Gift of prophecy experienced in church.
Real life examples of this gift of the Holy Spirit are given.
Powerful evidence of God’s presence.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Please quickly read the article, “Experiencing the Holy Spirit” that introduces this subsection, “Gifts of the Spirit” on the website.
Another article, “Is this ‘Holy Spirit’ stuff real?” explains how each of us can analyse the outcomes of so-called gifts and assess their genuineness.
Now, this particular article offers details about the ‘Gift of prophecy experienced in churches’.
I have no doubt that all this ‘Holy Spirit’ stuff looks – to anyone who has had no contact with this area of the Christian Church – like it came from planet Mars! But it actually began in the first century AD, as documented in the Bible, and it is now happening again.
And I admit it still amazes me. This whole website has been developed by an analytical minded person – a now retired, experienced, qualified and senior auditor – over a period of many years. I must add that it all ‘came to pass’ with the help of a supporting team of qualified (mostly clergy) advisors. It has been designed to guide ‘thinking people’ in their journeys of faith. For the who’s, how’s and why’s of this website please click here.
“Prophecy” and other ‘advisory’ gifts from the Spirit, such as so-called “words/ messages of knowledge”, are both mentioned in the Bible’s New Testament [1Corinthians:12]. Today, they are quite commonly witnessed within churches around the world that belong to the Pentecostal/ Charismatic movement.
Christians within the ‘movement’, who possess these gifts, are used by God as a conduit/ channel to provide directives, guidance or advice to others. These gifts like all the others mentioned in 1Corinthians:12 are used by God to ‘edify’ the Church; are used in effect to draw people to Jesus. Into a deep, loving relationship with our Lord. They are also used by the Spirit to simply build stronger faith and belief for those who are already members of the Church.
2. HOW PROPHESYING WORKS
Now again, I know from my own past experiences how crazy all this stuff can look to beginners. But bear with me, as I so often write!
In effect a baptised member of the church fellowship, who has this ‘gift of prophecy’, knows they have received a message from the Spirit in their mind. The member is also told who is to receive that message. So, they then give it to that person, or even the entire church fellowship if that is what the Spirit has told them to do.
Of course these ‘gifted’ members of the Church can even receive messages for other people outside of their church. These messages can just arrive in their minds, at any time in their daily lives, with a clear understanding of who they are to be past on to. And yes, they really do happen! I cannot write it any clearer.
This particular article discusses ‘prophecies’ and my own examples of them. Note that the article following this one relates to messages or ‘words’ of knowledge.
3. EVALUATING PROPHECIES
So, as you would guess, prophecies from the Spirit are offered to us through a Christian who has also been given that gift by the Holy Spirit. That includes members of the clergy, but it is up to the Spirit who receives the gift. Prophecies are related to events that will occur in the future. In fact if the information passed to you, by an ‘anointed’ Christian with this gift, IS a genuine prophecy, then the Lord WILL actually make it happen!
When I receive a prophecy from a person in the movement, who I know has that gift, then I also know to lookout for that message to ‘materialise’ somewhere in the future. And, these messages are not ‘wishy-washy’ or vague in any way. If you receive one then you will ‘pretty well’ know what it means and where it came from! Oh yes.
I give examples, below, from my own journey of faith. They are examples that I have either witnessed or experienced for myself. I hope that you can at least accept that I really do believe that these prophecies DID come to happen.
Hopefully you will also recognise with certainty, like me, that such events really are made to happen: are ‘orchestrated’ by God. So I guess my primary aim is to guide you in what you yourself can expect, and hopefully recognise, when a real prophecy does occur in your presence.
4. PROPHECY I WITNESSED
To begin with, I have a very special event in my life to share with you. It relates to my wife. She had previously received an unrelated ‘healing miracle‘ (see subheading 2.1 in that article) many years before this example of a prophecy. Now that healing miracle truly ‘rattled’ me! It was, after all, an impressive event to witness.
I certainly didn’t imagine, after that, I would ever come to witness another supernatural event involving my wife. The prophecy, I am writing about though, happened about five years after the previously mentioned miracle, so now possibly 20 plus years ago. Again, it related to a health issue.
My wife had undergone abdominal surgery, three years before, and had been left with ongoing sessions of strong pain. Simply said, she suffered from serious pains in her ‘gut’ that would happen without warning. They would literally ‘drop her’, when they struck. She had received a couple of surgical procedures, looking for the cause, over time as a result. Finally unable to find any cause, her surgeon wrote the issue off to good old ‘it’s all in your mind’. Now that was both disappointing and humiliating for her.
The severe pains continued, seriously affecting my wife’s quality of life, and we really didn’t know where to turn. We regularly prayed together for an answer.
The resulting healing ‘rolled out’ in a completely unexpected way!
4.1 Prophecy is received
My wife and I were regularly attending mid-week evening Charismatic services, at that time, within our Protestant church. The clergyman running the relevant service, a bishop no less, began in the closing stages to offer ‘prophesies’ to individuals in the congregation. He knew absolutely nothing of my wife’s ailment but he offered these words to her, “The doctors will find the cause of your health problem shortly and fix it!”
My wife and I were certainly encouraged by the statement, but bearing in mind that her surgeon had written her off, we had no idea how the prophecy could happen. But thankfully it did … and quickly … just as the prophecy had stated.
4.2 The prophecy shapes up
My wife visited another medical specialist, who had attended to her over the years, for a routine check-up. And that check-up happened a few days after the relative church service (that is it had been booked long before the prophecy was given to her). During the course of the consultancy with the specialist doctor she mentioned her longstanding health issue: those pains and the way her surgeon had written them off.
The specialist knew my wife very well and stated that, as a result, her pain would not just be ‘in her mind’. Shortly after the consultation with her, and unknown to us, the specialist contacted the surgeon who I referred to earlier.
To my mind the Spirit had now begun his ‘orchestration’ of events.
Begrudgingly, the surgeon agreed with the specialist to examine inside my wife’s abdomen through an endoscope (a viewing tube inserted through a small cut). But, the surgeon told my wife’s specialist that he would only perform the procedure if the specialist assisted him. The deal was that the surgeon would give the specialist a well-aged bottle of scotch whisky IF they found the cause of the pain. And the surgeon obviously felt he was pretty safe with that deal.
4.3 The prophecy is fulfilled
In short, during the operating theatre procedure the doctors noticed a section of intestine had been accidentally stitched to the front wall of my wife’s belly. This had happened when the incision was stitched up after that original abdominal surgical operation I mentioned earlier.
The stitch was simply snipped, using an attachment on the endoscope, allowing the pinched section of intestine to drop into its rightful place. It had been damaging her digestive processes all those years: jamming food, that was being being processed, within her intestines.
And that severe pain was no more. Indeed as the bishop had said, “The doctors will find the cause of your health issue shortly and fix it!” The surgeon was too embarrassed to charge my wife for the hospital procedure. The helpful specialist got his free bottle of scotch whisky too.
4.4 The final evaluation
I still analyse those events. What else could it have been, other than God involving himself in the issue, I now ask you? My wife’s painful sessions had continued for three years after that surgical mistake. Then it was gone, within a couple of weeks after that prophecy from the bishop!
You will note that the two examples of healing with my wife, that I describe in two separate articles, occurred in completely different ways. One, the healing of stroke damage, happened ‘in the moment’ within a ‘miracle healing‘ ministry through a direct act of the Holy Spirit … ‘no doubt about it’ as far as I am concerned! The other, I have to write, although fixed with human hands was clearly orchestrated (set-up) through an act of God’s providence (his helping hand) after that prophecy. Well, the Holy Spirit (God) had even set-up my wife’s meeting with the medical specialist before the prophecy was offered to her by the bishop.
Get it? God even has the ultimate control over time (that is past, present and future), which is clearly evident within Bible scriptures.
NOW, under the next two Headings, I offer a couple of examples of prophecies that I personally received.
5. FIRST PROPHECY I RECEIVED
I had been involved in the Pentecostal/ Charismatic movement for a year or two before my first example. Incidently, my wife had already received her healing miracle, at this stage of my faith journey. So, I pretty well had ‘iron-clad’ belief in God. And I was also a reasonably ‘faithful’ Christian by then.
This first example of prophecies received by me, immediately below, was also jumbled in with other information from God. That info was in the form of a words/ messages of knowledge. You can read the actual details of those messages in the following article, “Messages of knowledge”.
Anyway, here I was now in a Charismatic service, arranged by our Protestant church leader. A Baptist pastor had been invited by our leader to minister to the fellowship through his gifts of prophecy and messages of knowledge.
The pastor (who didn’t know me at all) pointed to me with his finger. I admit to being a bit excited by that! He began by offering me messages of knowledge which, as already explained, are discussed in that following article. One message related to my Bible interpretations, mind you, and the other to an unusual experience of mine relating to God’s presence. Then came the prophecy …
5.1 Prophecy is received
I was advised by the Spirit, through that pastor, that I would act as a “bridge to Christianity” during ‘one-on-one’ ministries (surprising those folks at the church service who knew me). A picture of a chapter heading, i.e. those exact words “bridge to Christianity”, from a book I had read recently, appeared inside my head as the pastor spoke.
The chapter was about bringing people with very different religious views to the Christian religion, via a ‘bridge’ of information or knowledge.
5.2 Prophecy shapes up
Obviously the chapter heading quoted, that came from the mouth of the pastor, was intended by God to make that very connection for me. Because of my broad multi-religious knowledge (see the article, “So, what is God?”) I could easily talk with people who held spiritual beliefs that differed from my own. My knowledge of ‘mysticism‘, for example, put me in a good position to encourage people from pantheist religions etc to consider Christianity for themselves.
5.3 Prophecy is fulfilled
And so my little ministry began. I was thereby assisted/ empowered by God in that encouragement for these people to trial Christianity.
My occupation (internal auditor) at the time meant that I met and chatted one-on-one with dozens and dozens of widespread fellow staff members, in a state-wide organisation of more than 10,000 people.
God would always ‘set it up’ for me. As examples I might notice a book – relevant to say Buddhism, palmistry, Taoism, astrology – just sitting on the side of their work desk. Maybe I would see they had a religious necklace. They possibly had a small religious ornament or picture there on their desk. Yes there would be a hint there, one way or another, and I would know that I should begin a brief conversation about religion. Of course, I would then turn the conversation around towards Christian similarities and beyond.
Again. Again. And again, the talks would lead to subjects of interest to those staff members. Subjects that offered Christian alternatives.
Yes, God impressed me ‘no end’, through it all!
5.4 The final evaluation
I never had to push the religion ‘wheelbarrow’ in this personal ministry because God, through acts of providence, actually brought me into contact with these people as prophesied. That is with people who were open to, and indeed wanted … and enjoyed … such conversations. They were ready in their lives for that “bridge to Christianity” to be offered to them. And I comfortably did as I had been directed by the Lord. Providence, or God’s helping hand, brought it all together. It was a case of ‘no sweat’ for me!
6. SECOND PROPHECY I RECEIVED
Now I move on to the second prophecy that I came to receive. It arrived many years after the prophecy on ministering to fellow ‘state-wide’ staff members, as explained under Heading 5. This time it came through another member of the clergy, that Protestant bishop (in the movement). I was a member of a different church by now.
6.1 Prophecy is received
And this time I was told, through that prophecy, that I would, “minister to masses”. I understood that I was certainly no longer tied to personal face-to-face sessions with a narrow focus, as in that first prophecy. That is when offering Christian faith to those individuals ready to learn about it.
6.2 How could it be achieved?
This prophecy did sound like it was related to my first. But, at the time in 1996 when I received it, I did not have a clue how it might be achieved? I just thought hard, then shook my head. How could a practising “auditor” (again, that was my profession) come to minister to so many people? That is to ‘masses of people’?
It never dropped out of my memory though. I just wondered from time to time, as the years passed, when would I see that prophecy fulfilled. I mean, because I knew the bishop really did have a ‘gift’ of prophecy, I assumed that it would eventually ‘come to pass’.
6.3 Prophecy is fulfilled
This “about-i-am” website was posted in its basic, first edition during 2006. That is ten years after that second prophecy … which I had been ‘clueless’ about how it might happen!
The world-wide web was well underway by then. The ‘masses’ were certainly now using it ‘big time’.
I now accept that this website is the result of that prophecy. And yes, I do try to minister to the masses through “about-i-am”.
That ‘advice’ received through the bishop certainly came to impact me in the long term.
6.4 The final evaluation
I could see in hindsight that God would have had a forward-plan for me, when he had directed at that earlier time I should only minister one-on-one. It was in fact part of a ‘learning curve’ for me.
Truly, the wording of the second prophecy sounded ‘all the world’ to me, like an extension of the first one. The two clergy men, who passed on those different prophecies to me, could not have had a clue about what each had said in the past or would say in the future. And those two qualified members of the clergy just spoke the words they had been given by the Holy Spirit.
They both told an unqualified member of the greater Christian Church … a qualified auditor … to get out there and minister, one way and then another.
7. CONCLUSION
I will again say that those Christians with these types of gifts (prophecy and messages of wisdom) often mix both of them up. I guess I should say that God actually does so, through those people. Deliberately too, mind you! For a starter, one message of prophecy may be dependent on some other information being passed on in the form of a message of knowledge.
So, yes, the two types of information may be mixed together. But, rest assured, the Lord does make it clear what is expected of us (in my case) … or … what is going to be provided to us (in my wife’s case).
You will know!
Now let us continue to the next article, “Messages (or ‘words’) of knowledge”.