Bible Gem 2365 – Putting the Prophetic into Practice (Revelation 19:10)

For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. [LITV]

Revelation 19:10

We learned from the previous Gem, Jesus’ testimony and our testimony about Jesus need to be combined. Think about it, without Jesus’ testimony we have no testimony. Further more, we need the exemplar of Jesus and the power of the Spirit of God to even have a testimony. We turn now to the next major angle on this puzzling verse. In what sense is the testimony of Jesus the spirit of prophecy? The standard answer from the commentators who address this question is that any testimony related to Jesus must address the component of prophecy. Any account of Jesus’ story is not complete until the prophetic nature of His story is addressed.

Prophecy centres around the person of Jesus Christ. That’s what history is, history is about His Story. Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, [and therefore the witness of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy].

Chuck Smith

Prophecy serves to confirm Jesus’ divine mission, i.e. the ability to predict or foretell events is proof of his deity.

Joseph Benson

The true spirit of prophecy always shows itself bearing witness to Jesus.

David Guzik

In my mind it is far more than that. I don’t think for a moment the above statements are at all what John meant by his closing statement. Yes it is true that Jesus’ story, His testimony, is prophetic, but it is far more than that. Just take a glimpse at what I wrote in the prophecy section of God’s Awesome Book or take a comprehensive look at all entries in this Nugget series. If you do so you will gain a perspective on the grandeur of the mind-boggling extent and mathematical improbability of this happening in any way that didn’t involve God Almighty.

The Probability of the Messianic Prophecies

Therefore John had to mean more than what the commentators claim. Remember, John also wrote this:

“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.” Jesus

John 14:12

The spirit of prophecy according to the pentecostal commentators includes the sum total of the manifestation gifts, which include the prophetic, the ability to foretell the future, the gift of a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom, whatever these are defined to be and such definitions vary greatly. Read Bible Gem 431 [and the three Gems before it for context if you need to – 428, 429 and 430.]

But just stand back and think for a moment. Jesus’ testimony carries far more weight than that. Allow me to take two snapshots from Jesus’ time on earth, at which on both occasions John was present. (Although in the case of the first example John knew about the implications after he and the other disciples had come back.) The first example is the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well at Sychar. The second is the lunch with Simon, recorded by Luke but at which John was present.

Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. “But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”

“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.

“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied. Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband — for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet.”

John 4:14-19

That I believe to be a ‘word of knowledge’! In summary, this experience was a rebuke to the disciples who ought to have shared with the Samaritans what they had seen and heard after walking with Jesus, viz à viz what they had witnessed at the wedding in Cana in Galilee. But they totally missed the opportunity and left the woman herself to tell the villagers. Read the following segment.

You know the saying, ‘Four months between planting and harvest.’ But I say, wake up and look around. The fields are already ripe for harvest. The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! You know the saying, ‘One plants and another harvests.’ And it’s true. I sent you to harvest where you didn’t plant; others had already done the work, and now you will get to gather the harvest.”

Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did!”

John 4:35-39

Just imagine for a moment, the shock this woman must have experienced in having this stranger, this Jewish man, telling her something so personal and so shocking. After all, her words to the villagers were:

“Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?”

John 4:29

The second snapshot is this from Luke’s account of the lunch at Simon’s house:

Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.” “Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied. Then Jesus told him this story: . . .

Luke 7:36-41ff

What! Read that again! Jesus could not only stand before a woman, a stranger at the well, and tell her “all about her past.” He could also know and understand Simon’s thoughts and rebuke him for what he was thinking. My dear readers, Jesus is so far out beyond our experience it is astounding. Yet by the power of His indwelling Spirit we can do similar. Similar, not the same. I want to share with you now a taste of what Jesus Christ can do for you and in you for others. Let’s take a look at what it means to put the prophetic into practice.

Recently I have been working with my Deeper Bible 801 Discussion Group. We have been working our way through Hebrews 1:1 where the writer talks about the fact that God speaks to his people at many times and in many different ways. I asked them to write down the many times and the different ways that God has spoken to them and be prepared to share them with the group. This last Sunday I told them of a dear friend of ours at Bible College, Sharyn Clarke, who one night came out with something so deep and profound and yet so matter of fact. I asked how had God told her that? She replied it appeared as text like teletext at the bottom of the screen. I was incredulous. Never had I heard that before! She told us that happened frequently to her, that was how she knew that God was indeed saying this. She just simply read it off the bottom of the screen. I exclaimed at the time, “I have never had God do that for me. I want that! It would make things so much easier.”

Because I am in the midst of writing this Gem, I called Sharyn yesterday to confirm that my memory was accurate and I was not sharing something about which I was mistaken. She confirmed what I remembered was true and told me a whole lot more. I don’t have permission to tell you the extra detail she told me, but I can confirm my past recollections were indeed true. God does indeed speak to his people at multiple times and in many different ways.

Look for a moment at the bridge between John 2 and John 3. John says some profound things.

Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in him. But Jesus didn’t trust them, because he knew all about people. No one needed to tell him about human nature, for he knew what was in each person’s heart. There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”

Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

“How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked.

Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

John 2:23-3:12

Jesus didn’t need to be told what was in a man for He knows all things related to man (plural); enter a man (singular) and we have a case study of Jesus opening up the heart of Nicodemus, a respected Jewish teacher, to things he had no comprehension of.

Just ask my amazing wife, Tania, who in the midst of Freedom Prayer ministry sees God doing similar things in people’s lives as God has done for her as in the account I have given you below.

Now I want to expand on the Just Be A Good Girl story with Tania’s permission as it is found in the Nugget Identifying Strongholds in Our Lives, part of the Overcoming Strongholds Nuggets series. I have let Tania see what I am writing for her approval, before including it in this Gem.

This experience shows me the degree to which God is able to expose the things which lie at the centre of our struggles. At the heart of Tania’s reaction was something which happened in her first year of life. Yet it set up the reaction and the comment she came out with in certain situations. I would ask her why she said ‘that’ and she would say, “I don’t know, I just know I have to be a good girl and do what’s expected.” How do you get to the heart of a problem you are not actually aware of? Only God can sort problems like that out. God knows what is hidden deep in the heart of each one of us. Tania’s training with John Regier’s team from Caring for the Heart Ministries saw God draw out deep things sewn in Tania’s heart and mind from her first year of life. None of us really know what went on in our first year of life. Only God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit know that stuff.

More insights from John:

Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God. Then Jesus told him, “Follow me.”

Peter turned around and saw behind them the disciple Jesus loved—the one who had leaned over to Jesus during supper and asked, “Lord, who will betray you?”

Peter asked Jesus, “What about him, Lord?”

Jesus replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.”

John 21:19-22

Don’t try to emulate or copy what someone else does or desire the gift that someone else has, like me being told the way God works with Sharyn and wanting that ability too. Let God work in and through another in a way that is different from the way He works in and through you. Don’t look on another disciple’s experience and covet that. Learn to savour the unique moments that the Godhead crafts in you. I have many of them which I have recorded for you in Stories and many more that I have not written down yet. They come to mind in the context of hearing how God has worked in other people I know. We have seen that in the context of the Deeper Bible 801 discussion group. One person’s testimony sparks another to add something similar in their experience. Especially when we consider the multiple times God has broken into our experience in multiple different ways. Don’t seek after someone else’s experience, learn to discern what Father, Son and Spirit are crafting in you! Let the testimony of Jesus lead you into the depth of the Spirit of the prophetic.

During my first or second year as a Christian I was in a Jack Winter meeting in Hamilton, NZ. He encouraged us all to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us a moment in our past when anger and bitterness had entered to cause unforgiveness. Immediately I was taken back to a nine year old me, standing behind my bedroom door with a baseball bat in my hand intending to whack my father over the head with it. God showed me my heart and the unforgiveness toward my father. Jack Winter explained that often the person who was the cause of our pain was trapped in their own pain and couldn’t get free of it. We have to take responsibility for our reaction to what was done to us and forgive the person who was trapped at the bottom of their own pit of unforgiveness. The power of the testimony of Jesus as described above is released through the word of the Holy Spirit within us.

Many Christian ministries base their approach on this principle:

• Caring for the Heart Ministries – John Regier
• Elijah House – John & Paula Sandford
• Sōdzō – the Greek word at the heart of ‘salvation’ and ‘inner healing’.
• Freedom Prayer – a ministry my amazing wife Tania is part of in our church.
• Celebrate Recovery – helping people overcome habits, hurts and hang-ups.

The power of God through these ministries, which is available somewhere close to you, can free you from the things from your past which cause you to react in predictable ways which you don’t understand. But all are based on the power of God through the Holy Spirit who lives within you, if you have entered into relationship with Jesus Christ.

We live in an age of what people are calling Deep Fake. But deep fake was around when we were at Bible College. There was a ministry group that went around the students at College asking if they could pray for sickness or ailments and struggles they had. After praying, they would return a week or so later and ask if each student was healed and / or set free. If they were not healed or still had symptoms of the problem these false apostles would say “You must have sin in your life preventing your full healing. You need to ask for forgiveness and repent in order to claim your healing.” Sharyn, mentioned above, and one other of our Bible College friends experienced this. When the Holy Spirit moves through our lives in power to heal and to set free you don’t have to dream up the healing or imagine the miracle. You will know you have been touched and changed by the Spirit of God. But there ARE times when God doesn’t heal when we ask and which we can’t explain.

There is another angle to this statement which we will explore in the last Gem in this series which can answer even those times when God doesn’t respond as we would like Him to.

“For the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of the prophesy.”

Having walked with Jesus and seen and heard Jesus ability to look inside and know what people were thinking, John knew instinctively that Jesus had insight into every individual.

Ian  

Today we’re inundated with information, flooded with facts, and drowning in data while dying of thirst for true wisdom.

Rick Warren

Never Allow The Gifts That Have Been Bestowed Upon You To Ever Eclipse The One Who Bestowed Them.

Robb Thompson

God touches and moves, warns and desires all equally, and He wants one quite as much as another. The inequality lies in the way in which His touch, His warnings, and His gifts are received.

Johannes Tauler

Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.

St Francis of Assisi

Come on this journey with the prophetic and experience a deeper understanding of yourself and why you do the things you do. Father, Son and Holy Spirit know you better than you know yourself. They can disclose to you the reasons you do what you do. I was there when they did it for Tania.

Ian

Call to Me, and I will answer and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

Jeremiah 33:3

Feel free to talk to me about these things. There is so much more to share.

Next Gem we will go deeper still into this enigmatic statement in Revelation 19:10.