Prophetic Responsibility

i want to read to you today from romans chapter 12 verses 3 and 6 where paul says for by the grace given to me i say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith god has assigned and then in verse 6 he goes on to say if prophecy in proportion to our faith and then in the middle of the sermon on the mount jesus said in matthew chapter 5 verse 34 do not take an oath at all i want to speak to you today on the subject prophetic responsibility brief word of prayer heavenly father i pray now for the sprinkling of the blood of jesus by your spirit to rest upon every person who watches this and hears in order that their perception of what i say will be received as you intend cleanse my tongue that i will be your transparent instrument to say everything i need to say nothing i don't need to say help me to be clear simple and may this be edifying and bring great honor and glory to your name i ask in jesus name amen well many of us claim to speak for god these days but how many of us really do speak for him there are a lot of people today that have a prophetic gift and they give out words and often introduced by the words the lord told me or thus saith the lord and there are countless others who would not appear to be prophetic but claim to hear it directly from the lord and perhaps they do i do believe that god speaks directly to people today and to uphold this premise is not to add to scripture there are those called cessationists they believe that the miraculous or the revelatory gift ceased with the closing of the canon and they would say if you hear from god directly you're adding to scripture that is not at all true uh what happened to philip in the book of acts can happen to us we're told that god spoke to philip and said go south to the desert he didn't know why he was going and then when he got there he saw a chariot and the holy spirit says go up to the chariot well that kind of speaking god can do today i believe that with all my heart or there's the occasion when a prophet named agabus said that there would be a famine to come and it was fulfilled that was not adding to scripture and paul himself posed the possibility of god revealing something to you read it in philippians chapter 3 verse 15 where god will reveal to you if your thinking is not straight well speaking personally i live to hear from god and as directly as possible i'll take it through his word or when the holy spirit witnesses to the word however god may be pleased to speak but i want to hear from him and all that i live for these days is based upon hearing from god you may ask do you hear from god in an audible voice well to be honest i have had this but only three times in my whole life i've lived 85 years three times i heard literally a voice doesn't mean that if you were in the same room you would have heard it but it couldn't have been clearer to me i live for insight and i look for knowledge of scripture insight that i hadn't seen before you could say that's a weakness you could say it's a strength uh but i'm in my highest realm of ecstasy when i am receiving something that i know is from the lord and and i had not seen it before well the question is how much are we to share with others when we hear from god the truth is almost certainly we're better off not to share anything unless you're compelled to share it i've often said that i think god would speak to us more if we could keep quiet about it the trouble is that we are so anxious to share with someone that we heard from god and and pride often gets in the way well the issue that i put to you today are we to claim that the lord has spoken to us uh using these words the lord told me to say this uh just because you have an impression are you sure that every impression is from the holy spirit so the question is how many are the feelings and impressions that we get really from the lord should it bother us when so many words do not come true when we had prefaced these words by saying the lord told me what do you suppose god in heaven thinks when he hears people saying the lord told me i sometimes think that god is looking down and saying did i say that did i tell you to say that but we all do it well why is this issue important why is this word that i share with you today important well first when a word does not come to pass which had been introduced by the phrase the lord told me obviously something has gone wrong the lord didn't tell one if it didn't come to pass but how often do people that make this claim admit it when they get it wrong i think it dishonors the name of the lord it brings discredit upon the gift of prophecy and i i have to admit it it adds fuel to those cessationists who claim that god does not speak directly today and they mock us well that's the first thing the second thing should we apologize when we get it wrong or are we too proud to admit that we got something wrong i don't know if you remember the story about samuel going to the house of jesse to anoint one of jesse's sons to be king well as soon as samuel came into the house and he saw eliam he said oh here is the lord's anointed king james version says he said to everybody here's the lord's anointed uh some versions say he said it to himself but clearly everybody in the room could see that samuel thought a liab would be the lord's anointed and all of a sudden god said whoa i didn't tell you to say that and here's what god said do not look upon his appearance or on the height of his stature for the lord sees not as man sees man looks on the heart a man looks on the outward appearance but the lord looks on the heart well now i think we should forgive samuel for thinking that because eliab was the firstborn and in ancient israel the firstborn got double the inheritance so it was a natural thing for him to think and he immediately thought god is saying this and this is something that happens something can be reasonable they look good to us and before we know it we've said here's what god is saying well it turns out that samuel got it wrong and this is what interests me is that samuel would admit to having got it wrong that shows integrity it shows humility and so uh jesse brought another son and he prayed for him uh there was abinadab there was shema and i think samuel is beginning to wonder am i hearing from god and finally turns to jesse and said are these all your sons well jesse said well we do have one more but you don't want him really where is he samuel said well it's david he's he's he said he's with the sheep get him we're not going to sit down to dinner until i see him well the last person they thought would be the lord's anointed was none other than young david underestimated by everybody but god saw him and i can tell you whoever i'm talking to right now as surely as god's hand is on you you don't have to pull strings knock doors down for something to happen for you to get to where you want to go god will find you and he found david but what interests me is that samuel would admit that he got it wrong there was another occasion when nathan the prophet said to david years later said you're going to get to build the temple and that's what david wanted and nathan said build it god's with you and then when nathan gets home god said i didn't tell you to say that and nathan is now being told by god he got it wrong and he's gonna gonna go have to it has to tell david he's got to go tell david he made his mistake and nathan went to david and said i made a mistake you're not going to build the temple it will be solomon who will build the temple well here's the thing these men of god samuel nathan had integrity and humility and wait when they had to climb down they did it and uh i think god honored them uh for for doing this well so many people get it wrong by jumping their the gun and say the lord told me well now here's the question is there ever a right time for saying the lord told me when one really has a word from god you know i'm not so sure is it not an encouragement when a prophetic person who has a responsibility and has a solid reputation if he says or she says the lord told me it probably would be encouraging but it's still not necessary what are we to believe if that word does not come to pass does it mean the person who made the claim is a false prophet well not necessarily uh luke portrays agabus as a true prophet in acts 11 28 and yet in acts chapter 21 verse 11 you have agabus telling paul what will happen if he goes to jerusalem it says don't go do not go here's what will happen if you do well you read what actually happened with objectivity and careful scrutiny what agabus prophesied did not literally come to pass not every detail at all it's just a general feeling that things wouldn't go well if paul went to jerusalem well here's the thing saying the lord told me is a habit that prophetic people find hard to break it just so happens that i have personally known a good number of prophetic people some of the best known uh prophets in the christian world uh some of them were close friends two i knew intimately and i used to warn them i said quit saying thus saith the lord quit saying the lord told me you don't need to say this because even though they were really good at what they did once in a while they would get it wrong they don't like to admit it but they would get it wrong well i was invited to address a what they called a convergence prophetic conference a fair a few years ago in dallas 75 or 80 people were there from all over america all known to have authentic prophetic gifts and so i gave a talk on not saying the lord told me i said don't say it you don't need to say it i i told them why and i'm going to say some of that with you in this message today i was so afraid it all run me off do you know what every single person seemed like it maybe there were some that didn't agree but they all just came up to me one after another and said thank you we needed that well it was good that they admitted they needed it but i've got to tell you something they didn't break the habit it's a habit that prophetic people have well i want to come clean i have made the mistake as well saying the lord told me maybe not with regard to a prophetic utterance because i i personally don't claim to have a prophetic gift i'm a bible teacher that's my anointing and when paul said romans 12 3 which i read everyone should come to terms with the measure of faith they have uh that means a limit come to terms with your gift and not all have the same gift and i've had to admit that my gift is i'm a bible teacher uh that's me that's what i am and i would be wrong to act like i'm a prophet that i uh make predictions uh but i have made the mistake i would say the lord gave me the sermon that doesn't mean everything in that sermon was verbally inspired it just means that i felt led to preach this and if i'm honest i think i believe i'm led to preach this but i'm not saying for one minute that every single word that i utter is directly from god i will share what i believe uh and i'm doing it as best as i can in the presence of god and i want to be held responsible if i get it wrong or say anything that's not true here's what i want to do right now i want to talk to you about six levels of prophecy if you can imagine a pyramid and at the bottom of the pyramid first level second third fourth fifth and the very top i want to put it this way at the bottom the first level or you could say the sixth level we start then maybe with the sixth level and uh because here's the thing not all prophecy is the same well let's start with the sixth level i call it general exhortation or you could say encouragement to a congregation uh dr michael eaton who died a few years ago calls this low level prophecy it's the kind of prophecy that paul encouraged in 1 corinthians 14. read 1 corinthians 14 and it says that he would pray prefer people to prophesy than have the other gifts in corinth they all put an emphasis on speaking in tongues paul said i speak in tongues more than you all but he said that's not the main thing the best is prophecy but i need to say he was not for one minute encouraging somebody in corinth to begin to imagine that there would be another elijah or elisha no this low level of prophecy is given to encourage god uses it but that is what i would say is at the bottom by the way every prophetic a prophetic word needs to be tested when paul says don't despise prophesy but he also says prove all things test all things that's a dead giveaway that not everybody is going to get it right so don't say that secessionist teaching is true because people don't have the gift of prophecy like elijah had you know we don't know everything elijah said what he did say that it's recorded that you can take i'll come back to that in a minute but in any case one should not say the lord told me he she may feel it's from the lord but there's no need to add the words the lord told me uh i would urge do not claim that all you feel or all that you want so much is from the lord um you don't need to say god told me to say this because that's bringing god in and now you better get it right because god's not going to make a mistake it's better just to share with someone never will forget a number of years ago when i was a pastor westminster chapel we had a sweet lady a nigerian lady who had been converted from islam and she was full of the holy spirit wonderful lady her name was grace and we were in a season where one of our children had been badly mistreated by verbally by a member of the congregation and louise was devastated and i was hurt and we didn't know what to do and when louise came into westminster chapel that morning grace came running up to her and said sister kendall i have a word i have a word jealousy i don't know why i'm supposed to say this to you but i can only think of the word jealousy perhaps you will know what that means well louise broke down and wept and it was just an answer we knew the problem we knew what was at bottom but to think that god would move grace to say that was such an encouragement but grace didn't say god told me to tell you she says i've got a word you see that is different all right the bottom general exhortation let's come up to the fifth level in the pyramid specific warnings for example certain disciples urged paul not to go to jerusalem for what it's worth this is important i think luke who wrote the gospel of luke he also wrote the book of acts he clearly sides with those who said to paul you should not go to jerusalem and we're told that they warned paul and these are luke's words through the spirit well if they warn through the spirit that means that what they said was of god well agabus also warned paul and he used the word the holy spirit says and it turns out as i said while ago his words weren't exactly right well the same paul who said despise not prophesying funnily enough seemed to despise all the prophetic words given to him don't go to jerusalem because his mind was made up you could see he was bent on going to jerusalem and no matter what they would say he's going to go to jerusalem well a lot of people understandably would think that paul would be right because he's the apostle paul i'm going to tell you now paul wasn't perfect and it's my view this is a time in paul's life when he made a big mistake he goes on against all the warnings he goes on to jerusalem bad things happen one thing after another now god stepped in he made romans 8 28 true all things worked together for good but paul would have been far better off not to go to jerusalem to see what god might have done otherwise but god stepped in and still blessed paul and we've all made mistakes like that it's wonderful to know all things work together for good even when we've got it wrong all right bottom level exhortation to come up warnings third prophetic preaching um let me put it this way peter says we should speak god's very words the oracles of god uh i just wish that i could do that this is the goal my basic style is expository and pastoral preaching once in a while someone will come up to me after the service and say rt how did you know i would be there today what you said today was just from god to me well it makes me feel good but i had no idea that they were there it was nothing i did on purpose my gift is just explaining scripture it's what i'm trying to do right now being my doing my best to be honest with what the bible teaches about prophecy but it goes to show that expository preaching can be prophetic without the preacher being conscious of this he's conscious of the lord's enabling but he should never say thus saith the lord you've got to take every word i would never say that it reminds me of something that happened to me oh 60 some years ago i was in palmer tennessee at my first church and something happened that week that was devastating and i got a letter from someone very close to me who said something that brought me down to the lowest level i think i'd ever been in when as i'm driving all of a sudden i hear it's the first time in my life i ever heard an audible voice i heard these words philippians 1 12. philippians 1 12. what is that i just pulled over and got my bible and philippians 1 12 says king james version that's what i use in those days i would that you should understand brethren that the things that have happened to me have heaven for the furtherance of the gospel the relief and the peace that i got from that word i cannot exaggerate arguably the most powerful word i ever got at least when it came to direction it changed my life it gave me solid basis for knowing that god was with me and i've leaned on that for years and years and years it just turns out that some years later in a westminster chapel i chose to do the whole book of philippians we took two years going through philippians when we got to verse 12 and chapter i remembered how god used me and used that verse in palmer tennessee i want to share something with you when i finished preaching that sermon philippians 1 12 that day i sat down next to the pulpit and thought for the first time in my life i have had real anointing everybody felt it the place was electric and yet you could hear a pin drop i just thought this is amazing and everyone was stunned the only time in 25 years at westminster chapel i had the level of anointing that i wanted two hours later a deacon came up to me and said dr kendall i've got some disappointing news i said what's that your sermon was not recorded this morning the man who does the recordings was ill they forgot to call in sick and it wasn't recorded well what does that mean you tell me it just shows that in my case the kind of anointing that i want god could give it but i've got to be content and be honest and that's why paul said come to terms with the measure of faith that's been assigned to you well all right go up the pyramid general exhortation uh warnings a prophetic preaching each of these showing a higher level of the spirit's help now here's level three from the top or six five four hope i'm not being confusing this comes when you are forced to testify because of persecution jesus said when they arrest you do not worry about what to say or how to say it at the time you will be given what to say for it will not be you speaking but the spirit of your father through you matthew 10 19 and 20. do you know i was given that scripture on the very morning when for the first time in my life i had to answer for what i preached because the people in my church back in carlisle ohio back in 1963 objected to my preaching and i won't go into the details except to say these people good people for all i knew uh reported me to ministers and they had a heresy trial for me i was accused of preaching jesus as god well i pled guilty i said this is what i believe why they couldn't see this that's another matter but here's the thing i was given that morning matthew 10 20. don't think take your thought like you shall say i live by that and that evening as the charges were hurled at me i was given a special anointing unusual i can tell you it just flowed and then i would know when to stop when it was over my opposition just moved out those who were for me and even those that were neutral came up and said you were brilliant you were brilliant i said it wasn't me uh but what i'm saying is that there is a level of anointing and this is when you're forced to testify and by the way some of you may recall that i had a rather special relationship with the late president yasser arafat palestinian president and it's a long story but i had a special relationship with him every time i would go to see him i would claim the promise when you stand before kings or you know people in authority take no thought what you shall say and that is the way i operated in the days i want to see arafat i actually told him that i said here's the verse i use when i come to see you he smiled we did have a good relationship i have reason to believe that he will be in heaven all right moving up in this pyramid we come up to the next level it's what i would call non-canonical prophecy what's that mean well canonical prophecy would be the bible that will be the highest level come back to that in just a minute but there were non-canonical prophets gad nathan even elijah you see elijah did not have a book named after him elisha did not samuel did jeremiah isaiah these are canonical prophets but then there were the non-canonical prophets the question of questions is could there be prophets of this magnitude and stature today i think so but i think they would be very very few very rare and i've known one or two that i think were of that stature but even they could get it wrong and as i said we don't know everything elijah said everything elijah said we know they were very human and it stands the reason they might have got it wrong but this was not recorded in scripture if they did the point is they had unusual anointing we know about elijah we know about elisha and my what anointing could that be available today and i think god could and probably has but not often well can they say the lord told me i reply they of all people should not and i'll tell you why because they're going to be watched with scrutiny and if they get it wrong they're really going to be trapped and shot at and and ridiculed and i have said to some of those that i knew don't say the lord told me you don't need to bring his name in because if it's the lord they're going to see it eventually let others say it don't you say it well the reason for this and here it comes to the major theological point i want to make today the name of the lord is at stake ah keep the name of the lord out just say i have a word for you or i feel like i should say this to you that way they can maintain their integrity and credibility and anointing we had one of these major prophets he died a few years ago i knew him very well he came to westminster chapel and i had to be there happened to be there at a very important time in my preaching i was emphasizing in those days how we should care for the poor it's something that many christians don't like to think about and but i was convicted and i said we should help the poor wherever we can and i probably went too far well i did go too far i said we should allow the beggars on the streets to join us for lunch because at lunch on sundays people would bring food and bring extra food for visitors or friends and i said we should accept the beggars well ah we did but then word went all over london i tell you there must be a beggar's network in london they all would come to westminster chapel when not to hear me preach but to get fed and this prophetic man who was a guest picked up on this and he said to me you are not reaching the poor rt you're reaching the professional beggar they are going to destroy your expository ministry and immediately we stopped letting anybody eat unless they went to the service to hear me preach that was what they had to do and they hear me preach and then they could eat with us but it stopped everybody from coming well that was the prophetic word that we needed desperately at that time but here's the thing i would say to anybody uh don't have you don't have to bring in uh the name of the lord i want to come now to the highest level you probably have figured it out start out at the bottom of the pyramid exhortation warning prophetic preaching when you're called to testify the non-canonical prophets like elijah and then top holy scripture this includes all of the old testament all of the new testament 66 books of the bible this includes the canonical prophets like samuel isaiah jeremiah daniel all of the new testament because scripture is god's final revelation by the way dr martin lloyd jones used to say to me that god did not give a scripture to stop the revelatory gift scripture is given to correct abuses this is so that any prophetic word has to cohere with scripture if a prophetic word goes against scripture reject it i don't care who the person is so you've got to remember those that are spirit filled are going to want to adhere to scripture and exalt scripture and so if anybody by the way if they claim to speak on the same level of scripture don't listen to them just disregard them but we're in a condition today where good people and and they're godly people but they have personal desires and they want their desires to be fulfilled and i think so many of them put their own desire as being the lord's will and they get it wrong you take jeremiah jeremiah was accused of treason because he said israel is going to go to babylon in captivity oh this cannot happen to jerusalem god won't let that happen and they accused jeremiah treason well it turned out they did go to babylon and then jeremiah got in word worst trouble he said the captive captivity will be 70 years well a prophet by the name of hananiah came along and said two years well everybody loved hananiah and they all said there's our man two years jeremiah said hananiah will be dead before this year's over in the seventh month of that same year hananiah was dead it was 70 years it just shows that people if they say what they want or say what people want to hear uh they're not really listening to god and the worst mistake is when they say god told them well uh i want to talk a little bit about the limits of prophecy before i go remember that each of us whatever our gift you've got a measure of faith romans 12 3 that means there's a limit to our faith only jesus had the perfect faith john 4 34 and we're supposed to prophesy according to the proportion of our faith that means in stay within the limit of your faith and the greek word is analogia from which we get the word analogy the reformers referred to the analogy of faith that means comparing scripture with scripture that way that anybody that's a prophet should know his bible and to know good theology and compare scripture with scripture and uh sometimes prophetic people don't know their bibles that well uh we do have to admit the gifts are without repentance uh therefore a person can have this gift but he needs help he needs guidance and one should go by scripture now the issue is whether one speaks at oath level o a t level you see the bible talks about god's promise and his oath a promise is given always with condition the oath is given no condition it's it's already done and if a person speaks at oath level it will be done even then you don't need to say the lord says because it's going to happen and the people will see that it is the lord you see this is what enabled elijah to operate as he did he went to king ahab and just calmly said not going to reign till i say so just like that as the lord lives that shows he was operating at oath level but he's not claiming that he alone is god talking but it was obvious god was in it and the reason that jesus says do not swear at all don't ever say the lord told me because when you do that you're only using the lord to make yourself look good you see what we are to do is to make god look good and if i say the lord told me i'm only drawing attention to myself but if i'm saying this is what i believe is going to happen and it happens then everybody will know well that was from god well elijah operated at that level at certain times not always because he wasn't doing very well when jezebel was going to kill him it shows how human he was but jesus told us don't ever bring the name of the lord in to make yourself look good or to make yourself look better so let me say this in closing be willing to go to the stake for what you believe and for what you say keep god's name out that way if you get it wrong you haven't made god look bad because if god really did give it it's going to happen and when people say this is what the lord said would happen if it doesn't happen not good it's not good at all i would say if you would not go to the stake for what you believe you are safe if the word is really from god but you don't bring him into it so james in chapter 5 verse 12 said above all do not misuse the name of the lord dear friend that is what is at stake in this if the lord really says that it's going to happen and if it doesn't happen it wasn't the lord for those who see things not happening they should climb down like samuel did like nathan did and say i've got it wrong and i would call on all those who believe god has spoken through them to humble themselves and repent and say i'm sorry if they got it wrong because i have to say misusing god's name is not worth it may we pray heavenly father i ask you to take this word apply this word by your holy spirit in jesus name amen

Channel: RT Kendall

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Length: 41min 38sec (2498 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2021