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9295--Tom Marshall--The Prophets are Coming_128k
00:00:00 Speaker: The following message was given at the Arama Christian Fellowship Convention on Great Barrier Island in January nineteen eighty three. I speak this morning about the prophet. As I said, probably several times, we're living in the days when God is beginning to do something new. One of the exciting things about God is that God, one at the same time, is always the same. God never changes. And yet God is always doing something new. God hasn't run out of ideas. We think that God had a great burst of creativity a few millenniums ago, and since then he's done nothing much new. That's not so. And the Bible is full of God saying, behold, I'm going to do something new. Now, if it's new, we haven't heard of it yet. It was new, we haven't experienced it yet, and we're moving in. At times, I believe where God is beginning to do very exciting new things. And one of the things that God is doing is restoring the office and the ministry of the prophet. Before John the Baptist came. The public prophetic voice of God had been silent for over four hundred years. It's almost as though the last time anybody ever prophesied was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First. That's how long it was. Now, during those years, God had always spoken to individuals, but publicly, God's prophetic voice had been silent. Sometimes I think that there is buried in the Jewish subconsciousness or the Jewish spirit, something that resonates to the word of the Lord. Because even after four hundred years of silence, that strange man comes out of the wilderness. And Israel always looked towards the wilderness for salvation, because that's where the Exodus took place. Out there in the wilderness, out in the wilderness, there comes that voice. Prepare the way of the Lord and a chord in the Jewish heart started to throw, and they came streaming out to hear him. They recognized God is speaking again. The word of the Lord is coming. Why was it that after four hundred years, God suddenly begins to speak in a public prophetic way? I'll tell you why. Because the King was coming. It is to do with the kingdom. It was a message concerning the kingdom. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. See? Listen. For almost two thousand years since then, the public prophetic voice of God has been largely silent. Now, God has always spoken to individuals all through those years, but publicly to an almost complete extent. The prophetic Word of God has been silent until our day. Until today. Until our generations. And what we're hearing now again is God breaking the silence of the heavens and speaking publicly, prophetically in our midst. And I ask myself why? I want to tell you why. It's because the king's coming. It is an end time phenomenon. The gift of prophecy. Every time I hear a prophetic utterance in a meeting. Every time God speaks prophetically through me, something in my heart thrills. Because I know it's an evidence that we're living in the last days. The king is nigh even at the doors. See? And we need to understand. The times we're living in. And God is again breaking the silence of heaven to speak in a prophetic way. Now there is the gift of the prophet. Moffat. At least there's the gift of prophecy, with which today we're becoming fairly familiar. But there's also the office of the prophet. And that's what I want to speak about, really, this morning. We're living in days of restoration when God is restoring to the church things that have been lost. In Ephesians chapter four, we have a list of what we have come to call the Ascension Gift Ministries. They are gifts of the ascended Christ to the church in Romans twelve. There are the motivational gifts, the gifts of God the Father to everybody, gift of prophecy, teaching, service, and so on. In first Corinthians twelve, they are the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the needy person in Ephesians four. They are the gifts of the ascended Christ to the church, and they are apostles, prophets. Evangelists. Pastors. Teachers. Now, I want you to turn to that passage and just I want to show you something there in Ephesians chapter four. And verse eleven and he gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers. Some people think those are two ministries. Some think they're both the one for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. Until that's a very important little word, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ, the gift of apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers are given to the church until until we all attain to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Question have we yet attained to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ? No, we haven't. Therefore, God has still given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers until that happens. Now, I believe that these ministries, these offices were lost in that order. First the apostles died and there were few to follow them. Then the prophets went, and then there were no evangelists, and the pastors gave up. And then then there were no teachers. And the church went down into the dark ages, when there was very little of the truth of God left. But since the Reformation, God has been restoring, and he has been restoring these ministries in the reverse order to which they were lost. So the first to come back were the teachers. There was a recovery of truth during the Reformation. And then God raised up pastors, men with a real shepherd heart. And then we have evangelists. And all those ministries are known and recognized in the body of Christ today. The question is, where are the prophets and where are the apostles? Beloved, I believe we are living right now in the day when God is going to raise up again in the church prophets. I don't mean people with a gift of prophecy are people. I mean people with the calling, the office, the ministry of prophets. And we're living right in those days. It's beginning to happen, right? What is the ministry of the prophet? If you turn to Exodus chapter three, you'll find the the type of old prophets that is the man Moses and Moses is the is the typical prophet. In fact, when Jesus was coming, the promise was God said, I'll raise up for you a prophet like unto Moses. So Moses is the classic case of the prophet. And you find from Exodus chapter three three very important things about the prophet. The first of them is this, that the prophet is raised up by the call of God. It's an absolute sovereign decision by God to create a person of prophet. Somebody said to me one time, I'd like to be a prophet. How do I do it? I said, you can't, you can't. You can seek the gifts, and we're told to seek earnestly the spiritual gifts. But the call of the prophet is something that begins with God, or it doesn't happen. It is a sovereign call. God can call anybody. He chooses to be a prophet, man or woman, old person or child. God has laid his hand on children. Little Jamie here. God could lay his hand on that little boy and he could be a prophet. He did it with Jeremiah. He did with Samuel. There's a sovereignty about about the prophet. He's a man or a woman or a boy or a girl who is called by God. The call of God can come suddenly on a person's life. The second thing you find about Moses is this he was called to stand before God. He was out in the desert, and there was the burning bush that attracted Moses. And then God called him. Take the shoes from off your feet, from the place where on your stand is holy ground. And Moses said, I cover my face, and my eyes have seen God. The prophet is called to stand in the presence of God. He's admitted to the divine councils. He's a man or a woman who is uniquely called into God's presence to hear, direct and unrehearsed what God is saying, what God is doing. And then with that message, with that word, with that burden he's he's sent to stand before people on behalf of God. So the order is first is called by God. Second, he stands before God, and then out of it, he stands before people on the part of God. And he is sent with a message. He sent with a word. And the awesome thing about the prophetic calling is that the word of the Lord comes to the prophet, and he has to give it just the way it comes. He has to give it totally unrehearsed. Even the words have got the divine stamp upon them. He can't inspect it beforehand to see whether it's right or not. One man today that I believe has the calling of a prophet, for example, is Arthur Katz. I don't know how many have heard about Katz. Now, I believe that man. And it's interesting to me that most of the prophets that I know a Jewish Marcus Adon, another young man. I believe God's got his hand on that man as a prophet. But not saying that everybody has to be a Jew to be a prophet. I'm not saying that at all. I remember speaking to Art. He stayed in our home one time. We spent quite a while talking about this whole area of prophetic ministry. And you see, when he stands up to speak, he receives the word right there and then. It's not like me. I know beforehand roughly what I'm going to speak about, but not him. He would come back home and he'd say things like, Tom, you must get that tape. That was the most marvelous message. Do not miss it now. It sounded as though he was blowing his own trumpet. He hadn't heard it himself until he said it. You see, one of the things I remember speaking without about while we were swimming down off the coast, I said to her, look, you've got to understand that. You've got to bear in your mind it's always possible for you to make mistakes, but part of your burden is that you've just got to give the message the way it is. You can't inspect it beforehand to see whether you are making a mistake. Now understand the prophetic word has got that immediacy. It has to be given just as it's received. If you read the New Testament, you find that quite clearly there are two levels of inspiration, and this is an important thing to understand. There are two levels of inspiration. As far as the Scripture is concerned. It is called the more sure word of Prophecy. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. This word is absolutely inerrant. It is God breathed. If what you believe and what I believe does not measure up with this, forget what you believe and forget what I believe. This is right. See? But with the speaking prophets, Paul says, let the prophets speak one or two and let the others judge. There was a different level of inspiration, and the prophetic ministry is not infallible, but it is valid. Ballot. It is not inerrant, but it is authentic. Now that might create a problem to some of you, but hear me, it's the truth. The prophetic, the spoken prophetic word is not infallible, but it is valid. It is dependable. But there is still the possibility that we might make mistakes. That's why prophecy has to be judged. But there has to be given in that direct, unrehearsed kind of way, I believe. For example, our dear brother Neville had the ministry of a prophet. I came to barrier one time, years ago, almost totally at the end of myself, and I was quite convinced that my ministry, such as it was, would come to a total end. I could not see that there was any future or anything ahead, and I came here in quite some despair as I was going. Never used to pray most times for most people before they went. And he spoke a word of prophecy into my heart. And he said, your ministry is just about to begin. I went home and I thought, well, that dear brother is just being kind, you know? It seemed impossible. But he was right. He was right, and I believe he had the ministry of profit in many areas. But there is that there is that aspect of it all. Right now, prophecy comes in several shapes and sizes. Like everything God does, God is a God of variety. For example, some prophecy is verbal. That is, it is expressed in words. And you find in Scripture the sum of the verbal prophecies were oral. That is, they were spoken and sometimes they were written. I remember one time being at a camp down in Christchurch, and after one of the meetings, a middle aged lady came to me with a piece of paper in her hand, and she was a very ordinary lady. And when I tell you, you'll understand why I say that very ordinary lady. And she gave me this piece of paper, and she said, Tom, what do I do with this? And before I read halfway through, I realized if I could prophesy as good as that, I could have a reputation all over New Zealand. And I said, where did you get this from? She said, oh, the Lord gave it to me in my quiet time this morning. And I said, you got any more? She said, I've got pads full of it at home. I didn't know what to do with it. God was speaking ineffable, marvellous things into this dear sister's heart. You see, I said, look, take it to your prayer group. Read it to them. If you've got nobody else wants to receive it, send it to me. And from time to time, even now, I'll get a letter from her with some of these Bible prophecies. Now, I have discovered since then that this is not an uncommon thing with women, because in our meetings we do not really make provision for a prophetess to prophesy in a feminine kind of way and in a big meeting, unless she's got a big voice. And then everybody wonders why she's screeching. She can't be heard. You see, we need to make provision for the prophetic gift that's in the sisters to be expressed. But that was written prophecy, and it's not uncommon. Then there are forms of prophecy that are visual. And they come in several categories too. For example, they are dreams, not like Gary's the other night are great suspicions about that, but they go on. The Bible is very interesting about dreams. It says some dreams are of purely physical origin, as when Isaiah said it's when a thirsty man sleeps and he dreams of water, and a hungry man sleeps and he dreams of food. Sometimes your dreams are for no other reason than you've got a lot of problems on your mind. Or you've had Welsh rarebit for supper. But some dreams are from God. They are spiritual dreams that are deeply significant. They are prophetic. They are a form of prophecy. Dreams happen when you're asleep. Visions are other forms of visual prophecy that happen when you're awake. I have never had a vision. I've often asked the Lord for a vision because I'd like to have one. My wife has had visions. I know people had visions. God speaks now. A vision can also have one of three origins. A vision can be a purely natural phenomenon. Now understand this. I remember being consulted one time by the leaders of a Catholic prayer group. They were very disturbed by a young woman in their prayer group who was having visions, and she would have visions about Jesus standing by the different people in the prayer group. And sometimes he was pleased and smiling, and sometimes he was frowning. And she would tell the people and the people who had who the Lord was frowning. They got very unhappy about this. And I said to one of the leaders, I said, who are her particular friends in the prayer group? I discovered, you know, the people that she really got on with. They had a good vision. Now, listen, the girl wasn't doing it deliberately. She just had an ability to to vividly project her thoughts. Let me ask you something. How many people here are, if they think of something, can see a mental picture. Close your eyes and you can see a mental picture of the thing you're thinking about. Put your hand up. Now put your hands down. How many people can't? Now some people can't I can't I think in concepts I do not think in pictures. I think people who, who have a very vivid ability to see pictures can sometimes project those even when their eyes are open. So there is a natural origin of some visions. There's also the possibility of a deceptive origin of some visions, and there is also the prophetic origin of some visions. Now dreams and visions are subject to the same test as any other prophecy. They are no more valid. They're no more compelling. They're no more important, even though they may be more dramatic and more vivid. Right. There's another form of visual prophecy you find quite often in the Old Testament, and that is a dramatic prophecy. In other words, the prophet acts something out. So Jeremiah digs a hole through the wall and he goes out at night with his brother. And that was a prophecy to the people as to what was going to happen to Jerusalem. There was even Isaiah who went naked through the cities. The only prophetic streaker that I have read about. Sometimes prophecies are acted out, you see. And in that very vivid way, they convey the message. Those are all forms of prophecy. There is a third form of prophecy, and that is the actual life and experience of the prophet. So Isaiah's children were prophetic signs to Israel. Hosea's marriage was a prophetic sign to Israel. I spent some time recently with the leaders of a church which recently has gone through a very traumatic time. Really. It's been split twice. It was a church that really, you know, pioneered a lot of things that we're in now. But recently it's been split. And the the leaders in that church, really, they were torn apart, were struggling with this whole thing. And we spent a weekend together. You know what God began to show us? God began to show us that the actual experience through which that church had gone was prophetic, that church had always been prophetic. It led the way in so many things, so many things that were now has been fulfilling a prophetic function. And even in this division and this trouble that was going through, God was calling it back out of a certain sense of achievement and a certain sense of, we've made it and we're the people, and we know God really put them through the mill and showed them, uh, prophetically, the division and the disruption that's in the Church of God and even the turmoil they've been going through was a prophetic word. I believe, the Church of God in our land. And when the elders began to see that, you know, it did something for them, because what they were struggling with was the meaninglessness of what they had been going through. It seemed totally useless. But it wasn't. It was prophetic. So prophecy comes. There is another one, actually. Uh. Music in first in two Chronicles. There were those in David's tabernacle who prophesied on the harp. I believe there is a prophetic type of music that just occasionally, just occasionally, I've heard it, but I think we need to hear it much more. Alright, well, prophecy comes in those forms, but it's all characterized by the same kind of impact. It is an unrehearsed, immediate word of the Lord that comes through the prophet to God's people. Now the question that's in my mind is, why has God chosen to use this particular medium to communicate to people? God could, if he wanted to send down a neon sign that spells out His word and his will to go to his people from time to time. But he doesn't do it. He speaks through a prophet or a prophetess in a particular culture, in a particular situation, through the particular furnitures in the prophet's mind, with all the possibilities of misunderstanding and mistake. Why does God do it that way? Because he has deliberately chosen to communicate with his people in this way. I believe there are two very important reasons why God has chosen prophecy to be the means by which he communicates His Word to his people. One of them is this that it takes spiritual perception to understand the prophetic word. The theme that runs right through so much of the scripture, and you might think it's just a casual statement, but it's not is this hear the word of the Lord. The prophets are always saying it. Hear the word of the Lord. You shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. You people, daughters of Zion, hear the word of the Lord. He that he is to hear, let him hear. It needs something to hear the truth that's in the prophetic word. At one level you can hear it and you can miss it totally. At another level, level you can hear it and understand what it's all about. I'll give you an example from the ministry of Jesus. In John chapter six, Jesus is speaking a prophetic word regarding himself, regarding eating his flesh and drinking his blood, communicating his life to his own. At the end of John six, the very interesting thing, most of his disciples and they were disciples, mind you. They said, that's a hard saying. We can't hear that. That's nonsense. They went and left him. They couldn't understand what he was on about. Jesus turned to the twelve and said, are you going to leave me too? Peter said, leave you? Where are we going to go? These are the words of eternal life. Listen, both groups of people had heard the same word. Some of them said, this is stupid. We can't hack this. And off they went. Others said, these are the words of eternal life. Prophecies like that. Some people hear prophecy and I think, well, that's stupid. What does that mean? What's it all about? Other people hear it, and something stirs within their spirit. You hear prophecy. Not with your mind. You hear it with your spirit. It registers not on your intellect. It registers on your conscience. The truth of it. And I believe God has chosen to speak in prophecy, because that sorts out those who have ears to hear from those who haven't. The second thing is that prophecy requires faith to respond to it always requires a faith response. You can never receive the word of prophecy and say, that's a very interesting bit of information. I'll stack that away. No, no. Prophecy somehow confronts you. The word of the Lord smites you. You've got to do something with it. You can't avoid the word of prophecy. There it is. And you've got to. You've got to do something with it. Therefore, it requires a faith response, or requires you putting your fingers in your ears and not hearing it. And God's judgment is repeatedly in Scripture on those who covered their ears, and they refused to listen to the word of the Lord. A prophecy requires that kind of faith response. Alright, what is the scope of the prophetic ministry? In other words, what sort of areas does it touch? First of all, the prophetic word uncovers the spiritual dimension of everyday life. It uncovers the dimension of the spirit in which we live every day of our life. We know from Scripture that there are two orders of reality. One is spiritual, and we know that the angels and the archangels and the demons and so on live totally in the spiritual realm. There is another order of reality that is natural or material, and the birds and the bees and the plants and the trees live totally in that realm. Man is the only being who, at one and the same time inhabits both orders of reality, the natural and the spiritual. Now, actually, all man's life comes from the spiritual realm. All man's problems have their origin in the spiritual realm. The tragedy of the unbeliever today is that he lives in a one dimensional world. Therefore, he can never get to grips with the root of his problems. Have you ever noticed that man's best endeavours to solve his problems only make them worse? Man's problems in the world today in society are not only that he's wrong headed and rebellious. Sometimes he's really trying to do his best. He really wants to mend things. He builds reformatories to recover people's lives and going the wrong way. What do they become? They become schools for crime. See, somehow everything he touches never works out. Why? Because the source of his problem is not here. The source of his problems are there. Man's sin is spiritual in origin. Man's sickness is spiritual in origin. All man's problems have their origin in this other dimension. It's the root of man's problems. Now prophecy unhealthy. In the second Book of Kings, chapter five, Elisha the prophet was in a city called Dothan, and all around the city there were the armies of the Syrians and the property of the young servant who looked out, and he saw all these armies there, and he was scared out of his wits. And he said, master, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And Elijah said, Lord, open his eyes so he can see. And God heard his prayer and opened the young man's eyes. You know what he saw? He saw the armies of God round about. See, he saw the dimension of spiritual reality in which we live. Now the prophetic ministry uncovers that the prophetic Word of God uncovers that reality. Secondly, the prophetic word uncovers the hand of God active in human life. It shows us God's hand at work. It shows us God active in the affairs of men. The prophet saw the circumstance of their day, and they saw those circumstances very clearly. But through those circumstances, they also saw the hand of God. So Joel sees a plague of locusts, a plague of locusts. But through that he sees something more. He sees a prophetic the hand of God. He sees the day of the Lord. Now that's the principle of almost all the Old Testament prophets. They saw the situation today, but they also saw God's hand active in it. And I believe God's going to raise up prophets in the church who are going to see the active hand of God in our economic situation. We think it's just a recession. I think there's more to it than that. I think God is doing something. God is shaking us out of our materialism, out of our safety, out of our securities. He's shaking everything God is doing, God's shaking things. And the prophet can see that. Thirdly, the prophet sees the future. Now, sometimes we think prophecy is just foresight. It's not essentially that it is more insight than foresight. The prophet sees the future that is contained in the present. A prophet can come into a church, and he can see clearly. If this church goes on the way it's going now, the potential is there for destruction. He'll say it. The prophet can come into the church and see if this church goes on the way it's going now. It's only small now, but on the right track, and the potential is there for a fantastic explosion of blessing. The prophet can see the future that's already contained in the present, both corporately and individually. And beloved, there is a future. In a sense. Your future is already determined by what you're doing now and where you're at right now. The seeds of your future are already latent in your present, and God's prophetic word and God's prophetic ministry can see that that's a very, very vital thing for us to receive from God in these days. And I know clearly in my heart that there are lives here in this church, in this building this morning, and the potential that God has planted in your life, you wouldn't believe anybody else. But God told you. But it's there. It's latent, the potential is there. And the prophetic vision can see that. The prophetic vision can see the future, but only to the extent to which it determines our present. Now, I want you to understand this, that God will never disclose the future. Just so we have a kind of prior view as to what's coming along. God only shows the future so it can change the way I live now. And the prophetic word concerning end time is not that we might have a kind of private, uh, understanding of God's timetable in the future, but it might change the way we live now. Peter said, if these things are so, what manner of people ought we to be in all holiness and godly living? Now, if Jesus is coming again, it ought to radically change the way I live now. If he's right at the door, or to radically change my whole value system right now, if I believe in the immediate coming of Jesus, and I'm living as though he was not going to come for a thousand years, then there's something wrong with what I believe, isn't it? God will only show us the future to the extent that it will change the way we live now. In the New Testament church. The gift of prophecy was limited. It was limited to these areas. It was limited to encouragement, to exhortation and to edification, to build up, to stir up, and to cheer up. But the ministry of the prophet is something more. The ministry of the prophet is directive. The prophet can get a word from God that says to an individual or a church. God says, do this. Now that's not within the scope of the gift of prophecy. And I've got strong reservations about the gift of prophecy that seeks to direct people. But the ministry of the prophet is something. Again, the ministry of prophet is directive. So in the church at Antioch, the prophets and teachers were ministering, and the God said by word of prophecy separate me, Barnabas and Paul, for the work to which I'm called. It was director. The prophetic ministry is directed. The prophetic ministry is predictive. It can tell the future. Agabus stands up and he predicts there's going to be a famine. And Luke says it happened. It came to pass. One of the tests of the prophet and the old test was this. If he said something was going to happen, it didn't happen. He took him out and stoned him. That kind of thinned out the ranks of the prophets a bit, you see. But the prophetic ministry can be predictive. Thirdly, the ministry of the prophet can be imparted. In other words, he can impart something. He can give something into a life. We have young men in our church that I believe God is raising up into a prophetic ministry. We were, uh, in, uh, in church one time recently when our cats was there and we were praying in the vestry just before the meeting. Something stirred in my heart. That young man was there. That was there. I said, brother, I believe God has raised you up as a prophet. I believe this young man has got a calling of God in the same direction. I want you to impart what you've got into His spirit. And he prayed for that young man. Look, there was a quantum leap in that young man's gift. You know why? Because something was imparted out of the spirit of the older man into the spirit of the younger man. And the prophetic ministry can impart something. We're young men in our church that we've just recently sent to teach in a Bible school in Singapore. Very gifted teacher of the word. But there was something to me missing in his ministry. You know, it was there. It was clear. It was lucid, but it had no moral power. It never got hold of you. It was very clear, but there was no kind of bite in it. The one time we had a we have in our church from time to time, what we call an extended communion service. When we open the table right at the beginning and people can come forward and receive communion individually or couples, and they can be prayed for. And those are marvelous nights. And the young man came to me, and I felt in my heart to impart something that I had in that young man's spirit, and I did. I prayed, I gave him what I had in God, what I what I'd learned about communicating with people in the spirit. I prayed it into His spirit. I'm part of something to him. He went to speak at a camp a couple of weeks later and he came back almost blown out of his mind. He said, I've done it. He said, I've done it. I know how to do it. Hallelujah. And it's been there ever since. See, something was in part a gift is not just for you. A gift is to be shared with somebody else. And the prophetic ministry has that power to empower. Finally, and this is quite awesome, the prophetic ministry is also governmental. Ananias and Sapphira, remember in acts chapter five, they lied to the Holy Spirit and the prophet and the prophet spoke the word. You've not lied to men. You've lied to God. Why? Satan put in your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. I sometimes wonder, you know, if John the Baptist was preaching in my church on Sunday whether I'd want to be there. I have wondered if Jesus was going to preach from our pulpit next Sunday, whether we'd be all that keen to be there, and to look into his eyes and know that he saw us through and through and through and through. The prophetic ministry can be governmental. I believe we're going to see something of that in days to come. Alright. I just want to close with this very important aspect. How do we hear prophecy? How do we hear prophecy? I said before, I think one of the other meetings that while I've been thrilled at so much at another level, I've been profoundly disappointed at the very elementary level at which we are hearing prophecy. And God is showing encouraging, heartwarming words. But in many ways it's very simple. It's not that God hasn't got anything more profound to say. It's not that at all. It's that we don't know how to hear anything more important than that in terms of prophecy. We're still at the kindergarten stage, and our Heavenly Father is still encouraging us as little children. But there are all these deep things on his heart that he wants to say to us. And I sometimes think, father, saying all that they will grow up, you know, all with a little bit older. So I could tell them the things that are on my heart. Beloved, we need to know how to hear the word of the Lord before we hear the deep things that are on the hearts of the heart of God. How do we hear the word of the Lord? I don't know entirely, but these things I have learned and I want to share them with you. Firstly, if we're going to hear the word of the Lord, we must be prepared to hear it as a very personal word. It is inescapably personal. When a word of prophecy comes, it's just as though there was you and God and nobody else, and God is talking to you. I can remember being in a meeting one time, and a young man came up to me afterwards, and he said that prophecy was marvelous. He said, God even put my own name on it. Now, I didn't know his name. I'd given the prophecy, and I know there was no name on it, but God added his name to it when he heard it. See, it's a very personal thing. Secondly, if we're going to hear what God is saying, we've got to deliberately lay aside all our presuppositions as to how God's going to say it. What is going to say and who he's going to say it through. Lay aside all your systematic theology students. Lay aside all your expectations. One of the things that I'm learning about God is that God is absolutely and totally unpredictable. Ever discovered that we are very predictable? You come to a meeting, you know pretty well what's going to happen from start to finish. We don't leave room in our meetings most of the time for God to be God. God is absolutely unique. There's none like him. He's absolutely unpredictable. And if we're going to hear the prophetic word of God, we got to be prepared to hear it that way. I rarely ever go to a meeting now without a kind of tremble in my heart as to what God might say and what God might do, because I believe God is beginning to prepare me to hear the prophetic word of the Lord. And beloved, we need to come every time we come together with that kind of expectancy to be prepared for God to break in however he wants to and say whatever he wants to say. That's a scary thing. That is a scary thing. But there's something more. If we're going to hear the prophetic word of God, we've got to be prepared for the unpredictable God to save the unpredictable thing into every area of our life, every area of our life. And that's even more scary than What say? God says, give up your job and go and get another one. Leave the house you're in and buy that one down the road. Doesn't look so good, but I want you in there. We have a young couple in our church. God said that to quite recently shift them out of the house they were in to a house about two blocks away, just around the corner. Why? God didn't want them there. He wanted them there through all the hassle of buying and selling house shifting. Beloved, I've discovered this that if there is any area of my life that I'm not willing for God to speak his unpredictable word into that area, you know what's in that area? There is an idol. That is the parameters of idolatry. If there is an area of my life, I say really sacrosanct. God, don't you touch that. God, you mustn't alter that. That's idolatry. And, beloved, if we're going to hear the word of the Lord, we must be prepared for the unpredictable God to say the unpredictable thing into every area of our life. And the final thing is this we need to settle beforehand this whole question of obedience. We need to make up our mind beforehand. God, I am going to obey your word, whatever it is. God won't speak opinions into our mind. He won't give us advice. We'll never hear the word of the Lord that way. We've got to settle beforehand. God, whatever you say to me the best of my ability, I will strive to do exactly the way you say it. God is bringing us the Church of God into that place because the prophets are coming. Listen, the prophets are coming. God is beginning to raise them up. And we've got to be prepared to hear the word of the Lord that's going to come. It is of extreme importance in the world today. And I want to explain to you why. And wine. I've just finished with this. Let me ask you, in your ordinary life, how many absolutely free choices do you ever have? You might think, well, I have lots. I can just go down to the supermarket and buy whatever I like. No you don't. The marketers and the advertising men have already decided eighteen months ago what you're going to buy, and all their production has been based on that, and all their advertising is based on that. They decide what you buy. The media decides what you believe. The news we see is managed news. The Joneses decide what you keep up with. Fashion dictates what you wear. You just try going to church on Sunday in a pair of gumboots and a black singlet in a city church, and see how long you last. See What freedom is, what freedom is left. Is there any freedom left? I want to tell you one area of freedom that is left when I stand under the prophetic word of God. And I know that nobody has manipulated him, nobody has managed him. That is a totally free, sovereign word that comes from the absolutely free, sovereign God. And I freely choose to obey that. I'm exercising an authentic exercise of human freedom. And beloved, Jesus said, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. The only way you become free is by obeying the free world of a free God. And beloved, that is essential in the world today because there is hardly any freedom left in this society we live in. You can't depend on on any of your choices, any of your other choices being free. But beloved, we can't be free when we stand under the free Word of God, and we freely choose to obey that. That's why Jesus said, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. How does it make you free? By obeying it. One of the incredible things that always blows my mind when I think about Jesus was that man was so real. He was so real, and he was real because he was free. Everything he did was authentic. Everything he did was stamped with integrity. It was his own choice. He did what he wanted to do. He was real. Our problem is we're so unreal. We're so vague and shadowy. I don't think anybody could look past Jesus in the street. And after that? Well, who was the rep that's just gone by? You know, he polarized everybody he met. admit you're either for or against them. Everybody went. There was a division. Why? Because there was a real man. The last Adam. Somebody said, Adam at last, man, the way he ought to be. A real free man. God wants us to be like that. God wants to fill Auckland and and New Zealand with with real Christians. Concrete, hard, you know, unavoidable Christians that nobody can mistake. They're Christians because they're real people. One of the things that always intrigued me before I was baptized in the Holy Spirit was the people I knew who were that was such real people. They were so different. They were so full of life. There was reality there. The world is looking for reality. You'll never find reality apart from freedom. You'll never find freedom apart from obeying the free voice of God. That's why obedience is so important. Why the word of the Lord is so important and beloved, why prophets are so essential and I believe God is rising and we're living in the day of the prophets. The prophets are coming, and the word is going out to us the way it has never, perhaps gone out before. He that has healed him here, right in the last book of the of the of the of the book of Revelation. He that is, to hear what the spirit is saying to the church. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Oh, God, might open our ears to have the courage to hear what God is saying. Well, if God is saying things and we're not hearing them because we're afraid to hear, or God might unstop our ears to hear that marvelous, immediate Word of God, that present truth for our present day, for his name's sake. Let's pray. Father, I pray for this company of your people. Here I pray, dear Lord, for young men and young women and older men and older women in this place that you want to raise up to be prophets, to stand in your councils. Your word says God does nothing but what? He reveals it to his servants, the prophets. And Lord, we know that there is so much on your heart for these last days, so much the Lord is involved with the coming of the Kingdom. We don't understand. We don't know how to how to get hold of it. But Lord, we know you want to share that word for those who are prepared to stand in your councils and hear the word of the Lord and speak it, and be Lord. Those who are willing to open their ears to hear the unpredictable, the radical, the earth changing Word of God that might come forth even today, even in this camp from your presence. Lord, we pray, dear Lord, that you will stop the use of our hearts, that we might be those who have ears to hear what the spirit is saying to the church. In Jesus wonderful name, Amen.