What is Prophecy?
Many misunderstand the purpose and nature of prophecy. This includes its existence, importance, discernment, and proper response.
The below conversation, unique and disquieting, may prove challenging for newcomers to the Word. To others, it will be laughable. To believers, it should be an awakening.
What is it?
People confuse prophecy with predicting the future. Precise forecasts amaze or comfort. We ignore or reject anything less impressive as false. Also dismissed is anything that doesn’t align with the findings of popular consensus. These views fail from the outset because they incorrectly attribute prophecy to humanity. Our culture’s many psychics and mediums show this.
God established the Old Testament prophets as a warning to the people of God, the Israelites, to return their hearts to God. The assembly was the addressee for divine pronouncements. Moses stands as the initial prophet. Overwhelmed by God’s declarations from Mount Sinai, the Israelites asked Moses to be their intermediary. Thus began the prophetic tradition. Therefore, prophecy is the words of God. There is no distinction.
Prophecy encompassed more than just forecasting future events. Following the interruption of God, Moses continued giving the Law. But Law didn’t become a restriction. Subsequent prophets communicated God’s revelations through messages of love, judgment, praise, and prayer, among others. These messages made up the entire prophetic canon of the Hebrew Bible. And they prevailed during and after Christ’s time. Alignments between later writings and the Hebrew Scriptures led to including Apostolic writings in the New Testament as God’s prophecy.
Why Does it Exist?
Prophecy exists to reveal God to humanity without destroying them. The power of God flows so strongly through his words to be overwhelming. It was a crushing weight upon the Israelites because of their connection to the broken created order. Scripture says he spoke the universe into motion and it was by his very breath it formed. Since human sin tainted creation, to invoke such power back onto creation can cause strain since God is holy and pure.
The only solution was for God to filter his revelation through the voices of human actors. The extent of that filtering reached its climax when God himself entered humanity in every way through the incarnation of Christ. He perfectly exemplified prophecy. God’s revelation became a tangible, accessible presence. The New Testament calls Christ the last prophet, signifying the end of prophetic supremacy and the start of God’s inhabitation human flesh.
Pentecost symbolized this transition. The Holy Spirit’s descent started a symbiotic relationship with humanity, enabling humans to act as divine agents towards others. With the resurrection eliminating death, God’s wrath was no longer a problem. Justice had been served. Everlasting life replaced death, allowing God to be incarnate in all people. By his hand, their souls would change, and an abiding relationship be established. One incarnation, death, and resurrection opened the door for further incarnation and life over death.
Why Does it Matter?
Prophetic proclamation stems straight from the mouth of God. Everything comes to being from his words and being. He is the prime Ordinator of all existence, structure, and purpose. God’s revelation is necessary for us to experience abundant, meaningful life. It showed us His love and holiness, fostering desire for Him.
Believing they could surpass God yet keep Him proved Adam’s and Eve’s fatal flaw. The punishment wasn’t for eating the forbidden fruit. Their blunder was desiring other than God, failing to recognize God was more than sufficient to satisfy their wants, desires, and needs. That mistake altered the makeup of their deepest wills, or hearts. Their new and perverted perspective viewed God as other when they should have embraced him as like no other. Our curse originated without God’s involvement, explaining sin’s destructive impact on creation. Sin is man-made anti-God will.
God’s light, shown by prophecy, pierces the abyss, unveiling His will. When God comes to live in a soul, sin can no longer possess that soul as its permanent residence. God shoves that unholiness out. The process is long and painful because of how deep the infection resides, how far it has spread. But God’s alterations are unmistakable and indestructible. Temptations and failures can cloud them, yet the Father just reaches out his hand again and instructs his children to rise from their mistakes. Incarnational prophecy enables endurance.
How Do We Discern Truth from Lies?
Discovering truth requires comparing one prophecy to another one already validated as true. The Bible is a complete collection of truth. Although written by humans, its affirmations are infallible because of their ultimate Author. The Bible, empowered by the Holy Spirit, merges word prophecy with incarnational prophecy, creating a formidable force.
Prophecy merged with the Originator for it to bear the weight of truth. False prophecy pushes God and his will out of the equation. The falsities are sometimes so subtle they’re hard to detect. Evolutionary theory is an example. God’s voice created the world. He formed it with his voice and hands. He not only made it but gave it a specific structure and organization directly attacked by evolutionists. Evolutionary theory rejects God’s design and creation of the earth. It omits God, proposing a self-created universe. Some theologians attempt to combine evolutionary theory and the concept of God. However, many scholars rightly insist God is irrelevant to evolutionary theory. Strict materialism makes the idea that God is dead commonplace.
At other times, false prophecy will be more overt. Socialists use Scripture to justify their motives to enact a new state against God. Ironically, their actions disprove the prophecy they claim to fulfill, a prophecy foretelling their ultimate failure. Their global policy aims at installing an oppressive regime, disregarding human life. A government focused on institutions will strive to eradicate any dissenters. The consequences have been drastic. To advocate such a government is not only illogical. It has signified the end for countless lives, especially those unaware of and not devoted to God, missing out on the eternal life he provides.
Deceptive predictions mislead, causing humans to believe they’re on the correct path, while leading them to destruction. Prophecies such as these are sinful, expressing explicit anti-God and anti-human sentiments. Blatantly inverting the image of God.
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How Should We Respond?
After determining whether a prophecy is from God, we should receive it with joy and praise and seek to be disciplined and/or changed by its message. Let us praise God and share His message. Even those unresponsive deserve to hear. Such is the passion that accurate prophecy inspires. The original disciples and others after them were willing to give their lives for the words of God. Those who currently believe should endure any form of persecution, regardless of the consequences.
And make no mistake. Persecution will come. People who do not understand the truth of God’s revelation presented to them will seek to destroy it, to purge it from the lands. The twisted thoughts of sin will not allow them to comprehend it without the intervening Spirit in their hearts. Divine intervention makes knowing God inevitable. Prophecy reveals God’s power as it becomes incarnate presence. Hence, we should embrace the truth of real prophecy and cling to its power as a source of life for our souls, in and through God in Christ.
We need to have a conversation some time.