Let’s not be disingenuous, God has proven through the millennia, and according to His holy Bible, that He uses the voice of humans to decree His will among the nations.
Remember Moses and His encounter at the burning bush with the Spirit of God? The mighty Creator of all things told Moses that he and Aaron were the one’s who would confront Pharaoh and tell him to let God’s people go.
It’s not that God can’t speak in His booming voice of thunder or His still small voice; it’s that He chooses His creation to speak His glory and power into life.
On a recent episode of “What the Prophets Say,” Emma Stark and Sam Robertson share about the great need for believers to not remain silent and speak forth power that transforms lives.
But not just any word of encouragement is prophetic, prophecy has teeth and cuts to the spirit with God’s power behind it. And without it, false words can do great harm to those who receive them.
“If the word is not good enough to fight over, what is the point of it being released in the first place?” Stark asks. “If it’s an ‘ego massage’ word, or it’s just [a] ‘make me look good in front of my pals’ type word, what is the point?”
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Satan’s loves using powerless words that do not edify, encourage or empower believers, which many times run contrary to what the Word of God actually teaches us. There is a danger behind words like this that Stark warns is “quite serious.”
Yet when prophecy is brought about correctly, in a biblical manner, the effects from it ripple into a worldwide movement.
Stark and Robertson credit Bishop Bill Hamon and the first wave of the prophetic movement for launching this gift of the Spirit back into the world.
“Anybody who prophesies, and anybody who has any level of significant prophetic ministry, will be able to somehow acknowledge Bishop Bill Hamon and what he birthed.”
Note this isn’t taking glory from the Lord, but is an acknowledgement of how God went about bringing this gift that He gave to the world back into the fold after being abandoned centuries before.
“Remember, the prophetic movement had to be restored because in the Reformation 500 years ago plus, there was a real sense of a dishonoring,” Stark says.
This period of history when there was a lack of understanding and appreciation for prophecy and prophets, while filled with a lot of truth, was a time of “spiritual sterility” according to Stark.
“You get a sense of impotence in the prophetic word, because it’s just not given a place or a value,” Stark shares.
“So you’re almost living under the cloak, or the hood, of the Reformation, which is giving a value for salvation by faith, which is giving a value for the centrality of the cross and Christ. But there’s not value for really, the work of the Spirit or the work of the Revelation at all,” she adds.
If you don’t find importance in prophecy, or perhaps see the impact of false prophets around the world taking advantage of those seeking out a word from the Lord, ask yourself this: where would we be without the prophecy of the Bible?
And if we, as Christians, are to continue the work of Jesus Christ, who Himself prophesied as did His followers, how can we possibly expect to accomplish the Great Commission and edify the church of Christ without the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to include prophecy, which He explicitly sent to us to be our “helper”?
Frankly, it would be an impossible task, and we have a firsthand look at a world that is abandoning not only the tenets of God and moral code He instituted, but the gifts which He sent us to help navigate the sin-cursed land that we live in today.
But with the giving and receiving of personal, prophetic words, released in the proper, biblical fashion, Christians can right the ship that has been listing toward the way of the world for far too long and continue forward on the straight and narrow path.
“You need to find a way to articulate the Spirit of God, and to articulate what you’re seeing and feeling and sensing in a way that leads people helpfully into their future. And it keeps you sharp,” Robertson says.
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James Lasher is Staff Writer for Charisma Media
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