God calls all kinds of people to be prophets. The Lord chose the foolish things to confound the things that are wise (1 Cor. 1:27-29). David was an obscure shepherd boy. Amos was not a prophet or a prophet’s son. God calls people who would not qualify by the standards of men. Prophets are not determined by men but by God. God’s choice is a challenge and rebuke against the pride of men.
But pride in the preacher? Of all those who surround the Lord Jesus, you would expect humility in the pastor. Just as certain weeds grow best in certain soils, so pride grows perhaps most easily in the heart of a Christian minister. Surely the pastor could afford to stay low. He has been honored by God.
For three years or so the Lord has been speaking to me out of the prophetic prediction of Malachi 3:1-6 concerning imminent events that He will be orchestrating in the Church that He is building, i.e., the genuine Body of Christ. In the first quarter of this year, the Lord has been continually increasing the intensity and urgency of what he has been showing and telling me in this regard. I rise today through the auspices of this forum to make a sincere and earnest attempt to convey what I believe I received as a prophetic word from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, which He has instructed me to convey to the Church He is building, that is, His Body. A few days ago, I heard Him instructing me in my spirit to sit down at my computer, write what He speaks to me, and title it “A Prophetic Prognosis.” I did; He did; and what He spoke is what this article is about.
America has become a fatherless nation. A fatherless nation producing an alarmingly high and ever-growing number of illegitimate children—i.e., born out of wedlock, or to unmarried biological parents—many of whom were/are abandoned by one or both parents to become wards of the state, or given up for adoption by biologically-unrelated adoptive-parents or government-paid foster-parents. More and more of those adoptive/foster-parents now are homosexual cohabitants, despite the fact that homosexuality is the ultimate affront to fatherhood and enmity against God the Father.
There are different kinds of prophetic words for different situations. The prophetic word can deal with past, present, and future. The prophetic word is able to deal with all the issues that we face in life. God has many thoughts toward us, and if we were to speak them, they cannot be numbered (Psa. 40:5) God’s word is a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path (Psa.119:105)
With all the proliferation and promotion of the prophetic that is happily taking place now in some streams and camps of the Church, it is critical that we understand what the true purpose of the prophetic really is. Some prophetic novices and new prophetic groups appear to think that prophecy itself, whether in the form of personal prophesying over people or publishing prophecies on the Internet, for example, is the goal of the prophetic. Moreover, the actions, attitudes, and speech of some regarding the prophetic seem to indicate they think that the prophetic is an end in itself. But, it’s not.
The art of the polemic is speaking the right words with apostolic wisdom to put to shame those that oppose the truth. “How forceful are right words” (Job 6:25). The correct argument, using the right words, carries tremendous force. This is not the wishy-washy Christianity that we see so much of today. This is a return to apostolic Christianity.
Spirit Life Magazine