In some churches and individual’s lives prophecy is very common in others prophecy is completely absent so where should it be? One thing is for sure we have a pattern in the Bible of prophecy and prophets as common place. There prophets mentioned in the Bible that we were never given any of their prophesies and these are the seventy that Moses laid hands on (Numbers 11:25) and Philip had four daughters that did prophesy. (Acts 21:9) I am point this out to show that there were prophesies given by people that were just for that people group for what God was doing in their midst at that time. Even Ahab called four hundred prophets together (I Kings 22:6) in an attempt to find out about an upcoming battle and again I put this out to show that there were many prophets in the land and should be today as well.
Prophets are Key
Jesus said and this pattern in reiterated both in example and teaching in the Bible that prophets are the foundation of what God is doing in the Earth. Any thing being built as the example shows, a building or home with no foundation is destined to fall down at worst and at best suffer rapid deterioration.
Ephesians 2: 20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Prophets and apostles are the only two positions that are mentioned continuously or are shown by example throughout the Bible contrary to current popular “Five Fold” doctrines.
As the apostle is the one sent with a divine purpose whether in a local church or on the foreign mission field their immediate helper should be a prophet. God is speaking prophetically to those that are apostolic as well but the confirmation and detail usually comes from a close by prophet. The best example of this is in the pattern of judges and kings in the Old Testament. Called a leader and put a prophet beside them such as Deborah and Barak, Saul and Samuel, and David and Nathan. The one with the mission or apostolic call carried out more of the details and work with the primary interaction with the people. In the New Testament we are taught about apostles and prophets but the most common example is like the Apostle Paul who received to prophecy from Agabus for one but mostly communed with the Lord himself more like Moses or Abraham in the Old Testament.
Difficult Decisions
When faced with difficult decisions or complex or even dangerous tasks often a king or what we may call an apostolic leader would call on the prophet to find out God’s hearts on the matter. Today the need for a local prophet is crucial in staying focused on God’s heart for a ministry.
I Chronicles 17:2 Then Nathan said unto David, Do all that is in thine heart; for God is with thee.
II Chronicles 29:25 And he set the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet: for so was the commandment of the LORD by his prophets.
Often the prophets were sent to an apostolic leader by God to give the leader a message of some sort which usually pertained to a difficult mission or task ahead. Today this could be a prophetic person or prophet that is not necessarily tied to a ministry being sent to a local ministry leader and giving them information or an assignment from God.
I Samuel 15: 1 Samuel also said unto Saul, The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD. 2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. 3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
As in the previous passage a prophet came and delivered a message of the task God had given to King Saul. Realize that Samuel delivered the message and was not part of carrying out the orders of the Lord. We must note that being a prophet does not always mean the person is a part of local ministry operations or even the assignments the prophet delivers. God has used many prophets that travel about the world today to speak to local ministries and give them heavenly assignments.
The Prophet Points Out Error
This is the one we do not like, correction. If you are truly a person after God’s own heart like David, then correction is bring order back into our lives and putting wrong decisions and behaviors behind us. To replace prophets today many ministries and denominations have created very restrictive in many cases to prevent problems and very heavy handed and unreasonable consequences to punish those that fail. Some examples of this are elimination of the gifts of the Spirit to avoid both teaching and training on the subject and miss-use of the gifts. To reduce the potential of sexual sin many ministers vow to never be alone with a person of the opposite sex, not matter how short a period of time, for what purpose, or the consequential difficulties it caused. I often had to transport guest speakers to and from meetings and often to the airport and sometimes they were ladies. Occasionally I could not do this task and would get someone in the congregation to do it. One speaker comes to mind that refused to be picked up by a lady that was by herself for a one time trip from the hotel to church. We all know that people can fall into temptation but was the speaker that weak or was this person thinking I would send them a person that had tendencies in the behavior? Flowing in God’s plan and truly walking with the Lord, God will send a prophet to the person in sin and confront the issue.
God’s Still Small Voice
God is speaking all the time to anyone that will listen. Prophecy for you home, work place, or your ministry should be very common. There are so many dreamers alone out there that need to nurture their dreaming gift and believe God for revelation for self and others. Exercising what we hear and see is how the gift grows. In the parable of master that gave out talents, those that used and worked with their talents gained twice as much and even in some cases received the talents of those that did nothing. This the true way to get a double portion anointing, use what you have! Walking with God is truly having two way communication with God very frequently and this could be from personal Bible study, other prophetic people, prophet signs, or possible dreams.
Speaking a Prophetic Message to Others
This is one of the most difficult things for many to overcome delivering a prophecy to someone else. If the person is a close friend or family member can affect how the prophecy is received and equally fearful is delivering the message to someone that is a stranger or a person you barely know. Even words or dreams that seem negative are not so, they are God showing his love often to warn and correct us to an ultimate closer walk with him. You grow more than ever to muster up enough courage and faith to share what God has shown you. About a year ago I had a dream of a person I know pretty well and they were in a precarious position but someone was there helping them to come out of this situation and there were many in the same place but this person was the first being helped. The situation or state of being was very negative in appearance but was symbolic and could easily be miss-interpreted and not received well by my friend. I want my gift to grow; I want to be used of God so I was compelled to share what I was shown in spite of the outcome.
Wisdom
As Proverbs tells us wisdom is truly the primary things even the first gift of the spirit listed is the gift of wisdom. Very wise prophets deliver what God shows them in very tactful way especially in a public meeting. Often prophets when they are ministering to a person may see childhood traumas that God is about to heal them of and the wise prophet in most cases will not name the trauma which could be rape, abuse, sickness, or a broken family. So many carry abuse as a child with them which affects them in their life so much and they need healing and God often uses the prophet to see it and release healing and words of direction to their life. Today so many men struggle with online pornography it could be devastating to individuals and ministries if a prophet revealed such things in a public meeting and possible more harmful than healing and this applies to many issues. On the other hand many share every dark secret they have and wear it as a badge of honor and that is their choice, not the prophets. If we truly walk with God and humbly share what he shows us we can wisely deliver and grown in our gift and it should bless all those around us.
Next week the false prophets.
Flagship Apostolic 
Posted on June 28, 2015
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