Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey friends, in this
mini-sode I wanted to reflect on
the idea of prophecy.
For those who haven't listenedto the episode I did with my
friend Johnny T, the host ofRefuge Freedom Stories, on
Prophecy, please go back andlisten to it before you continue
with this one.
It will give context for what Iplan to discuss here.
The link is in the show notesFor those who are sticking
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around.
Let's get to it.
Johnny T and I talked about thetopic of prophecy and, as it
was probably evident from theepisode I did with Pastor Chad
Wagner the week before, I wasn'topen to the idea that this gift
was still around.
I will be honest and share thateven after Johnny and I were
done recording this episode,although Johnny gave me some
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great thinking points to mullover, I still wasn't sure what I
thought about prophecy and if Ibelieved people still had the
gift of it.
For context, johnny T and Irecorded that episode on
prophecy a few months beforeDecember 2024.
With that said, starting inDecember of 2024, my church was
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set to start talking about thetopic of prophecy, and boy did
my eyes roll when I found thisout.
See, in my mind I only thoughtof prophecy as the people who
try to claim they know when theend of the world is, who the
Antichrist is, claim that theycan get rid of storms, or claim
they know how the elections aregoing to go.
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This is the only form ofprophecy I had ever known or
been told about.
So naturally, when I heard ourchurch would discuss this topic,
why wouldn't my eyes roll?
I was still unsure whether Ibelieved in prophecy and was
convinced that biblical-styleprophecy was finished with the
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book of Revelation.
Friends, god is so good, henever gives up teaching us if we
have hearts willing to learn,which I do.
In the second week of the series, we had a guest pastor, my
friend and our church's formerassociate, pastor Curtis
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Thompson, on stage to preachthat week.
He is a wonderful man of Godand his preaching style has
always resonated with me.
Don't get me wrong.
God speaks to me plenty throughevery pastor on that stage, but
there was always somethingspecial about how Pastor
Curtis's preaching style eitherconvicted or enlightened me.
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Anyway, I was intrigued to hearwhat God would say through him.
I was not disappointed.
God blew the lid off what Ibelieved about prophecy and I
loved every minute of it.
So much information was said,but I wanted to share the key
points he touched on so you canbetter understand what I mean.
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Prophecy is God speaking topeople through people.
That was what he started with.
That alone changed my thoughtson the idea of prophecy.
But wait, there's more.
Biblical prophecy is notpredicting the future.
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So for all of those out therewho think they know when the end
of the world is, you're wrong.
Only God knows that.
Not even Jesus knows.
So you can stop right now.
Point two God wants to interactwith his people.
He said Joshua was a prophet.
I wasn't sure how to take that,but he sent us to Joshua 1, 1
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through 2.
So I'm going to read that now.
After the death of Moses, theLord's servant, the Lord spoke
to Joshua, son of Nun, moses'assistant.
He said Moses, my servant, isdead.
Therefore, the time has comefor you to lead these people,
the Israelites, across theJordan River into the land I am
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giving them Now.
I'm pretty sure I'm not theonly one who's just read that
before and said oh okay, so hecalled Joshua to fulfill what
Moses didn't fulfill.
But after hearing that Joshuawas a prophet, that statement
that I just read brings on awhole new meaning for me.
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I don't know about you, but forme my mindset shifted.
He was called Prophets andapostles were called right,
isn't that what we are told?
So if he was called, then hemust have been a prophet.
So I don't know why it took meso long to figure that out, but
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if this is an epiphany momentfor you too, welcome to the club
, because it was for me, allright.
Another thing he said was apriest represents the people
before God and prophetsrepresent God before the people.
That was another profoundstatement, and he has verses to
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go with that.
But before I get into thoseverses, that just hit me in a
different way.
A priest represents the peoplebefore God and prophets
represent God before the people.
They both had their parts toplay and they were both called
by God to do a certain thing,for whatever the purpose was,
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the priest was there torepresent who God is in flesh is
what I think that means and aprophet represents God to the
people.
The prophet is there to speakon God's behalf to the people,
what they need to hear.
It's a very profound statement,and he followed it up with some
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verses, which I'm going to read.
The first one you'll probablyrecognize if you did listen to
the episode with Johnny T onprophecy, because he also quoted
this verse and it gets quoted alot by people who claim to be
prophets in the ministries andthey're talking about prophecy
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and all that stuff.
So this is a very familiarverse and once I say it you'll
probably recognize itimmediately.
It's Joel 2, 28 through 30.
Then, after doing all thosethings, I will pour out my
Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters willprophesy, your old men will
dream dreams and your young menwill see visions.
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In those days, I will pour outmy Spirit on even servants, men
and women alike.
No-transcript.
So I'll be honest, and I willbe vulnerable and transparent,
that I don't fully understand ifthis is talking about the
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actual end times when Jesuscomes back, or if it's just
talking about after Jesus cameto earth, died on the cross and
ascended to heaven.
And then that's when all thiswas going to happen.
Because if you look at Actswhich is the next verse we're
going to go to is Acts 2.16,they prophesied, they spoke in
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tongues and they were filledwith the Holy Spirit.
So perhaps it's the latter thatit's referring to, but I mean,
this whole idea of prophecy isstill something that I really
need to dive into more, but thissermon was very helpful in
jump-starting me into realizingmy position might have been
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wrong and very narrow-minded.
So before we go on to any morepoints, I want to share Acts
2.16, because that was anotherone he had referenced.
Under the point a priestrepresents the people before God
and prophets represent Godbefore the people.
It says no, what you see waspredicted long ago by the
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prophet Joel, and in Acts itrepeats what we just read in
Joel 2, 28 through 30.
And it talks about how yoursons and daughters will prophesy
.
Your old men will see visionsand dreams and pour out my
spirit even on the servants.
I mean, it's talking aboutprophecy in the Old and the New
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Testaments.
So that kind of gave me pausein the middle of the sermon to
reflect on and realize maybe Iwas thinking too little of the
idea of prophecy and maybe it issomething that I still need to
focus on.
So then he has one more verse inthis section.
It's Hebrews 4.16.
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Let us come boldly to thethrone of our gracious God.
There we will receive his mercyand we will find grace to help
us when we need it most.
So we should be bold in ourcommitment to Christ.
We shouldn't be timidChristians, we shouldn't be
afraid to step on the toes ofthe enemy.
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We should be bold and realizethat we have a role to play, and
perhaps prophecy is part ofthat role.
And perhaps what I learned isthat I should be thinking more
about what is actual prophecy,because I'm I might have it
wrong.
That that was the continuingthought I had during this whole
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sermon is that perhaps my ideaof prophecy is wrong.
And this is where it getsamazing.
And my mind was just blown andI can't even put it into words
because just thinking about it,I realize how good God is, that
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he doesn't give up on us when wethink we know what we know, but
we don't actually know what weknow.
We don't know God, we don'thave a handle on him the way we
think we do.
And he just blew my mind againand showed me a different side
of who he is and what he'scalled us to do.
So now Pastor Curtis's lastpoint was it's our turn, and he
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had us turn to 1 Corinthians, 14, 1 through 3.
So that's what I'm going toread now.
Let love be your highest goal,but you should also desire the
special abilities the Spiritgives, especially the ability to
prophesy.
For if you have the ability tospeak in tongues, you will be
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talking only to God, sincepeople won't be able to
understand you.
You will be speaking by thepower of the Spirit, but it will
all be mysterious.
But one who prophesiesstrengthens others, encourages
them and comforts them.
How did I not read this withclear thinking before?
This is what happens, ladiesand gentlemen.
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When we think we knoweverything about the Bible
because we've read it over andover again or because we were
told by this person or thatperson or this church or that
church, this is what happens.
Is we miss things that God istrying to tell us?
I have read that many times,because I've read through the
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Bible several times in my life.
I have read certain verses thattalked about prophecy, that
talked about speaking in tongues, all that stuff.
But because I grew up in amindset of those things were of
the past or those things are foronly the charismatics, I just
dismissed the ideas as anythingthat I could be doing or should
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be doing.
But you heard it.
It said desire, prophecy aboveall those.
Why would it say that?
If one, it was something thatwasn't still around.
And two, if we weren't supposedto care about it or not,
everyone was supposed to have it.
How are we supposed to desiresomething that we all can't have
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?
You know, some people have thegift of prophecy it says in some
chapters but how are wesupposed to desire something we
all don't have a chance to have?
I don't.
There's so many things, so manythings, that I'm still learning
about this topic.
But he did give us threedifferent ways that people can
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prophesy, and this helped meimmensely to understand that I
have actually been prophesyingall along.
And that was very encouragingto me is that, even though I was
dismissing this as somethingthat isn't possible, god was
still using me to do it.
He is so good I can't even.
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So these were the three waysthat he talked about that we can
prophesy encourage, edify,build up or call to repent and
sharing the gospel.
I encourage a lot.
I don't anyone who's listening.
If you feel that I haveencouraged you, please message
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me and let me know, because Ilove to encourage people.
I love to uplift them when theyare feeling low.
I love to point out the goodthings that they are doing or
who they are, theirpersonalities.
I just I love doing that, andto find out that that was one of
the ways that you can prophesyto someone really comforted my
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heart and I really felt like Godwas just hugging me and saying
see, there's more, you stillhave more to learn and I was
thankful that he did that for me.
And edifying, building up,calling to repent, that's what
this whole podcast is about.
That is what I'm trying to doand I've been doing it all this
time and I didn't think it was aform of prophecy.
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And then sharing the gospel.
I mean, we are called to sharethe gospel.
Everyone is called to share thegospel, so therefore, we are
all called to prophesy to theworld that they need a savior.
That is the highest form ofprophecy, I would think, is to
share the gospel with everybody.
If you look at biblicalprophecy, it was calling people
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to repentance.
Again, remember what Johnny Tand I were talking about in our
episode on prophecy.
We mentioned Sodom and Gomorrahand we mentioned Nineveh.
They were called to repentance.
That is biblical prophecy.
They were edified, called torepent and the gospel needed to
be shared.
The gospel may not have beenshared in the way that it's
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shared now, because Jesus didn'tdie on the cross back then, but
they got to see the gospelplayed out because, well, one of
them did Sodom and Gomorrahthey missed the boat and they
were destroyed.
But Nineveh got to see whathappens when you repent and you
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get the gospel, the good newsyou did not perish, your city
was not destroyed because youchose to edify, you chose to
repent and, yes, maybe Jonah wasthe worst prophet ever because
he did it begrudgingly and wasangry that God didn't destroy
them, but he still did what hewas supposed to and because of
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that, a whole city was saved.
So this whole service.
I was praising God and Iimmediately knew that I was
going to need to record thismini-sode because I wanted to
share my heart with you guys.
I wanted you to know that ifyou're on the fence about the
idea of the spiritual gifts andmaybe they aren't still around
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that you aren't alone inthinking that, but you need to
go to God and you need to askhim to help you discern.
Have his Holy Spirit discernfor you in whatever way possible
to show you that maybe we arethinking too little about God
and what he could possibly do inour lives.
This was a major gift to mefrom God that I don't know
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everything and that I still haveso much to learn about who he
is, about his spirit and what hecan and cannot do, and I am so
thankful that God never gives upwhen we hunger for truth.
So if you are hungering fortruth, don't give up the search
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for it.
Ask the Holy Spirit to helpguide you to the right direction
.
I hope I've encouraged you.
Let me know what you thinkabout all this.
Have a wonderful day and Godbless.