Reframing the Prophetic

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi, welcome to the Final Life Church podcast. And if we can help you in any way, reach out to us the Vine Life Podcast. For now, here's a short sermon from last week in my life. Again, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Thank you, guys. Yeah. Is this on? Hi. I actually asked for a dry erase board. I'm a bit old school. And they're gonna lift it up here. This is a really high stage. I was like, do I need to stand up there that's really high? I might. Thank you for the warning. I'm not the most coordinated human, so this is this is quite the challenge. How are you guys? I'm just looking at you. We have um we've been, you know, dear friends with Travis and Jeanette Ross since the mid-90s. So we've grown up with them, and it's um a great privilege to be here because she talks about you guys all the time, like she really likes you guys. Like, really likes you guys. I am glad. I do too. And I'm just so happy to be here. And of course, the 24-7 world and John Peterson is a dear friend of ours, and he's been bragging about you. So I just I feel like you're a little bit famous in my world, and so now I'm like, I'm in my life. So this is great fun. Um Shannon, where's Shannon? Shannon, just um something little. I um, well, I'm sorry, little because it's short, not little in importance, but I felt like um as they were praying for you, I felt like the Lord spoke really strongly and clearly, and he said to dig deeper, that this event isn't the last, it's not um the point, that you are to dig deeper because there's truth, that he wants to bring revelation about truth to this next generation. The truth, um, the the level of truth, um, I'm gonna speak in over-generalized terms, but the the level of truth that our generation has isn't satisfactory for their generation. They need more truth. And um, what you're carrying is not stopping here. So I just bless what you're doing, and after this event, it's not even about this event. He's gonna take care of the money. But the uh the word specifically was dig deeper. He's gonna keep showing you some more things. So I just bless what you're doing for the next generation. It's really important, amen. So don't give up. Yeah, don't give up. Um, can I just ramble a little bit? I I I'm not really professional, I'm so sorry. I'm gonna apologize up front, but I kind of feel like we should just be in a living room. I'd much prefer it if we were all sitting in a living room or over a bonfire right now and we could just chat, because that's in the mode that I'm in right now. I just I did I'm just like, can we just talk a little bit? And I know we don't know each other, but Luke gave me permission, so I'm just gonna go for it. Like I just want to talk a little bit. Um, but I'm as I was praying for you guys, you know, the last couple of weeks, I uh um and this is a no-brainer. Some of these things that I've heard from Jeanette, so there's I'm just confessing, I I have some knowledge of the history of vine life, but not detailed. I don't know the detailed knowledge of the history. But I um I saw uh this picture of a broken foundation and then this building, this tall building that was erected on a broken foundation, it and it came crumbling down, and um, it was quite devastating. It came crumbling down in different seasons in different parts, so it just felt like it went on for a long, long time. And and there was a river that was going through the broken foundation that was actually causing a little bit more damage. And and I'm not gonna um explain any analogies, I'm gonna leave that up with up to you. But I I felt like um the Lord said that you're in a season of dormancy, and I'm mixing my metaphors here, but then I saw a tree, a tree that has very deep roots, and the the tree was in winter season. And in winter season, the the trees go into dormancy in order to survive, but it's a beautiful thing that happens because they they pull in, they they stop multiplying their cells so that they can feed the cells they currently have. And it's very, very intentional so that when they come back in the season of spring, they can you know grow at multiplied rates. And I felt like the Lord said that this community is in a season of dormancy and it's been for your protection, but there is life coming back. He's going to divert the river back in your direction and into this house. And I felt like he said specifically that the schools that have been prophesied, and it was plural, there were schools that um have been prophesied over this house are still yet to happen. There is many schools that are are supposed to happen here. And so uh, Luke, you're um you're anchoring this um church into the scriptures into a family, which we heard about last night. You're anchoring this church to get ready for the season to come, which is a multiplication of people and schools. So I I'm once again, I'm not going to interpret that for you. I'm gonna leave that to you guys. I hope that makes sense to you. But the schools are very important. I I saw people coming in and being sent out almost simultaneously. This is a ascending place. I think I I feel like I've been I'm prophesying things that have been prophesied a hundred other times, you know. But this is still a sending house, but you're in a season of dormancy, but the call on it hasn't changed, and there's great life that's coming through here. But the the the sending, I feel like the schools and the sending were a part of that. So to get ready, it's you're not quite ready yet. There's more, um, there's more healing in the foundation, there's there's more work to do. People that have left are going to be coming back, and there's going to be more works of reconciliation and healing, and then there's going to be a deeper digging of a stronger foundation for what's to come. So stay focused because the Lord is doing some uh prep work in this season of dormancy. And I say dormancy, there's life happening here. I'm not saying there's nothing happening. You hear me, right? That's not offensive. It's all right. Hi, Nan.

unknown 6:37

Hi.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Okay, sorry. Um, all right. I uh can I cameraman, can I get down here? Can you will you follow me if I'm down there? Okay, good. Sorry. Did I mention I don't like tall stages? I will fall off. All right. What um is this okay?

unknown 6:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

I almost feel like I'm gonna sit on your lap. I won't, I promise. Not yet. Okay. Um so a couple of stories, and then I just want to share more of where the Lord's had me and what he's what I believe he's doing in the arena of the prophetic. This is a highly prophetic house. Like there's a there's a prophetic call on this, on this family. Um, and I think that's partly what's a little bit dormant right now, not fully, but it's it's supposed to be much more than what's happening in the current moment. Um, but that's not bad. That's the Lord's doing right now. It's quieted for a season, and I think that's part of the work that you're gonna be getting ready for is to build that foundation in the prophetic. And I'd like to speak into that a little bit if you'll um give me the grace for it. But the before I do that, I want to share a little bit about this um this interesting year and a half that we've all lived through. And I'm sure um, oh, I'm sure everybody's given their opinion way too many times. And so I'm not gonna do that, but I do want to share a prophetic story about this last year and a half that I'm still chewing on. And I um so it was about, I want to say 10 years ago, that I walked into a prayer room, and um normal, I had it was winter, I had a coat on, my purse on my shoulders, and I um set my purse down, and I hadn't even gotten my coat off yet. And I was caught up into a vision, and I I knew I was in the throne room, but I I couldn't see the throne. But what I was surrounded by was thousands and thousands of people, uh thousands and thousands of people, and it was every tribe and every tongue, and I was weeping, and as I watched the Asians worshiping in their n native tongue and dance and the same thing with the Arabs and the same things with the Africans. It was it was so beautiful, it was so beautiful, it was so massive, and and I was just sitting there trembling or standing there trembling as I was watching this whole thing unfold, and uh and um then in a minute the the whole room went quiet and we knew he was about to speak the the air, um but the air began to tremble, and we all had a uh a moment of tremble, and I want to say terror, but it's not the kind of terror that we mean, it's the it is the fear of the Lord, and uh and then he spoke and he said this he said, get ready for the great leveling. And then at that moment I opened my eyes and I saw that the um everyone in the room was the same height. There was nobody taller and there was nobody shorter, and then the vision was over. Of course, the aftermath of that was a lot of prayer, a lot of worship, a lot of crying and trembling, but I had no idea what it meant. I'm just being honest with you, I had no idea what it meant. I think I shared it with my husband, I didn't tell anybody else, I wrote it in my journal, like, and that was it. For years and years, every now and then I'd think about it, and I'm like, all right, I have no idea what that was, but it was important. Fast forward to uh the October 30th of 2019, and I'm in Belfast, and um, we were a 24-7 global conference, and there were um, I don't know, a couple thousand people from 70, 80 different nations. It was a pretty awesome time. And that morning, it was a Saturday morning, and the the the holiness of God was so present. He was so thick in the room, and and he brought this whole vision back. And he said, Now, it's now I'm getting ready to do this now. So I, you know, texted our leader and and he had me jump up and share it. And I I still didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what the great leveling was. I was it was kind of frightening, it was um trembling, and and I know our God is really kind, so I I but I I I don't know when he talks about leveling things, it's it's scary, right? I mean it's mountains being brought low and valleys being brought up, and so the whole room out of all these people, you know, the the ones that felt like they were being humbled got on their faces, and and there were a lot of really broken and hurting people in the room, and and I asked them to stand on their chairs, you know, the great leveling, nobody taller and nobody shorter. And then of course 2020 happened, and um the whole world was leveled in our humanity. COVID hit the palace in London and the slums in Africa did the same. COVID hit the underground church in Iran, and seaside palaces in Spain the same. We were all equal before this enemy and our humanity. But the leveling wasn't just COVID, and I'm not saying God gave us COVID, please hear me. But he did level us, didn't he? If there's no other fruit than us being humbled out of this year that we've had, let that be our greatest fruit. Are we not humbled by this year of coming up against things that we could not control, that the most powerful forces on this planet could not control. And then to see the fruit of the church, the way that we politicized everything and started biting at each other's heels, I think there's scriptures about that. And the way that the church responded globally, but especially in our own country, was horrifying. I walked around for weeks and weeks and months and months crying and grieving over the state of the church, and I kept seeing the I kept seeing this vision of the Lord of Jesus running through the temple, flipping over tables. I'm like, Lord, you are flipping our tables, and he kept saying to me, yes, and everyone just wants to talk about the tables. It's not about the tables. Jesus is speaking, he's flipping over tables of racism and sexual impurity. We've got Ravi Zacharias and the whole he's he was flipping over tables as he ran through the temple all year long. And we kept talking about the tables and backbiting and dividing and devouring and even spiritualizing our arguments in the way that arrogantly we would cut down our brothers and sisters, and it's not okay. And he's still flipping over our tables and bringing us low. Like I couldn't crawl low enough. I like if I could get under the ground, it wouldn't be low enough for what he was trying to speak to the churches when Jesus flips over our tables. Who among us will look at Jesus to see what is the Spirit saying to the church? What is he saying to the church? He's not talking about the tables, he doesn't want us to argue about the tables, he doesn't want us to hold meetings about how to fix the tables, he doesn't want us to like fight over whose fault it was to put up the tables in the first place and what happened because of the tables. He wants us to look at him and listen for what the Holy Spirit is saying to the churches because he is speaking, he is addressing us, and it's good, it's a good thing, he's answering our prayers, it's not condemnation, he wants us to reveal his glory, he wants us to rightly represent him in the earth, he wants us to bear his image to a lost and hurting world, and we're not. Oh, sometimes we are. I'm not saying it's all bad and all wrong, but none of us would stand up and say, I think we got this nailed down and we're doing pretty all right, you know? I think all of us can sense, like, yeah, we've got, we're not quite, we don't quite have this thing figured out. And it's okay. But he's trying to lead us. And for me personally, one of the tables he flipped over was the prophetic. Don't worry, I'm not gonna get political, and I'm not gonna analyze and talk about the prophetic crisis of 2020 and our political craziness. I wouldn't dare. But when that happened, my phone was ringing off the hook because, you know, as Luke said, I'm um on the US communities oversight team. So we oversee a network of churches in the states with 24-7, and then I'm on the global team as well. And so um, and I'm the primary prophetic weird person on both of those teams. And so, so my phone was ringing off the hook in the middle. I mean, from all over the world. Other nations were calling me, going, what is happening in America right now? What is happening in the states? What are your prophetic people doing? Why is there such confusion? They couldn't figure it out. And let me tell you, I'm really thankful to be a part of a global movement because we need eyes outside, don't we? We need eyes outside of our own lives, outside of our own marriages, outside of our own families, outside of our own churches. We need eyes into us, outside of our own nation, outside of our own political standing, outside of our own pet peeves, outside of our idols. I don't think it'll be shocking to you for me to say that I believe that there is a cultural idol in our country of comfort. Anyone think I'm wrong on that one? Right? I mean, come on. You know, uh, we have like comfort is a high priority for everybody in the West. I could say the same thing to the Europeans and the people in the UK. Um I I honestly think that much of our theology has gone through the filter of that idol. I mean, it's easy for me to go to the Middle East and see how their theology has been influenced by their culture. I can see where Islam has seeped into their theology, and I can point it out because I don't live in that crockpot, right? They're in a crockpot of Islam. We all have cultural filters, right? I am a white evangelical middle-aged woman who lives in the buckle of the Bible belt. That is my filter. And that comes with a lot of filters, and I can't do anything about that but learn how to be aware of them because it it's true. We all have them, right? We all have our filters, and and so when I go to the Arab world, it's easy for me to spot theirs because I don't have them. And then when they come to see us, they're like, oh yeah, you guys are way too comfortable. Like, yeah, it's it's true. It's true. So our um our theology is always filtered through our lenses, right? And in that, um I realized. Oh all right, let me just tell you my, I'm gonna keep it to my story. And if you want to throw fruit at me, don't hide the fruit. Um, I'll just say now, I don't really care if you agree with me. You can totally disagree with me. I'm hopping a plane tomorrow. So, but I really am not trying to convince you into anything. It's important to me that you you think for yourself and you decide what you think on your own and not just swallow whatever I'm about to tell you. All right. I've been in prophetic ministry for almost 30 years. I I love the prophetic, I really do. The fact that this magnificent holy God who holds the universe and the spance of his hand would put his voice inside of me that he would speak to me, and that he would love another human or another church or another city or another nation, or he would love the church and the world enough to speak through a broken frail, often messed up human being. And trust me with those words, it just wrecks me. Like I do question his judgment sometimes, but I'm also really thankful because he uh he partners with us, and that's incredibly gracious of him, right? So um I love the prophetic. I've been in prophetic ministry, like I said. I've it's my primary thing, it's my job title, it's my badge, and I um I've gone through quite a journey of ups and downs with that and the way that I relate to it. But just like um I said earlier, I could say the same thing about the prophetic. It's we've all known that it's not we know we're not seeing the fullness of the prophetic, right? Like that's not a big surprise, it's it's not even an insult. It's just like, ah, this is good, but is it everything? Like this is good. I like this. This is if I sense the presence of God on this as people prophesy, but is this really it? Is this the purpose of the prophetic? And and if it is, then how come what we do I don't see in this book? Like, I mean, I'm looking for my Bible. How come? Like, have you ever wondered about our prophetic ministry? I mean, there's not a single example of it in this book. Not one. Oh, we try to cram some things in there, but if you really study the scriptures, not one. There's not a single time where there's you put somebody in a hot seat and everyone's speaking words of encouragement. There's it does not exist. And now, now I'm not saying that it's not good. I think it's a great thing because I just think his words are better than mine. And at the end of the day, we're encouraging each other, and that's a good thing, right? We're just loving people. So I'm not saying we should stop that. I think we should do more of it. Because we need to hear his voice, and that's a good idea. But it's still nowhere in this book. So can we ask the hard questions about this prophetic thing and realize that it might be important? It's most definitely important. We need the true fullness of this prophetic gift now more than ever. More than ever. And we haven't raised up, this is my opinion, we haven't raised up true prophets. And trust me, I had to repent quite a lot this last year because I've taught a lot of things that I don't agree with anymore. And that's really hard. My current stance is that the prophetic calling in the scriptures, if this represents the prophetic calling, and I mean by that it's its function, its purpose, what the prophetic is used for, what it exists for, what it is supposed to be accomplishing in the church and in the world, if it's this, the thing that we do might hover somewhere around there. Not even close. So personally, I um in the middle of this prophetic crisis of 2020, and uh everyone was calling and asking me, well, what do you think? Which side are you on? And I I don't know about you, but I have refused to engage in any of those conversations because I want to know what the Holy Spirit is saying to the church. I don't care about your opinion, I don't care about mine, I don't care what anybody thinks about a mask. I don't care. I want to know what the Holy Spirit is saying to the church. I'm bored with all of our fighting and arguing, it's boring. He's tossing our tables, and I gotta know why. And the prophetic was right in the middle of it all. And I am a charismatic prophetic woman that I've run in that circle my whole life, and I felt like my own people were turning on each other, and all I could do was groan. Groan. And I'm still not out of it, as you can tell. I knew this was gonna be a teary morning. I'm sorry, you get women up here preaching, and you're gonna get tears. So um, one of the things I felt like Jesus said to me as he was turning over those tables, and I kept my eyes locked on him, wanting to um hear what he was saying and what he was doing. I'm like, okay, you're tossing those tables, let me help. I'll toss them. I don't care, I don't care about the tables, I want to know what you're doing and what you're saying. And and um one of the things he, I felt like he said to me was look at the real, which was a great relief because then I didn't need to analyze all the prophets of if they were right or if they were wrong or whatever. Like and I didn't need to enter that fight. I'm like, I can't, I we could take the rest of eternity and try to dissect who was right and who was wrong and who prophesied and who should have repented and who shouldn't. I'm bored with the conversation. I want to know what he's saying. And so when he said, look at the real, I uh thought it'd be a good place to start to open my Bible. So on that one night, I sat on my couch and just read through the book of Acts. You know, I've read it a hundred times, and so I went through really fast, and I just with my highlighter in hand, two of them actually, I highlighted all the different times where there was a prophetic encounter in the scripture, just through Acts. I highlighted with one color all the times that the prophetic, I felt like I was watching for that spirit of prophecy, as if I was watching a character in a movie, and I was analyzing the character in the movie. Only the character of the movie, of this movie, was the spirit of prophecy. And I'm watching and analyzing and observing. It was more like a deep observation of this of this character and this movie throughout the book of Acts of the spirit of prophecy. And so I underlined every time I'm like, oh, there, he's speaking there, and he's speaking here, and this is what the Holy Spirit is doing here, and this is what the prophetic did. And then with another marker, I highlighted every time that they referred back to an Old Testament prophecy where they were walking through the fulfillment of a prophetic word, and they were, I could see where they were relating with the prophetic. And by the time I finished that exercise, there was highlighting on every single page through the book of Acts. I closed my Bible and I couldn't talk. Because I felt like I saw the prophetic for the first time. I can't even tell you how many prophetic conferences I've taught, but I've never taught from Acts. We all, every prophetic teacher uses the same five scriptures every time we teach, but then we all teach on experience. And uh like to actually teach the prophetic completely out of the scriptures. This is the challenge I felt from the Lord. In fact, I started to write a curriculum and I've now finished it. This whole last year and a half, I've been writing a curriculum, and it's we're gonna use it for 24-7 prayer. It's a college-level course. We've got 25 different teachers from around the world. I had a team of theologians working with me, and we went from the Old Testament prophets, and they're uh they're they're scandalous. I was afraid of those dudes and women for so many years, but I'm I'm like, I'm utterly smitten now. But so went through them and then moved on to the New Testament. And and you know, let me just tell you this. My my summary, I'm gonna invite all of you, anybody who wants to, can jump into this curriculum. We're um kicking off a um a new cohort probably in January. It's all online and it's all biblical reflection, it's conversation around the Bible and what we see in the scriptures. Because here's the thing. Um, when the when Jesus said uh look at the real, what popped in my mind right away, and you guys have probably heard this before. Wait, how much time do I have, Luke? Ten minutes go? Oh okay, good. Um if I see you falling asleep, I'll know to stop. Okay, so um, where was I? Okay, the um you guys have probably heard this before, the but the the people who are experts in studying um counterfeit or spotting counterfeit currency, and they don't study counterfeit currency, they study the real. They become so intimately aware of the real what real currency looks like, they can tell you where every line is. It's like etched on their mind, it's etched on their heart, it's etched on their soul, it's it's like they they they are intimately acquainted with the real. And so when they see something that isn't the real, doesn't matter what it what way they're trying to be false, it sticks out like a sore thumb. And so I uh that was my mission. I have to study the real. I can't answer, I can't address, I can't talk about this confusion over the prophetic in our nation right now because um I'm confused right with it. But let's study the real. And so this whole curriculum that I put together is that. I'm like, I'm not telling anybody how they should think about any of that, but I do want to study the real. I want to gaze at these prophetic men and women all the way through the scriptures, Old Testament to the new. I want to learn what it is that they were doing and why, and what drove them and what moved them and what motivated them and what was their purpose. Because you see, at the end of the day, I'm convinced now that we have a purpose problem in the prophetic. The age-old adage now if you don't know the purpose of a thing, you're destined to abuse it. It's not a gifting problem, but it's a purpose problem. If you don't know the purpose of a thing, you are destined to abuse it. We have a lot of very gifted men and women out there that have uh maybe, maybe lost sight of their purpose. And the theologians around the world, I haven't actually found a theologian that doesn't agree with this, that the purpose of the prophetic, both Old Testament, even though I know there's a big difference from Old Testament to New Testament prophecy, and I'll explain that in a minute, but all the way through the scriptures, the purpose of the prophetic is this. They speak, obviously, the declarative revelatory words from God to bring alignment of the people of God into the covenant. Every single time. Their purpose, it's the is the same theme all the way through the scriptures. The prophets are there to draw the people into alignment with the covenant. In the Old Testament, that was clear. They drew them into alignment with the law, because that was their, the plumb line of their relationship was with the law. And if they disobeyed the law, there was punishment, there was retribution, there was issues, and if they obeyed the law, then there was reward, right? But in the New Testament, the purpose of the prophetic is the same, it's just the covenant is different. The covenant radically changed. Now the covenant is Jesus. This is why we read in Revelation 19:10 that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. Now that can look in all kinds of micro and macro ways, right? It can look in such a way of telling Shanna not to give up. If she's discouraged to dig deeper into the scriptures, there's revelation of truth because that's the Lord speaking to somebody who's going to ignite a generation in her area that would actually draw alignment into the covenant, which is Jesus, deeply rooted in the truth of good, healthy, solid, solid theology, which we desperately need. We see the prophetic throughout the book of Acts when Ananias. I love Ananias. At this point, Ananias, this is just three years after the resurrection of Christ. So this is a three-year-old. We call him a baby believer. Right? We never hear of Ananias again. But he he was used by God. It was like, have you seen tugboats, those little tugboats that pull out the massive freight liners, like out into the open waters? That was Ananias. Ananias pulled Paul, this man that was going to be the most influential man in all of human history, aside from Christ himself, out. He pulled a little tugboat that pulled this man out into the open seas. And the Lord used Ananias as a prophet to open the eyes of the apostle. Saul. We see the prophetic in the book of Acts through Cornelius and Peter and their epic thing that went happened. Like Cornelius had his visitation to say, you know, from the angel to go find a man named Peter, and what's his face's house? And then Peter is having his open vision on the rooftop, and he's like, I don't know what to do with this, and follow these three men. And the next thing you know, the Gentile Pentecost is happening, and those that were excluded from the body of Christ are being brought into the family of God as the Holy Spirit breaks through the walls of the Jewish community. We see the prophetic and the Macedonian man who shows up and breaks the barrier of their minds because they they weren't yet taking the gospel out past their western eastern world, and the Macedonian man waves them into carrying the gospel into Europe. We see the prophetic as Philip is walking on a road, and the Lord tells him which road to walk on, and then he tells him where, what carriage to stand next to. And before you know it, uh the Ethiopian is being radically undone. And it was right as the Ethiopian was heading back to his homeland and the gospel was catapulted into Africa. Every single time we see the prophetic in the New Testament, it advances the kingdom, it breaks down the barriers of our limited thinking. It expands the work of the kingdom throughout the world throughout the world. We need the prophetic to stand in its rightful place. We see the prophetic with Paul on the boat at the end in Acts 27, when Paul is on the boat and and everybody's like jump, wanting to jump off because the storms, they've been fighting the storms for so long, and Paul was like, no, on this day. I I had a message from God, and I must stand before Caesar and share the gospel with Caesar. So God rescued an entire ship of men in order for the gospel to be presented to Caesar. When you see the true prophetic, and you gaze at the true in the scriptures, and you'll be able to clear away the cobwebs and maybe spot the false more easily. This is a prophetic house. And we need true prophets to arise today. We are in a point in our church history we don't know what to do. We don't know where to go. We're like the Israelites that after they were punished, we're like, how soon will we forget the discipline of the Lord? Are we gonna just try to pick up those tables and mend their legs and go on as if nothing happened? The whole world changed in this last 18 months. And we don't know what to do. Our apostolic people have been warning over and over again do not presume that you can move forward in your own mind, in your own strategic thinking. Church leaders need to know that they must be dependent on the revelation from heaven in order to know where to go. The prophetic needs to be standing in its place to give direction and instruction for the church in this hour. And yet we have not trained prophetic people that they can actually do that. Do you know that every single, this one's gonna be upsetting. Do you know that every single prophetic moment throughout the New Testament falls into three categories? Every single example of the prophetic we see in the New Testament falls into three categories correction, direction, and warning. And those are the three things that we've told prophetic people they can't do. We've got a problem. Now, I'm not saying we should give them permission to be idiots. We but we can't tell idiot young prophetic people to just not correct people. We need to raise them up to actually stand in the holiness of God, to be able to speak correction to the church when we need it or to give warning. I mean, my gosh. We wonder why the prophets couldn't warn the church about a global pandemic that was to come so that we could be prepared like Joseph stood and prepared Egypt. Is it maybe because we've never received their warnings? We've told them it's not good, they just have to say happy things to happy people because of our idol of comfort. We just want everybody to be comfortable. So we haven't raised up our prophets to be able to hear a warning from heaven? Can you imagine? I mean, I can say for myself, if somebody came up to me in in February of 2020 and wanted to get on a stage and prophesy about a global pandemic, I would have been like, oh, that's nice, let's talk later. I would not have given them the microphone. I would not. But I will tell you also, the prophetic is to be humble, is to be submitted, is to work in team. They are not to be lone rangers, and they are not to be functioning on social media. It is very clear in the New Testament they are to function and with the full fivefold. As we see in Ephesians, they are there to equip the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, until we reach the level and the stature of the full man. How can you pay attention with that view? We need the prophetic to accomplish what it was supposed to accomplish. We need to train people and raise them up into maturity. And yes, we should still encourage, and yes, we should still edify, and yes, we should still speak the intimate, loving words of identity from one to another. Um don't stop that. Just don't define the prophetic by that. Because that doesn't define the prophetic. We've allowed it to define the prophetic through our cultural lens of idolatry towards comfort. And yes, I know at least five of you are thinking, but what about in 1 Corinthians 14 where it says all prophecy is to edify, exhort, and comfort? Yes, if you actually do the word study on each one of those words, it pretty much covers everything. So, amen. And that was Paul that wrote that. Paul would have said that Isaiah was highly encouraging because he was encouraging people to get in line with the covenant. We just hear it through our cultural lens and we think, comfort, oh, that means nothing hard. That's not what it means. There's often been times throughout the years where I've sat in church services when somebody's on the stage prophesying and calling money out of heaven and names and dates and addresses, and I don't know. And I just try to picture Isaiah sitting next to me. I would try to picture the Apostle Paul who wrote from prison that I have lost everything and I counted as rubbish for the sake of knowing him. Like Lord. We have fallen. Help us. We've got work to do. You guys, I'm gonna be really bold. There's a prophetic call on this house, and you've got some work to do. Keep doing what you're doing, keep encouraging people. Let's do some study and find out what this gift is really called to be. Okay. I don't know what to do now. Sorry, thank you. Is that all right? Am I in trouble? Okay. I don't know. I I can't pray for you. I gotta pray for me. Lord, thank you for your mercy. And thank you for your grace. We don't want to abuse your grace is the line in that song that I keep weeping over. I don't want to abuse your grace. The world needs a prophetic people. Holy Spirit. Forgive us for objectifying you. Forgive us for using you for our own purposes. Will you align us with the true purposes of the kingdom again? Will you teach us how to reveal Jesus? Will you teach us how to display your glory and truth, not in our own imaginations, and what we think that might look like? Father, we're clueless. We need you, Holy Spirit. We need you so badly. Thank you that the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. And you know, I've repented so much for the times that I have abused this gift because I didn't know its purpose. Thank you for your mercy. Oh, and I ask you to light this place on fire with truth, with holiness, with the fear of the Lord, with the tremble. Let this place tremble on the mountaintop. Let this place be a demonstration. Let this community be one that are willing to do the work and lay down what we've what we thought we knew to take a hold of what it is that you want to show us. You have leveled us, Lord, and you have flipped our tables. And it's a good thing and it's a kindness. It shows that you care. And you are still committed to revealing your kingdom on the earth through us. So, Father, will you begin a journey in this community? I ask you, will you grab hold of the prophetic voices and lift them higher? Give them a vision of the eternal purposes of Christ. Will you anchor us into partnership with the eternal purposes of Christ? That we would know where you are taking us. And will you prophesy through the people in this room to the Church of Colorado? Lord, we don't have time for condemnation or fear or any of that silliness. We just give ourselves to you to undo us, to confront us, to level us, to flip our tables, and to comfort us. It's all in your love. Will you grow us up into the power of God to accomplish what the power of God was released on this earth to accomplish? May we even know that. We need you, Lord. So grace, grace, and more grace for life and truth and true kingdom mischief to be released here at Divine Life. Amen.