good. But it just didn’t bear witness with me.

What I do when I get a word I don’t understand is I put it in my back pocket, because I’ve learned that sometimes it makes no sense to me now, but give me a few months and I’m in the middle of the biggest fire of my life and I’m like, “Where are you, God?” Oh. So I don’t discard it too quickly. I just go, “Well, Lord, I’ve learned this: if I follow the Spirit, I fall into prophecy.” In other words, I just follow what the Lord tells me to do. The problem is when I hear prophecy, humans want to be like God. So God says, “I’ve got this for you,” and you go, “Well, then I’m going to go for it,” and God says, “No, wait. I don’t delight in the strength of a horse or legs of a man. I don’t need your strength. I just need you to trust and obey.”

I’ve learned that often God says he’s going that way with me and then he starts the journey this way. I’m like, I don’t understand. But faith, Andrew. This is the story of every Bible figure. Joseph: “Your father and brothers are going to bow down to you.” That didn’t look like it was going to happen for most of his life. It was prison, and he was literally bowing down to everyone. Then right at the end he falls into the prophecy. So when you get a prophetic word, don’t follow it. Follow the Lord. You have the Spirit in you, for goodness’ sake.

Prophecy is not authoritative anymore because we have the Bible and we have the Spirit. If it helps you, if it encourages you, good, because sometimes we do need prophetic encouragement, but it’s got to be evaluated.

What happens if a person gets some right and some wrong? That’s the other thing people say now. “Well, if it’s not 100% accurate, then he’s a false prophet. Let’s stone him.” Remember this: everything changed when sons and daughters started prophesying. Everything changed because we all carry the anointing, but we’re not all prophets. We’re not writing Scripture. God is not as precise with us as he was with them because they needed to get it exactly right. The Word of God is the Word of God.

So now when he comes to us to prophesy and speaks through us, it’s not like that. It’s not like, “Thus saith the Lord.” I’ll never forget hearing one man prophesy, and he goes, “Thus saith the Lord, as Moses built the ark.” I’m like, did God make a mistake there? And I heard a guy do that. I was in the meeting, and I’m thinking, okay, I don’t think God made a mistake. He knew exactly who built the ark. So what is happening?

We now find in the New Covenant that prophecy is still here, and we should all do it, but it’s not as precise as it is in the Old Testament. So the Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:20–21, “Do not despise prophecy.” Don’t despise it, but test everything. In context, it’s prophecy. As the word comes, I don’t despise it. I receive it, but then I test it. I’m listening and asking, does this bear witness with the Spirit? Does this line up with the Word of God, the Bible? And then it says, “Hold fast to what is good.”

Which means when you go to prophecy, there’s a percentage that hits, and there’s a percentage where you go, “I tested that. I’m not sure about that, but I’m going to hold to the good parts.” It was interesting hearing Dennis; she kind of got one part right, but it was a little bit off. Well, that’s exactly what this is saying, because we’re all doing it now. We’re not all Old Testament prophets, so we get it a bit wrong. It’s not that we’re not hearing God. It’s that God is speaking through human beings, and we’re not inspired the way they were. So when we speak, there’s a little bit of us in this. Prophecy doesn’t equal Scripture. It’s not binding like Scripture.

God never gets confused. God never fails. If I speak something accurate, it’s God. If I speak something confusing, it’s just something else. God always speaks the truth. The fact is he’s working through imperfect vessels.

In 1 Corinthians 13:9–10, our knowledge is partial and incomplete, which means even what I’m teaching you isn’t perfect. I hope it’s close. But even the gift of prophecy reveals only a part of the whole picture. The problem with us humans is we don’t like empty spaces. We want to make sense of things. So God gives something and we use our brain and start moving a little bit in the flesh because we want to make sense of it for the person. So we add to the prophecy. We embroider it. We fluff it up because that’s who we are. And so the prophecy comes as something of God and something of us, because we prophesy in part.

Some people will get to hone that and they’ll get more accurate, and others of us will get it less accurate because we’re all doing it. It’s like if we all ran 100 yards right now, some of us would do that in a really good time and some of us would die at 30 yards. We can all run. It’s just that some of us are going to do this better than others. And as we grow, we can...

I can tell you some of my failures. Remember, prophecy is for edification. There are three sources of prophecy. When I prophesy, there’s one of three voices you’re hearing. The one is God’s. There are parts I’ll speak that are God speaking to you, and you’ll hear God through me and I’ll hear God through you, because we can all do this because we’re filled with the Spirit of God. We are the temple of the living God. So we’ll utter mysteries over one another, and the other person will hear God speaking to them, even though we’re just the medium, the vessel.

Secondly, some of it’s God, some of it’s me. As I mentioned, we add things, we fluff them up. And then there’s a third possibility, and even for you as a Christian, there’s this possibility that actually a demon speaks through you. 1 John 4:1: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.”

People say, “What do you mean?” The thing is, I’m uttering mysteries. I’m trying to pick up the heart of what God is doing. I remember once prophesying, and as far as I know, it’s only happened once, but I remember once doing this. I was with a guy—I can say this. Primarily, you’re going to hear God and a little bit of the person. That’s normal. But every now and again the devil can get involved. And you know the devil did speak through Simon Peter, who was an apostle. So because you’re in a position and even anointed doesn’t mean the devil can’t speak through you, right? “Get behind me, Satan.” So he can speak through me. I hate that thought. But if I think differently, I’m deceiving myself.

You’ve got to test everything against the Word of God. I can get deceived. I can get taken captive by Satan to do his will. I have in my life. There are times I’ve done things I look back on and think, man, I was captive. Captive to my own anger, my unforgiveness. I was taken captive by the devil. True. Have you ever been taken captive? I know sometimes you sin because of your flesh. But sometimes we sin because of the devil—we become a tool for the devil. That’s a whole teaching in itself, which again I’m probably rattling cages. I actually want to do a teaching on whether Christians can be demonized. I’ll do that at some point. There’s a lot of confusion, but I’ll have to do that properly. I can’t do that now. It’ll mess with your heads.

I’ll tell you my story. I was prophesying over a friend, and there was a guy who was a fivefold prophet. I’m not a fivefold prophet, but I can prophesy. This guy was a well-known prophet, and he called me up, so we began to pray for Milani. He started first, and I remember he started speaking something over her. Prophecy feels a bit like a river for those who’ve done it. It feels like there’s a river flowing, and he started flowing in a river and speaking over her. Then I sensed the river and climbed into it, and I started to speak in a similar flow. It was almost like climbing into a current and speaking.

Halfway through, she starts looking very perturbed and anxious. I see her start to tear up, but it’s not a good tear. I’m thinking, hold on. I stopped and said, “Are you all right? What’s happening?” She said, “I don’t know, but I feel like a heaviness coming on me as you’re both speaking.” And I immediately said, “This prophecy is for edification, encouragement, and comfort. We’re not prophesying by the Spirit of God. Take it back. Please forgive us. We’re missing it.”

And this guy said, “How dare you say that I’m not speaking by God’s authority?” And I’m like, “Dude, I’m saying it for me and I’m saying it for you because this is not the fruit of the Lord Jesus speaking.” He got angry and actually left in a huff. And today I’m still serving Jesus. He isn’t. And he was a full prophet. We make mistakes, man, for goodness’ sake. The apostles made mistakes. This is church. It’s messy. We’re not perfect yet. When he returns we’ll be perfect as he is. I’m looking forward to that day. But until then I am pressing myself to come on, Lord, I want to be like you.

It’s possible to miss. I’m going to show you in the Bible where that happens, not that this guy was doing it by the devil, but two places in the New Testament where people got prophecy slightly wrong.

Acts 21:10 says, “While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.” A prophet. The Bible calls him a prophet. “And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, ‘Thus says the Holy Spirit: This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’”

So Paul is going to be bound by the Jews and then handed over to the Roman Gentiles. That’s the prophecy, right? Let’s see how it plays out.

Acts 21:30–33: “Then all the city was stirred, and all the people ran together. And they seized Paul.” Who is the “they” here? It’s the Jews. So the Jews grab him. So far we’re good, because the Jews are supposed to bind him, right? “They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut. And as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort”—the Gentiles. So now the Gentile Roman hears about it, that all Jerusalem is in confusion. He took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. Then the tribune came up and arrested him and ordered him bound.

Who bound Paul? The Jew or the Gentile? What did Agabus say? The Jew. He got it wrong. There’s a big difference. In this case, it sounds like the Jews are going to bind him and then hand him over to the Romans, but the Romans actually bind him to save his life. So he kind of got it right, but he got it wrong.

That’s what the Bible is showing us: sometimes in the New Testament prophets don’t get it exactly right. Agabus was a New Testament prophet. His prophecy is not binding like that of an Old Testament prophet. Otherwise they’d stone him.

He does get parts right. Paul is going to be bound, but he gets the details wrong. “We know in part and we prophesy in part.” He’s sort of getting it. And that’s what prophecy does. We’re knowing in part. It’s like seeing through a mirror. It’s like, Paul, if you go to Jerusalem, it’s not going to go well for you. But the details aren’t quite right.

So when someone prophesies and they don’t get every part right, they’re not a false prophet. They just want to—everyone who’s prophesying—

I’ll give you another one. The great Paul, one of my heroes in the faith. In Acts 16:9, during the night Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” So he has a vision of a man saying, “Come to Macedonia. I need your help.”

So he goes to Macedonia, and in Acts 16:14 the person who responds is a woman. He sees a man, but we see a woman. “A woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” He sees a man. The Spirit of God is saying, “I want you to go to Macedonia to preach,” and he thinks if he translates that literally, “Where’s the guy?” But it’s actually not a man, it’s a woman. He gets it right in that he’s going where God wants him to go, but the details are not that important. He gets the gist of it.

So prophets will give you the gist of it. Some prophets are just going to hit it. Some prophecy is like that. You just know every word is God’s word. Sometimes it’s like, “Yeah, that was God. Not sure about that. Okay, I don’t think that was him. This—oh, this is God.” Because they’re uttering mysteries with their spirit.

Amen. The Bible remains the Bible. We don’t add to it. We don’t subtract from it. Prophecy remains. We need to see it right through till Jesus returns. But it’s different from the old covenant. And so, quickly in closing, under the new covenant, prophecy is a genuine Spirit-given disclosure of divine intention or outcome, but not a full or judicially precise declaration as under the old covenant. It requires testing, discernment, and it never binds the conscience.

If someone says something to you prophetically, it doesn’t bind you. The Spirit of the Lord is the one who must bind you, your own conscience. But that said, when it comes, it’s super helpful. In Acts 11:28–29, Agabus again stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world. And this took place, as in the days of Claudius. Luke tells us he got up and said, “Guys, we are about to come into a time of crisis. There is a famine coming across the whole world.” And Luke tells us it came just like he said. And what that foreknowledge did, because of prophecy, is the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. The church was able to respond and get ready and act appropriately so that when it came they were able to look after everybody.

We need prophecy, and it needs to be weighed. But prophecy in itself isn’t authoritative. The church needs to decide that’s God, and if it’s God, we change direction. I’ve been in meetings—I remember once a four-year-old got up in a conference of about five thousand, or four and a half thousand of us, and said, “I feel the Lord saying this,” and all of us went, “The Lord just spoke through a five-year-old,” and we turned the entire conference because God speaks through little children. That child had no authority in itself, but when we recognized the voice of the King speaking, every one of us went, “Well, that’s the Lord.” It doesn’t matter who he’s speaking through. We weighed it and knew it was the Lord.

In some ways, that picture is what the church is supposed to be. We’re not just here to come and listen to a teacher and sit in your comfortable seat. We’re a people on a mission, on a journey together. We follow the crowd. The Bible says the Spirit of God will lead us. Christ will be at our head. And we follow. At times he speaks prophetically and says, “Go this way. Do that.” And we follow the Spirit because we are sons and daughters of the living God. We the saints bear witness that God is speaking. We weigh things, not critically, but to know, is this the Lord speaking?

And we all can prophesy. So we the people of God start to have a sense that Jesus is speaking, Jesus is leading, and we go where he takes us because we are not here to pew warm. We’re here to make disciples of nations and to bring people to the knowledge of the light of the glory of the King and become the church that literally is the light of the world. In other words, if you prophesy and you call an iceberg, you might not touch the steering wheel. The elders have got to do that. But if you don’t call the iceberg, we might drown.

I wish you’d all prophesy, because if you’re all prophesying, that means we’re all hearing God. And if we’re all hearing God, it means there’s a better and better and better chance that we’re going to hit what he’s saying and not miss it. That’s the beauty of the church. Do you realize how much more God’s got for us? Do you realize how we settle for so little? So little. And the Lord says, “I have such good gifts for you.”

Next year we’re going to be training on prophecy, and I’m trusting that all of you can prophesy just like Paul says. All right. So that’s my preach for the day.