Open—Joseph Countouris
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
#277 The Lamb of God, our shepherd is.
And he who doth us speed.
While He is ours and we are his, what can we want or need 277?
The Lamb of God, our Shepherd.
Of us being a wild dear sister, and we are pills for them who we want for me.
Making me transparent. November breath and the best. And they're beginning.
Gently by sinful, we have the best.
And if we?
Straighten up.
For our disbursement.
Our heads only name, yeah, and that's a shame.
May we recall?
Our joyous increase.
Like sweet and wondrous love. Shallow man Trevor all our days.
My father's house.
Where God eternal friends.
But the man of God.
I have on my heart.
This afternoon to speak for a few minutes about prophecy.
And specifically how it relates to the meeting that we're in right now?
00:05:03
Oftentimes after a conference, at the end of a conference, I will speak to different young people, peers and I'll ask them what they thought about the meeting, what they thought about the the meetings.
And.
One repeating theme that oftentimes comes up.
Is that the prophecy meeting did not have prophecy in it.
And it's not that we haven't had any prophecy.
But there is, I believe, perhaps a lack of understanding of what the great.
Resource that God has given us in prophecy.
And it's been reduced. And so there's been a lack of suffering of this great resource. So what I would like to do with the Lord's help is to look into the Word of God, what is prophecy? And my hope is that we will all benefit from this.
Not just in this meeting, but in meetings to follow. What is prophecy?
Prophecy. If you look at the word, it comes from 2 Greek words pro Femi. Pro means before on behalf of. Fami means to speak to speak on behalf of.
Prophecy is speaking on behalf of somebody. Almost always. Prophecy in the Word of God is speaking on behalf of God, though not always. Aaron was.
The prophet to Moses, God would come to Moses. He would tell him what he wanted to say. Because of Moses, his failure, he would speak it to Aaron. Aaron would speak it to Pharaoh. He was somebody who spoke on behalf of.
Let's look into the Old Testament to see if we can find examples and definitions of what prophecy truly is. So first let's look at Jeremiah chapter one.
Jeremiah chapter one and verse 4.
Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you, I ordained you a prophet to the nations.
Then said Eyes is Jeremiah. Oh Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth. But the Lord said to me, Do not say I am a youth, for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.
Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, And the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my word.
In your mouth.
Prophecy is speaking the mind of the Lord, and it's not just the mind of the Lord at any time. It's the mind of the Lord for the moment. What God needs to communicate at a particular time for a particular reason. That's what prophecy has always been. This is just one example. You can look through the myriad of the Old Testament prophets and find the same thing over and over again.
God speaking to a prophet to a man, and saying, thus saith the Lord, go.
And that man would go and he would say sometimes there was failure though.
Let's look at First Chronicles chapter 17.
Sometimes a prophet.
Said something that wasn't from God.
Sometimes it wasn't malicious, as we're going to see here. Sometimes it was this we're going to see later.
First Chronicles 17 verse one. Now it came to pass when David was dwelling in his house, and David said to Nathan the prophet, see now I dwell in the House of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under tent curtains. Then Nathan said to David, do all that is in your heart, for God is with you. Did God say that? He didn't.
But it happened that night.
That the word of God came to Nathan, saying, Go and tell my servant David. Thus says the Lord, you shall not build me a house to dwell in.
Now we're going to skip down to verse 15.
00:10:01
According to all these words and according to all this vision. So Nathan spoke to David.
He spoke what God told him to speak. That's prophecy. It was a needed word for the moment. That's what prophecy is. That's what we need.
We need a needed word for the moment.
Not just a generalized thought.
A an enjoyable passage, as nice as those things are.
It's not prophecy. It's not in the character of the meeting that we're taking up. It's critical that the Saints receive the mind of the Lord for the moment, for the issues that we're dealing with at hand. This is a tremendous resource that we have and that we need.
Let's look at Deuteronomy chapter 18.
Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 18. I will raise up for them a prophet.
Like you from among their brethren. And will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
This technically could be any profit that followed Moses that the Lord spoke through. Yet there is something here that would speak of a future profit and the children of Israel actually knew that. And when John was here they said, are you that prophet? And he would say, no, I am not.
They looked for this profit, and what was going to characterize this profit is he was going to speak the words that God gave him to speak, not his own words, not his own thoughts, not thoughts that weren't for that moment. It was what was needed for that moment and only what God had said to speak.
Let's continue. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.
This is serious. It is. It's a serious thing that God looks upon in regards to prophecy, in regards to the prophetic word.
When a prophet verse 21 And if you say in your heart, how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you shall not be afraid of him. So in the Old Testament they didn't have the completed word of God.
God was speaking by revelation through prophets.
And God was revealing his mind and his word to them through prophets. And so if a prophet came and said thus, says the Lord, they didn't have the completed word of God to say, no, that's not quite right.
And so they ask this question, God asks a rhetorical question. If you ask how do, how are we to know? And so the Lord says, if that prophet says, if you don't do this, then all your tents are going to fall down and all your tents didn't fall down, you know that that was a false prophet.
That's what he gave to them.
He's given us something else and we're going to get to it in a little bit.
So the prophet comes, he speaks Hebrew, says that God came, has spoke in Son.
The Lord Jesus Christ spoke on behalf of God. The words that the Spirit of God gave him to speak, He spoke. He was that prophet. The world rejected him. They crucified him. He went down into the grave. He rose again. He ascended into heaven.
The church period starts. He sends the Spirit of God. The church period starts. What about prophets? Do we have profits today? Do we have profits during this dispensation?
Let's look at Ephesians.
Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 19.
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens, with the Saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, and whom all the building being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
God used prophets again during this dispensation at the beginning of the church period, similar to what we had in the Old Testament. Those Old Testament Saints didn't have the completed Word of God, nor did the Saints at the beginning of the church period. The Word of God was not complete. It was still being written. And so how was somebody to know what to do?
00:15:07
God would put his revelation in the mouth of a prophet, and the prophet would speak in an assembly and the.
People would know what to do over the course of time through the apostles Paul, Peter, James, Jude and the prophets. He wrote and completed his Word of God. The apostle Paul you can read in Colossians chapter one said it was given me to fill up or to complete the word of God. New revelation has ceased. We have the completed word of God now.
Our prophets no longer necessary.
Let's look at First Corinthians chapter 14.
First Corinthians chapter 14 and verse one pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophecy.
If you read down this chapter you will see that the Apostle Paul is addressing two things, prophecy and tongues, and he is trying to show that that tongues in the assembly, just speaking in tongues is not for the profit of the assembly.
The gift of prophecy, speaking the mind of the Lord for the moment.
Was a better gift. It was a critical gift. It was a needed gift.
And in this chapter we see a distinction between prophecy and revelation at least two times, showing us that the character of prophecy that is in this chapter and that we still have today is that of speaking the mind of the Lord for the moment what God wants to say, not revelation. The Word of God is complete, It's filled up, and yet prophecy continues.
How do we define prophecy? The word of the Lord for the moment. Thus saith the Lord, the Lord comes to somebody.
And says I want you to speak.
How does that happen?
Through his word, His completed word.
And what is the prophet to speak his completed word? It's not Revelation anymore. It's what's in this book already written on. But it's for the moment, it's something to address an issue and what you'll find, we'll read these next verses. The effect of prophecy. What happens when somebody prophecies as opposed to when somebody speaks in tongues?
Verse 2 For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God, for no one understands him.
However, in the spirit he speaks mysteries. He could be saying all kinds of incredible things, but nobody understands him.
But he who prophecies speaks to unto edification, and exhortation and comfort, this is the great result of speaking the mind of the Lord for the moment that the Saints are built up, that they are stirred up, or that they are comforted in regards to something that the Lord needs to speak for the moment.
That's what we need. That is critical.
To what we need now let's go down to the the end of this chapter, First Corinthians chapter 14.
Verse 26.
Speaking specifically of the time that we have before us, how is it then, brethren, whenever you come together, each of you has a Psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation.
Let all things be done for edification. If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two, or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the church, and let them speak to himself and to God. Now here's the part. Let two or three prophets speak. Our brother just mentioned this, and let the others judge. But if anything be revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent.
For you can all prophecy one by one, that all may learn.
And all may be encouraged in the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the Saints. And so this chapter that we have before us is giving us liberty for the meeting that we have right now.
And God intends for this meeting to be used for a specific reason, to help the Saints to give us a what we need for the moment.
Not just something that is nice, as nice as it would be to take up a chapter that we've enjoyed or to give our favorite thought or to to enjoy with the Saints. Things that have that have helped me. That's not what prophecy is. And that might be enjoyable and we might actually.
Benefit from that. But we are not benefiting the way God wants us to benefit. He wants to give. He wants to give His mind for the moment what he needs to say right now, and that will be to edification.
00:20:15
So what are the issues? Why is it that the young people.
Peers are struggling sometimes with prophecy meetings. Well, it very well could be.
A me issue or a them issue, right? It might be that that we are not going on with the Lord.
And we just don't want to hear what's being said, or we're just bored or we don't want to hear that speaker yet.
That's something that each one of us has to judge if we're struggling with the ministry that's being presented.
We need to be honest with ourselves. Is it a me issue? And we need to be before the Lord about that.
Or is the issue that the great need for prophecy has been set aside by the great need to speak?
I want to say something I need to get up here.
I need to speak that is not for the benefit of the Saints.
We need prophecy.
We need what the Lord has for the moment.
Another issue that we have is when we rest with Scripture, when we take prophecy and we dumb it down and we turn it into something that God has not defined and God has not intended.
Than the word of God and the ministry suffers when we make prophecy something that is generalized. Just a nice thought, a nice teaching. Then it hinders God's ability to be able to use somebody to speak to us, his mind for the moment.
When we add to a prophetic message extra biblical thoughts, we take up with the spirit of false.
Profits, Bob Tony often talks to us about the current of apostasy, how that a believer can't be an apostate. We are saved, we are sealed by the Spirit of God. But as we go through the Word of God and we see different chapters and sections over and over again that talk about apostasy, somebody who professes to be a Christian then turns his back on it, crucifying to himself again the Son of God afresh.
That's apostasy. We can't be apostates, but we can take up with the current of apostasy. We can take up with the spirit of apostasy. And when we add extra biblical thoughts.
To our prophetic message, what is not in the Word of God?
We are taking up with a current of false prophets and God said.
In the Old Testament we read it, he says you cannot do that.
You cannot do that.
How do we know if what's being presented?
Is right.
In the Old Testament, they didn't know because the word of God wasn't complete.
At the beginning of the church period, they didn't know because the Word of God was not complete. What about now? The Word of God is complete. And so you guys can take everything that I'm saying and everything that every other brother says when he comes up here. And it is critical that you do this and that I do this. Weigh it in light of what the Word of God says. Don't say well, Joe said it, the word of Joe. Well, if Joe says it, then we should do it.
No, my word is not enough. My word is just my word.
There are two types of people that will lead you. One will lead you to this word in this word alone. Others will lead them lead you to themselves.
And what they say.
Follow what the word of God says. God has completed it. It is critical that each one of us.
Does this.
Proverbs 30 verse six says do not add to his words lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar. We cannot in a prophetic message or anywhere else add to what the word of God says now to the audience. I spoken to those who may stand up here, myself included.
We must judge. We read it. Let two or three speak, and let the others judge.
This, this is as you out there in the audience right now and me in a few minutes. It is imperative that you judge. And what are you judging? You're judging two things, is what I said according to the Word of God. Can you see plainly what I'm saying in the Word of God? Or have I twisted it? Have I, have I, have I taken liberties here and there to make the word of God say what I wanted to say? You need to judge that. Have I done that?
00:25:02
And if I have done that, you need to be faithful in coming to me and saying, Joe, can you show me where you said what you said?
And if I can't, you need to judge that what I said was not right.
The second thing you need to judge.
Was it prophecy? Is this something that is needed for the moment? Where is this me just standing up here?
Talking to you guys about something that I wanted to talk to you guys about. Something that I enjoyed, however enjoyable it might have been.
And if you enjoyed what I said, but it wasn't prophecy.
Come up and say I really enjoyed that. Come up to me and tell me brother, that was nice.
But it wasn't prophecy. If we don't do that, what the word of God tells us to do.
We can't expect there to be a change with those who come up here. We can't expect there to be a change. And apart from the grace of God, the grace of God could could do anything. But we as those in the audience must be faithful in doing our part. Last thing, those of us in the audience need to make sure that we just don't like the brother that's up there or, or we're cold in our souls or that we are actually despising.
Prophecy.
1St Thessalonians 520 says do not despise prophecy.
Maybe you hear me standing up here saying this exhortation to my brethren and you say yeah, yeah, yeah.
That those those brethren never talk in any prophecy, and yet when they do minister the word of the Lord to you, you despise it. You turn it aside. Don't despise prophesying. Make sure it's according to the word of God. Judge, discern that it is prophecy, and don't despise it when it is.