SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone, I'm Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Steve Bolt.
SPEAKER_01: I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Each week we go into God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: We teach chapter by chapter, verse by verse.
SPEAKER_01: We are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, I'd like you to turn to 2 Timothy.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Timothy chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of my favorite books of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually not what I'm teaching from today, but I just want to open with 2 Timothy 1.
SPEAKER_01: It's the magnum opus, as it were, of Paul.
SPEAKER_01: He knows he's about to die.
SPEAKER_01: He knows he's going to be executed.
SPEAKER_01: And this is his son in the faith.
SPEAKER_01: This is his beloved son, Timothy.
SPEAKER_01: This is his last charge to this pastor in Ephesus.
SPEAKER_01: In verses 6 and 7, through the ordeal of what I've been through and Liz has been through over the past nine months in our marriage and here at the church, has become a very special passage to me.
SPEAKER_01: And here we are studying the spiritual gifts and the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to open with this just to set a framework for everything else I'm going to say, because we're going to talk about a particular gift today, as we're doing every week.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 6 says, Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I grew up with the New American Standard Bible in the 70s and 80s.
SPEAKER_01: That was the Bible of choice among the evangelical group that I was a part of.
SPEAKER_01: And it talks about fan into a flame, the gift of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now the New King James says, I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
SPEAKER_01: So what he's saying here is that Paul at some point had laid hands on Timothy and transferred a gift to him, or seen an anointing, a filling of the Holy Spirit upon Timothy, by which he knew what that was.
SPEAKER_01: And now he's saying, you've got to stir it up, though, man.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to fan it into a flame.
SPEAKER_01: That's your responsibility.
SPEAKER_01: God gave you a gift sovereignly, several gifts, as I've said before in the past.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's one gift.
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a main gift over our lives, spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_01: And then I would call them tertiary gifts after that, but fan it into a flame.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, kind of how you do that.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: This is how you do it.
SPEAKER_01: He says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the battle for all of us is fear.
SPEAKER_01: We struggle, everybody here struggles with fear.
SPEAKER_01: It's what you do with fear that determines the course of your life.
SPEAKER_01: Because everybody has fear.
SPEAKER_01: And it comes from childhood, it comes from past experiences, it comes from being a human being, it comes from your flesh, it comes from the world.
SPEAKER_01: There's so many places, and you can't even define it in any particular direction except to say that everybody struggles with fear.
SPEAKER_01: And really, the argument can be made that how you navigate fear determines to what extent God can use you in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you let yourself be captured by fear, you won't do anything.
SPEAKER_01: But he says, here's how you conquer fear is rather than the spirit of fear being upon you, take on power of the Holy Spirit, dunymus, dynamite power, love, agape, sacrificial love, and a sound mind.
SPEAKER_01: And that particular Greek word for sound mind is only used for sound mind here in all of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: So he's talking about a balanced mind.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about how you think and process.
SPEAKER_01: So what I'm going to try to do today, and I'm trying to do every week for a few more weeks as we talk about spiritual gifts, is I want to equip you with a sound mind.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to be understanding gifts and also understanding how they work so that you can have a sound mind and not be living in fear.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to talk about the gift of prophecy today.
SPEAKER_01: The gift of prophecy in the New Testament and today.
SPEAKER_01: So now turn to 1 Corinthians 14.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we're back at, we've been at 12.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 12.
SPEAKER_01: 13 is the great love chapter.
SPEAKER_01: Now we're at chapter 14.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to talk about prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what it says in verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 14.
SPEAKER_01: Pursue love.
SPEAKER_01: So remember, we're coming off chapter 13, which is a great love chapter.
SPEAKER_01: That's sandwiched in between all the gifts, is that if we don't have love, then we're not going to function powerfully in the gifts.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, you can't have love without having the lover.
SPEAKER_01: So Christ, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish.
SPEAKER_01: So Christ came because of the love of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And he loves you.
SPEAKER_01: And he gave you gifts and talents and skills and the parents that you were given.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, well, that didn't seem very loving to me.
SPEAKER_01: You should have known my parents.
SPEAKER_01: But there was something of God's love in that, of something he's processing in your life through all of that.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, pursue love.
SPEAKER_01: So the first thing on any of the spiritual gifts that we talk about is that it's based in and founded on love.
SPEAKER_01: Desire spiritual gifts, he says.
SPEAKER_01: But then he says something really interesting, which he doesn't say about the other gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
SPEAKER_01: Especially that you may prophesy.
SPEAKER_01: So what is the gift of prophecy?
SPEAKER_01: So for many charismatic and Pentecostal churches, and those who come out of that kind of a background, it's a word from the Lord, or it's the word of the Lord to someone.
SPEAKER_01: It's someone walking up to you and giving you a word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's oftentimes the way in which we think of prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: And those in churches that would be more charismatic Pentecostal, they would say it's really important that you get a word from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And we're a word and spirit church.
SPEAKER_01: I call us a disciplined word and spirit church because we're not crazy on either side, but we try to walk that middle road of word and spirit.
SPEAKER_01: But for many reformed and dispensational believers, they're threatened by this idea of a word of prophecy because it seems to undermine the authority of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: The idea that a subjective, someone with a subjective perspective might say something to you that might be about the future or about a situation you're in that somehow discounts what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: And so that would be the other side.
SPEAKER_01: But where most people are at is they don't even know what it is.
SPEAKER_01: They don't even know what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean a word of the Lord or a word from God or undermining scripture?
SPEAKER_01: Or is it real?
SPEAKER_01: Is it not real today?
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's where a lot of us are today, and that's why I'm teaching on it, because there's so many misconceptions about the gift of prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm hoping and praying, and we can take a vote at the end, but I'm hoping and praying that I'm going to give you what I think is a very biblical definition from the scriptures, but also I think a very fair estimation of kind of the pros and cons of the gift of prophecy, because there's no doubt about it, men and women, it has been majorly misused.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if there's a gift that can be used with manipulation by someone towards someone else, it's probably the gift of prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm hoping that we're doing a good job of it and even working through the mistakes that we make at the road in reference to it by apologizing when we mess up.
SPEAKER_01: But also to understand what it is and what it isn't.
SPEAKER_01: So let's start with Old Testament prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: I want to start there and let me give you a definition.
SPEAKER_01: Old Testament prophecy is speaking the very words of God.
SPEAKER_01: Old Testament prophecy always, from Genesis to Malachi, is speaking the very words of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that definition for Old Testament prophecy comes from Wayne Grudham in his systematic theology, but also in his seminal work.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I thought this was one of the best books I've ever written, I mean, I've ever read, called Prophecy in the New Testament and today.
SPEAKER_01: That's where I got the title today, but it comes from his book.
SPEAKER_01: It's a great book on just the gift of prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: And so he defines Old Testament prophecy as speaking the very words of God.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the purpose of an Old Testament prophet was to give the exact wording from God to people.
SPEAKER_01: And that wasn't, it's not every particular grammar because it came through normal people like us, but it is the very words of God that would become scripture.
SPEAKER_01: They would actually become our scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to this, this is really important.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not going to explain it in any great detail here.
SPEAKER_01: It would take another hour.
SPEAKER_01: But Old Testament prophets are likened to New Testament apostles.
SPEAKER_01: So listen to what I just said.
SPEAKER_01: Old Testament prophets are likened to New Testament apostles.
SPEAKER_01: So when we look at the intertestamental period, which is 400 years between Malachi and then the first book of the New Testament, which is Matthew, the coming of Jesus, that silent period, there was no debate among the Jewish theologians and scholars that this was the Bible, what they had, as far as what we now call the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: But as Jesus came upon the scene and the kingdom of God came in a different form, and the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost, it became clear to those who have studied Old and New Testament that what we see in the elements of the anointing on Old Testament prophets was transferred into the New Testament apostles.
SPEAKER_01: So Old Testament prophets prophesied and actually wrote scripture.
SPEAKER_01: So to be a true prophet in the Old Testament meant that the prophets' words were the actual words of God.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus 4, 12.
SPEAKER_01: I'll be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.
SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy 18, 18.
SPEAKER_01: The word that God puts in my mouth, that I must speak.
SPEAKER_01: That was Jeremiah 1.9.
SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy 18, 18, I'll put my words in his mouth.
SPEAKER_01: So here's three things we know about an Old Testament prophet.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, to disbelieve a prophet's words was to disbelieve or disobey God.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, the words of a true prophet are beyond challenge or question.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, if a prophet had even one word of falsehood, he was disqualified as a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: So the equivalent of the Old Testament prophet was the New Testament apostle.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why is this important?
SPEAKER_01: Why am I talking about this?
SPEAKER_01: Because that's not true of the definition of the prophetic in the New Testament and today.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is the confusion.
SPEAKER_01: This is the confusion that I've been doing this church stuff for 30 years, 40 years in the ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And if there's one thing that seems to be the most confusing point is someone gives a prophetic word and someone uses Old Testament prophecy as how they define it.
SPEAKER_01: It has to be exactly what God said.
SPEAKER_01: Either the recipient feels like they have to do exactly what they heard the person say, or it's so outlandish and weird from the person who gave it, which by the way, there's a lot of weird people that do this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's a lot of weird pastors.
SPEAKER_01: I'm in that category too.
SPEAKER_01: And you might even say, Steve's kind of weird.
SPEAKER_01: And I'd say, I agree with you.
SPEAKER_01: My wife would totally agree with you from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so but but there's if we were looking at the weirdness factor, there's no other gift where that sometimes attracts the weirdest people.
SPEAKER_01: And so then they get evaluated again according to an Old Testament perspective.
SPEAKER_01: So let's move into the New Testament and how it's defined today.
SPEAKER_01: And it says, pursue love, desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is interesting that Paul is writing to the entire Corinthian church.
SPEAKER_01: It couldn't be the exact words of God or you're a false prophet if he's writing to everyone and he's telling everyone in the church, pursue prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: So it must be something different.
SPEAKER_01: Something must have changed in the arena of the gift of prophecy between the Old and the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: He's writing to the entire congregation.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the other thing the Corinthian church was really messed up in many ways in spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he's writing chapter 12, 13, and 14 is because they had so many mistakes, they had so much chaos happening in the church.
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, isn't this interesting that even in the midst of the chaotic state of the Corinthian church, he says, pursue prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: That's the most controversial one, prophesy speaking in tongues.
SPEAKER_01: And we we'll deal with tongues next week.
SPEAKER_01: I love this study, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: I've never done it.
SPEAKER_01: I've never done a study on spiritual gifts in all these years.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_01: I've never needed to, I didn't feel like, but I feel like I need to now, but I'm having a, it's really fun because I like really diving in and going, well, what does the Bible say about this rather than everybody's subjective opinion?
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying to the entire congregation, look, pursue love, desire spiritual gifts, and especially that you would prophesy.
SPEAKER_01: Well, why would he say that?
SPEAKER_01: Why would he make such a broad statement to a church that's already using spiritual gifts, maybe way too much, because of verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: It's because of verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: He says, For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God, for no one understands him.
SPEAKER_01: However, in the spirit he speaks mysteries.
SPEAKER_01: Now, next week I'll cover this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna talk about what it means to speak in tongues, and I'm gonna talk about different kinds of tongues.
SPEAKER_01: But look what he says here, just real quick, because it's in counterbalance to the next verse, and that is that those who speak in tongues speak to, they speak to God and not to men.
SPEAKER_01: So when we're when we're praying in tongues or we're singing in tongues or we're speaking in tongues, it's to God.
SPEAKER_01: But prophecy is gonna say is to men.
SPEAKER_01: And he's gonna say, that's more valuable.
SPEAKER_01: That's more valuable when the church comes together, is that we prophesy to men, and then he says, why?
SPEAKER_01: Look what he says next.
SPEAKER_01: But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
SPEAKER_01: Meaning that one who speaks in tongues, again, we'll cover this next week, is speaking to God and edifying himself.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, he's building up his holy faith.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the scriptures say, through praying, ministering to himself in tongues and to God.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll give a lot of examples of that next week.
SPEAKER_01: But when we come together as a body, prophecy is more important because it edifies the church.
SPEAKER_01: So he gives us three things that happen when we come together in relation to this gift of prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: Threefold purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, edification.
SPEAKER_01: So what's edification?
SPEAKER_01: It's the ministry of building up.
SPEAKER_01: Edification is the ministry of building up or making others strong.
SPEAKER_01: So when I edify you through the preaching of the word, hopefully I'm building up your spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I'm building up the soul.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, exhortation.
SPEAKER_01: Exhortation is encouraging people to move forward, breaking off fear, putting courage into people.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, it's comfort.
SPEAKER_01: And comfort is the idea of consolation.
SPEAKER_01: It's the idea of there being a healing of the heart as we move forward.
SPEAKER_01: That's comfort.
SPEAKER_01: Because we all struggle with fear.
SPEAKER_01: So let me give you a definition of New Testament prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: So New Testament prophecy is speaking or teaching God's truth to God's people that builds up the church.
SPEAKER_01: That's what prophecy is.
SPEAKER_01: New Testament prophecy is speaking or teaching God's truth to God's people that builds up the church.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the very words of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's interesting because Wayne Grudum, in his book on prophecy, he defines it as speaking truth using human words that come to the mind of the speaker.
SPEAKER_01: So he sees it as kind of almost like a spontaneous thing where you've got a truth that God gives you for someone and you speak it in human words to them.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you two aspects.
SPEAKER_01: Two aspects of speaking or teaching God's truth to God's people.
SPEAKER_01: Number one is forth telling.
SPEAKER_01: Forth telling.
SPEAKER_01: It builds up the body of Christ, builds up the church.
SPEAKER_01: So listen, everybody, when I walk up here in front of you, the mantle of prophesying is upon me.
SPEAKER_01: So the most important forthelling gift of prophecy is the teaching and preaching of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: That's prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody go like this if you know what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Keep doing that.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to make sure you guys are with me, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So that's forth telling.
SPEAKER_01: That's forthelling because I'm telling forth truth that's edifying your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Now, at the road, because of some mistakes that we've made, our policy that we worked out with the pastors is if you feel like you have a word from God for the church during a Sunday service, you write it down, you bring it to me, and I'm gonna test it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna evaluate it whether it's gonna be given or not, and I will be the one, at least at this point, that will give it.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll understand in a moment why I'm saying that.
SPEAKER_01: So forth telling.
SPEAKER_01: So when you look at the New Testament scriptures, prophecy is all, this is the prophetic word, because we're being edified and taught truth from God's word.
SPEAKER_01: So this is the document, this is the constitution of the word of prophecy right here.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll understand again in a moment why that's important.
SPEAKER_01: Number two is foretelling.
SPEAKER_01: So forthelling, number two, foretelling.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is another aspect, part of hearing from God and speaking a word in season about something.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you in this room have come to church on a Sunday, and during worship, you have a thought.
SPEAKER_01: It seems like you just a thought about something that you're related to or someone you know that you really feel like God spoke to you about something related to a season in your life or a situation you're in, or someone else's situation.
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost everybody in there.
SPEAKER_01: You see, God's always speaking, church, and that's what's the beauty of the coming together of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Is there's an anointing on this sanctuary.
SPEAKER_01: There's an anointing over you and the congregated.
SPEAKER_01: The congregated coming together of the church where God's free to speak.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times it's in worship.
SPEAKER_01: Or it's right now.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying something and it just resonates, and you're writing over to the side, I need to talk to da-da-da.
SPEAKER_01: That's the foretelling aspect of something that might have to do with your future or something that God's calling you to do that is of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So this is important.
SPEAKER_01: Write this down.
SPEAKER_01: If you're taking notes, write this down.
SPEAKER_01: The foretelling nature of prophecy is not speculation.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say this.
SPEAKER_01: The foretelling nature of prophecy is not speculation but confirmation.
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, there's a confirming in your spirit about something.
SPEAKER_01: Now, it may seem like it's out of the blue.
SPEAKER_01: You weren't even thinking about it, but that's a confirmation in your spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just speculation.
SPEAKER_01: Examples in the New Testament would be Acts 11.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts 11, a prophet named Agabas foretells by the Spirit that there would be a great famine.
SPEAKER_01: So he goes to Antioch and he foretells that there's going to be this great famine.
SPEAKER_01: He actually takes up a collection.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts 13, it says that they had teachers and prophets that were kind of on staff at the church in Antioch.
SPEAKER_01: Acts 21, Agabas again accurately predicts the imprisonment of Paul.
SPEAKER_01: And he comes and he actually binds Paul and says, This is what they're going to do to you.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is not dissuaded.
SPEAKER_01: He still goes to Jerusalem, and that's exactly what happened to him.
SPEAKER_01: He was willing to, he heard that.
SPEAKER_01: And Agabas saying, Don't go, don't go, but he goes anyway.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a that you want to talk about an interesting conversation.
SPEAKER_01: I think we spent two hours in seminary on this one passage.
SPEAKER_01: Like, why did Paul not listen?
SPEAKER_01: It says it was from God.
SPEAKER_01: Paul thought he had heard from God, so he went anyway.
SPEAKER_01: That's the mucky nature of the gift of prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean you have to believe it or even receive it.
SPEAKER_01: It still could be from God, but you say, I'm not going to do that.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like God's spoken to me to do this.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's not speculation, it's confirmation.
SPEAKER_01: So I've got to tell you guys a story.
SPEAKER_01: So I was struggling so much with a situation when I was at Anaheim Vineyard.
SPEAKER_01: I'd been, we Liz and I spent 10 years in Japan.
SPEAKER_01: We came back, we became a car to this vineyard church in Anaheim, California.
SPEAKER_01: And I felt from oh my goodness, at least 10 prophetic words that we were supposed to come to Colorado Springs and plant a church.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm working there on staff, and John Wember's a senior pastor, and he comes to me and he offers me a lucrative job, a house, and a national ministry if I would take it with the vineyard.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, yeah, that sounds really good.
SPEAKER_01: But then I take it to Liz and she goes, Well, God's told us to go plant a church in Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, honey, we're not gonna have any backing, we're not gonna have any money.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a chance we could do this for a few years, save up.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, That's not what God said.
SPEAKER_01: Hate that.
SPEAKER_01: But we went into three days of fasting and prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And we walked all over Yorba Lenda, beautiful homes out there where we were at, and it just seemed like, whoa.
SPEAKER_01: And yet I had this thing in my spirit that was unsettled.
SPEAKER_01: So we come into staff meeting, and this lady walks up to me at the end of the staff meeting and she says, You don't know me, I don't know you, but your name is Steve, which is the same name as my husband.
SPEAKER_01: Am I correct?
SPEAKER_01: And I went, Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Got a word for from God for you.
SPEAKER_01: You're seeking God right now about something that you need to do, a decision that you need to make.
SPEAKER_01: And I had a vision of you as soon as you walked in the room, of you standing on some rocks.
SPEAKER_01: Like it was a bunch of rocks.
SPEAKER_01: You're standing on some rocks.
SPEAKER_01: No, you were standing on the Rockies.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord wants you to know I've told you what to do.
SPEAKER_01: Quit waiting around and do it, and it's March the first, and it's time to march.
SPEAKER_01: And I went down on my face and wept, and I resigned that day.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so God can use prophetically gifted people at strategic times in your life to confirm something that He's already been speaking to you about.
SPEAKER_01: And that was really, really exciting.
SPEAKER_01: And I never looked back, and we came with nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, no, they gave us$5,000.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but that was it.
SPEAKER_01: And then we had to do it on our own in 1994, and God blessed us with mountain springs, and it took off, and it was very exciting.
SPEAKER_01: So, how do you how do you judge whether prophecy is from God or not?
SPEAKER_01: How do we judge that?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 29.
SPEAKER_01: If you would look at verse 29 and 1 Corinthians 14.
SPEAKER_01: First, we judge a prophetic word through examination.
SPEAKER_01: It says, let two or three prophets speak and the others judge.
SPEAKER_01: That's diacrino.
SPEAKER_01: The Greek word is diacrino, and it's the idea of separating or distinguishing from falsehood.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you you examine, and a lot of times it's not just you, but you would subject that to others for them to examine.
SPEAKER_01: So we examine the word as to whether it's from God or not, with the idea that it could be, some of it could be from the Lord and some of it might not be.
SPEAKER_01: I like to tell people eat the meat, spit out the bones.
SPEAKER_01: Eat the meat, spit out the bones.
SPEAKER_01: Recently, when Mark was here, when he we did the healing seminar, not Mark, but another guy that the prophetically gifted guy that he knows was prophesying over me, and he said he said, I see painting.
SPEAKER_01: I see you're very creative, and you're gonna start painting.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going, wow, man, this you got the wrong dude, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, and maybe it's gonna happen in the future, but I can just say it's definitely not confirmational right now.
SPEAKER_01: But then, but then he said a word about some stuff that was so right on.
SPEAKER_01: I won't share it right here with all of you, but it was so right on.
SPEAKER_01: So we eat the meat, we spit out the bones, we examine what it says.
SPEAKER_01: So, how do we evaluate a prophecy at the road?
SPEAKER_01: Give me three thoughts on this.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, does it conform to scripture?
SPEAKER_01: In other words, if he's saying divorce your wife, probably not from God.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: If he's saying, go for the secretary, it's okay.
SPEAKER_01: She needs you, probably not from God.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it has to conform to scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, does it resonate in your spirit?
SPEAKER_01: In other words, do you have a confirmation in your spirit about it?
SPEAKER_01: And then number three, do you know the person?
SPEAKER_01: Do you know the source of the prophetic word?
SPEAKER_01: I like what Wayne Grudham writes.
SPEAKER_01: He says, in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is talking about a meeting of those who are already accepted in the fellowship of the church.
SPEAKER_01: When you come together, verse 26.
SPEAKER_01: Earnestly desire to prophesy, verse 39.
SPEAKER_01: The picture is one of several prophets who are known and accepted by the congregation.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm very wary of anybody coming into the road that we don't know who comes up and wants to give a prophetic word.
SPEAKER_01: So we need to know them in our fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: Then look at verse 30.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 30, secondly.
SPEAKER_01: But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent, verse 31, for you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged.
SPEAKER_01: So second, judging a prophetic word meant that some were intentionally neglected, meaning that we don't receive everything.
SPEAKER_01: Some were had to remain silent, even in the Corinthian church.
SPEAKER_01: So just because someone gives a word doesn't necessarily mean it's a word that we need to receive.
SPEAKER_01: Now remember, this is important, that most of the churches were small groups back at this time.
SPEAKER_01: These were house churches.
SPEAKER_01: So I believe the best place to learn how to prophesy, the best place to learn how to give words of knowledge and words of wisdom is in a small group, not in a big congregation.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's talking about those who would have been in that kind of a small group bringing edification.
SPEAKER_01: Because look at verse 26.
SPEAKER_01: Look back at verse 26.
SPEAKER_01: Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation.
SPEAKER_01: Let all things be done for edification.
SPEAKER_01: So he's talking about a small group where you know everyone, people are sharing.
SPEAKER_01: Again, Grudom says, it seems from our passage that the prophet's words could be challenged and questioned, and that the prophet could at times be wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Yet there's no indication that an occasional mistake would make him a false prophet.
SPEAKER_01: In 1 Corinthians 14, 30, Paul seems unconcerned that some of a prophet's words could be lost forever and never heard by the church.
SPEAKER_01: So we evaluate, second, we sometimes neglect, and then verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the same.
SPEAKER_01: So thirdly, you judge a prophetic word, is the spirit of peace in the leadership.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the leadership team, in our case, the road, we would have a sense of peace that that was from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Or a lack of peace.
SPEAKER_01: That was not from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Or this was from the Lord, but this part wasn't.
SPEAKER_01: Again, you see the difference.
SPEAKER_01: It's speaking truth.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean it's perfect.
SPEAKER_01: There's not the claim of false prophets, but rather it's more about what is God saying to us at this particular time.
SPEAKER_01: So final thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: Here's some final thoughts on the use of the prophetic gift at the road.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, we believe in the value of the prophetic gift.
SPEAKER_01: We believe it's for today.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a cessationist.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that I'm a well, I'm a continuous, and I believe that the gift is alive, just like the scriptures say.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, according to our definition, the main prophet is the pastor speaking.
SPEAKER_01: So the main prophet on any given Sunday is whoever's up here speaking.
SPEAKER_01: That's the prophetic word.
SPEAKER_01: That's the main prophetic word to the church.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, all prophecies must be evaluated in love.
SPEAKER_01: So even if the person who's prophetically gifted gives a word, maybe in the wrong spirit or in the wrong way, we treat them with love, unconditional love.
SPEAKER_01: Number four, all prophetic words should be written out.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not in scripture, this is for the road.
SPEAKER_01: So we appreciate it when people, if they feel like they have a prophetic word, and I how many of you have given me a prophetic word and I ask you to write it down?
SPEAKER_01: Anyone in here?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, a few of you.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what you're gonna get from me is that people will come up and say, I got a word for you, Pastor Stephen.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, give it.
SPEAKER_01: And they give it.
SPEAKER_01: It's great.
SPEAKER_01: I said, write it down.
SPEAKER_01: And so I like to get it in a written form so I can look back at it.
SPEAKER_01: Number five, the main place for the prophetic is in small groups.
SPEAKER_01: So just like we see in the New Testament, it was house churches, same today, in small groups.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason for that is we know each other.
SPEAKER_01: We know each other, we can learn and we can grow together and we can evaluate together things that might be right or wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And then number six, and I love this one, when we miss it or we make a mistake, we correct it.
SPEAKER_01: And so sometimes we've even had to get up in front of the church and apologize for something.
SPEAKER_01: And so that happens, and I've had that happen many times on my watch.
SPEAKER_01: And so um, it's okay.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody, grace, grace, grace on all the gifts.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, some of you have a gift of evangelism, and you use those chick tracks.
SPEAKER_01: Or what are anybody know what chick tracks are?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man, that's but that was the thing back when I was a kid, you know, and it's kind of like Turner Byrne tracks.
SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, yeah, so there you go.
SPEAKER_01: And and you made more people mad than glad.
SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't mean you're not evangelistically gifted.
SPEAKER_01: I just would like to help you be maybe be a little more winsome in how you do it.
SPEAKER_01: So nobody's perfect in any of these gifts.
SPEAKER_01: There's grace for everyone.
SPEAKER_01: And let's keep growing.
SPEAKER_01: Let's be a prophetically gifted, prophetically empowered church that has a lot of grace for everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: That's thheroad.org.