TODAY’S SERVICE BIBLE STUDY

A reader from Bulawayo asked me one day, are you are prophet and I replied, can you recognize a prophet if you see one or whats being a prophet about. Today we discussed about

Who is a prophet? Who can prophecy?

Mrs. Abiliyo says, a prophet is someone that receives and passes across the word of God concerning someone or people.

In the old dispensation, the spirit of prophecy does rest on selected people and it’s only few people that could receive and pass across God’s word to the nation. That’s why we have only few people that could prophecy then. If you want God’s word concerning your life or situation, you have to goto these few selected men to reveal God’s word concerning you and your situation (Nathan, Elijah, Elisha etc.)

But in Joel 2:28 the bible says in the last days, our sons and daughters shall prophesy meaning, in the next dispensation, the dispensation we are now, the dispensation that came with the release of the Holyghost on the day of Pentecost, that everyone of us would have access to the word of God concerning our lives and situations therefore we can speak forth God’s word to ourselves, another person and to situations. So every Christian in this dispensation of the gospel is a prophet because we all have access to God’s manual concerning us.

Why Prophecy, why cant God just do it without anyone proclaiming it first, well, God creates everything that was ever created with the word and everything that would ever be created would come by the word. ‘Word’ is the only raw material for creation and to create, you must proclaim words over and over again.

There are two levels or types of prophecy:

1.    The Logos: Ps 40:7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me. An inventor states the capability of his inventions in a manual. The word of God is our manual; it states what we can do and cant, what we can have and cant, who we are and who we aren’t. When we read and keep declaring what the bible says about us, we are prophesying. It’s our duty to find and discover the word of God concerning us and keeps declaring it because things don’t turn out because God has written it but it turns out if it has been declared even if God wants to do anything, He must first inpire someone to declare it first. If it’s not declared, it won’t be done.

2.    Rhema (inspired word from God for the now): this is the level most people know and regards often as prophecy. This is the level when God drops a particular word to your spirit either for yourself or another person. Because we serve a living God that hasn’t just spoken through the pages of the scripture but that is still speaking.

NB. Operating under a prophetic office is being a prophet God has ordained officially as an agency to declare His intentions to a nation, tribe or people so that He would do it because If it’s not declared, it won’t be done.

Whats false prophecy: false prophecy is not that a prophecy didn’t come to pass but when we declare what God didn’t say. Every prophecy comes to pass, whether sooner or latter (When a false prophecy isn’t countered, it will come to pass). False prophecies could come to pass, so we don’t because a prophecy came to pass regard it as a real prophecy. Any prophecy that doesn’t align with the written word of God about you is false even if it comes to pass.

How do we know a prophecy is of God: we know that a prophecy is from God when it confirms the logos of God to us (what has been written about us). But when you don’t know the written prophecies about your life, you won’t be able to detect that a prophecy is not of God.

Why can everyone prophesy? So that we can chart the course of our lives ‘Job 13:18 Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified’. The way you order your life with your mouth, that’s how your justification will turn out. Job 3:26-25 Job gave flesh to his fears by always declaring his fears thus his life become synominous with suffering and pain. His problem was that he wasn’t quiet; he kept speaking bad things (prophesying evil in accordance to his fears). Keep declaring the written word of God about your life and soon you’ll get the inspired word (the prophecy for the now) and chart the course of your life. Your destiny is in your hands, if you can keep prophesying it, you have it.

God bless you.

Pastor Promise Ikpe