You're aware Elle that your view of learning how to prophesy is unorthodox? In fact, the idea of learning to prophesy was so foreign to me that I almost dismissed it immediately.
Yes, I’m aware – but really it’s the Lord that is unorthodox :+) His thoughts are not like our thoughts (Is 55:8,9). Often His thoughts and ways are unorthodox to our pre-conceived ideas and our limited understanding of the divine plan.
To comment on “learning to prophesy” somehow we limit our definition of prophesy with forecasting or understanding what is to come in the future. Jesus said about John the Baptist to be the greatest prophet ever born (Lk 7:28) yet he never gave any prediction. He was just 6 months older than Jesus and his brief ministry was to prepare the way for Jesus and bare witness of Him. I believe that John’s prophetic greatness that Jesus was praising lies in his ability to repeat only the word of God as he received it without adding or subtracting to it and only do what he saw the Father do. Basically John walked as Jesus walked. We all know we are called to walk as Jesus who –
cease (the proper definition of Sabbath) from all [carnal]speech and work by only saying what He heard the Father say, and by only doing what He saw the Father do. This is what I believe what we need to develop while we “learn to prophesy” – then all our speech and all our actions will be the Lord’s words and actions and in essence is “prophesy” because it is not our own. However, this is highly dependant on our ability to hear our Father’s voice clearly and differentiate it from our own voice. That’s where the great difficulty lies as you pointed out. I’ve been in this learning process for the past 7 years by which some tools the Lord has provided helps us; despite much can only be learned via life experiences.
I believe our biggest hindrance in hearing correctly the Lord is our heart’s idols. Heart’s idols are teachings of men or our pre-conceived ideas : of the Lord’s character, what is His ways, how He judges, what is his intentions behind His laws, what constitute His plan of salvation, what is His will, and etc. Heart’s idols distort everything twisting the pure “Word of God” whether if His word comes from our dreams or visions, hearing His voice when He talks to us, from reading scripture, or from life experiences. Heart idols make us blind.
Our first lesson to learn is to put these heart idols aside for the Lord warns us if we come to Him with heart’s idols that – “
I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols” (Ezek 14:3,4). This goes contrary to what our Church “orthodox” teachings. No, this text does not say the Lord is going to correct us with the truth; but the very opposite -- He will answer us according to the multitude of our heart idols. I think this means we will see or read everything thru the eye glasses of our idols and we will find support for them almost everywhere and our heart’s idols will be magnified. In the same sense when the Israelites despised the manna and wanted to eat flesh food – well he will give us “flesh” – fleshy teachings of men until it gets us sick. This is a vevy serious warning that we shouldn’t take lightly. So I think any sons-of-God-in-training-during-Pentecost’s-growth-level-of-faith must learn (which includes any prophets in training) to set aside our heart idols. I don’t think the Lord is asking that we bring down those heart idols; but only to set them aside. In another word, to acknowledge that our understanding is limited, shallow, and most likely with errors of some sort. Any interpretation of any Word received or of scriptures must be provided by the Holy Spirit.
We all have heart idols which I view is the “leavened” in us; thus we do not see Him yet face to face. My view is those heart-idols comes down in proportion to what He personally reveal to us as we learn more of His truth, His ways, and His mind. That’s the whole essence of the purpose of Pentecost. Pentecost is a “leavened” feast because the offering was two leavened loaves (Lev 23:17) which represents us who still have heart idols(=sin). It only becomes an acceptable offering to the Lord if the TWO loaves are “baked” in the fire which represents the Holy Spirit. Why TWO loaves? This probably points to the law of double witness to establish any truth on earth. The law of double witness is a tool the Lord uses to speaks/confirms things to us.
But then I thought maybe I should look at that idea more carefully. For one thing, like you said, those who get these revelations initially may not be able to tell the difference between their imagination and a revelation. On the Z3 site for example, it's common for the person sharing their dream or vision to give a caution that they aren't sure it's from the Lord and directing people to prayer and the scriptures. That's a good sign and healthy.
Yes that is very good and very healthy. They did us right to say that and lawfully promoting that we go to the Holy Spirit.
Concerning what I have highlighted above, the Lord did provide us with tools to help us distinguish which thoughts, revelation, or [spiritual] food are “clean” from those that are “unclean”. These are found in the food laws (Lev 11 & Deut 14). I will only briefly mention them but a more thorough study of all the food laws equips us with vital [spiritual] dietary principles for all sons of God in training which deserve our attention and meditation.
In brief, the first part of the law concerning which beast of the earth to eat teaches us the beasts that are “clean” must “chew the cud” and have “hoofs split in two”. In application, no [spiritual] food is considered clean unless the sons of God “chews their cud” (=ponder or meditate on it) and have it stand on two separate hoofs that have contact on the earth (=double witness to establish something on earth). Only the Holy Spirit can provide the necessary witnesses in some fashion to establish that this thought, or revelation, or what you heard preached, or your understanding of that text, or etc… is indeed a “clean” food.
This law also teaches us the manner in which to present [spiritual] food to others. We must always allow time for the hearer to “chew their cud” and ask the Lord for a double witness to establish the validity of the food that is being presented. If anyone insist that people must believe him without question or time, then he renders the food unclean, regardless of how true the food may be.
The problem is not always with the messenger presenting the food. If a person refuses to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice, then they are eating “unclean” foods because they accept what we say without the Holy Spirit’s double witness. In essence, they are eating our “flesh” instead of Christ’s “flesh”. Only the Holy Spirit can convert whatever come out of our mortal mouth into Christ’s flesh. This was Israel’s problem when they refuse to hear the word from the Holy Spirit at Mt. Sinai and sent Moses to hear on their behalf. (Ex 20:19) They erroneously thought that Moses' witness was sufficient and thus wanted to eat “unclean” [spiritual] foods in an unlawful manner.
Chewing the cud (=meditating) is as important as receiving a double witness in order to extract its full nutritional value and to turn it from “flesh” to spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can give us understanding so we can properly assimilate the [spiritual] food and make it part of us.
Both “chewing the cud” and receiving a double witness from the Holy Spirit are both required to render any food as “clean”. So allowing time to meditate and putting the people (or ourselves) in the hands of the Holy Spirit is essential in partaking of any [spiritual] food.
I think James has the same struggle here on Maritime. A lot of what he writes in his blogs is inspiring but at times he mistakes impressions for inspiration and is offended when we doubt some of his material and/or thinks he's being persecuted because he's not always believed.
For sure, I do not doubt one bit that the Lord is talking to James and to you. For example, I perceived that the word you heard last spring was the Lord’s. I like how you quoted these to make a distinction from the remaining of what you wrote. The Lord gives us room to speculate or ask questions during our pondering of the meaning of what we heard or seen or felt as an impression as long as we do not treat these as Truths.
The seafood laws can help clarify how to handle speculation or our time of pondering or questioning a subject, or when we read secular information or scientific papers and etc. Often pieces of truths are mixes in the theories of men. In brief, the seafood laws helps us to stay safe while swimming in the sea of [theories of ] men (Rev 17:15) by which our own theories would be included in this category. The scales represents the armor of God (Eph 6:13-17) that protects us. The fins represents the guidance of the Holy Spirit who will lead the way thru the sea of the knowledge of men avoiding us to eat dung foods(teachings of men) and helping us to extract the gems that are His.
The bird food laws teaches us to avoid birds(=spirits) of prey because they are bloodthirsty. To me this means to avoid eating [spiritual] foods that is bloodthirsty in spirit or sharing [spiritual] foods with a bloodthirsty attitude & spirit. The purpose of blood is to atone (cover - intercede) for the sins of the world whereas those that uses [spiritual] foods to expose the sins of others by accusation and violence are in essence being “bloodthirsty”. The Lord is the mediator of the world, and we, the body of Christ, should be also having the same mind, heart and purpose. Interpretations, teachings, or our views have a spirit. These spirits needs to be tested also (1Jn 4:1).
I think in essence EJ Waggoner understood thia "bird food" law and applied this in all his studies and meditation of the Word after Christ gave him an “extra-Biblical revelation” of “Christ reconciling the
world unto Himself”. After his personal revelation included in the quote below, if he couldn’t see this revelation [=spirit of the purpose of His blood] in any other text in the bible he was studying, then to him he didn’t understand it and refuse to teach it to anyone.
Christ is primarily the Word of God, the expression of God's thought: and the Scriptures are the word of God simply because they reveal Christ. It was this belief that I began my real study of the Bible, thirty-four years ago. At that time Christ was set forth before my eyes "evidently crucified" before me. I was sitting a little apart from the body of the congregation at a camp meeting in Healdsburg one gloomy Sabbath afternoon. I had no idea what was the subject of the discourse. Not a text or a word have I ever known. All that remained with me was what I saw. Suddenly a light shone round me and the tent was, for me, far more brilliantly lighted than if the noon-day sun had been shining, and I saw Christ hanging on the cross, crucified for me. In that moment I had my first positive knowledge, which came like an overwhelming flood, that God loved me, and that Christ died for me. God and I were the only beings I was conscious of in the universe. I knew then, by actual sight, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself: I was the whole world with all its sin.
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I resolved at once that I would study the Bible in the light of that revelation, in order that I might help others to see the same truth. I have always believed that every part of the Bible must set forth, with more or less vividness, that glorious revelation; and when I did not see it, or some direct connection with it, in any portion of Scriptures, I have known that I did not understand it, and have refrained from attempting to teach such portions until I could see the light shining from them.
Another point worth considering, my understanding is the Lord does not give a revelation only to one person but likes to disperse revelation to many… the info is similar having parts that repeat while providing different pieces of the puzzles to each individuals so that we learn to depend on one another so to unite us and learn to function as a body even when it comes to revelation. I believe the Holy Spirit works at both levels: corporately and individually. For sure individuals and even corporate churches can be at different level of faith, nevertheless the Lord guides and speaks to all and we need to encourage this.
We need to be careful not to isolate ourselves or view ourselves separate from the body or greater than any individual including the unbelievers who have not yet entered into the Lord’s Kingdom. We are just not all at the same level of faith. Some has just recently entered Passover(babes), others have already crossed into Pentecost(teenagers) and are learning to hear and obey God’s voice, while some few others have entered into Tabernacle level of faith(mediators). All have to go thru the same path but at the Lord’s orchestrated different timing. That’s why in the law the Lord provided 3 harvests that depicts the different timings of readiness of each groups. This was always so and time constraint is not a factor for the Lord. We need to see everyone in the eyes and foreknowledge of the Lord.
Then we have different purposes – all working together in the plan of the Lord. For sure there’s many in the Church whom their holy work is to stone others, as strangely as it sounds. They rarely bring any legitimate argument or piece of revelation received for the body. Despite, they have their purposes and I understand that their work is needed and part of the Lord’s plan too. It doesn’t mean that the Lord isn’t going to put a word in their mouth for us to hear that in it will bring to us a revelation. So in essence the Lord can use them or anyone to prophesy without them having any notion that they are speaking for the Lord.
I personally like the forum to test things. I think it’s a great tool for us and especially a small forum like Maritime online. Those that does bring feedbacks that are Biblical and have weight on the subject at hand, I view them as “messengers” from the Lord to revise our thoughts so we can identify the “mistakes impression” from the inspired one. I now see that Prophets or “messengers” can comes in all forms and shapes and even from places or a time not expected. The Lord can speak thru many living things even a donkey. Even objects, events, songs, astral objects, appointed time, etc.. really their no limits for the Lord to convey a message.
I believe James has had some direct revelations from the Lord. His conversion story sounds authentic and some other things - just not everything. It's not that anyone here is intentionally trying to offend or persecute this brother who we should love and respect. It's that each one of us has a God-given responsibility to compare the revelation of a peer with scripture.
I agree! That’s what I understand from Deut 13:1-5, Is 8:20 and 1Cor 3:11-15.