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Exchanged Glory IV: A Time for Every Purpose
I now saw that we are held responsible based on how we handle the evidence before us. It is enough for us to humbly and honestly evaluate it. If the evidence isn’t clear, it is OK to say, “I really don’t know if God is speaking or not.”
Suppose a man tells you that God has shown him you need to repent of some sin. His words cut into you like a sword from the Lord, and you realize that the Holy Spirit has been speaking the same message to you for several weeks. The man then shows you scriptures that give the same message, and they come alive as you read them, empowering you to start in a new direction. The next day, your Aunt Millie, who you trust and who hasn’t ever met the man who gave you the message, comes to you and tells you she had a vision of Jesus in which He gave her the exact same message.
With all of that evidence, it would be hard to doubt that God was speaking to you. There is a chance that you have misunderstood the Scriptures, the man made a lucky guess, and Aunt Millie had a bad day in which she imagined a false vision – but you have some good evidence that this isn’t the case.
Now consider another example. Suppose a man tells you that God wants you to be a missionary to China. You have never sensed this call on your life, and you don’t really have the gifts or the desire to do it. You feel, instead, that you should dedicate your life to your family, your job, and your local church. In this case, you have little evidence that the message has come from the Lord. There is good reason to doubt it. Unless God makes it clear that He is speaking to you, it would be wise to ignore it and cautiously continue on with what He seems to have already led you to do.
Evidence – when I was young, I found it hard to consider it when I weighed what God was saying to me subjectively. Doing so seemed unspiritual. Shouldn’t I just be able to sense what the Holy Spirit was saying? And couldn’t He speak something that would fly in the face of the “evidence?”
In 1998, I grew to understand the place that evidence played in discerning the subjective voice of God. It became a key piece of a puzzle that God had been putting together for years in order to help me to hear Him better.
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. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.
I had known that Jesus was the Prophet these verses described, but I had also thought the statement “whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him” applied in pretty much the same way to all prophets. In 1998, it hit me that I had missed the part that evidence played in these verses.
Jesus fulfilled the prophecies about the Messiah. He also brought a tremendous demonstration of truth, character, and power. It was because of this proof, this evidence, that it was required of whoever did not hear His words.
People weren’t held responsible only for failing to respond to an inner sense that the Holy Spirit was speaking. It was too easy to be misled by subjective inner senses. They were held responsible for ignoring all of what was happening before them. This included the prompting of the Holy Spirit, but it also took into account the written word of God, previous prophecies, miracles, circumstances, and other indications of what God was doing.
Using the example of the previous section, Jesus showed He was the Prophet of Deuteronomy 18:18 in far more ways than if He had revealed a person’s secret sin and given a vision to their Aunt Millie. His works made it clear to everyone who He was.
If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.
God never intends that we should blindly accept someone who says, “Thus says the Lord ….” He always backs it up with evidence. Sometimes He displays a miracle. At other times, He predicts the future. Many times, He will speak the same message to people’s hearts through the Holy Spirit. Always – and above all – He makes sure the prophecy agrees with the Bible.
To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
Jesus and Moses weren’t like other prophets. They displayed far more proof that God was speaking through them than anyone else.
No prophet has risen since in Israel like Moses, whom GOD knew face-to-face. Never since has there been anything like the signs and miracle-wonders that GOD sent him to do in Egypt, to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to all his land — nothing to compare with that all-powerful hand of his and all the great and terrible things Moses did as every eye in Israel watched.
(Deuteronomy 34:10-12, The Message)
…an independent witness confirms me, the most reliable Witness of all. Furthermore, you all saw and heard John, and he gave expert and reliable testimony about me, didn't he? …It's the work the Father gave me to complete. These very tasks, as I go about completing them, confirm that the Father, in fact, sent me. …You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me!
(John 5:32-33; 36; 39, The Message)
When Moses said that God would raise up a Prophet like him, he was referring to the fact that Jesus would be the only other prophet who would, like him, speak incredible revelation backed by great works which no one else did.
It makes sense that this would be the case. Moses and Jesus were the only ones who brought major covenants that redefined the relationship between God and man. Moses called for a nation to adopt a lifestyle that covered everything from their deepest heart attitudes to the food they ate. Jesus called for all people to forsake their sin, take up their cross, and follow Him. Both men brought incredible demands, and this required incredible evidence to prove that God was speaking through them.
When I realized this, it greatly changed the force of that phrase: “whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him” (Deuteronomy 18:19). I had interpreted these words to say that we would be held responsible if we failed to listen to any true prophet. I now saw that we are held responsible based on how we handle the evidence before us. It is enough for us to humbly and honestly evaluate it. If the evidence isn’t clear, it is OK to say, “I really don’t know if God is speaking or not.”
This approach wasn’t totally new to me. I had been raised in the Charismatic Movement of the 1970s and 1980s, which had taught pretty much the same thing. My problem was that the instruction had been mixed with statements that said that prophecy was generally a mixture of God’s word and man’s. It was my responsibility to pick out the good from the bad.
I couldn’t figure out how to do that, and I also couldn’t justify this view from the Bible. Deuteronomy 18 didn’t teach that prophecy was a mixture. It was either true or false. Either God had commanded the prophet to speak or the prophet was speaking presumptuously.
…when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously…
I had researched modern day prophecy to see if I could come up with an approach that I thought was scriptural. One book proposed that in the Old Testament, God gave prophets the actual words of the message; in the New, He just gave the message and let the prophets pick the words.[30] The author reasoned that this was why modern-day prophecy was less accurate than Biblical prophecy.
I didn’t find this approach convincing. If God was going to change the nature of prophecy, it seemed that He would have clearly told us He was doing so. Instead, the New Testament used the word ‘prophecy’ in the same way the Old Testament did. I decided that until I found an approach that I thought was scriptural, I would remain an agnostic on the subject.
I did hear one idea from a friend at church that seemed promising. He said that maybe prophecy hadn’t changed; the environment in which it was used had. We are in a New Covenant in which God works differently than the Old.
I liked this approach in theory, but the statement from Deuteronomy 18:19 that God would “require it of” me if I didn’t listen made it hard to put it into practice. It placed a good deal of pressure on me to determine what was true and what wasn’t. …But how was I supposed to decide? I would hear a prophecy, try to listen to the Holy Spirit, realize that I was sensing something different, and then walk away wondering if I was wrong or the prophecy was.
For example, there were many times when my friends prophesied about the dangers of church tradition and intellectual thought. I, on the other hand, felt the Holy Spirit leading me to study church tradition and intellectual thought.[31] At other times, my friends stressed that we should rely on the prompting of the Holy Spirit so we wouldn’t make mistakes. I, on the other hand, felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them. Who was right and who was wrong – or were all of us right or wrong in some way I was missing? I couldn’t figure out what I should believe.
Understanding the place of evidence gave me the missing tool I needed in order to make sense of it all. I realized that I could judge modern day prophecies in pretty much the same way I suspect Old Testament saints judged prophecies in their day. They would look at all of the facts and come up with a sliding scale of trust based on what was before them.
If the prophet had performed signs and wonders, if his words lined up with the Torah, and if he accurately predicted the future, they would have given his words great weight. Without that kind of support, they would have been more cautious. Until he was proven right or wrong, they would have taken a wait and see attitude.
This approach was familiar to me. I had used it for years to judge wisdom. I tested ideas to see if they were true by considering how they fit in with God’s word, practical experience, and what was happening in my life. I gathered information until I became fairly confident that I had something useful. Then I acted on it and watched to see what would happen.
The book of Proverbs told me that God spoke to me through this process.[32] He taught me principles for everyday life as I treasured and put into practice the insights He was helping me to discover.
For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding …
I now realized that hearing His subjective voice could be tested in a similar way. All I needed to do was to add supernatural sources of insight to the other sources I considered as I listened for wisdom.
I was coming to peace with Deuteronomy 18:18-19, but the next verse still gave me reason to pause.
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.
The weight that this verse gave to accuracy in prophecy put a serious damper on my desire to speak it. I knew that no one would put me to death if I was wrong, but did I really want to take a chance with making a mistake that God at one time declared to be worthy of death? Though the vast majority of Christians don’t believe we should push for biblical civil penalties, they do believe that most death penalty crimes are a big deal. Which of us would treat murder (Leviticus 24:17) or adultery (Leviticus 20:10) as small sins?
Why should speaking presumptuously in the name of the Lord be different? Was there something about saying “Thus says the Lord” in the New Covenant that was different than saying it in the Old?
When I considered this question, I realized that the context of Deuteronomy 18:20 gave me good reason to believe there was. In Deuteronomy 18, Moses was clearly speaking about the Old Covenant, in which God’s people were not brought near to Him and were not ready to hear from Him directly.
The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, “Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.” (emphasis added)
You go near and hear all that the LORD our God may say, and tell us all that the LORD our God says to you, and we will hear and do it.'
Then the LORD heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the LORD said to me: ‘I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!’
Are we still cowering at the foot of the mountain? Are we still calling for God to be quiet? The New Testament makes it clear we are not.
For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.
The environment in which prophecy is spoken has definitely changed. We are in a New Covenant in which all can come near to God and hear from Him.
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,
Moses was the first to point out the Old Covenant’s lack when it came to prophecy.
… Oh, that all the LORD's people were prophets and that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them!
In Israel the average person didn’t hear from God like the prophets did. Mount Horeb (or Sinai) was a symbolic picture of that fact. But with the coming of the Messiah Jesus, this has changed. The Spirit gives the gift of prophecy liberally.
"In the Last Days," God says, "I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters; your young men will see visions, your old men dream dreams. When the time comes, I'll pour out my Spirit on those who serve me, men and women both, and they'll prophesy.”
(Acts 2:17-18, The Message)
I believe the seriousness of a false prophecy in the Old Testament was tied to the separation between God and the Israelites. At a time when each individual didn’t have the fullness of the Holy Spirit, it was extremely dangerous for someone to misrepresent the word of the Lord. Those who heard didn’t have the tools we do today to listen to God for themselves and disagree. Today, each of us can have the Holy Spirit teach us.
But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.
The gift of the Holy Spirit is one change from the Old Covenant to the New. A second change is that the written revelation we have today is far superior to what existed in the Old Covenant. Before Jesus came, the Scriptures weren’t complete. The Living Word hadn’t yet fully revealed the Father’s heart. This put the Israelites in a place of ignorance in which a false prophet could more easily mislead them.
Even worse, there was a threat that a false prophecy might have (for a time) been mistaken for Scripture, polluting the revelation by which we test every other revelation. God’s strict punishments concerning false prophecy helped prevent this.
Our situation today is different. We are no longer waiting for the Prophet, the Holy Spirit, or the complete Scriptures. Jesus has given us the New Covenant and has inspired His apostles (and a few others) to describe it in His book. The full truth that we are required to believe has been recorded and can be used to judge everything else.
With the changes Jesus has brought, we should all desire to prophesy.
Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
Paul’s words would have been difficult to follow if the early Christians had been told they would be put to death (or seriously rebuked) for making a mistake in obeying them. Who would want to risk being wrong? It seems clear that we now have a new approach. A serious rebuke for every false prophecy is no longer necessary. Wise correction is sometimes needed, but God is no longer thundering from a dark cloud, frightening us away from His voice. He has called us to come close to Him.
So, friends, we can now — without hesitation — walk right up to God, into "the Holy Place." Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The "curtain" into God's presence is his body. So let's do it — full of belief, confident that we're presentable inside and out.
(Hebrews 10:19-22, The Message)
When we walk right up to God, He sometimes speaks to us – and sometimes He asks us to share His words with others. We should desire spiritual gifts, and especially that we may prophesy.
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