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Part 1: Pillars in The Temple
The original title of this study was “Prophecy: Authority Vs. Oppression.” It became “Prophecy: Authority Vs. Oppression Part 1,” however, because as I began to write, I realized that in our fellowship we have people from diverse experiences, both within Adventism, and outside of it. Some grew up in Catholicism, some have attended Pentecostal Churches… some have experience with Evangelical Christianity. And so, while I want to get into the details of prophecy as our Father provides it for us in this generation, I think it is important to first lay a firm foundation, and begin with what prophecy is, why it was given… its purpose, and how it has affected the course of Christianity since the days of the apostles.
Now, under normal circumstances, Bro. Luke and I alternate weeks in giving these studies, but I know that he will be traveling next week, and he asked me if I could have an additional study ready just in case his connection wasn’t that strong. But it appears that our Father may have been planning for that anyway, and so, with Bro. Luke’s permission, I would like to give Part 1 this week, and then conclude with Part 2 next week, so he can focus on his trip, and receive the most blessing from his travels.
I want to begin by talking about spiritual gifts, about what they are, and their purpose. Yahweh does not give good things to mankind for arbitrary reasons. That is a key aspect of His character; He does nothing arbitrarily, without reason. What He gives us, we need. Consider the 10 Commandments. Paul tells us in Galatians 3:19 that it was “added because of transgressions.” They were given to us because, after Adam’s sin, mankind was no longer naturally opposed to evil. He could no longer tell, of his own nature, what was dangerous to himself, and offensive to His creator.
With the flesh and spirit out of harmony – in fact, the Bible says they are “contrary” to one another in Galatians 5 – humanity cannot trust its natural instincts, or its inclinations. Jeremiah writes of the natural man’s experience, saying, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jer 17:9) So when we say to people who are used to trusting in their impulses, in their natural heart, “God has given us 10 commandments for our good,” they don’t usually understand it.
Everything in the 10 commandments is for us. To avoid worshipping pagan Gods, and to give reverence to Yahweh only, that does not benefit Him. That is for us, so that we may have a living relationship with the One who is the source of our life and all its blessings. When we are told to honor our parents, to treat our neighbors well, to be honest and faithful… these are for our growth, and strength, and joy. One of my favourite verses of the Old Testament is Deuteronomy 5:29. Yahweh is speaking to Moses in very human terms, as any Father would express concern about His children, “O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!” I have never been a father, but I can imagine any human parent having these very thoughts… “Oh, that they would just listen to me! I’m trying to keep them out of danger. I am trying to teach them the right way to live!”
And I left the Sabbath for last. The Sabbath is perhaps the commandment that is the least understandable to the carnal heart and mind, and we spoke about why that is a few weeks ago. In the Third Angel’s Message, there is a verse that means more than most Adventists understand it to mean. It speaks of those who are taken captive by the Beast, in Revelation 14:11, thus, “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”
Most who explain this verse rightly apply it to the destruction of the wicked in the judgment. But it isn’t just talking about their final destruction. You may remember that when Yahweh told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree, He said, “In the day that you eat thereof, thou shalt surely die.” In the day you eat it, you die. Well, Adam lived to be 930 years old, and many of those years took place after the expulsion from Eden. But he was not the same after that day. He was mortal. He was corrupted. He was dying. He was already suffering the penalty of his choice, even before it finally claimed him.
This is actually a common idea where true faith is concerned. Those who are born again are already experiencing everlasting life. Think about it… all our past sins are forgiven, and we have ceased from all known sin. It is the wages of “sin” that is death, and so for this last generation, to whom we are promised that we are to be cleansed from ALL sin before the return of Christ, death has no claim on us.
The 144,000 that the Bible speaks of are translated without seeing death. This is the natural consequence of their total surrender to Christ, of their total agreement with Him living within them, and of His perfect character being manifest in His people. Death has no power over Christ, and no power over Christ in YOU. He is your hope (your earnest expectation, your “confidence” would be a better translation of that word), of glory. That is what it means to be a Christian, especially in these last days with the light so bright, you can just about see Heaven from here.
And so the redeemed are living the victorious life now, the everlasting life now, but those who are not born again, or not yet born again, they are actually already suffering what is described in Revelation 14:11. They have no rest, day or night. They have no Sabbath. They live lives of stress, tension, worry, anxiety. They go to worldly counsellors. They take worldly medications and drugs to try to soothe their troubled minds. Their consciences are defiled, and so they distract, they deny, they disengage… and they sink deeper into this darkness, from which they cannot hear the voice of God. If they do not find the Savior before history ends, their tragic fate in the Lake of Fire will be only an outworking, a visible manifestation, of the state of their souls.
But the Sabbath is Yahweh’s gift to the troubled mind. The Sabbath day is a snapshot in time of everlasting rest, and the Sabbath rest principle is the experience of having rest, day and night, in Christ’s love.
So yes, every commandment, even the least intuitive, is given for a reason, a reason necessary for our redemption, and so whenever we study a gift from our Father, whenever we examine something He is doing for us, the most obvious question should always be, “Why? Why is He giving this to us? Why do we need this? What does it say about Him, and His character, that He is providing this for us?”
What about prophecy? Well, all of what I said above could be applied to that question. We know about the 10 Commandments in their current, written form because Yahweh spoke to a prophet, His servant Moses. We know that they apply to the Adventist experience, to those awaiting Christ’s return, because the Spirit of Prophecy was alive in the 1800s. So all those benefits I was speaking about, we know about them in 2021 because the gift of Prophecy has revealed to us that we have not been abandoned, that the gifts our Father gave to us in the times of Moses, and David, and Elijah, they are still here. They are still ours, and they are still necessary.Paul, an apostle of Christ Yahshua who also manifested a prophetic gift at times, tells us exactly what prophecy is for. At least, he tells us the purpose to which prophecy contributes. We read it in the Book of Ephesians, chapter 4, and verses 11-13: “And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
A few years ago, a new Church was opening up in the city in which I live… and they were handing out flyers, inviting people to come to Bible studies. And so, being someone who loves a good Bible study, I went. It was the standard Sunday-keeper’s explanation of the Gospel… nothing really wrong, just mostly incomplete, and then they paired us up with individual evangelists to try and seal the deal.
Something about me must have given them some ideas, because I got paired up with who appeared to be their oldest evangelist… and in the bench behind us another, much younger man sat. And so we spoke for a while, agreeing on most things, but then I was asking about their Church, and its history, and I remembered something that they had said in the general presentation, to the effect that since there are no prophets any longer, we had to rely on the Word of God completely. And the conclusion, I actually agree with. We rely on the Word of God completely, but that does not mean that our Father does not also reach out to us in other ways, such as the words of prophets, to emphasize certain aspects of the Word of God that may be applicable to our time, and occasionally our specific needs and experiences.
And so this older gentleman said to me, “Oh, no… we don’t believe that there are any modern day prophets. That was in the Old Testament, and up to the Book of Acts, but after that, it passed away.” I asked him why they believed that, and he showed me this pair of verses right at the beginning of Hebrews: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.” (Heb 1:1, 2) So “in time past” He used prophets, and then now He speaks through His Son instead. And, since the Son is the Word of God, they equate that with His Voice through the Bible. And he showed me another verse, “Charity never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” (1Cor 13:8)
I pointed out a few things that perhaps he had not considered. The verse in Hebrews does not say that God speaks to us today only through His Son, at least not only Him directly. After all, the Book of Revelation was written after Hebrews, and that is the most well-known book of prophecy in all of religious history. And as far as the verse in 1Corinthians goes… it is showing that love is more reliable than any spiritual gift, but it is not saying that there will be no more prophecies after a time. It says that knowledge “shall vanish away.” That hasn’t happened. In fact, we know from the Book of Daniel that at the time of the end knowledge actually increases, so it cannot mean what they take it to mean.
We spoke for a bit longer, and the Sabbath came up, and that went as it usually does… I showed him a verse in Luke showing the servants of Christ keeping the 7th day Sabbath after his death, he refused to accept it for some reason he didn’t want to explain, and I told him that if he was not prepared to accept a direct statement of the Bible in support of a belief, then he really couldn’t teach me anything, and I left.
That’s just one example of many. People do not understand prophecy. They don’t know what it is, what it is for, who can have it, what it looks like, etc.
Well, we already see what the Bible gives to us in answer to some of those questions. What is it? Very simply, it is communication directly from Yahweh. That’s really it. It may be a dream, or a vision. It can be an insight that occurs when reading the Scriptures. It may be an utterance that was unprepared. We read in 1Chronicles 12:18, “Then the Spirit came upon Amasai, who was chief of the captains, and he said, ‘Thine are we, David, and on thy side, thou son of Jesse; peace, peace be unto thee, and peace be to thine helpers; for thy God helpeth thee.’ Then David received them, and made them captains of the band.”
That’s not the kind of thing a soldier normally says.
Prophecy may be an assurance, a sure knowledge, of something that has been promised. In his last days, Paul wrote, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.” (2Tim 4:8)
There are some who say, “You cannot be sure you are saved. You can’t even say for sure whether or not you’ll sin in the future. We can’t claim victory now… that’s for later on down the line, when probation closes, or is just about to close.” No, God’s people have the Spirit of Prophecy. They know that Christ is in them. They know that they have received the gift of everlasting life. They know that there is a crown of life laid up for them, and because of this they say, “I know that I shall abide in my Father, and He in me. I know I shall please Him all my days. I know that I shall not commit sin.” The Apostle John was not the first person to say that, and he wasn’t the last. There are people saying it to this day. And oh, the relief of putting that burden down, that burden that every child of Adam has carried since birth… it is divine rest. It is everlasting joy.
I know that I will do nothing that displeases my Father… not on purpose. And if I err through Ignorance, He teaches me, He forgives me, and He restores me. Now, that statement makes some people uncomfortable, that statement that sounds like what Christ said in John 8:29: “And He that sent me is with me; the Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please Him.” Christ says that, and Christ in you says that.
The problem for most people is, this is not what they were taught “faith” sounds like. Faith, as taught by the Catholic Church, is a very shame-faced kind of thing. You keep your head down, you hold your beads, you hope you get what you pray for… maybe, and you need to make confession every week or so, because you can’t keep yourself from sinning. That is the Roman Catholic experience, isn’t it?
And unfortunately, while many Churches have begun to reject the Trinity doctrine, which is an old Catholic absurdity, they retain a more deadly heresy. The Trinity might keep you from a clear understanding of our Creator, but that doctrine of “salvation in sin” will kill you as dead as that fruit Adam ate.
We have the gift of prophecy. It is not just in one or two people. Everyone who claims the promise of God, and says, “I know this is true. I know this will be fulfilled…” they are actually predicting the future, and they are doing it with authority and confidence, because it is God who is faithful. It is Yahweh who keeps His promises, and never fails. You see, this doctrine of Victory over sin, it works because we have the Spirit of Prophecy. We don’t need to be concerned about what will happen to us tomorrow, or next week, or twenty years from now. There is no, “What if I fail” in the experience of Christ, because we know, with prophetic certainty, that He keeps us from failure.
The term “The Spirit of Prophecy” has been applied, correctly, to the writings of Ellen White, but we dare not limit this gift of our Father, given to us for our benefit, for “the perfecting of the saints,” to just one person. If the Spirit of Prophecy died in the Adventist Church with Ellen White, then it is not the Bride of Christ.
Let me put that another way… if you find a Church that does not claim to have a living gift of prophecy, it is not the true Church of Jesus Christ. That’s a bold claim, but I make it with the authority of the Scriptures. We know these verses very well from Adventism: Revelation 19:10 reads, “And [John] fell at his [the angel’s] feet to worship him. And he said unto me, ‘See thou do it not; I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Yahshua. Worship God: for the testimony of Yahshua is the spirit of prophecy.”
And, since Revelation 17:12 says that the Church consists of those who “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ,” then obviously the Adventist Church, which calls the writings of Ellen White “the Spirit of Prophecy” must be the right one. I don’t disagree with the interpretation, but I don’t agree with the limitation that is sometimes applied to it.
This is the Testimony of Jesus Christ… this is what He testified to at the very end of His earthly ministry. We find it at the end of Matthew 28:20: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” A second witness is found in Hebrews 13:5, “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
That is the testimony of Christ to us, one of His precious promises. Christ testifies that He will be with us until the end of the world. And how is He with us? We non-Trinitarians know exactly how… by His Spirit. Not through a separate third Person, but Christ Himself, the Holy One of Israel, the Only Begotten Son, the Messenger of The Covenant, He Himself is with us until the end of the world, and one of the ways that shows itself is through the guidance of that Spirit. It is through the enlightening power of that Spirit. It is through the revelations of that Spirit. The Spirit of Prophecy is with the Church, not until the apostles died out in the first century. Not until the early 1900s and then nothing. Not until… let me read that again from the beginning: Ephesians 4:11-13, “And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; till [UNTIL THIS] we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
These gifts all work together, apostleship, pastoring, teaching, and yes, those with the gift of prophecy. These are all necessary, gifts as vital for us as the Sabbath or any of the other of the 10 Commandments. It is an indication of the presence of Christ Himself with a people, a living gift, and given to us, not just until we rediscover the Sabbath, or the appointed times, or the New Moon. No, those were wonderful things that the Spirit of Prophecy restored to the Church, but the work isn’t over yet. There are still many things to learn and to unlearn… and until we come unto a perfect man… until we are ready for translation, in other words… until the fullness of the stature of Christ is revealed in His people and He comes to take us home, it is until then that we have the Spirit of Prophecy with us.
Amos 3:7 says, “Surely the Lord Yahweh will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets.”
In 2 Chronicles 20:20, the Spirit of Yahweh fell upon King Jehoshaphat, and he declared, “Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in Yahweh your Elohim, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper.”
Salvation is by the Word of Yahweh. Only through Christ can man be saved. But Yah has given to us other necessary gifts. Not a lot of Bible studies quote John’s third Epistle, but here is a rare exception, 3John 1:2, speaking under inspiration he writes, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” This is the desire of our Father for us, that we be prosperous, not only in the things of the soul, but of the mind and body as well.
So I say again, a Church that cannot claim to have the living spirit of prophecy is no wise virgin. She is not invited to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.
We cannot afford, in this generation of darkness, temptation, and prevailing evil, to reject any of our Father’s necessary gifts. We want to prosper. We need to prosper. The 144,000 follow the Lamb wherever He leads them, and because of that, they DO prosper. They hear His voice through His appointed servants, through His shepherds: those apostles, and teachers, and prophets, and because of that their path is straightforward, unbroken, and secure.
In the next part, I will go further into what prophecy looks like in our day. I’ve called the study “Authority vs. Oppression,” because many, even among Adventists, do not know where the limits of authority lie in Yahweh’s human servants, and they tend to either idolize, or undervalue, the gift that has been given to us for our eternal benefit. There is a ditch on both sides of the road, as there are in all true matters, and we ought to know where the Way lies. Let us think on these things until we take the matter up again.
Part 2: A Crown of Thorns
In the first section, we began by looking at a general overview of our Father’s gifts to us. Everything from the 10 Commandments, to specific blessings, are given to us for our good. As 3rd John tells us, Yahweh desires His people to prosper in both this life, and the life to come. Even the final judgment is designed to cleanse the universe from sin, and the only reason any human beings are destroyed in the judgment is because they have associated themselves so completely with sin that they have become inseparable from it. We read in Matthew 25:41 the exact words of the judgment pronounced on those who are lost: “Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.’” The Lake of Fire is for Satan and fallen angels… that is what it takes to destroy them; human beings who share their character will also share their destiny… but as it is written, the Father is not willing that any should be lost.
We then spoke about specific gifts that have been given to the Church. We will read a key passage from last week, but before that I do want to establish that Paul the Apostle was not envisioning anything like the current, fragmented state of Christianity, this mess of contradictory independent ministries, when He wrote about these gifts. We find here: “Now ye [that’s the plural “you,” so “you all”] are the Body of Christ, and members in particular; and God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.” (1Cor 12:27, 28)
This is not a passage that we read last time, but it is important in that it establishes where these gifts are placed – in the Church, and for its members. Now we go into what we read last time about the purpose of those gifts and the duration for which they will last: “And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” and I think we stopped there last time at verse 13, but let me continue until verse 15: “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ.” (Eph 4:12 – 15)
So here we see even further the purpose of spiritual gifts. It is not only for the eventual goal of maturing into spiritual perfection, but until then it also prevents us from being deceived. Sister G. and I were speaking to Sister P. this last week, and we were saying to her that when you truly understand the Three Angels’ Messages, you can never be deceived. Understanding the first message reveals to you the lack of faith in those who believe the Catholic doctrine of salvation in sin, the “sin-repent-sin-repent” spiritual evolution cycle. Understanding the second message reveals to you the error in the various impure faiths… Trinitarianism, rejecting the Sabbath and New Moons, avoiding the blessings in the appointed times, and so on. And understanding the third message reveals the need for unity among the last generation of believers as we stand against the Beast and its Image, resisting the mark that it attempts to impose on all of humanity.
The knowledge of these things has come to us by prophetic gift. We grew up knowing about the Book of Revelation, where all this information is found, but for those in the early Church, it was some letter that John the Prophet wrote that was being passed around the Churches. The gift of prophecy, the living gift, has equipped Christians through many generations to identify and reprove errors, and to keep themselves pure from the doctrines of devils.
To summarize the rest: Prophecy, like every other gift of God, is given to us because we need it in order to resist the works of the enemy, and to prosper. It was never intended to be a temporary gift, but the witness of the Spirit is to be with the Church in every generation, and to repeat a statement I made last week, if a Church does not claim to have a living gift of prophecy, seek Christ elsewhere. Yahshua is with His people, as He promised, even to the end of the world. His Spirit within His people drives them to speak truth about the past, the present, and the future… and that is what prophecy is.
While there have been many tests for prophets devised over the years, some more legitimate than others, the reality is quite simple. Christ says this, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” (John 10:27, 28) That is the only test that really applies to every prophet. They speak the words that the Spirit of Christ gives to them, and those who are His, those who love righteousness, hear Him in those words.
The prophets of Yahweh call people to repentance, to the turning-away from evil resolutely, to lives free from sin, and full of power. They warn people about things to come, and prepare them for battle with the enemy. They exhort them to endure challenges and temptations until the end, and the result of the sheep hearing Christ in their voices is “eternal life,” for nobody can remove the safety that He provides through this guidance.
But now here is where it gets confusing to those who are not particularly keen of spiritual hearing. Christ warns His followers, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” (Mat 7:15) As we point out, Christ does not say, “Beware of anyone who claims to be a prophet.” I mentioned last week that there are some Churches who teach that the gift of prophecy passed away during the first century… but were that the case, this warning would have no meaning. Beware the prophets who are false, that teach contrary to the doctrine delivered to us through the Son and His faithful followers. That the warning was given, however, indicates that the deception is a clever one, convincing-sounding, and placing some who would be redeemed in legitimate danger of falling away.
For many people, the idea of a modern-day prophet is offensive. Why is this? It is because of pride. A few weeks ago, I pointed out that hypocrisy is a terrible barrier to finding the true Church of Christ, the Little Flock, because those who do not know the voice of their consciences, who have practiced denying it, will not be able to hear the Holy Spirit calling them home. Pride is its close sibling, and will prevent a human being from listening to the words of a prophet. They do not want anyone telling them what God wants them to do… Oh, no. If they don’t discover it for themselves, through their own wisdom and cleverness, they don’t want to hear it.
I called this study Authority vs. Oppression, because we acknowledge that, Biblically, prophets are invested with great authority. When Moses’ own brother and sister questioned this authority… well, let’s read that. It’s a little lengthy, but it is critical to our topic this morning: “And the anger of Yahweh was kindled against them [Aaron and Miriam]; and He departed. And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow; and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous.
“And Aaron said unto Moses, ‘Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb.’
“And Moses cried unto Yahweh, saying, ‘Heal her now, O Elohim, I beseech thee.’
“And Yahweh said unto Moses, ‘If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again.’ And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days; and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again.” (Num 12:9-15)
Aaron, the high priest, called Moses “my lord,” a little “l” lord, but still a very respectful term for a younger brother. Aaron recognized that Yahweh was fully supporting His servant, and asked that he petition Yahweh for Miriam’s healing. Also of great significance is this verse: “And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.” (Exo 15:20)
Miriam was called a prophetess. She was one through whom Yahweh also spoke, and was seen as a leader of the women in Israel. Even so, she erred. She made a mistake, and had to deal with the consequences of that mistake just like any other Israelite. And so we see that even among those with the gift of prophecy, there are limits. Yahweh defended Moses numerous times against uprisings by rebels like Korah, Dathan and Abiram. When the people murmured against Moses, they fell ill, they were subjected to plagues, and fire, and loss in battle. And yet, when Moses took too much authority upon himself, striking the rock in Numbers 20 when the Almighty had said to him, “Speak to the rock,” Moses himself was severely rebuked. The gifts of Yahweh do not confer infallibility, but greater responsibility for mis-steps.
Those who are given the gift of prophecy are invested with a certain degree of authority, but one of the ways you can spot a false prophet is if they take a step like Moses did, going beyond the limits of that authority, and yet suffer no penalty, show no guilt, experience no repentance. Those with the genuine gift of prophecy are always aware that they are standing before the Throne of Yahweh, and like King Solomon, are always asking for wisdom, for clarity of purpose and speech, because they know that the well-being of others depends upon their words.
This is nothing to be arrogant about. James writes, “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.” (James 3:1) That word “masters” just means “teachers,” so he isn’t describing a strict hierarchical system here, you know… cardinals, bishops, priests… he is simply saying that with the responsibility of receiving gifts that would make one a teacher comes also the necessity to rely even more completely on the wisdom of Christ, lest people be led astray.
One who claims to be a prophet, yet seeks to become a “master” of others, now that is a cult leader. And we’ve seen some of those around. They command. They manipulate. They require obedience to them and, as someone pointed out last week, they have a tendency to require a bunch of wives, sometimes taken from the men of their congregations. Such things are nauseating to the Father and Son. Those who have used His name to fulfil their selfish desires will receive the greatest of condemnation, and as much as we hate to see any souls lost, we will know that justice is satisfied when we see these individuals outside the walls of New Jerusalem, accepting the same fate as the fallen angels. Those who cross the line of authority, into oppression, demonstrate their demonic character, and fulfil that other warning about false prophets: “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.” (2Cor 11:14, 15)
That word, “ministers,” is so often taken for granted by those who hold those positions. This can apply to governmental “ministers,” as well as “ministers” within Christendom. To minister to someone means to serve them. The ministers are the servants. As it is written, “And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.” (Mark 10:44) The prophets will not be found sitting on any thrones, literally or figuratively, here on earth, when there is so much work to be done down in the dirt, down in the fields. They will not be saying, “Listen, do it like that.” Instead, they will be saying, “Look, do it like this.” They have the authority of leadership by example, not leadership by command. They will be like Christ, who gave up His deserved glory to walk among us, to be handled by the lowly, to be abused, insulted… to be called names and rejected as a servant of Ba’alzebub, to be assaulted, and condemned to a most painful death. He endured it, because He loved those whom He had come to save, and it is written of Him, “For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” (Heb 2:11)
He is not ashamed of us. When you look at the world today, the news, the reports from various nations… you’re tempted to be ashamed of us. But before we knew righteousness, before we understood love, before we had the power to choose salvation, the Father and Son loved us, and They paid an infinite price to win us back. How can we not love our brothers and sisters, both in the Church and in the world, who are worth so much to our Savior, and of whom He is not ashamed?
None who truly know the Almighty will be proud of themselves. They will never misuse those responsibilities with which they have been invested. And so, yes, they have authority. They can give counsel, warnings, advice. They can rebuke sin and error, and do so in such a way as to touch the consciences of those who hear them. To reject the words of a prophet is not safe. To reject the voice of conscience is never safe. But to reject the testimony of a prophet as confirmed by your conscience? That is certain disaster, from which few, if any, can ever recover.
So prophets do have that authority from Yahweh. But it is a crown of thorns. They do so with a burden, knowing that if they would “strike the rock,” if would they speak oppressive words, they endanger themselves and others. Even talking about the concept in this way is a little difficult. In Romans 3:5 Paul writes, “I speak as a man,” when dealing with impossibilities, like asking the question, “Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?” It’s a bit like saying, “If a prophet chops off his arm, he will bleed to death.”
The statement is true, and it is important to know, but for the truly born-again – not even one with a prophetic gift, but for anyone who is Christ’s – the theoretical possibility is as far from the reality of faith as the east is from the west. Even with all that, with that great gulf fixed between authority and oppression, Yahweh has given us safeguards which, if followed, make the impossibility even more impossible.
We read, “Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge. If anything be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace. For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.” (1Cor 14:29-31)
First of all, I love how “ordinary” Paul makes this sound. Someone who claims to have a prophetic gift today… well, you know what the results of that are: unbelief, mockery, accusations. And why? Because they’ve never known the true Church, this Church that Paul describes. They’ve never been among the born-again believers awaiting the soon return of Christ. They do not claim to have a living spirit of prophecy because, well, they don’t… but they think that this is the way it is supposed to be; but Paul tells us what the gifts of Yahweh look like when exercised to the glory of His name. They will be left behind, those who know only the authority of the dead, but remember what Yahshua said to the Pharisees who opposed His ministry, and His claim of divine authority: “He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living; ye therefore do greatly err.” (Mark 12:27)
Those who say, “Ellen White never kept a New Moon, so we shouldn’t either…” because they rely only upon the prophetic gifts of those who are now dead, therefore (or because of that) they “do greatly err.” And that’s just one example. The same could be said of the name Yahweh, or the appointed times, or the judgment of the living, or the Trademark Law. The God of the living has revealed these things to His saints, because He has always had a witness among the living.
But turning back to that passage in 1 Corinthians 14… that doesn’t sound like Paul is describing a “ruling class” in the Church. No… he is saying, let the prophets be patient, humble, ready to yield if anyone else has an insight to share. Let them behave themselves. If anyone says, “I have a gift of prophecy, so I should be in charge,” you can know immediately that they don’t know what the gift of prophecy IS, nor how to be “in charge” of the people of Yahweh. Prophets, even those with a prophetic office like Moses, have authority, and that authority is subject to the Holy Spirit as it speaks through the Church. It is not authority over the consciences of others. Let prophets speak… don’t quench the gifts of the Spirit, but “let the other judge” so that the Church will be built up, strengthened, and comforted, all in agreement. All together.
So, this is not a small matter. It is the gift of Yahweh that we come to know Him, and His plans for us both as a Church and as individuals. Prophets are not rulers, they are servants, but we need to have a balanced understanding of what that means. The gift of prophecy is certain, although the way it works is conditional in many ways. That is the final thing I want to speak about here… and I think most of us understand the idea well enough, so I need not take a lot of time with it as I conclude.
A prophet’s words are always true, and what they predict always comes to pass in principle, but the way that their prophecies are received may shift the nature of the fulfilment.
Consider Jonah’s prophecy to Nineveh. He said, “In forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed.” Well, the people repented, and so anyone could come along and say, “Jonah is a false prophet. He predicted something that never came to pass, and he never said, ‘but if the people repent…’” You see how that could be used to cast doubt on Yahweh’s messenger. But the truth is, Nineveh, that great and wicked city, was destroyed. It was replaced by a new Nineveh, one that honoured the Creator. A few hundred years later it fell into idolatry again, and was indeed physically destroyed, but Jonah’s prophecy was fulfilled in his day. As a result of His preaching, the Nineveh against which he pronounced judgment was no more.
Jeremiah spells out the principle of conditional prophecy: “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
“And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” (Jer 18:7-10)
Note the words carefully. Yahweh doesn’t say, “I will call back my statement.” He doesn’t say, “They won’t see any consequences of their prior actions.” We read of Yahweh speaking, “So shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isa 55:11) That is the unchangeable nature of Yah and His Word; and yet, the way that the Word accomplishes the Father’s intent is subject (to a degree) to the free will of those on whom it is pronounced.
Ideally, King David’s firstborn was to be the ruler of Israel after him. But David transgressed the Law of Yahweh, and as a result his house suffered greatly. A descendant of David, his son Solomon, followed him to the throne, so Yah’s promise to him was fulfilled, but it wasn’t Plan A, and Israel bore the consequences.
Abraham was promised a son, who would be the ruler of many people. Because he erred in the matter of Hagar, the world has had to deal with the consequences of the struggle between Israelites and Ishmaelites to this day… but we can read what Yahweh said to Hagar about her son, “Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand, for I will make him a great nation.” (Gen 21:18)
The promises of Yahweh are sure, secure, guaranteed…but the fulfilment of prophecy, whether it’s the promise of a dynasty to David, the nation-building done through Abraham’s sons, the promise of peace made to Jerusalem through Ezekiel that will now only be fulfilled spiritually to New Jerusalem, the Sunday Law prophecies given to Ellen White in the 1800s… nothing is cast aside. Nothing is to be ignored. But we must consider time, place, and circumstances, and we must listen to the living voice of the Holy Spirit, which is with the Church today, to see how the manifestation of these things will come to pass, and it’s almost never the way that those who first heard those prophecies expected.
As much as I have said that prophets are servants, and are humble, and would never misuse their gifts, I do not want to downplay the authority with which they speak either. Finding this balance, understanding this authority, is a matter of spiritual prosperity. It is a matter of the health of the soul. I will close with a rather striking passage for your consideration, as we contemplate the gift of prophecy.
This is the Book of Hebrews, describing the ministry of Christ as expressed through His servants… those apostles, and teachers, and prophets, in the New Testament: “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him, Yahweh also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will?” (Heb 2:1–4)
We rejoice in the gifts our Father has given to us in His Church. Let us make use of them as He wills, and so be found lacking nothing on the day of His Son’s return.
David.