Often people overlook passages of scripture
because they are focused on the "important bits"
or they are just looking for things to support a doctrine.
And because of this,
they miss what's really going on.
Acts 21 is one of those places.
I don't think I have ever heard a sermon on this chapter.
In Acts 21,
Paul sets his face toward Jerusalem.
In the previous chapter,
as I mentioned last week,
Paul receives a series of prophetic words
that are all pointing in the same direction.
Wherever he goes, the prophets are all saying the same things.
Paul believes that he must go to Jerusalem,
and he has received a series of prophetic words in every city,
that he is going to experience imprisonment or worse.
As I mentioned before,
prophetic ministry will affirm and confirm what God is saying.
And often,
the prophetic will intensify before a momentous thing happens.
Eventually Paul and his companions arrive at the house of Philip,
who by this time is identified as "the Evangelist."
And we get a sense here that this is a spontaneous
prophetic gathering.
Philip’s four young daughters begin to get prophetic words.
And then Agabus,
who is identified as a prophet
arrives and begins to do a prophetic enactment
of Paul's imprisonment in Jerusalem.
So we have a picture of lots of prophetic activity,
and a sort of homecoming of Paul.
And Agabus,
who is also mentioned in Acts 11
we assume
is told by the Holy Spirit to visit.
So here in this passage we have several obvious things happening:
Paul is an Apostle.
Philip is an Evangelist.
Agabus is a Prophet.
And Philips daughters are operating in the charism of prophecy.
We are seeing a very dynamic picture of the five-fold ministry
and body ministry all happening.
When you strip away your churchy grid, you begin to see an organic
spirit led body in operation.
It reminds me of the house meetings
that happened all over after Toronto broke out.
Agabus is an example of someone who walks in the gift of Prophet.
He was a gift to the church.
Years ago someone was sent to pick up Bob Jones at the airport
and when they arrived,
he had been waiting for over an hour.
His plane arrived early.
Bob asked the man “why didn’t you come earlier?”
The man, who was very sensible,
said that the plane was scheduled for a different time.
Bob replied,
“well, if you had been listening to God,
you would have been on time.”
It makes one wonder
how Agabus,
in a time of no communication
could know Paul was at Philip’s house.
Last week we talked about the "charism" of prophecy.
This week,
we are going to talk about the persons
who are gifted to the church as prophets.
As I mentioned last week,
the charism of prophecy
is the ability to reveal what is going on in the Kingdom
with those of us on earth.
It is the ability to hear God at an advanced level,
and share that communication with others.
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In the Western Church the role of the prophet has nearly vanished.
The Eastern church maintained a prophetic office
largely in monastic settings,
and the only church that officially recognizes an unbroken line of prophets
is the Ethiopian church.
I think this is because there was no Roman influence.
At the time of the Reformation
all the five-fold ministries were folded into
the title "pastor"
and prophetic ministry was styled as "preaching."
People like John Knox fashioned themselves as Old Testament Prophets.
And so we have a very distorted concept around the prophet.
So first,
there is a difference between the charism of prophecy
and the gift to the church in the person of a prophet.
This is clear in the Greek,
but very murky if you read English only,
and even murkier if you read prophetic stuff on line.
The term "Office of the Prophet" doesn't appear in the Bible.
Instead,
we have people who incarnate the prophetic gift.
Their lives are prophecies.
And like the Apostle,
Prophets embody a revelation of Jesus.
Ephesians 2:2o says that the church is built on the foundation
of the apostles and prophets.
So right here we can understand a few things.
If the Apostle embodies Jesus
and is supposed to bring the culture of the Kingdom,
first the Church is built on the culture of the Kingdom,
and it's foundation should look like Jesus.
Second,
If the prophetic gift brings revelation from the Kingdom
then the Church is going to have fresh revelation and direction.
And this fresh revelation is going to reveal and display
the culture of the Kingdom.
They are going to work in tandem.
A prophet is not going to run counter to the true apostolic.
And when we look into the Book of Acts,
we shall see that the Apostle and the Prophets often travel together.
Paul traveled with Barnabas and Silas, and both were called prophets.
Although there is a big difference
between the prophets of the Old Testament
and the prophets in the New Covenant,
there is some continuity.
If you are a prophet,
you are going to receive a call from God.
There is this false sense in the prophetic movement
that when you grow in your ministry,
then you move from being prophetically gifted
into being a prophet.
And a true prophet is recognized because they have a big ministry.
And we always get this sense
that if you have a big ministry
you must be a truer prophet.
This not the picture we see in the scripture.
You don't work your way up to being a prophet.
You are called,
tested,
refined,
and then released.
As an aside,
It is interesting,
that several years ago I said that there was a false prophetic spirit
in the American prophetic movement,
and in this year a number of big name “prophets”
have either gone silent,
gone on hiatus,
or stopped posting new words.
And of course,
we are in a treacherous time when people need a word from God.
They were building ministries
when God was calling us to prepare for the coming war.
So lets look at these four components of the prophet:
Prophets are called,
tested,
refined,
and then released.
You are called.
Isaiah,
Jeremiah,
Ezekiel,
Amos,
and
Samuel
were all clearly called by God.
Just like the Apostle,
and all the five-fold ministries,
the Prophet will receive a call.
This is a mark of any of those who operate as Five Fold Beings.
You are called by God to be a gift to the Church.
And this is extremely important,
because when God calls,
God creates.
Prophecy is a creative act.
So when God brings a Prophet and an Apostle together,
God is going to birth something new.
Every person I know who walked as a prophet,
in their process of hearing God,
had an experience of a clear call from God.
Prophets are tested.
Part of the process of being called
is the testing of the calling.
The first prophetic word God gave Samuel
was that the house of Eli was going to be judged
and destroyed.
That's a big word to tell the person who is giving you
food and shelter.
And I have seen this process work out in the lives of many prophets,
they will often have to give a word to a leader or someone in authority.
And more often than not,
it has been some liberal pastor
who is leading people astray.
And the person is forced to confront the anti-Christ system.
There is a purpose in this.
A prophet has to be loyal to God alone.
A prophet is often called to go against the flow,
and so your loyalty cannot be to a human system or another person.
And often God will use this to test the leader,
and also to reveal the issues the prophet has with authority.
The root of rebellion distorts the prophetic gift.
Often I see hurting people
attack good leaders because they are unhealed,
and they think they are prophets.
No, you are broken,
and if you are running from one ministry to another
leaving brokenness and mayhem,
you need to turn to God and change your thinking.
God didn’t call you to be an afflicter,
and the Prophet in the New Covenant brings life,
not destruction.
The second type of testing that the prophet endures is waiting.
Psalm 105:19 says that the word of the Lord "tested" Joseph.
He waited about 18 years
before the words God gave him about his family came to pass.
And often prophets will go through
extreme and weird situations
to hone and purify their character and their gift.
You have to wait.
You have to go low.
This is why I am very cautious about big ministries.
Anybody can rent a room,
manipulate an algorithm,
buy airtime,
and say crazy stuff to draw a crowd.
Folks who do this are aborting the process.
And this leads to the next stage.
Prophets are refined.
When a person receives a prophetic call,
God will take them on a journey.
And often
that journey will have what look like a series of disconnected
episodes,
before they are released.
I'm very grateful for mature people in my life
who pointed out patterns that seemed a bit crazy to me.
This was not conventional.
My friend Sharen Cooke helped me see
that I move two to five years ahead of every one else.
Often prophets will live in the future,
and be ahead of the crowd in their whole lives.
One day I had a conversation with one of the great pastors
to prophets, Garris Elkins.
I was 42, so that was ten years ago!
And he was very excited that I was in my forties.
He said that life is like a slow-cooker.
God will take you through many situations
and they are like ingredients in the slow cooker.
It takes a long time for these ingredients to come together,
but eventually they become the stew that is your life
and when you reach your forties,
you suddenly discover what it is you have been cooking.
The trials and tribulations
of failure,
rejection,
misunderstanding,
and mistakes
are the ingredients that produce a mature prophet.
There are several reasons for this.
First, you need to learn the nature and character of Jesus.
It is not enough to have a word from the Lord.
You need to sound like Jesus when you bring that word.
You need to look like Jesus when you carry the message.
And your message will still be an apostolic message, it will support
the apostolic mission.
It will be Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.
Prophets are also incarnations of the Word who made the Universe.
Many of the prophetic voices out there
need to go back into the incubator.
They derailed the process of refinement and built a ministry.
Finally, Prophets are released.
Prophets are not ordained,
just like Apostles are not.
God ordains the prophet in the call.
The calling is the credentialing.
And Jesus said,
then you judge them by their fruit.
Suddenly someone recognizes the gift.
God releases you,
not people.
And you don't release you.
God does.
And how does this look?
I see a lot of people who are looking for someone to bless them
so that they can then do what God called them to do.
I was stuck there for a long time, waiting for the man of God to bless me.
Elisha
was never ordained by Elijah.
He caught the mantel of Elijah
as it fell from the sky.
A prophet will go through the
steps of calling, testing, refining,
and then
when they are confident that it was God that called them,
when they become confident that the voice that is guiding them is the Lord,
when they become confident in their relationship with God,
and begin to rest in the favour of the Lord,
then God will orchestrate
a release,
and people will begin to recognize their role in the body.
Of course,
in a traditional church setting,
this will never happen,
and this is why a lot of prophets have either left church
or are in fringy churches.
And this leads to another topic,
which I will cover next week:
How do we receive a prophet?
How do we receive prophetic words?
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Beth Charashim: The House of Artisans
Each week Christ John Otto teaches a group of artists and creative people called "Beth Charashim: the House of Artisans." These are the recordings of those teachings.
Each week Christ John Otto teaches a group of artists and creative people called "Beth Charashim: the House of Artisans." These are the recordings of those teachings.
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