GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – GIFT OF PROPHECY
DR. JIM DIXON
2 SAMUEL 12:1-15
DECEMBER 15, 1985
Her name was Cassandra. She was a princess. She was the daughter of Priam and Hecuba, the King and Queen of Troy. According to Greek mythology, she was beautiful—so beautiful that Apollo himself desired her. And in his desire for her, he gave her a great gift, a precious gift. He gave her the Gift of Prophecy. Cassandra could foretell the future and all of her predictions came true, but Cassandra would not return Apollo’s love. In fact, the first prophecy she gave was that she never be his. And so, in his anger, and knowing that he could not take back what once he had given, he simply added a curse. She would continue to prophesy. She would continue to manifest foreknowledge. All of her predictions would continue to be true, but people would never believe her. They would always laugh at her. They would always mock her and so it was that Cassandra warned the people of Troy not to take Helen captive and they laughed at her. She warned the people of Troy not to take the trojan horse within the city walls. They mocked her.
It was said that Cassandra was kneeling in prayer at the altar of Athena when the city of Troy fell. She was taken captive by Agamemnon. She was made a slave. The years passed. Her beauty faded and she was executed. Such is the life of a prophet. Both in real life and in mythology. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi – all of the prophets in the Old Testament – many of them were laughed at, they were ridiculed. Many of them were social misfits. Some of them ate strange foods. Some of them wore strange clothing. Many of them were hated by the political rulers. Some were loved by the masses but all of them stood against the growing tide of moral evil. All of them stood for truth and righteous and justice in the midst of a world of corruption, and all of them spoke forth faithfully the word of God to a fallen generation. And that is the function of a prophet in any generation, in every generation, to speak forth the word of God.
This morning as we discuss the Gift of Prophecy, I have two teachings. The first teaching is this. A prophet is one who foretells the future. A prophet is one who is able to predict the future. In the Bible, a prophet is sometimes called a seer, one who is actually, by the power of God, able to see into the future. On February second of every year, in a small town in Pennsylvania, a contingent of reporters and various curious types descend upon the lowly diggings of the ground hog. A short time all later the wire services send photographs and information to the newspapers around the country letting them—and ultimately us—to know whether or not the ground hog saw his shadow so we can know whether or not there is going to be six more weeks of winter. A strange way to predict the future, but to most people in the world, it is not so strange as the Gift of Prophecy.
How did Nathan know, in our passage of scripture for today, how did Nathan know evil would rise up against David out of David’s own house? How did Nathan know that the sword would never depart from David’s house? How did Nathan know that the Nathan child to be born to David and Bathsheba would surely die? Nathan knew these things because he had the Gift of Prophecy, and he was in communion with God. The Bible says God is omniscient. God knows everything. He knows the future as well as He knows the He past. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He is the first and the last. He transcends time and space and sometimes, by His Holy Spirit, He reveals to a person who has Gift of Prophecy information regarding the future.
Micah was a little-known prophet. He wrote the book of the Bible that bears his name—only seven chapters in length—but it is absolutely amazing what Micah was able to see of the future by the power of God’s spirit. Micah wrote 730 years before Christ, but he prophesied the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, which fell in 722 to the Syrians under the forces of Sargon II and it happened just as Micah prophesied. And he prophesied that the City of Jerusalem would be besieged, and so it was in 701 BC by the forces of Sennacherib. He prophesied the fall of the southern kingdom, the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar the Great, which occurred by the 586 BC. He prophesied the exile, the scattering of the Jews, that they would be held in captivity among the nations. He actually prophesied the birth of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and actually gave the name of the city in which Jesus Christ was born, Bethlehem Ephrathah, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, Micah looked through the portals of time and he actually saw our future. He saw the consummation of our age, the age of the world, and he saw the dawning of the new heavens and new earth, and it is described for us in Holy Scripture.
Daniel was a prophet. Daniel lived 600 years before Christ, but he had the Gift of Prophecy, and by the power of God, Daniel saw the rise and fall of the Babylonian Empire. He saw the rise and fall of the Medo-Persian Empire. He saw the rise and fall of the Greek Empire. He saw the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. He saw all these things when, as yet, they had not occurred. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he saw and described perfectly for Alexander the Great, though Alexander the Great lived hundreds of years after Daniel. He described Alexander’s life perfectly and the division of Alexander’s kingdom into parts. He describes perfectly the rising up of Antiochus Epiphanes, the hideous Seleucid King, who performed the abominating sacrilege in the holy place. He describes perfectly the rising up of Judas Maccabeus, the cleansing of the temple, which is celebrated at Hanukah today. He described the coming of Jesus Christ and the very year in which Christ would come. He looked through the portals of time and he saw the second coming of Jesus Christ. Daniel saw Jesus Christ, the Son of God, coming on the clouds of heaven in power and great glory.
The prophets, though all of them lived at least 500 years before Christ, not only saw his birth but they saw his death on the cross. They saw the crucifixion. They described perfectly the fact that Christ would be betrayed by one of his own, the fact that he would be crucified, that he would die by crucifixion, that he would be crucified between two criminals. They foresaw that he would be buried in a rich man’s grave. They foresaw that he would be betrayed for the exact amount of 30 pieces of silver. They saw, they foresaw, the exact words that Christ would cry out from the cross and they saw our time. The biblical prophets saw the rebirth of Israel, which has occurred in our day. They prophesied that Israel would be scattered among the nations and be a nation no more, but they prophesied that in the end times, before the close of this age, before the consummation, Jews would be regathered to their homeland. They would become a nation again. They would reoccupy the holy city of Jerusalem and these things have taken place in our generation in I948 and in 1967. They foresaw that to the north of Israel, to the uttermost north, there would rise a great power called the Kind of the North and this great power is described with words that are etymologically related to Russia today. They foresaw that to the east of Israel, there would be another great power called the King of the East, and this great power to the east would be able to raise an army of two hundred million men and it is a matter of historical fact , that Red China today can raise an army of two hundred million men. I don’t know how anybody can take a look at the Bible and read the prophesies that are given there, with an open mind, and see those prophesies fulfilled blatantly in history, see other prophesies fulfilled in our time and deny that the Bible is the word of God. It is the infallible, fully inspired Word of Gad.
Now there are people in our time who claim to be able to predict the future. Fortune tellers„ psychics, mystic’s and the National Enquirer, which I’m sure all of you read regularly, every year at the beginning of the year, they have the predictions made for the year made by ten leading psychics. At the beginning of 1985, these ten psychics predicted that Hugh Hefner would become a Christian, that the Playboy mansion would become a Christian retreat center. They missed that one by just a little bit. They predicted that Sally Fields, the two-time academy award winner, would have a child. The child would be a son and she wou1d name her son Oscar. That’s true. They predicted that some surfers on a lonely California beach would discover a real mermaid. It’s hard enough to discover a lonely California beach. They predicted that a massive earthquake in Peru would unearth a previously , a hitherto undiscovered ancient Indian civilization. They predicted that that same earthquake would unearth an unrecouped UFO, thus proving once and for all that this planet has been visited by extraterrestrials.
Now I’m sure most people do not take those psychic predictions very seriously. In fact, I doubt that many of those psychics take their own predictions seriously, but in biblical times, we should understand, that people did not make predictions flippantly because if you made a prophesy and it did not come true, you could be stoned to death. It was serious business. God does give some people a spiritual gift called the Gift of Prophecy. Some of these people from time to time by the power of God, foresee the future. Some of them have prophetic visions. Some of them render words of knowledge concerning the future. I used to doubt the reality of prophetic visions. I did not believe in them. I thought they were contrived. Psychological manifestations. But then something happened. I had one.
I hesitate to share this, though I’ve done so from time to time. I’m afraid that some of you, perhaps, might think you’ve got a flake in the pulpit. But eight years ago, I did have what I know to have been a prophetic v vision. I had never had a prophetic vision before that. I’ve never had one since. I don’t know why I had that one. It was 2:00 at night, or in the morning. I was lying in bed. I woke up. I sat by the side of the bed and it’s like the Lord dust took my mind over. I want you to understand I’ve never had drugs and this prophetic vision related to our minds, and to the restoration of our minds and the promise that in the future, that in the life to come, God would restore our minds and make of our mind’s instruments of such beauty that they would be able to do things that our minds in their fallen conditions today could never imagine or hope to do. In this vision, I saw pictures of how our minds were in Eden before the I saw Fall, before sin entered creation, before we were tainted. I saw that now our minds are only able to perform a fraction of what they were meant to do because of sin. And these pictures just flashed, one after another, and I began to get passages from the Old and New Testament, some of them coming to me in the Greek and the Hebrew, and I’m sure some of those passages I’d never read in Greek or Hebrew. I was just enraptured, and my mind was just racing, and I went downstairs, and I sat in the study, sat in the chair. Barb woke up. The vision just continued. Barb woke up, saw I wasn’t in bed, and I heard her calling “Jim.” I said, “Barb, I’m downstairs and I’m having a vision.” Barb said “Oh, Jim, come back to bed!” But when I shared with Barb what the Lord was showing me, she was excited too, because I believe and I know with all my heart that God had given me a prophetic vision, and from time to time, God has led me to share that for reasons known only to Him.
I believe God has a vision for this church. This church has three purposes as I understand it before God. First of all, we seek to lead people to Jesus Christ, to the love of Christ, to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of life. Secondly, we seek to build people up in Christ, to help them grow in their knowledge of the Word and what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. And thirdly we seek to send people forth in Christ. Into the world, into their community. We want to send you forth into your neighborhoods, into your place of work, into the world as ministers for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. I believe God’s vision for this church is clear. I believed this from the point our church first began, and that vision is that this church would be a mission church, that we would be a church with a missionary thrust, that we would give money and time and prayer and people to the work of missions all over this world. That people all over the world might come to know and love Jesus Christ because we cared. That we would give money to the poor, that people might look at Cherry Hills Community Church and see the love of God, see people serving the Kingdom of Christ and see people reaching out for Christ’s sake.
This past weekend or the week past, we went to Hawaii to the YWAM Conference, Barb and I and some other people from the church. YWAM stands for Youth With a Mission. They train missionaries and they send missionaries out all over the earth. It’s an amazing organization with incomprehensible dedication. Twenty-five hundred people were there at this conference. Their worship services every night were three and a half hours long. One night it was four and a half hours long. Every morning they had three-hour worship services. We did manage to slip away every once in a while but it was amazing to see the ministry and the vision of YWAM. There are two hundred and twenty-three nations on the earth, and they have sent people into 219 of those nations. Today they have functional operating ministries in 36 nations in the world. They have three facilities on the Big Island of Hawaii and their main facility is outside of Kona up on the side of a mountain. It’s a beautiful facility overlooking the harbor and it all began years ago when Loren Cunningham, the founder and the President of YWAM, had a vision—a prophetic vision—and he saw the facilities built on a mountain above Kona. First of all, the word Kona came to him, and it came simultaneously to other members of YWAM at the same time in the same way, though none of them had talked about it. And they saw this facility on the side of the mountain, they saw a ship in the harbor, a white ship, that would be owned by YWAM and used to go to ports and third world nations all over the earth and administer medical raid for poor people and the impoverished. And today everything has come to be exactly like Loren Cunningham’s vision foresaw. Some people might think Loren Cunningham hallucinated and then he made it happen. A self-made prophecy. I don’t believe that simply because I believe that God gives prophetic visions of the future. I believe God, by the power of His Holy Spirit, enables people to look through the portals of time and have glimpses of truth.
It is true that prophecy can be abused. Certainly, there are people in the world who claim to have visions and they’re not even of God. People who claim to predict the future—fortune, tellers, psychics. occultists. The Bible says that they are not of God, and we do not need to take their predictions seriously. And even among Christians, there are those who say they have the Gift of Prophecy and many times they are in error, and that’s why we need to be careful. But it would be a mistake to deny the Gift. The Bible says, “no not despise prophecy.” The Bible says, when looking to the second coming of Christ, it says, “As for prophesies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they shall cease. As for knowledge, it shall pass away. For our prophesy is imperfect. Our knowledge is imperfect. But when the Perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child, I reasoned as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things even so now we see in a mirror dimly, then we shall see face to face. Now we know in part. Then we shall know fully even as we have been fully known.” And so, we are to test the spirits to see whether any prophesy given is of God. We are to run every teaching through the grid of scripture, which is the basis of all truth. We are to pray whenever we hear someone give a prophesy to see if it is of God. If it is of God, to test it in our spirit before the Holy Spirit. We are to talk to our brothers and sisters in Christ. See what their testimony, what their witness, what they feel about that prophesy, but I want you to understand, and I would not be a faithful minister of God if I said to you that prophesy had ceased because the Bible says it has not. God gives prophetic glimpses even in our time
Secondly and finally, and primarily, a prophet is not one who foretells so much as one who forthtells. One who speaks forth the Word of God to the present. The Greek word for prophesy is the word “prophetis.” The Hebrew word is the word “nabee.” Rarely do these words refer to predictions or foreknowledge. Most often, these words refer to one who hears the voice of God and proclaims that voice, those words, that message in the present to an individual, to a group or to a nation for their current circumstances. Sometimes a prophet will come to another person or a person with a Gift of Prophecy will come to another person and give them a word of encouragement from God, a word of comfort, a word of consolation, a word of exhortation, perhaps even, in love, a word of rebuke. Sometimes a person with the Gift of Prophecy will come and explain to somebody that God is grieved at the actions of their life. That is why Nathan came to David, and I’m sure it was not easy for Nathan. And Nathan said. “Thus, sayeth the Lord” and he was speaking to the King of Israel. He said “Thus sayeth the Lord, the God of Israel. I anointed you King over Israel. I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives unto your bosom. I gave you the House of Israel and the House of Judah, and if this were too little I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the Word of the Lord to do what is evil in His sight?” God was grieved, God was angry. Nathan came to David prophetically to share that word for his presence.
Some people seem to think that the Gift of Prophecy is the same as preaching. I have many different books on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. More than half of them equate prophecy and preaching as though the two terms were synonymous. They are not. It is true that a priest represents the people before God, the needs of the people in intercessory prayer, and it is true that a prophet represents God before the people in proclamation. But you see, a preacher or a teacher for that matter is someone who studies the Word of God and upon the basis of that faithful study of the Word of God makes a proclamation to the people. That is not prophecy. Prophecy is not based on study. It is based on anointing. No word given in prophecy can ever contradict the Word of God written, but a word of prophecy is given by the Holy Spirit to our spirit for the moment and is proclaimed to the people.
Bob and I know that if we are to be faithful in our preaching and faithful in our teaching, we need to spend time in study and we also need to be anointed. We need to listen for God’s voice. Sometimes as we study, there will be times during the week as I’m, for instance, thinking over what I believe God would have me say to you and I’m studying the scriptures or some other writings or books for illustrations or whatever I’m studying—sometimes I’ll sense that God wants me to say something. Sometimes He’ll give me a thought I honestly believe that He wants me to share with you. Sometimes I’ll come here on Sunday morning, I know it’s this way for Bob too, and something I’ve studied, I’ll feel is blocked. God doesn’t want me to say it. Sometimes something I’ve not even studied for, I’ll feel the Lord leading me to say. You know, I wish I were more sensitive. I wish I were more anointed. I wish I were more prophetic, but I know in my heart from the Word of God that faithful teaching or preaching involves both study and anointing. Preaching and prophecy.
Now the story is told of a man who was tired of studying—a minister—so tired of studying he didn’t want to do it anymore. He was tired of studying every week, so he went and talked to another minister from a more mystical persuasion and this minister said, “Well you know you don’t need to study. You can just be anointed. You can be a prophetic preacher. All you’ve got to do is on Sunday morning, wake up, pray for the Lord’s anointing, step up in front of the people, listen for the voice of God and as God speaks, you speak. Whatever He says to you, you say.” The man said, “Well that’s doing to take a lot of faith.” The other guy said, “well that’s right. ” So, Sunday morning, this minister woke up and he hadn’t studied all week. He didn’t study that morning. He just began to pray. He said, “Lord, anoint me. Speak to me. when I’m up front.” And so, then he came to church, stood up in front of the sanctuary, waited for God to say something. God didn’t say anything and so he didn’t say anything. There was just silence in the sanctuary. It was kind of awkward. He stood there waiting for the Lord to speak. He wasn’t expecting an audible voice, just some still small voice in his spirit or his heart. Nothing. The people began to get restless. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Some people began to get up and go out. Twenty minutes. Twenty-five minutes and finally God spoke to this guy. God said, “My son, tell the people you should have studied.”
I like that because I believe with all my heart that we are called to study. I know some ministers and pastors in the gospel don’t believe that, but I believe with all my heart we’re called to study as faithful stewards. That we are to study the Word to show ourselves approved as workmen who rightly divide the word of truth. But I also believe that we desperately need to he anointed. Therefore, we ask you to pray for us and we seek to spend time in prayer that God might speak to us and through us. I think God wants you to understand that the Gift of Prophecy is not primarily or simply for preachers or for teachers. The Gift of Prophecy is for everybody, all groups of people. Not every person in the church is doing to receive every Gift of the Spirit, but I believe we should be open to all the Gifts of the Spirit, and I believe it is right that we should pray and ask the Lord for each Gift of the Spirit and then let the Lord give us whatever He would. Ours is to be open and His is to give.
I believe God gives the Gift of Prophecy to people in all walks of life. God wants people to be able to go to another person and give them a word of encouragement that comes from Him, or a word of comfort, or a word of exhortation. I think there are some of you in this room who have the Gift of Prophecy and perhaps don’t know it. You are Christians who tend, at times, to say to another person “You know I really believe the Lord would have me to say,” or “I really believe the Lord would want you to do this,” or “I really believe the Lord would want you to do that,” or you tend to say “you know, I really don ‘t think God feels that way,” and perhaps you’re sensitive to God’s spirit and you go and share what you sense with another person and you’re really manifesting prophecy on a personal level but you’re not aware of it. Obviously, no one can have the Gift of Prophecy unless they believe that God is capable of speaking to the human spirit. I you don t believe that God can speak to your spirit, you can’t possibly have the Gift of Prophecy and you’ve got a very small God.
You see in the Bible, in book I Samuel in the third chapter, we’re told that Samuel was in the temple at Shiloh. He was just a boy. He was lying in bed, and he heard his named called—”Samuel!”, “Samuel!” He went to Eli, the priest, and he said “Here am I.” Eli said “I did not call you, my son. Go back to bed.” Samuel went back to bed, and he heard his name, ” Samuel! ” “Samuel!” He went to Eli and said, “Here am I.” And Eli said “I didn’t call you. Go back to bed.” He went back to bed, and he heard, “Samuel!” “Samuel!” and the third time he came to Eli. Eli sensed that perhaps the Lord was speaking to Samuel, so Eli said “Samuel, I believe the Lord is speaking to you and next time you hear Him call your name, say “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.” And that was the beginning of Samuel’s pilgrimage as a prophet as well as a priest. He began to hear the voice of God.
I don’t believe God speaks to every Christian in the same way. The Holy Spirit is able to commune to us in many ways, but I do believe we need to learn how to hear his voice. We need to be sensitive to it. So many times, as Christians, we spend so much time talking to God in prayer that we never listen. We never have moments when we’re still before the Lord where we seek to sense His word to us. Now this is a dangerous subject, I admit it. Nothing bothers me much more than some Christian going around to other Christians and saying, “God told me to tell you this . .” because many times, those messages aren’t from God. They’re from the person. They’re in the flesh. But just because a gift is abused doesn’t mean we should throw the gift out and so God wants us to take the Gift of Prophecy seriously. In fact, the Bible says, “Make love your aim, and earnestly desire all the gifts, especially that you may prophesy, for he who prophesies speaks to men for their upbuilding, for their encouragement and for their consolation.” Some prophets, then, are able to predict the future. Most prophets simply speak forth God’s message to the present. All prophets are people who are open to the ministry of the Holy Spirit and willing to sense the Spirit’s voice. The Bible says, “Understand this: no prophecy ever came by the will of men, but men moved by the Holy Spirit speak from God.” Let’s pray.