“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5
There is no such thing as modern prophets in the Biblical sense. I am writing this because there are many pastors that use the phrase ‘I prophecy such and such…’, or ‘I prophecy over you…’ in a way that is deceiving. True prophecy is to receive and speak the will of God himself. What comes from the will of God is eternal and infallible. What is more, but is little known, is that what is the will of God – contains correspondences. This means it has at one and the same time, a literal meaning on earth and an internal meaning from heaven. For the will of God exists first in Himself, then comes down to heaven and then to earth. True prophecy took place for the sake of the Word written in the Bible. What is written there is eternal; it will always exist for the salvation of man. The Bible is complete, whole, and perfect in itself, and nothing ever will be added. It cannot be otherwise. It is by divine authority alone that it is what it is. The hands of men wrote it, but it was from the will of God. The Bible contains the whole of wisdom from the infinite wisdom of God and nothing needs to be added – for God’s awareness is present to all the past, the present and the future, what he writes spans all time and wisdom.
So Biblical prophecy is done and complete. If someone were to truly prophecy now, then it would have to be added to the Bible, but this of course will not happen for no one is prophecying in this way now. It was done then, and not now, because God was manifesting His word on the earth leading up to the incarnation Jesus, and the events after, and that is done, and nothing need by added. Jesus lived and fulfilled all prophecy, and became the living Word and is the living Word – and it is perfect then, now and forever.
For a pastor or anyone now to claim they are speaking Biblical prophecy is arrogating authority to themself that they in no way posses. It is deceitful. What Prophecy means NOW is – to speak the truth about a situation, or about the Word; it is to speak true perception with wisdom, which is a gift. Those with this Gift are not speaking the will of God himself; they are using the gift God gave them and hopefully serving Goid. If a person is claiming to speak prophecy then they are a false prophet. They may be doing it from ignorance of a false idea of doctrine, but many do it for the sake of their own power which is to profane the Word. Many times pastors have ‘prophecied’ that the rapture is coming on a certain date and it does not take place. If they were honest they would admit they made a mistake and that they misunderstand what prophecy is, but they usually don’t, which is mere ego, and because it is using God’s authority for self empowerment – it is profane.
The Lord said, “A prophet is not known in his own home’. This expresses the sense of what ‘prophet’ means now. It means for one to know his true identity, and they have learned to use and share the gifts God gave them. All-to-often those in a family, or those who know someone as they grew up, know them as a person in a small role that made them feel comfortable, and the individual has to fight to overcome this ‘small identity’ to come into their true identity and use.
“Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see the things which ye see but have not seen them, and to hear the things which ye hear but have not heard them” (Matt. 13:17). Prophet in this sense means those who truly learn from the Word and have a clear perception of what the Lord has done for them. “Prophets and righteous men” mean in the spiritual sense all who are in the truths of doctrine and in the good of life; and “to see and hear” signifies to understand and perceive. When man understands and perceives the Word and applies them to life, he is reformed. So a prophet now is just an ordinary man or woman that loves and understands the Word and lives by it in their life as best they can.
All Divine truths are from the Lord, and the Lord Himself taught them, and continually teaches them by means of the Word, – and we humans receive this from him. And this is enough. We can be the salt of the earth. We don’t need to be some highfalutin person that pretends to speak the will of God. That is deception, and sin, it is of the evil minded.
The Lord teaches in Matthew: “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matthew 7: 22,23)
Now We can speak truth from the Word that God gave us. The prophets of the bible spoke the very will of God because the people had become separated from God, for the sake of writing the Bible,, which had to be in published form to establish and sustain Man’s connection to God and knowledge of heaven. That time has ended. Since the resurrection when Jesus defeated all evil and entered the innermost of all things we all have available to us the Word and the direct relationship with Jesus – which we must seek and claim.
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