"The Lord told me..." - Part 2

As a follow up to my post from two days ago, I thought a word of explanation was in order.

When anyone claims to be speaking for the Lord, this is what is commonly referred to as a 'prophetic utterance', a statement made by God, Himself. This, by its very nature should be considered a gift of the Spirit. There are a lot of differing viewpoints on the gifts of the Spirit. But they fall into two very broad categories. There are those who believe the gifts are currently functioning in the church (continuationists) and there are those who believe they stopped functioning around the time the Apostles finished their writings and passed away (cessationists).

Much of the controversy centers around the interpretation of 1 Cor 13:8–12 (NASB95) 8Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

To narrow it down even further, the majority of those discussions revolve around the meaning of 'perfect' in vs 10. It comes from the Greek word telios. To oversimplify, most cessationists believe (for valid reasons) that "perfect" describes the Bible and now that we have it, there is no longer a need for gifts, especially those of prophecy and tongues. Most continuationists believe (for equally valid reasons) that "perfect" describes the believer when he gets to heaven.

I lean very heavily toward the second viewpoint. I've seen too much evidence of functional gifts in the Body of Christ to believe otherwise. That being said, I could be convinced of the veracity of the cessationists and am unwilling to declare either side to be right or wrong.

I bring all this up so that those who read my previous posting on this subject do not misunderstand me in what I shared. My struggle with someone who "hears directly from God" is not whether or not God is actually speaking to them....He may be. To be frank, I have no way of knowing whether He is or not. My difficulty is with the ways some folks interpret what they're hearing.....and furthermore....how they put it to work.

There are three possible scenarios here:

1. God has spoken clearly and concisely and has been understood completely, in which case everything that was uttered will come to pass exactly as it was portrayed with no variance whatsoever. I think this is a very rare occurrence. Probably far more rare than most of us think.

2. God has spoken but in relating what was said, the recipient has either embellished or altered what was said in which case things may happen the way they were portrayed or not. In either case, the "word" was tainted by the filters/feelings/preconceptions of the recipient and is no longer a valid "prophetic word". In my opinion, this is the case with most prophetic utterances. The hearer hears....and proceeds to act on his own assumptions about what he/she heard.

3. No one actually "heard" anything at all but is responding to a feeling or intuition and has a lot of personal conviction concerning the way things should proceed. I also believe this case occurs far more frequently than most people think it does.

In all three cases, if the only one affected is the hearer, then he/she is left alone to deal with God on all of this. Things get significantly more complicated when the hearer begins to impact those around him/her with his/her revelation. This is a whole new ballgame, as far as I can see. Now, the hearer is speaking directly from God, into someone else's' life. If it is authentic, it bears authority. It should exhibit power and....it should be absolutely perfect in all respects...and.....it is equal to Scripture.

So...how do we know the difference? well, we have a few indicators we can follow:

1. Since there is no new revelation (Rev 22:18-19), any prophetic utterance should compliment or clarify Scripture. It will never contradict it nor countermand it.

2. It will exhibit the character and nature of God in all respects particularly in its perfection (James 1:17). There will be no errors or misquotes, no ambiguity (especially regarding sin), no inaccuracies and no variations.

3. It will, in every respect, bring glory to God and not to anyone else (Isaiah 42:8).

This is why we have to be careful, folks. We have to listen carefully, evaluate against Scripture ruthlessly and pray fervently when these things come to us. God does speak to us today. But His message has not changed and will not. Whenever He speaks to us, whether it be through revelation, Scripture, another brother or sister, our situations or our environment....it will always line up with his written word and bring peace, even in the storm.

I repeat, we would all be much better if we heard the phrase "I believe you/I should...." much more frequently than the phrase "God is telling me...."