Should Christians be guided by prophecies?

[garee]

If I was the earthly father of Jesus and an angel of God told me to do something then I would do it.

What kind of angel seeing God is no longer bringing any new prophecies as direct revelations.?

Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:2Th 2:9

 

[presidente]

What kind of angel seeing God is no longer bringing any new prophecies as direct revelations.?

Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:2Th 2:9

The verse you quoted does not prove your assumption.

We also read this in the New Testament.
Acts 23
[FONT=&quot][SUP]6 [/SUP]Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee,descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” [SUP]7 [/SUP]When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. [SUP]8 [/SUP](The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SUP]9 [/SUP]There was a great uproar, and some of the teachers of the law who were Pharisees stood up and argued vigorously. “We find nothing wrong with this man,” they said. “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” [SUP]10 [/SUP]The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][SUP]11 [/SUP]The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”
(NIV)[/FONT]

 

[garee]

The verse you quoted does not prove your assumption.

We also read this in the New Testament.
Acts 23
[SUP]6 [/SUP]Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee,descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” [SUP]7 [/SUP]When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. [SUP]8 [/SUP](The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.)
[SUP]9 [/SUP]There was a great uproar, and some of the teachers of the law who were Pharisees stood up and argued vigorously. “We find nothing wrong with this man,” they said. “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” [SUP]10 [/SUP]The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks.
[SUP]11 [/SUP]The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”
(NIV)

The Holy Spirit was still bringing new prophecy as direct revelations from God up until the last word he preached in the book of Revelation.. (do not add or subtract)

Today and for the last two thousand years we have the complete book of the law of God (Bible) , not in part, but the whole. If any man say lo is Christ thus sayeth the Lord knowing He has not spoken we are to believe not.(no faith)



The air way is open to the father of lies by which he can present his signs and lying wonders.

 

[JustWhoIAm]

Don't say that! LOL He is working hard to get people not to believe in anything but getting answers from inside a book.

Hm. Do you think that people might be pushing the idea that a guiding word of God can only come directly from scripture because they do not want to follow his will due to selfish reasons even when he may be making it quite obvious what it is?

 

[presidente]

The Holy Spirit was still bringing new prophecy as direct revelations from God up until the last word he preached in the book of Revelation.. (do not add or subtract)

The Bible does not teach that prophesying ceased when the book of Revelation was written. The book of Revelation predicts the two witnesses prophesying. There is a warning at the end of the book of Revelation not to add a word to this scroll of prophecy. Why would you want to add to its meaning?

 

[presidente]

Hm. Do you think that people might be pushing the idea that a guiding word of God can only come directly from scripture because they do not want to follow his will due to selfish reasons even when he may be making it quite obvious what it is?

That's an idea to ponder. I also think a lot of people want some really easy rule to follow that keeps them from having to actually discern if something is from God. So if God didn't show it to them directly, it's not confirmation, or they don't 'feel' anything when they hear a prophecy, they want to be able to ignore it. It's just more convenient. Cessationism can offer some easy convenient methods of not having to bother with the Biblical admonition to despise not prophecies and to prove all things. If God expected the early church to discern prophecies, is it unfair if He expects us to do the same?

 

[Stephen63]

Amen . God is no longer bringing any new prophecy as a direct revelation from God. What we had in part up until the last word in Revelation 22 we now have the whole council of God with no laws missing by which we could know Him more adequately.

We are not to add to it or take away from it .

I see we're back to fictional rules that don't exist again.

Everyone that wrote books of the NT prophesied, esp. Paul. Do you think for one moment they're all in the Bible?

John said Jesus did so many things the books of the world wouldn't contain them. Since He had the Spirit without measure, that would include prophesying.

 

[Stephen63]

The Bible does not teach that prophesying ceased when the book of Revelation was written. The book of Revelation predicts the two witnesses prophesying. There is a warning at the end of the book of Revelation not to add a word to this scroll of prophecy. Why would you want to add to its meaning?

That's the way I see it.....

 

[LaurenTM]

which was fine...until presidente decided to give me a sermon in post #76 and a sermonette in post 79 and another in post # 89...granted he was polite which is always appreciated to which I basically stated that I do not embrace gifts, but rather the giver...my full responses are recorded

but like I stated, not the first time Ricky seems to take exception to what I state..so apparently agreeing with him rubs him the wrong way too if it is me

notice that even those who strenuously object to the gifts get passed over while myself, who agreed with Ricky, gets a sermon and a correction

nice going fellahs[/QUOTE]
This is a discussion forum. So we discuss stuff like that.

Honestly, I found your post a bit annoying. I gave a lot of Biblical examples regarding how God can lead through prophecy, and you wrote you wouldn't live your life based on a prophecy, if I recall correctly. I was left wondering why my posts, supported by scripture, would be equated with living your life based on a prophecy, and since the Bible is full of prophecy, don'g Christians live their lives based on a prophecy?

I said to embrace the gifts. You said you don't embrace the gifts but the giver. It seemed a bit passive-aggressive to me, honestly. 'Embrace' is loose enough to include 'earnestly desire spiritual gifts'. It seemed like you were looking for some way to disagree when there wasn't much point to disagreeing.

Then there was the part about being the last person to need an education on the topic. I responded to that because... what kind of comment is that to make?

I wouldn't have posted anything about all this, but you posted about how other posters posts annoyed you. I found one of your posts annoying enough to actually remember it so many pages back. But, so what? That happens. This is a discussion forum. We aren't going to agree about every little thing or like every post.

me and Ricky got it settled

 

[Stephen63]

The air way is open to the father of lies by which he can present his signs and lying wonders.

I'll tell you what the father of lies is trying to do..... cover up the gift of prophecy because it was prophesied the whole church would do it.
Joel 2:28“It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions. 29“Even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

Acts 2:14But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. 15“For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; 16but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel:
17‘AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,’ God says,
‘THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND;
AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY,
AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS,
AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS; 18EVEN ON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN,
I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT
And they shall prophesy.

 

[presidente]

I suppose a lot of pastors have heard horror stories about someone who prophesied to someone else to sell everything and give it to the poor, go to the airport, and someone will provide you a ticket to go be a missionary in Africa, where the person followed the advice and it didn't pan out. Or they've experienced some problem with false prophecy. I certainly understand that.


Ministers of the gospel, especially pastors, want to protect the people of God. But we also have to be faithful to what the Bible teaches about these spiritual gifts. Some pastors may have experienced individuals who condemned others, claiming it was prophetic, or people prophetically pointing out the sins of others. I can see why a pastor might consider these possibilities to be scary.


There are some pastors and church leaders who teach people to not say 'The Lord says' or give a first person prophecy, but they have to say, "I feel" or "I think" or something that sounds wishy washy.


Consider Exodus 9:1
Then the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.


Could you imagine if Moses heard that and then went in and said to Pharoah, "Maybe I think, possibly...this could just be me... but I think the LORD might want you to let the people go."


That is not how God wanted him to present the message.


And it does not make sense to put a restriction on people to not point out anyone's sin through a spiritual gift when there are examples of it in the Bible, for example, Nathan with David, Peter with Ananias and Saphira. There is that passage about telling the unbeliever the secrets of his heart.


It does make sense to teach people to have wisdom about these things. Some prophecies may best be given out of the public eye.


One of the other issues with some of the churches that do this, is that they consider prophesying falsely to be no big deal. There was one man who said that wrong prophecy is not necessarily false prophecy, treating false prophesying as a normal thing. Then there are those teaching people to 'step out.' I can understand why they wouldn't want people to prophesy whatever popped in their head, and then condemn people and say, 'Thus saith the Lord.' But does saying 'maybe I think God is saying' alleviate you from the responsibility if you prophesy false? Wimpily attributing it to the Lord is still attributing it to the Lord. And if someone presents a true word from the Lord, should he present it in a wimpy way, or attribute it to his own thoughts and feelings?


One the one hand, we should eagerly desire spiritual gifts. On the other, we should have the fear of the Lord and avoid prophesying falsely like we would avoid committing adultery or murdering someone. It is a big deal.

 

[RickyZ]

Ok, so, I figured I'd slid off track a bit here so I dove back in. Out of all I looked at, I think this sums it up very nicely -



A word of wisdom is a word relating to a specific situation, and gives strategic insight into how to handle that situation. Solomon had a word of wisdom when the two women came arguing over whose baby it was (1 Ki 3:16-28). That word of wisdom solved the dilemma and showed the real mother.

A word of knowledge is something you could not know about a person other than God showing you. It may, or may not, be a pre-cursor to a prophetic word being released, but it is not usually the prophetic word. Jesus had a word of knowledge that ended up in a Samaritan woman’s life being transformed (Jn 4:7-30)

A prophetic word is the Lord sharing His heart and intent for a person, group, community or nation. Under the New Covenant, prophecy is to encourage, comfort and edify, but it may also provide strategic insight, and sometimes direction, into what the Lord’s purposes are for someone or some group. Some examples of this are 1 Cor 14:3 & 31; Acts 15:32; Acts 19:6.

A prophetic word may be forth-telling or foretelling. Forth-telling is current time and situation oriented. It’s a word that applies to the present circumstances of a person’s life and lets them know that God is with them in it, encouraging and guiding them through it. Foretelling is future oriented and announces the will of God and His future plans for people or for communities and nations.

One example of a combination of word of knowledge and prophetic word is found in 1 Sam 9 &10 where Samuel receives a word of knowledge about Saul (9:15-17) then prophesies over him as a result (10:1-9).

Courtesy of http://nzpropheticnetwork.com/lyn-packer-understanding-the-process.html




And of course all of it must agree with scripture and glorify God in the end.

To go back to the original question of the op...

One should not expect these things to guide your every step in life, but should any of these gifts cross your path you shouldn't ignore it.

 

[RickyZ]

I suppose a lot of pastors have heard horror stories about someone who prophesied to someone else to sell everything and give it to the poor, go to the airport, and someone will provide you a ticket to go be a missionary in Africa, where the person followed the advice and it didn't pan out. Or they've experienced some problem with false prophecy. I certainly understand that.


Ministers of the gospel, especially pastors, want to protect the people of God. But we also have to be faithful to what the Bible teaches about these spiritual gifts. Some pastors may have experienced individuals who condemned others, claiming it was prophetic, or people prophetically pointing out the sins of others. I can see why a pastor might consider these possibilities to be scary.


There are some pastors and church leaders who teach people to not say 'The Lord says' or give a first person prophecy, but they have to say, "I feel" or "I think" or something that sounds wishy washy.


Consider Exodus 9:1
Then the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.


Could you imagine if Moses heard that and then went in and said to Pharoah, "Maybe I think, possibly...this could just be me... but I think the LORD might want you to let the people go."


That is not how God wanted him to present the message.


And it does not make sense to put a restriction on people to not point out anyone's sin through a spiritual gift when there are examples of it in the Bible, for example, Nathan with David, Peter with Ananias and Saphira. There is that passage about telling the unbeliever the secrets of his heart.


It does make sense to teach people to have wisdom about these things. Some prophecies may best be given out of the public eye.


One of the other issues with some of the churches that do this, is that they consider prophesying falsely to be no big deal. There was one man who said that wrong prophecy is not necessarily false prophecy, treating false prophesying as a normal thing. Then there are those teaching people to 'step out.' I can understand why they wouldn't want people to prophesy whatever popped in their head, and then condemn people and say, 'Thus saith the Lord.' But does saying 'maybe I think God is saying' alleviate you from the responsibility if you prophesy false? Wimpily attributing it to the Lord is still attributing it to the Lord. And if someone presents a true word from the Lord, should he present it in a wimpy way, or attribute it to his own thoughts and feelings?


One the one hand, we should eagerly desire spiritual gifts. On the other, we should have the fear of the Lord and avoid prophesying falsely like we would avoid committing adultery or murdering someone. It is a big deal.

Bravo! Very well said!

 

[JustWhoIAm]

Ok, so, I figured I'd slid off track a bit here so I dove back in. Out of all I looked at, I think this sums it up very nicely -



A word of wisdom is a word relating to a specific situation, and gives strategic insight into how to handle that situation. Solomon had a word of wisdom when the two women came arguing over whose baby it was (1 Ki 3:16-28). That word of wisdom solved the dilemma and showed the real mother.

A word of knowledge is something you could not know about a person other than God showing you. It may, or may not, be a pre-cursor to a prophetic word being released, but it is not usually the prophetic word. Jesus had a word of knowledge that ended up in a Samaritan woman’s life being transformed (Jn 4:7-30)

A prophetic word is the Lord sharing His heart and intent for a person, group, community or nation. Under the New Covenant, prophecy is to encourage, comfort and edify, but it may also provide strategic insight, and sometimes direction, into what the Lord’s purposes are for someone or some group. Some examples of this are 1 Cor 14:3 & 31; Acts 15:32; Acts 19:6.

A prophetic word may be forth-telling or foretelling. Forth-telling is current time and situation oriented. It’s a word that applies to the present circumstances of a person’s life and lets them know that God is with them in it, encouraging and guiding them through it. Foretelling is future oriented and announces the will of God and His future plans for people or for communities and nations.

One example of a combination of word of knowledge and prophetic word is found in 1 Sam 9 &10 where Samuel receives a word of knowledge about Saul (9:15-17) then prophesies over him as a result (10:1-9).

Courtesy of http://nzpropheticnetwork.com/lyn-packer-understanding-the-process.html




And of course all of it must agree with scripture and glorify God in the end.

To go back to the original question of the op...

One should not expect these things to guide your every step in life, but should any of these gifts cross your path you shouldn't ignore it.

That's interesting. I personally try not to use labels for things like that but you're drawing attention to the fact that the prophetic gift has various manifestations and applications.

Cool beans.

 

[presidente]

I'd like to add something about the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom.

We could get hung up on 'word' in English. From what I've read, the Greek word can be a lot broader in meaning. It can be a lot more than an individual word in a sentence. In an argument, it could be the premise of an argument, for example. It could be a message. Most of us probably realize that, but some people may not.

The way I understand it, the word of wisdom or word of knowledge is a word to the individual receiving it. If God gives me a word of knowledge, he is telling me a 'word.' I could share that with other believer, use it in prayer for someone else, or use it in some other way to edify others.

 

[Stephen63]

Three types of prophetic works of the prophets of Joel's prophesy equal the three types of prophet in the OT:
1. nabi, to utter
2. ro'eh, old name for "someone who sees"
3. hozeh, "someone who sees"

In Acts 2, we see the NT prophets speak prophecy, see visions, & dream dreams, just as Joel predicts.

IMO, the NT prophet, thru the Spirit, can perform everything the OT ones could. Same work, different covenant, same kingdom responsibilities.

The only difference is the Spirit came upon the OT prophets, & the Spirit is stirred up within the NT ones.

 

[presidente]

What kind of angel seeing God is no longer bringing any new prophecies as direct revelations.?

Could someone with the gift of interpretation please help?

Just kidding, of course, but I don't know what you are saying. I think you used a wrong word. To answer your question as you asked it, we'd have to know which kinds of angels who see God are no longer bringing new prophecies as direct revelations. I doubt any posters would be sure of the assumptions behind the question as posted.