Being Charismatic - Prophecy

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the River Church podcast. [00:00:03] Speaker B: We're all about bringing the life, hope [00:00:05] Speaker A: and love of Jesus to everyone around us. [00:00:07] Speaker B: For more information, check out our [email protected]. nice to see all you folks from Dartford. Don't know if Mick Jagger's here this morning. Is he? Never know. Good. Would you like to turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 15? I understand that you're going through a series on spiritual gifts. Ian has told me and he's asked me to speak on the prophetic gifting. And normally I would do this in a sort of seminar setting. So just to facilitate things that I've. I've written out some notes so that you can go away and read them. If I don't cover everything, which I may not, you know, you've got notes to refer to down the line. Let's just pray. Father, I thank you for this great church, these lovely people. I pray that you keep me from being long winded and boring. I pray that you'd help me, Lord Jesus, to really to honor your word and to honor you and to help these people forward in the prophetic gifting. I do pray for Jesus sake. Amen. Well, let's turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 14. I'm reading from the ESV. It should be up here on the screen behind me. It says, pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God. For no one understands him, but he understands mysteries in the spirit. He utters mysteries in the spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now, I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up. Well, the first verse, then it says, pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. That's our verse for today. I just want to underline the fact that in the Old Testament, the Old Testament clearly points forward to the New Testament. And the Old Testament gives us certain hallmarks which will characterize New Testament believers. There are four things which I've picked out. Number one is that they have a new start. It's a wonderful thing to come and know Jesus and to have a clean start, have your life cleaned up. Anybody experience that have Your life. I remember leading a coffee bar years ago and this girl who was quite well known in the town, quite notorious, she encountered Jesus. And for a whole week she walked around. She says her face was beaming. She just says, I feel so clean. I feel so clean. I feel so clean. That's all she could say. For a whole week I feel so clean. And God has cleaned us up because Jesus, we're told, came and died for us. We're told in Jeremiah, he will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. We've been cleaned up in Christ. He's forgiven us, he's paid our sins, he's cleaned us up. But a new start or a clean start is not enough. Prisoners get that all the time. They come out, they got a new start, but it's not enough because they go back and re offend a high percentage of them. And so the Bible not only gives us a new start, it also gives us a new heart. And God says he will take out the old heart and put a new heart within us and not only give us a new heart, but he's going to give us a new power. He says here, put his spirit within us and cause us to walk in his ways and do what he wants to do. In the Old Testament, the word of God was written on stone tablets. In the New Testament, the Word of God, this word is now written in your hearts by the Holy Spirit. That's what God wants to do. I found when I became a Christian, I was at university, I found some unusual things happen to me. I found I stopped swearing and I used to swear a lot. Immediately I thought I couldn't swear anymore. I just couldn't do it. I found I stopped partying and going around and living the old lifestyle. I stopped the drunkenness. But not only did I stop things and I thought this is just not me. I found that there was something else motivating me. I actually wanted to go to church. Go to church. Never been to church in my life. I wanted to pray. Pray. There was only one prayer I ever knew, which was at school. For what we're about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Which was the dinner. And we weren't normally very thankful for it. I never prayed in my life. I found I wanted to pray. I found the Bible. I felt I actually want to read this. It's coming alive. It's on every page. I felt it coming alive. I found I wanted to worship. And I found that there was something deep inside me that I actually wanted to please God even be used by God and help other people. That's not me. Where does that come from? God has given me a clean start. He's given me a new heart, and he's given me a new power. And he's given you a new power, too. The power of the Holy Spirit. But he's given us more than that. The Bible tells us he's given us a new anointing. When the Spirit of God comes upon us, we're told, and your sons and daughters shall now prophesy. And what will characterize a New Testament believer is not only the anointing of God, but the fact that they can now prophesy, they can now speak. They can speak in tongues. They can prophesy. When I got filled with the Holy Spirit, I found something unusual happened to me. I found that somehow I started to know things about situations. Somehow I've started to know things about people. I thought, where does that come from? I used to hitchhike around and pick up people. And as I was driving along, I would speak to them words of knowledge which God would give to me. I thought, this is strange. I remember I'd only been as safe six months. I was at home doing my study for my exams. And I felt God just say to me, pick up the phone and phone people up and tell them about me. I thought, well, how will I know the numbers? And I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, I will give you the numbers. And the number immediately came into my head. Now, in those days, we didn't have phones in our pockets. We had a phone on the side. And when I came to make a cup of coffee a bit later, because I thought, no, I'm not going to do that. It's a bit scary. It seemed as though the phone was about 3 meters wide. And I felt God say, phone people up. So I picked up the phone and dialed this number which came into my head. And to my horror, somebody answered the other end. He said, hello. And I said, hello? Hello. I said, I'm just phoning up people to find out what they think about Jesus. He said to me, I don't believe it. He said, I don't believe it. My wife has just left me. He said, I've prayed the first prayer in my life. God, if I can have my wife back, I'll serve you. The next minute the phone rings and somebody says, what do you think about Jesus? He came with me to church. I led him to the Lord over the phone. He came with me to church the next Sunday. It's not stuff for the big shots. It's not stuff for the superstars. It's stuff for the everyday people. I just got saved into the kingdom of God, and God is now prompting me to do certain things. And what will characterize, what has got to characterize the church in this day is a prophetic people. Not a people who just religiously go to services and pray prayers, but actually a people who are moving in the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing insight and prophetic revelation into situations and into people's lives lives to genuinely help people and to move them on. And that's what will happen. What is prophecy? Michael Green says this. He says that prophecy is a word from the Lord through a member of his body, inspired by the Holy Spirit and given to build up the body of Christ. MICHAEL Green and I believe that anybody who loves Jesus, who is filled with the Holy Spirit, who wants to serve and to want to help other people, can actually prophesy. And that's what I'm here to do this morning to try and encourage you, to try and help you along that level. Who would like to be a help to other people. You're great. Okay, then. It's important to understand that prophecy. We're talking about the gift of prophecy. We're not talking about the role of a prophet. The Bible says that we can all prophesy, but there are some who are prophets, and you're certainly not an Old Testament prophet. Old Testament prophets, if their words didn't come as true, they were stoned in the New Testament that the prophetic gift is given and they're part of a team. And what they say has to be weighed to see if it's accurate. And that's another thing altogether. So we're not talking about being a prophet. We're talking about the gift of prophecy, where we can all prophesy and all be prophetic. And that's what God wants for his children and his church to be. It says this in the Bible. It says five times, earnestly desire this gift. Eagerly desire this gift. Five times it comes up. It struck me again this week how much this comes up five times. I counted it. And the word is a very, very strong word. It's saying earnestly, eagerly. Go after it, strive for it, pursue it with everything you've got. Go after this gift. It's not. Oh, it's not for me. Just for those few keen ones, Ian, and a few others, you know, they sort of like that sort of stuff. No, no, no. This is a word to all of us. Earnestly eagerly pursue it and strive after this gift. Now we have to ask a question. Why? Why? Why do we need to pursue this gift? And the reason we need to pursue this gift is for the following reasons. I've got four down here. I could mention many. The first one is this is that prophecy will build up other people, and it will build up the church. It will encourage, it, will strengthen, it will comfort. And that's what the gift of prophecy does in the church. At Hastings, where I was a leader many years ago, we had a mum there, part of our leadership team. And she felt she was struggling, really, bringing up her kids, as many mums do and many dads do. And she felt, listen to the devil's lie. She wasn't a very good mom. She wasn't doing it well. She wasn't doing this, that and the other. And a stranger came in out of the blue to speak to the leaders and came and just took the lady by the hand and walked around in a circle. And she just said, God says you're a very good mother. God says, you're a very good mother. God says, you're a very good mother. And God says. And at that moment, she suddenly broke. God says I'm a good mom. And she broke. And she wept and wept and wept because she'd been listening to the lies of the devil telling her she was no good. She was not a very good mum. She'd never make it. She'd never do anything. Suddenly, a prophetic word comes. You're a very good mother. You're a very good mother. God says, you're a very good mother. And she realized she'd been listening to the lies of the devil. It released something in her. And that was a prophetic word. That's what a prophetic word can do. It can build, it can strengthen, it can encourage. And that is what it's meant to do. Who in this building this morning needs encouragement at times? Yes. Who needs to be built up? Who has ever been encouraged or built up by a prophetic word? And God therefore, wants us, therefore, to move on and to bring encouragement and strength and consolation to other people. It was Haggai, the prophet in the old Testament, when the people had returned to Jerusalem or to Israel, and the land was demolished and broken down, the walls were broken down by fire. And they started to rebuild and rebuild the temple. And after a time, they just got weary and tired and exhausted. They thought, oh, let's just give up. Let's pack up. And the prophet Haggai came along and said, Actually, the trouble is you're more troubled about building your own homes than you're building the house of God. And then he said this one line, and it's only four words. It says, I am with you, says the Lord. And he said, when he said those words, I am with you, he said, the Spirit of God came and it stirred up Zerubbabel, it stirred up Jeh Toah, it stirred up all the people of Israel. And they came and they built. And one prophetic word, one word in season like that, can build, can encourage, can strengthen. And the church got built through this one prophetic word. The people suddenly moved on very, very powerfully. A prophetic word is necessary in the church because it builds, it encourages, it strengthens. I found this. The devil is the devil of discouragement. His toolbox. The thing which opens his toolbox is discouragement. And if he opens his toolbox and you get discouraged, he can bring out every other weapon. I found this, that the scriptures are given for our encouragement. I found that our God is a God of all encouragement. I find that prophetic gifting is given to bring encouragement into individuals. And God wants to encourage you and he wants to encourage me. He wants to encourage other people by using you and me in the prophetic role you thank. Can you say amen? Not only that does it bring encouragement, it also brings evangelistic breakthrough. So the lady who's going to Holland, you need to pray for this gifting that God will show you things about people and situations. Jesus said to the woman at the well, go and call your husband. She said, I haven't got a husband. He said, no, that's right, you haven't got a husband. You've actually had five husbands, and the guy you're with at the moment's not your husband. She said, wow, you must be a prophet. And she ran and said, come and see somebody who's told me everything I've ever done. He had just one word. The man you're with is not your husband. And he said, many believe through the woman's testimony. He's told me everything I've ever done. Many, many, many people believed. God wants to give you and me words of insight. Tomorrow at work, tomorrow at school, tomorrow, standing in the school playground, in the shop, wherever you are, which will break open situations so that other people will know that Jesus is alive today. Can you say amen? I remember being in India some years ago, and I was there working with the church. And we were standing in this bus area where all the buses, a bus terminal where all the buses come and there were crowds and crowds of people. And we started to preach the gospel and a whole crowd of people came round. I was speaking and it was being translated in the local language. And I remember having a word of knowledge about somebody with it. And I saw it very clearly with a pain right through their shin bone. I thought, this is weird. But anyway, I bought it and they interpret it and nothing happened. And then all of a sudden I saw a little crowd of folks go over and they gathered the guy who was taking the tickets at the booth of this terminal and they bought him, they about four of them, they brought him over and they made him roll up his lungi and right on his leg, right where I put my finger, he had a bandage around there and he had a. Like. It seemed as though he had a bullet hole or something right through his leg. I didn't understand it. But suddenly what happened is that everything broke. Everything broke open because all of the Hindus and others said, we worship gods who have eyes but can't see, have ears but can't hear, but this man has a God who knows things. And suddenly. And I didn't know what was happening because it wasn't in my language, but people were being led to the Lord and prayed for all over. And the prophetic gifting can break through into your office on your holiday, wherever you are. I remember some years ago on holiday and it's a funny story. At least I think it's funny. I was a single guy and it's most dramatic story. Shall I tell you the most dramatic story? I'd gone on holiday with my friend. We went to. It was before he got very famous. We went to Ibiza, my friend and I, to this, this holiday island before it was. And this was many years ago. And this girl came up to us in the bar and she said, my friend had Hawley written across his chest because that's where we come from. She said, hawley. She says, I come from Hawley. Where do you live? And we just got chatting and talking and then she said, anyway, what do you do? So my friend Joff, he says, well, I'm a preacher. So she laughed her head off. [00:19:39] Speaker A: So. [00:19:39] Speaker B: So she said to me, what do you do? I said, well, I'm a pastor of a church. She said, oh, come on, pull the other one. Don't be so stupid. She said, I'm an air hostess. And she wouldn't believe it. She said, you're just pulling my leg. Well, the next day she came up on the beach and I was there reading. I was reading the Bible on the beach. And she came up and she says, oh, what are you reading? So I read her a little bit. She says, you are reading the Bible. She says, you are a pastor, are you? And so he says, yes. So she says, oh. And then she started to pick on her. She says, I don't need God. She said, I'm number one in my life. She said, I do what I want to do. I make my own decisions, I go my own way, I do my own thing. God has never helped me. He's never done anything, any rate. What's he ever done for you? And my friend Jonathan, who's a bit mouthy, he said, well, he's done all sorts of things. He said, he's given us the gift of tongues. So she said, what do you mean, the gift of tongues? She said, I've got a tongue. What are you talking about? So he said, the ability to speak in other languages. So she said, come on then, let me hear you. So he said, no, no, you just told me you could speak in other languages. Let me hear you. And I thought, I'm going off for a swim and this is. So he said, all right. And then I pitched in and said, hold on a minute. I said, this is a gift of prayer. It's not a showtime, it's a gift of prayer. So she got down on two knees and she went like this. On the beach there was another couple with us that we got to know. A London taxi driver and his wife and another girl that we met and this air hostess and Joff, and me and my friend Joff just about to pray in tongues on this beach in Ibiza with this crowd around, I thought, this is weird. So he started to pray in tongues. And there was a young 15 year old boy there who was with his mom as well. And he was sort of looking through his eyes like this, you know, and others were praying and all I could do was laugh. I thought, this is the most crazy situation I've ever been in. Until God suddenly wiped the smile off my face and gave me the interpretation to the tongue with some other things, some other insight about this lady's life which exposed in detail things about her life which only she knew. And when I brought the interpretation to this tongue and added in some prophetic insight which I felt God gave me right there at the moment I can remember even now, there was a thing about roses that had been a special thing to her in her life. She said this. She says, nobody knows that about me. Nobody well, she was wrong. God knows everything. He knows how many hairs on your head. He knows every word you say before you say it. He knows every day of your life before you've had it. He knows where you're sitting, he knows where you stand. He knows every single thing about you. He knows everything about me. He knows the lot. We can't hide anything from Him. And this girl was absolutely smitten, and she came up every day asking us more and more and more. We ended up leading several people or speaking to them about Jesus. One of the girls immediately responded and got saved. But God can break through with a word of knowledge and insight. So he said to Zacchaeus, up a tree. He calls him by name, Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus, come down. I'm coming to your house for tea. Zacchaeus. Nathanael, I saw you sitting under the fig tree. And Nathaniel turns around and says you're the son of God. The woman at the well to Peter, this very day, you're going to deny me three times before the cockerel crows. What? And Jesus is moving in the word of knowledge and prophetic insight, and he's wanting you and me not just to be a tender of services, he's wanting you and me to be equipped with the power of the Holy Spirit and move in prophetic gifting so that we bring the Gospel into a needy and dying world. People are sick and tired of what the world has to say and what politicians have to say and what leaders have to say. They want reality, they want truth, they want theological truth. And they're looking for something that works. And suddenly you can bring a word into a person's life, into a situation which breaks things open. No one knows that. Oh, yes, they do. God Almighty knows every detail of your life, and he wants you to move in gifting and me to move in gifting. Because it's a gifting which characterizes the New Testament believers. They shall prophesy when the Spirit of God comes upon them. I got in a taxi when I was in Sydney, Australia. I was going to New Zealand. It was early in the morning. It was five in the morning. I got in the taxi. I sat in the front of the taxi and we were half a mile down the road. And I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, tell the taxi driver this. And sometimes it gets a bit scary, Tell the taxi driver he's cheating on his wife. I thought, oh, my word. And I said, no, Lord, no. It's only five o' clock in the morning. No, no, no. We got about A mile down the road, my heart was exploding. I felt God saying to me, he is cheating on his wife. So I turned to the taxi driver. I said, are you cheating on your wife? And at that moment, he nearly lost control of the taxi. And he turned to me and he said, yes. How did you know? I said, God has just told me. And at that moment, he started to repent of just about everything he'd ever done. He started to tell me his son was going to a Catholic college. He wanted me to pray for him. He repented. He wanted to get saved. He wanted everything. He said that he'd come to church on Sunday. At our church. I wasn't there, so I don't quite know what happened. God is wanting to use you, and he's wanting to use me to break in to situations. I went into Costa's, and I noticed this poor lady on her own. She had two walking sticks. And I said to her, what has happened to you? And she said, I'm numb in my right leg. And she said, and as I was stumbling walking, she said, I fell over. And she said, I broke my right. My other leg. I broke my left leg. And she's sitting there. And I said, can I pray for you? And as I prayed, this picture, a prophetic picture, came into my mind of a heart which had a crack right through it. I thought, sometimes you get them on the phone emoji. That's what came into my mind. And I just said to this lady, look, are you broken hearted? She says, my husband has just died. So she's in Costas on her own. Her husband's just died. She's got a broken leg numbing the other leg, and I pray with her. She ends up saying, where is your church? There's a broken, needy, desperate world out there waiting for you and for me to come as an anointed people of God. I'm so thrilled Ian and the leaders here are going through this whole thing of spiritual giftings because that's what we need. It will bring evangelistic breakthrough. I better quickly move on. It also creates an agenda for prayer. Why does God speak prophetically? God speaks to you prophetically and me prophetically, so that we actually know how to pray. Say, well, Lord, if this is your purpose, then I'm going to line my prayers up with this. If there's a prophetic word to you as a church, then one of the things which we need to do, we need to pray in the light of prophetic words which have been given to the church and which have been given to individuals. And also the prophetic gifting opens up the word of God. When I was at Bible college, I was asked to go and speak or go and do church work at this very large church in Bristol. And it was experiencing charismatic revival. There was only two in the nation at the time, one in Bristol and one in York with David Watson. And they said to me they wanted me to preach. I'd never preached before in my life. They said they give me 15 minutes on a Sunday morning. I was so nervous that I spent two days just praying and fasting about what to do. And just before I got up to speak, one of the elders got up and he said, I've got a prophetic word. And it's as though he got my notes. And he'd almost read every point and said, God wants to say this. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And it was as though he'd been reading my notes. And I just felt God just saying to me, I can even use you. Wouldn't it be wonderful on a Sunday morning for those who preach and for others if you came with a prophetic word and said, I believe God's put this verse on my heart. Bang, bang, bang. And he said, that's exactly what I'm going to speak on. I tell you what, that wouldn't half open things up for him and for the whole church. You think, wow, this place is alive. Well, that's what God is wanting to do. Can you say Amen? How then does a word come and a word comes? It comes by meditating in the word of God. This is the definitive word of God. And everything we should say should line up with this word. You need to read and devour this word and go through also comes through visions and through pictures. How many of you have ever had a vision or a picture? Okay. And God wants to speak to us through visions and pictures. I was in South Africa some years ago, and the leader had gathered some pastors in McDonald's of all places. And he said, I want you to pray with one another, pray with some of the other leaders. And I gathered with two pastors, and I'm praying. And immediately as I'm praying, this picture comes into my mind of something which is like Ayer's Rock. And then I see a sword cutting into the rock and separating like a third of the rockaway. And I didn't understand it, so I didn't say anything. And it was all a bit quiet. And then I said, look, I got a picture. I said, I haven't got a clue. What it means, it seems a bit strange to me, but this is what I see. I can see like a large rock and then a sword cutting a third of the rock away and moving it to one side. And this pastor who I'd never met before, he says, I know exactly what that means. He said, I'm a pastor of a large church, 2,000 people. And he said for some time God has been telling me for the last two years to separate off some of the people and go and plant in a new township. And he said I've resisted it because I just want to keep a nice big church to myself. He said, I know exactly what that means. For me it was strange. He understood it exactly. One of the ways which God speaks is through that. He also speaks through and wants to develop. And this will happen to most of us. This is how the prophetic gifting will start. He will develop in you things like little promptings and impressions. An impression like go and encourage that person over there, go and send them a text message, drop in and see them, write a letter of encouragement, pick up the phone and just cheer them up. Just go round and see them with a bunch of flowers. How many of you ever get impressions to do that? Go and see somebody or go and do something? We need to develop that because that's the starting and the developing of the prophetic gifting. That that is what God is wanting to do. He's wanting to use. You always obey those sorts of promptings. Always do that. Another way which God will speak is through vision, is through dreams. Do any of you here ever have dreams? How you know a God given dream is that you remember it in the morning. Does anybody ever have God given dreams? If I was in the seminar I'd get you to tell us what the dreams. But I had a dream on Friday night. I don't get many dreams. I had a dream and this is a dream and it applies to people here this morning. I dreamt on Friday night that I was in a very hostile situation and the people were going to come and beat me up or damage me. And one person approached me to do that and I remember defending myself and actually overpowering him and in the end beating him up. And then it happened again. Another person and I overpower that situation, beat them up. And I'm not a street fighter or anything like that, I'm a pastor of a church. But I have in this dream and then it happens a third time. Somebody comes and tries to overpower me but I actually stop them and overpower them. And then there's silence. I thought, lord, what on earth is that about? And I felt God say this to me. I felt it is a spiritual realm where there are situations which try and come and devour us and sink us. And the reality is, the Bible says, greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. And the reality is you don't have to be pushed around by the enemy. What we can do, he's actually destroy the works of the enemy. Jesus has destroyed the works of the enemy. But we can move in to have that victory. And in the morning, in my reading, it talked about the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty in God to destroy strongholds. And I felt this. I felt that there was three situations here where people are in a situation where there's an enemy force which is looking to devalue. One was pornography which is trying to devour you. And what you need to do is to realize that greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. And you don't have to be a victim of that. No, you fight back and deal with it and see, overcome. The other situation I saw was financial ruin. Somebody almost feels like they're in a situation where you could be in financial ruin. And I feel that God is wanting to say, no, no, no, hold on a minute. He's helped you in the past not to allow the enemy, just to lie to you in these ways. No, to believe and to stand and to pray. The other situation I saw was this. I saw a marriage which was almost at breaking point. Not quite, but almost a breaking point. And it's like the enemy telling you it's no point anymore. It's like the enemy saying, oh, let's just call it a day. Let's just quit. And I just feel that God is wanting to say, no, no, no, no, no, no. Greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. Let's not be pushed around by the enemy and by his lies and tactics and dirty ways. Let's realize who we are in Christ. Let's rise up and let's push back and see the victory in Christ. God speaks through dreams. He speaks through visions. He speaks through impressions. He speaks through this. And then I've come to a close. Jeremiah was a prophet. He speaks to and started Jeremiah's ministry by saying to him, what do you see, Jeremiah? Jeremiah was in the kitchen at the time. He said, well, I can see a pot of water on the cooker. And God said to him, you've seen very well, well done. Prophesy to the nation Israel, that the judgments of God are going to come through the land like a pot of boiling water being poured out are going to scold through the land. Jeremiah, go down to the potter's house. There's a potter fashioning. What do you see? Well, I can see him shaping a candlestick, then a bowl, then something else. Say to the people of Israel, I am the potter, you are the clay. The potter can do what he likes with his clay. Jeremiah, what do you see? This time? He's in the marketplace. He said, well, I'm in the greengrocers. I can see a bunch of. Of figs which are rotten. And then I can see next to them a bunch of figs which are beautiful. And God said to him, very well, Jeremiah, you've seen very well. Now tell Israel some of you are like these beautiful, ripe, fresh figs. Others are rotten to the core. Another time he said to Jeremiah, jeremiah, and this is all in. You can read through Jeremiah. It's hilarious. So Jeremiah, take off your underpants and bury them under a rock. So he did that six months later. He said, jeremiah, come back and dig up your underpants. He dug them up, held them up. He said, jeremiah, what do you see? He says, I see my underpants, which are full of worms and holes and been chewed to bits. And God said to him, you've done very well. Now tell Israel you're like a ruined garment. You've been eaten by the words. And these were some of his prophetic words which were coming through again and again. And God can speak to you. What do you see? Well, I see that speaker up there. And it may be. And I'm just picking on something. This morning. I see that speaker up there. And God is saying to you, I'm going to amplify your voice in the school, in your family, in the place where you work. I'm going to give you prominence like you've never known before. I'm just making that up as I go along. The Holy Spirit will cause your eye to fix on something. What do you see? What do you see? Something which is with me right now, which is strange and funny, but I feel I should bring it. Our back garden backs onto the South Downs way. It's a big field we have in our garden. We've been planting some flowers, had a beautiful load of geraniums, and they were just in full bloom. And then this morning, I noticed that the whole lot had gone a Whole lot had just disappeared. And I noticed that a deer had jumped over the fence and cleaned the lot out. But I feel this morning that somebody here has invested some time and effort into a situation or setting. And it's as though there's nothing left to be seen anymore. It's as though the enemy's devoured it or eaten it up. And God wants to come and meet you this morning. I'm going to finish now because I think our time has gone and you've had enough. I'd love to talk about weighing prophecy, but you can get that. You can just read through the notes. It's important that we weigh prophecy. It matches the word of God. It does the following things. But I'm going to ask for a response this morning under the following things. First of all, are we okay for time? I get a call for a response this morning under the following things. If, you know, when I had that dream, I mentioned three situations. The porn thing, the marriage thing, or the financial thing. If, you know, that's you. I'm not going to embarrass anybody, but I want you to come out the front. We're going to pray. The other thing I want to say is I was aware, coming here that there were some situations and I was particularly aware of. I particularly aware of somebody here who gets migraine headaches. And it's like a pain goes right through your. Right across the top of your eyes. Like a really, really painful thing right across the top of your eyes. Is there anybody here who identifies with that? Okay, I'd like to pray with you at the end. I also, and I think this may be for a child, too. I want to pray for them if they're in your family or maybe you. Somebody who suffers from quite a lot of nosebleeds. Is that anybody? Oh, okay. We pray for you at the end and I saw somebody. All that I could say is I was praying I could see somebody. The only way I can describe it, I'm not medical, is you've got a sort of twisted spine or some sort of kink in your spine or something like that. And I believe God wants. All right, my love, I believe God wants to touch you as well. So these are the areas I'm going to call forward. I'm going to ask for those to come forward. I'm going to ask for the people who respond about the dream that I had to come forward. But I also want. I want. If you're responding about the dream or for the healing words, I want you to come and Stand on my right. If you're saying, lord, I want to move in the prophetic gifting and the prophetic anointing, I want you to come and stand here or come and stand in the middle here and I'm going to pray for you. And as I do, there will be an impartation into your life. There will be. And I want you to come and stand. If you say, I want to be used in the whole prophetic gifting, I want to be used, I want to help, I want to encourage, I want to be used in this gifting. I want you to come and stand right in the middle or along the back and we just pray. Okay? So people who responding to the dream or to the words of knowledge, you come and stand on the right there. Others who want to move in the prophetic gifting, you come to the front. Okay, we're going to pray. Come right forward. What I see, what I can see right now, I can see like a large boulder being thrown into a lake with all of you folks here and it's like the ripples of that water is going to fly right out. We pray, Lord Jesus, for these dear wonderful people who know you and love you, who want to move in the prophetic gifting. Your word says to earnestly, eagerly desire for this gifting. To eagerly desire it, go for it with everything you've got. You know their hearts. And I pray right now, Lord Jesus, I pray for an impartation of the prophetic gifting to come on them. To come on them, Lord. I pray right through this whole congregation of people. I pray that people will start to receive words of knowledge, impressions, visions, dreams. They'd be used to unlock very difficult situations and to bring the word of God into us. Difficult situation. I pray for them, Lord. I pray, I pray there'd be much fruit from these people, this great wonderful people moving in prophetic gifting. I really do pray for that. In Jesus name. [00:44:52] Speaker A: Yes, Lord, we, Lord, we just want to receive this as your people, Lord, you have spoken through Steve and we want to receive this. So, Lord, would you not let sword. Would you not let this go, Lord, we want to be a people pursuing this, earningly desiring this tomorrow and the day after and the day after and the day after. Would you make it happen in the times when we're in the workplace or the shopping center or wherever we are, Lord, would you instead inspire us? Would you motivate us? Would you convict us, challenge us, Lord, to move forward with. With what you have for us, Lord, because you want to do a great work in us, Lord. You want to do a great work in us. There is a new wave of the Spirit that is coming upon this whole land and upon us as a church. And so you are building us up, strengthening us, in order to send us out, Lord, you want us full of your spirit, full of the truth, of the knowledge of God, so that we are people well defended against the lies of the enemy. Strong in faith, Lord, so operating in your glory, Lord, that it comes through us, Lord, help us. That's what we pray. Help us, Lord. And all God's people said, amen. [00:46:14] Speaker B: Amen.