David Noakes’s own visit to Toronto in 1994.

David Noakes continues his personal account of witnessing the Toronto ‘experience’.

This week’s re-printed excerpt includes a NEW additional note from the author on the practice of laying on hands.

My Toronto Experience

The phenomenon of Kansas City did recede, although it left behind a lot of confusion and unresolved issues, and I thought little about the beach picture (outlined last week) again for some years.

Then, in the early months of 1994, we began to hear of the amazing things which were being reported from Toronto. As the reports continued to flow in, I was being urged by many people to visit and experience what was happening there. Having no great desire to go and with a busy schedule, I resisted the idea for several months, but finally I was convinced that the Lord was requiring me to make the trip and I went to Toronto for a week's visit.

I arrived in Toronto on Friday 14 October, 1994 and attended meetings in the concluding days of the large 'Catch the Fire' conference which had been taking place during that week. These meetings took place in a large auditorium of a local hotel, which was capable of containing, I would guess, some two to three thousand people.

During the times of worship, I felt as if I were in a rock concert. The level of noise was deafening to the point of being physically painful and oppressive, and brought an increasing sense of unreality. This, together with the insistent rhythmic beat of the drums and of the bass guitar tends to induce a state bordering on hypnosis in susceptible people and creates a spiritual atmosphere in which I would say without hesitation that the demonic can thrive.

During these times of worship, many people began to exhibit jerking bodily movements which were unnatural. Some of these people appeared to be in a state of trance. From a number of years' experience of deliverance ministry, I would identify a good deal of what I saw as proceeding from demonic spirits associated with occult practices, particularly voodoo.

I was urged by many people to visit Toronto and resisted the idea for several months, but finally I was convinced that the Lord was requiring me to make the trip.

There were some women near to where I was standing whose bodily movements were unmistakably those of increasing sexual excitement, reaching a point at which they fell to the floor. All of this was perhaps hardly surprising in an atmosphere which was really not unlike that of a pop concert in which the fans get worked up to an increasing height of frenzy. What disturbed me most was not that satan was active - of course he always is - but the failure of leadership to distinguish between the spirits which were operating.

Particular Line of Teaching

The teaching which I encountered in Toronto was to the effect that because God is doing a work amongst his people, therefore everything which takes place is by definition an activity of the Holy Spirit and it is assumed that satan is inactive.

I have never encountered any form of teaching which is more dangerous or which could open the door so widely to deception and the undetected activity of a demonic spirit. To make such an assumption was a total abdication of one of the principal responsibilities of Christian leadership. The warnings in Scripture about deception were being completely ignored and such teaching flies in the face of scriptural commands that when any form of spiritual activity is seen to be taking place, it is to be weighed and tested and an assessment is to be made as to whether its origin is truly from God.

The teaching from Toronto, however, set aside the spiritual gift of distinguishing between spirits (1 Cor 12:10) and ignored the clear teaching of other scriptures. In 1 Corinthians 14:29 we are told that where prophecy is being spoken in the assembly of the church, we are to “weigh carefully what is said”. The words underlined are a translation of a Greek word which comes from exactly the same root as the word used in 1 Corinthians 12:10 for the discerning of, or distinguishing between, spirits.

The instruction of 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22, again in the context of spiritual manifestations, is that we should “test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil”. Here the Greek word translated 'test' has the meaning of examining a thing, putting it to the test to determine whether or not it is genuine; and the identical word is found in 1 John 4:1: “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (emphasis mine).

The word of God warns us consistently never to accept spiritual manifestations as being from the Holy Spirit unless their source has been put to the test by the body of believers and discerned to be genuine.

The word of God warns us consistently never to accept spiritual manifestations as being from the Holy Spirit unless their source has been put to the test by the body of believers and discerned to be genuine.

It is the height of folly and irresponsibility to ignore such scriptures in days when not only the activity of God but also the activity of satan is becoming greater and more widespread. If we are to accept that in some particular situation such as this, it is in order for discernment to be discarded, where will such a teaching end? How are we to know where, if at all, we should draw the line?

The warnings of Scripture in, for example, 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 and Revelation 13:13-14, are now coming all too close for comfort, and a Church which had not learned to distinguish between good and evil (Heb 5:14) will be a target for any kind of deception which begins to take place. I am concerned about the demonic activity which I saw taking place in some people in Toronto, but I am far more alarmed at the potential results of this particular line of teaching.

Laying On of Hands (see also NEW Author’s Note, base of article)

On a number of occasions since my visit to Toronto, believers have requested prayer at the conclusion of a meeting at which I have spoken. They have done so because they had previously submitted to laying on of hands in order to receive the 'Toronto Blessing', and had since felt unaccountably troubled in spirit in a way which had previously been foreign to them.

Every such person to whom I have ministered has shown evidence of being under demonic oppression and has received specific deliverance in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is not of course to suggest that all those who have had contact with the Toronto Blessing have come into spiritual bondage; to jump to such a conclusion would be entirely unwarranted. What has seemed to me to be of considerable significance, however, is the repeated combination of two factors.

In every one of these cases, the person for whom I have been asked to pray had first received a spiritual impartation by means of the laying on of hands by another person who had themselves already received it; and secondly, had subsequently become disturbed in spirit in a way which they had not experienced before.

I believe these facts should draw our attention to an issue which is of greater importance than perhaps we have previously realised. A few days before I went to Toronto, I was waiting upon the Lord and was given a short word of encouragement and instruction. I wrote it down, and now quote a passage whose relevance has become increasingly apparent:

Do not accept the laying on of hands from anyone except those whom you know from experience to be trustworthy and to have my Spirit within them. To submit voluntarily to the laying on of hands is to submit to the spiritual power that is within a man. When this power is that of the Holy Spirit, then you will receive blessing through that which is good; but where it is not, evil can be transferred.

More recently my attention has been drawn to the lesson contained in Haggai 2:10-14. In it, two questions are posed. The first is whether if consecrated meat comes in contact with other food, the consecration is thereby transferred to the un-consecrated food; and the answer is that it is not. The second question is whether if a person who is ceremonially defiled through contact with a dead body touches food, that defilement is transferred to the food so that it also becomes defiled; the answer this time is affirmative.

It is the height of folly and irresponsibility to ignore such scriptures in days when not only the activity of God but also the activity of satan is becoming greater and more widespread.

The message is plain: spiritual consecration cannot be transferred by physical contact, as in the laying on of hands. If a man has received spiritual blessing, he cannot pass it on to another in this way (if he is spiritually undefiled and lays hands on another, the Holy Spirit may move directly upon that other person but where that is the case, there is no spiritual transference taking place between the persons themselves).

Spiritual defilement however, can be transferred from one to another through physical contact. It is well established, for example, that such a transference of spirits can take place through illicit sexual activity. If one man has come under the influence of an evil spirit, the influence can be transferred to another who submits voluntarily to the laying on of his hands.

We need to beware of careless practices and to exercise godly vigilance and caution. Paul warns: “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure” (1 Tim 5:22). It is imperative for our safety that we take heed to the instructions of Scripture; they are given for the protection and wellbeing of the whole Body.

Misuse of the Word of God

While I was at Toronto, and even more in the months which followed, I had an increasing concern - to the point of considerable alarm - at the ways in which the word of God was now being mishandled by many leaders in the charismatic churches.

The misuse and distortion of Scripture in order to try to justify bizarre spiritual manifestations with some sort of theological explanation has been appalling; it has been as if attempts were being made to underpin a collapsing building with any piece of rubble which comes to hand.

The difficulty has been that the 'building' in question does not have any foundation in Scripture, however desperate the attempts to find one. At the Airport Vineyard Fellowship in Toronto, I heard the Pastor give a message in which he declared that Isaiah 25:6 was a description of what God was currently doing - God was in 'feasting mode'. Yet that Scripture had no possible relevance to any present situation; it is lifted straight out of the context of an apocalyptic passage relating to the events of the Day of the Lord and what will happen at the Second Coming of Christ.

Again, in the course of the same message, he made reference to the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32, and declared that it teaches that God loves any opportunity to hold a party. Yet its emphasis is nothing of the sort, but rather the greatness of God's fatherly forgiveness and restoration of a repentant sinner.

The misuse and distortion of Scripture in order to try to justify bizarre spiritual manifestations with some sort of theological explanation has been appalling.

A further example of such extraordinary misuse of Scripture came when a prominent Anglican leader visited a church where I have a friend in leadership. His message consisted of encouragement to welcome unusual spiritual manifestations, including the making of animal noises, and it was based on one sentence taken out of Isaiah 28:21: “to do his work, his strange work”. These few words, again lifted out of context, were declared to justify the idea that the bizarre activities were a 'strange work' which God is doing in these days, and that they should therefore be accepted without further question.

But in the context, what is actually being described is a work of judgment and destruction by God against his own covenant people of Israel, and it is to him a 'strange work' and an 'alien task', because it is foreign and abhorrent to God's normal desire to bless his people and to act in mercy rather than in judgment. Theologically, therefore, the previous sort of teaching has no validity.

Drunk in the Spirit

The strange and un-coordinated behaviour of many who have been touched by the Toronto experience has frequently been described as being due to people being 'drunk in the Spirit'. I have myself for many years been familiar with the phenomenon of people who are receiving ministry from the Holy Spirit experiencing loss of bodily strength so as to be temporarily too weak to rise from their chair or from the floor; indeed, I also have had the same experience. Never before, however, have I seen the spectacle of people staggering about, slurring their speech and showing other characteristic signs normally associated with alcoholic intoxication.

The concept that a person can be 'drunk in the Spirit' is one of which Scripture knows nothing. Two passages have been used frequently to try to justify the idea, but they entirely fail to do so when subjected to proper interpretation.

In Acts 2:1-13, what is being described is the phenomenon, historically unprecedented and utterly amazing, of about 120 people suddenly beginning to declare the wonders of God in a host of different foreign languages. It was only those who mocked what was happening who suggested drunkenness as the cause, but the majority of the onlookers were simply described, understandably enough, as “amazed and perplexed”. There is no suggestion whatever of any behaviour which justified the description of physical drunkenness, and to try to read it into the text is to abuse the word of God. Is Peter's sermon that of a drunken man?

The second Scripture used in this context is Ephesians 5:18, but it says nothing whatever about being drunk in the Spirit. Indeed, coming at the end of a lengthy passage urging the believer to avoid ungodly behaviour, it would be astonishing if it did! The verse forbids being drunk (literally 'soaked') with wine, the evidence of which is debauched (literally 'unsaved') behaviour (v18). Instead, believers are to be filled with the Spirit.

Everywhere in Scripture, drunkenness is condemned as ungodly. How can we therefore accept that the Spirit of God would deliberately bring about in a believer the evidence of drunken behaviour?

The Greek verb used is pleroo, which had nothing to do with drunkenness, and the evidence of being in that condition is that they will produce psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (v19), thanksgiving to God (v20) and submission to one another out of reverence for Christ (v21), not slurred speech and drunken behaviour!

Everywhere in Scripture, drunkenness is condemned as ungodly. How can we therefore accept that the Spirit of God would deliberately bring about in a believer the evidence of drunken behaviour as if he were intoxicated with alcohol? The thing is utterly unthinkable, unless one discards the consistent teaching of the Word of God as irrelevant. Sadly, and most frightening of all, this is what some charismatic leaders are now beginning to do.

Extra-Biblical Experience

Animal noises, convulsions, bodily jerkings, loss of speech control and the like, are being described as 'extra-biblical' phenomena - which they certainly are. This feature of the activities should, however, put an immediate question mark over their authenticity; normally, unbiblical experience is found to emanate, not from the Holy Spirit, but from the realm of the demonic.

But among many leaders, no such questioning has taken place; but rather the reverse. It has even been suggested that the spiritual experiences and the manifestations of the Holy Spirit recorded in the pages of the New Testament were the experience of the Church in its infancy in those early days; but that now in our day the Church is being brought into maturity and we must therefore expect experiences from God which were unknown to the early Church and therefore not to be found in the Bible. We are consequently in uncharted waters, being led solely by the Spirit. This opens the Church to precisely the danger which Paul defines in Ephesians 4:14.

This sort of teaching, if pursued to its logical conclusion, is the height of dangerous folly. It is like saying that our maps are no longer of use to us because we have gone beyond their boundaries. We can no longer check our course, but must trust that any wind which happens to blow will take us in the right direction. We have discarded, however, all means of knowing either where the wind is coming from or the direction in which we are heading. In fact, we are drifting helplessly at the mercy of any force which may influence us.

A teaching which discards the Bible as the final authority for the validity of Christian experience is a teaching which emanates straight from the master of deception himself. It tears down the boundary walls which God has erected for the safety of his people, and it opens the door wide for the charismatic Church to join in an unwitting embrace with the New Age movement and all its occult activities.

A teaching which discards the Bible as the final authority for the validity of Christian experience is a teaching which emanates straight from the master of deception himself.

In the mid-90s, I even had reported to me instances of levitation occurring at Toronto-type meetings at a church in the north of England. Where will the line be drawn? On the basis of this sort of thinking and teaching, why should not telepathy or astral travel or any other occult practices be embraced under the deception that they are God's latest blessings to his maturing Church?

Unless there is repentance and a return to an acknowledgment of the supreme and ultimate authority of the word of God, the Church is being led into a place of great spiritual peril.

Next week: David concludes his chapter, looking at the need for repentance and discernment.

**NEW**

[Editor: Following some feedback that Blessing the Church? seems to advocate against the practice of laying on hands, we felt clarification was necessary and approached David for further comment. His response is below.]

Author’s Note

The issue which I was seeking to tackle [in Blessing the Church?] was the very important one of transference of spirits from one human being to another. 20 years ago this was a subject which hardly ever received any attention by bible teachers; but to those of us who had been brought into experience of deliverance ministry, it was realised to be an important factor in some cases where folk were being demonically troubled. Our brothers Edmund Heddle and John Fieldsend in particular highlighted its importance to me.

This significant issue was underlined in my own experience following my visit to Toronto in 1994; following that visit, I found myself being asked to pray after almost every meeting for believers who had sought to receive the ‘Toronto Blessing’ - and had subsequently found themselves in unexpected spiritual difficulties. In each such case, when I ministered to such people, they received specific deliverance from certain powerful demonic spirits which had not been troubling them previously.

It was a matter of some perplexity for a time, however, that I was also being told by some who had been to similar ‘Toronto’-type meetings that they had received a genuine fresh experience of the Holy Spirit. This perplexity was finally resolved when I began to find that those people had been seeking the Lord for himself - and in his faithfulness, he had met with them by the Holy Spirit.

Those who were troubled, however, had attended with a different motive - not to seek the Lord for who he is, but wanting to receive the ‘Toronto Blessing’ because it was new, exciting and carried with it spectacular manifestations. The former group had met with the Lord, with good results; while the latter had received what they had gone for, which was actually demonic and brought harm to their spiritual lives, and also to many churches.

What I also found was that without exception, in my experience, those who had been affected by ungodly spirits had received an impartation of the ‘Blessing’ through the laying on of hands by another person who had already received it.

This drew my attention to the vital matter of what can occur through the laying on of hands - impartation of spirits from one to another. The Holy Spirit is not imparted from one human being to another, but is given to individuals by the sovereign act of God (e.g. Num 11:17, 25). In John 19:22, Jesus breathed on the disciples and said "Receive Holy Spirit". In Acts 8:17 and 19:6, we are told of the apostles laying hands on new believers, and the Holy Spirit came upon them - but there is no suggestion that the Holy Spirit was transferred from them to the believers; He came upon them in response to the action of the apostles, which is very different, being a sovereign work of God.

These verses attest to the transfer of the Holy Spirit to a person in response to a believer's obedience in laying on of hands. However, experience in ministry has shown over and over again that other spirits can transfer through physical contact to a person who is open to receive them. Illicit sexual intercourse is one outstanding example; but voluntary submitting to the laying on of hands is another easy means of physical transference of demonic spirits (it is important to emphasise that the person has to be willing and receptive. It cannot just happen simply by being in the company of someone who is demonised; we must be willing to receive from them).

When we allow a person to lay hands on us, we open ourselves to receive from them. There is danger in this if we don’t know the person. They may be harbouring one or more unclean spirits, and when we allow them to lay hands on us, these can and often do transfer to us if we are open and unguarded. For this reason, we should certainly not allow unknown people to minister directly to us. Scripture urges us to "guard our hearts with all diligence" (Prov 4:23).

I do hope this brief attempt to explain will prove to be of some help.

David Noakes, 12 April 2018

Series Information

This article is part of a series, re-publishing the 1995 book ‘Blessing the Church?’, an analysis of the ‘Toronto Blessing’ and a wider critique of the charismatic movement in the late 20^th Century. Click here for previous instalments and to read the editorial background to the series.

David Noakes continues his commentary on the state of the charismatic movement.

Having considered how counterfeit spiritual activity has infiltrated the church, David now turns to the dangers of false doctrine, before applying these insights to the Kansas City Prophets.

Warnings of False Doctrine

Jesus, Paul and John have all warned us concerning the dangers of counterfeit spiritual activity. There is also, however, a second major aspect of deception about which the Scriptures warn, and it is that of false doctrine.

Paul speaks about it numerous times in his letters, for example in 2 Corinthians 11:1-4, in Galatians 1:6-9 and in Colossians 2:8-23. He warns in 1 Timothy 4:1 that “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars...”.

Let us be clear about what Paul is saying: it is a warning principally for the closing days of the age - 'later times'. It is a warning that Christians will fall away: you cannot abandon a faith unless you have first been a party to it. The false teachings will not be man-made, but demonically-inspired by deceiving spirits, and they will come through people who are hypocrites and liars; like the 'savage wolves' of Acts 20:29-30, they will be falsely motivated so as to draw people away from the truth in order to obtain a following for themselves.

It is of vital importance in these days that we are alert to the dangers of false teaching. Those of us who teach must be diligent to declare the whole counsel of God; it was only on that basis that Paul was able to declare himself innocent of the blood of all who had heard him (Acts 20:26-27) and he was warning the elders of the church at Ephesus to be equally diligent.

It is of vital importance in these days that we are alert to the dangers of false teaching.

All believers should cultivate the habit of the 'noble Bereans' (Acts 17:11), who did not accept even the teaching of Paul as being true until they had examined it in the light of the scriptures. How we in the church need in these days to re-examine our diet of the seemingly-endless flow of books and magazines, and to ensure that above all we are fully acquainted and familiar with the whole of the Bible. Only by knowing what is in God's word can we walk in safety. 

A Time Will Come…

Paul's chief warning concerning false doctrine is found in 2 Timothy 4:1-4. He has just encouraged Timothy at the end of chapter 3 concerning the importance of holding fast to Scripture, underlining that “all Scripture is God-breathed...so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (vv16-17, emphasis added). We need to note that there are those in leadership in the Church of God in these days who do not believe in the inspiration of Scripture; if they thus declare the word of God to be untrue concerning itself, we must then question the validity of whatever else such men may say.

In chapter 4, Paul urges Timothy to preach the Word “with great patience and careful instruction” (v2), particularly in the light of the fact that “the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (vv3-4). 

I believe we are now living in such days. A factor which has lately become of particular concern is the coming together of the two major facets of deception - counterfeit spiritual activity and false doctrine - in such a way as to support and reinforce one another. This brings great danger to the Body of Christ, particularly as many believers now have only a very limited knowledge of what is contained in the Bible.

In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, the warning of Moses to the people of Israel is that they may encounter a prophet who predicts signs and wonders which do in fact come to pass but that this in itself is not sufficient to validate him as a true man of God; for if he then teaches them falsely so as to lead them astray, he is to be regarded as a false prophet.

Biblically, therefore, the acid test of the genuineness of a man's ministry lies not in signs and wonders, nor even in accurate predictions, but in his faithfulness to the Lord in declaring doctrine which is in accordance with God's word.

How we in the church need in these days to re-examine our diet of books and magazines, and to ensure that above all we are fully acquainted with the Bible.

The Kansas City Prophets

In recent years, this biblical principle of giving pre-eminence to the revealed word of God has been turned upside down. In 1990 came the experience of the ‘Kansas City Prophets’.

These men were brought to the charismatic church in Britain that year on a wave of publicity concerning their outstanding prophetic ministry, and particularly of a specific predictive prophecy that a great revival would break out in this country in October 1990. It did not, to the dismay and embarrassment of many church leaders who had publicly endorsed this ministry, and to the great disappointment of thousands of believers who had believed that their longings for revival were about to be realised and that they would see dramatic events.

This sort of happening is dishonouring to the name of the Lord, bringing his Church into ridicule in the eyes of those who had been exposed to the extensive publicity, particularly in the mass media. It also undermines the belief that the Holy Spirit does bring genuine prophecy to the Church for our up-building and enlightenment.

Furthermore, the shock and disappointment has damaging and far-reaching effects. For many years God's people in the charismatic churches have been given by their leaders specific words of prophecy and much teaching of a prophetic nature which has been triumphalist in flavour, encouraging expectations of mighty visitations of God, of great numerical increase, and of the Church enjoying an experience of exercising power and authority in the world, equipped with unparalleled supernatural spiritual power.

This kind of teaching has been entirely at odds with the biblical picture of a suffering servant Church displaying the humility of her Master, preaching the Gospel in the last days under increasing pressure and persecution. It brings with it a particular danger from which we are now, I believe, beginning to reap harmful results.

Triumphalist teaching and words of prophecy is entirely at odds with the biblical picture of a suffering servant Church.

Where leaders have continued to promise great things to the people and those promises have gone unfulfilled, the leaders come under an increasing sense of pressure to deliver the goods which have been promised; and the people's experience of disappointment, of hope continually deferred, leads to disillusionment. 

The scene is thus set for the entry of deception, because both leaders and people become desperate at the failed predictions and dashed hopes, and both are increasingly likely to grasp at any straw which appears at last to bring fulfilment.

In such circumstances the counterfeit can all too easily succeed, because the need for something, anything, to fill the gap overrides the Godly caution which should test and discern the source of what is being offered, before it is accepted as genuine.

Triumphalist Teaching

The doctrine brought by the Kansas City Prophets was very much in line with the triumphalism of Restorationist teaching and expectations. The teaching was based upon specific prophecies which have been reproduced in articles 15-19 in this series. It was that God was raising up in the Church an ‘end-time breed of dread warriors', before whose power and authority nothing would be able to stand. They would be an all-conquering army; and the scriptural basis for that teaching was taken from Joel 2:2-11.

To base such a doctrine on that passage of Scripture, however, is entirely fallacious. Arising immediately from the preceding description of the effects of a great plague of locusts, the passage describes an all-consuming army invading the Land of Israel, and taken in its context of “the day of the Lord” (vv1-2, 11), it is speaking prophetically of an invading army sent by God to execute his final judgment against Judah and Jerusalem at the end of the age. Certainly its fulfilment is yet in the future, at the time of Jacob's tribulation (Jer 30); but it does not refer to the Church.

Nowhere in Scripture does God call his Church to be an invading army to execute judgment. Nor does it speak of a worldwide domination; the specific geographical setting is the Land of Israel and in particular the City of Zion.

Such teaching, based on a complete distortion of this passage from the word of God, displays the worst sort of error in interpretation. It takes specific predictive prophecy, converts it into an allegory which is not to be found in the text that the invaders represent Christian 'dread warriors' and then bases a doctrine upon that allegorical fancy. It is not merely nonsense, however. It is also dangerous to the Church because of the numbers of leaders who received it with gladness and were willing to let their people believe such teaching.

Where leaders have promised great things to the people and those promises have gone unfulfilled, there is increasing pressure on leaders to deliver the goods – setting the scene for the entry of deception.

Why should such false doctrine be so gladly and easily received? It was received gladly because it reinforced all the false doctrine and false prophecy which had been accepted during the previous 15 years. 

It was also received easily, I believe, for a subtler and deadlier reason, which is to be found in the coming together to reinforce one another of the two main strands of deception - counterfeit spiritual manifestations and false teaching - to which I have already referred. Let us now consider the topic a little further.

Put to the Test

The Kansas City Prophets came to Britain as guests whose ministry was being invited and welcomed by many prominent church leaders in the country. Some of us had been unhappy about this visit, because we were not at ease with their style of ministry or their doctrine, and in particular we had said publicly that we did not believe the specific prophecy concerning the outbreak of revival in October 1990 to have come from the Lord.

During the summer of 1990 there was a preliminary gathering where the ministry of these men was presented to an invited group of national charismatic church leaders. Some remained unhappy and unconvinced, but others were willing at the end to sign a statement approving of the ministry as being valid. In view of the doctrine already mentioned, one might have expected the ministry to be regarded as questionable on those grounds with no further evidence being necessary; but there was a further ingredient involved.

An outstanding and spectacular feature of the ministry lay in the singling out by name from the public platform of individual members of the audience with whom the speaker was apparently not acquainted. Words of knowledge were given concerning those individuals, relating to aspects of their past life and their present circumstances, and usually completed with encouraging prophecy concerning their future. The accuracy of the words of knowledge brought amazement and served to convince many that they should attest the ministry as being from God.

To be convinced on these grounds alone, however, is to make an assumption which can be dangerously misleading. There is, of course, no question but that such words of knowledge could certainly have been given by revelation from the Holy Spirit; but we need to be alert to the fact that this is not the only possibility where supernatural spiritual activity is being manifested. It is essential also to take other factors into account in order to be sure of the source from which the manifestation originates.

One factor, the nature of the doctrine, we have already mentioned; in addition there is the scriptural injunction to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1), and a further matter of vital importance is whether what is happening is consistent with the revelation of Scripture: is it in character for the God of the Bible to be acting in this sort of way? An understanding of the ways of God as revealed in his word is of great importance: according to Psalm 95:10, quoted again in Hebrews 3:10, the hearts of God's people go astray when they do not know his ways.

We charismatic Christians can be terrifyingly gullible when it comes to supernatural spiritual manifestation. We assume that because a thing looks right, it is right. A good counterfeit always looks right unless and until it is put to the test.

We charismatic Christians can be terrifyingly gullible when it comes to supernatural spiritual manifestation.

When a word of knowledge is true, we assume that this means that it must have come from God. That is an assumption which is unsafe to make, and one which the word of God demonstrates to be so. In Acts 16:16-18, we find the following account of the experience of Paul and Silas with a slave girl who had a spirit of divination:

Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved”. She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned round and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

There was not one false word in the slave girl's statement about Paul and Silas. The spirit of divination was speaking absolute factual truth through her. Yet Paul discerned that the source of her knowledge was false and commanded the evil spirit to leave her.

What a lesson this contains for us in these days. How much we need to be alert and discerning, aware of the subtleties of the Adversary. satan has no objection to presenting us with any amount of factual truth, but always with a false motive. If true statements will cause us to lower our guard and be lulled into a false sense of security, then he will willingly use them to pave the way so that when the lie finally comes we will not detect it.

If, by a spirit of divination, he can give us a number of accurate words of knowledge so as to convince us that God is the source from which this spiritual manifestation is coming, then he will gladly oblige; once we have made the mistaken assumption that all is from God and all is well, we will then without hesitation accept the false teaching which follows.

It is imperative that we learn the ways of God from Scripture. The doctrine of Joel's Army was false and the ministry should have been questioned on those grounds alone. In addition, however, we need to ask the question: 'Would Jesus in person be doing such a thing in such a way?', specifically in this case: 'Would Jesus personally stand on a public platform and dispense words of knowledge for no apparent reason other than to display the fact that he had the ability to do so?'

The answer in light of Scripture would be a resounding NO! Jesus was never willing to perform spiritual signs to order, as a performance for its own sake. He did so when it was necessary for the purpose of exercising the compassion of God towards the needy; the signs confirmed the truth of the word which he spoke and they were certainly indications of his Messiahship, but he chose to communicate his authority through the words which he spoke, not through the signs and wonders.

satan has no objection to presenting us with any amount of factual truth, but with a false motive - to lower our guard so that when the lie finally comes we will not detect it.

Indeed, Jesus often told those whom he healed to keep quiet about it. In these days, however, we are more impressed by the signs than by the truth of the word and it brings us into great danger of deception. 

Believing without question or testing that the source of origin of the signs is genuine, we easily swallow the bait which has masked the hidden hook of false doctrine to bring us into error.

A Vivid Picture

During the summer of 1990, the members of the ministry team of which I was part met together for a day to pray and wait upon the Lord about this perplexing matter of the then-impending visit of the Kansas City Prophets. During that time, I received and shared a vivid mental picture.

I saw first a large, flat, empty expanse of sand on a seashore. The sea was a very long way back down the beach, and scattered about on the sand were a number of large rocks, all of which seemed to be about four to five feet high. Each rock had a flat top on which was a small lighthouse.

The picture then changed. The rocks no longer supported lighthouses but were otherwise unaltered. The sands were covered with many people, enjoying themselves on the beach on a fine warm day. Then, as I watched, there came sweeping in across the sand a sudden very swift flood-tide. Nobody had time to get out of its way, except for some who scrambled onto the tall rocks and stood there, above the level of the water, which seemed to be about three to four feet deep.

There was no panic from those in the water. After momentary surprise, they were splashing around and shouting to those who were up on the rocks: “Come on in, the water's warm and it feels lovely”, but those on the rocks were refusing, saying “we don't trust it”.

Then, as suddenly as the flood-tide had come in, it receded back across the sands and all those in the water were swept out with it. The sands were now empty again except for those standing on the rocks, who I saw had now become the lighthouses which I had first seen.

Asking the Lord what this meant, I received the understanding that the flood-tide signified a coming wave of deception; it was not the first and it would recede, but it would not be the last, and further, more potent waves of deception would come. Those who remained happily in the water were deceived by the fleshly appeal of what was happening to them, and their failure to discern the true nature of it and withdraw would mean that they would be easily swept into the next wave when it came, and further deceived.

Those who stood on the rocks were those who stood on the rock of God's word and distrusted what was suddenly happening, and they would continue to be as lighthouses of warning when further flood-tides came in to try to deceive God's people.

Next week: David offers his testimony of his personal encounter with the Toronto Movement.

This article is part of a series, re-publishing the 1995 book ‘Blessing the Church?’. Click here for previous instalments. References to time spans have been edited where necessary.

Enjoying God’s good gift of music.

God has given us richly all things to enjoy (1 Tim 6:17) – and that includes music. Over the past few weeks we have seen how music is an innately spiritual phenomenon with power to affect people deeply which can be turned for good or ill. We have seen how music features in Scripture and how, throughout history, it has both expressed and shaped the spiritual state of societies.

We finish this short series, which is not intended to be comprehensive, but more a starting point, by looking at how we can apply good principles of discernment to our music-making and musical consumption.

What Makes ‘Good’ Music?!

The question of ‘what makes good music?’ is, of course, incredibly (some might say completely) subjective. However, through history and around our diverse world, certain qualities are repeatedly valued. Broadly speaking, music judged to be of good quality is:

• Evocative: speaking to and expressing the emotions
  
• Creative: a vehicle for imagination, inspiration and originality
  
• Intelligent: thoughtful and perceptive in both composition and performance
  
• Skilful: displaying talent and proficiency – again, in both composition and performance.
  

Dwelling on these prized attributes this week, I realised how closely they align with the command that we are to worship God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Luke 10:27). It seems that the Lord designed music with in-built capacities to enable us to worship with our whole beings. At the same time, He also designed it to be accessible and enjoyable for everyone, regardless of ability. It really is the perfect vehicle for worship. What a wonderful God we serve!

However, as intimated above, music can be put to the service of the flesh, the world and the enemy, instead of the service of God. Musical evocativeness, creativity, intelligence and skill – though intended for godly worship - can instead be used to entice and corrupt. Even within the Church, it can be used to draw attention to man more than God, or to sow seeds of false doctrine instead of proclaiming truth.

The Lord designed music with in-built capacities to enable us to worship with our whole beings.

The rest of this article will focus on the principles that characterise truly biblical music (particularly that used in church, though CCM – discussed last week – overlaps and can be judged on the same merits), though I will remark at the end on how we might be discerning in our everyday consumption of music – i.e. for leisure, background music, etc. This is not something to be over-thought or approached legalistically, but rather something to be surrendered to the Lord as part of our daily existence as ‘living sacrifices’, wholly set upon his altar.

As we yield our music-making and musical enjoyment to him afresh, I pray that he will breathe new life into it through the Holy Spirit, and that we will discover more of what it means to do everything for his glory.

Testing Needed

Music written and brought into being as part of worship is not something to be taken lightly, for it is a primary vehicle through which we offer our sacrifice of praise to the Lord (Heb 13:15). It also affects us, and others, very deeply, touching and feeding the soul.

For these reasons, I believe that music and lyrics used in worship ought to be tested, even as teaching should be, and a culture of healthy musical discernment should be encouraged in churches and home fellowships – led with wisdom and involving the input of mature, trustworthy Christians.

So, how do we set about this? How can we bring to bear biblical discernment on the music we use in worship? How can we encourage the worship leaders and musicians of our acquaintance - especially the younger ones - to think biblically when it comes to their musical production and consumption?

Hallmarks of Biblical Music

“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” (Colossians 3:16)

“…be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:18-20)

I believe that truly godly music will bear some specific hallmarks in increasing measure and developing maturity, which we can use as part of any testing process. I offer five below.¹

Truly godly music will bear some specific hallmarks in increasing measure and developing maturity.

Biblical music…

…glorifies God: It may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised at the amount of Christian music in existence which draws attention to us more than to the Lord. Good worship music points people to God, lifting the soul’s eyes up to Heaven and putting life’s trials in the context of his unchanging character and overarching purpose.

In that respect, worship music is always humble, whether it manifests as quiet reverence or joyful noise; ultimately all the sounds we make as part of worship should be about him and for him, not about and for us. We can be blessed, healed and delivered through the Lord ministering to us in times of worship, but these are wonderful by-products which should never eclipse worship’s main goal.

…edifies believers: Godly music feeds the new man, not the old sinful self, speaking truth into the human spirit and encouraging the growth of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In other words, if music always takes us somewhere, godly music encourages us in the direction of Heaven, not Hell (Eph 4:1), stirring up the spirit, not the flesh!

As such, in congregational contexts, it builds up the Body of Christ around the truths of Scripture, binding believers together in the same faith and the same hope.

…proclaims scriptural truth: Whether directly quoted or not, godly music is rich in the truths and principles of Scripture: not selectively, nor manipulatively, but comprehensively, clearly and in good faith. Feeding on biblical music can be a fantastic way to memorise Scripture. The word is sharper than a double-edged sword (Heb 4:12), and truly biblical music will allow its refining power to cut us to the quick, even as we sing. And in forthtelling the word of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit, godly music will naturally have a prophetic edge.

In these ways, lyrical substance is more important than musical style, though style is obviously not morally or spiritually neutral, being an outflow of the writer’s heart (as we unpacked in the second part of this series). Instrumental music inspired by biblical truth will bear witness to godly principles, such as [creative] order and moral decency (1 Cor 14:40).

Biblical music builds up the Body of Christ around the truths of Scripture, binding believers together in the same faith and the same hope.

…is offered in the right spirit: one of humble surrender, true faith and glad obedience, on the part of both writers and worshippers. The creation of godly music demands hearts that are in the right place before God - not seeking to bend music’s power to selfish ends, or to force God’s hand or work up a particular atmosphere. It is the new age that uses music in a spirit of control – not biblical Christianity, which offers it up freely as part of a sacrifice of praise, allowing God to work through it as he wills.²

This does not require fleshly perfection, but rather new life birthed through true faith, cleansed by the blood of Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit. As such, biblical music flows from, and is inspired through, communion with God.³

…has good roots: I would recommend reading about some of the great hymn writers, such as the Wesleys, Fanny Crosby, John Newton and Isaac Watts, to see what faithful and surrendered lives they led. I’m not saying that one must be perfect to write good Christian music, but it is certainly important that both song-writers and worship leaders practise what they preach and remain sound in their theology.

As intimated last week, there are many modern Christian worship leaders who are personally dabbling in wrong teaching. This will undoubtedly show up, sooner or later, in what they write and sing. Good roots bear good fruits.

In Spirit and Truth

So, biblical music glorifies God, edifies believers, proclaims scriptural truth, is offered in the right spirit and has good roots. Its emotive, creative, intellectual and skilful elements are thus put to work for good spiritual ends, through the power of the Holy Spirit. These principles can perhaps be summed up using Jesus’ definition of true worship: godly music is good in spirit and in truth.

Let me re-iterate here how important it is that we learn to be discerning about musical worship. According to John Calvin, “there is hardly anything in the world with more power to turn the morals of men” than music.⁴ Even agnostic composer Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote: “Good music for worship is a moral issue. The eternal gospel cannot be commended with disposable, fashionable music styles, otherwise there is the implication that the gospel itself is somehow disposable and temporary.”⁵

Arguing over styles has sadly often been the raison d’etre of the Church, but when it comes to biblical principle, rather than taste, there is reason to get passionate – for the music we imbibe will both shape and witness to our walk with the Lord.

Godly music is offered up in a spirit of humble surrender, true faith and glad obedience, on the part of both writers and worshippers.

Music ‘In the World’

How does all of this apply, then, to music that we engage with in contexts other than direct worship – e.g. for enjoyment, community or personal improvement? It is immediately clear that we cannot easily apply the same criteria used to weigh worship music to music emanating from the secular realm. Nevertheless, all of our musical activity should still bear witness to our call to serve and honour God with our whole beings, for “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31).

There is, of course, a time and a place for all kinds of musical activity, “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim 4:4-5; also Ecc 3:1-8). I am sure that God loves music even more than we do – and desires us to enjoy it, build relationships through it, and bear witness through it to his beauty and creativity, just as naturally as birds sing their unique songs. But, permit me to make two further comments on how we can be godly in this.

First, music must always retain in its proper place – in submission to our worship of God - and used for good purpose, not squandered.⁶ We are not to be hedonists - lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Tim 3:1-4) - nor are we to love the things of the world (James 4:4). We must take care that enjoying God’s good gift does not descend into idolatry of any kind. This applies especially to musicians and worship leaders.

Secondly, we ought to take care that we feed ourselves – and others - on good things, even for entertainment and relaxation. These things require discernment, and the Holy Spirit’s leading, for not everything is beneficial or constructive for us (1 Cor 10:23).

Let us take inspiration then, from Philippians 4:8 to round off this series: “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about [listen to/sing/play?] such things.”

Recommended Material

The Family that Worships Together, Episode 5: Music in Worship. National Center for Family-Integrated Churches.

Testing music in the church’, by Sandy Simpson. Deceptioninthechurch.com, October 2000.

‘Entertainment as Worship - Worship as Entertainment’ by Douglas Bond, 22 February 2018.

‘The Christian and Entertainment’, by Rev D Kuiper. Truthaccordingtoscripture.com.

References

1 Thanks particularly to the comments made by pastors in this video.

2 “Musical conditioning is not the same as the Holy Spirit challenging the mind to think, the spirit to be still, and the heart to be humbled in the presence of God.” John Blanchard – quoted here.

3 Many top musicians admit that their best compositions weren’t ‘made’, but somehow ‘found’ – as if they were already there, waiting to be discovered. This perhaps shows music’s spiritual dimension – and so the importance of making and enjoying it in communion with God, looking to him for inspiration rather than inside ourselves…or anywhere else.

4 Preface to the Genevan Psalter of 1545. Quoted here.

5 Preface to The English Hymnal. Ibid.

6 ‘The Christian and Entertainment’, by Rev D Kuiper. Truthaccordingtoscripture.com

This article is part of a series. Click here for previous instalments.

Monica Hill continues to look at the spiritual ‘manifestations’ of 1 Corinthians 12.

This article is part of a series. Click here to access the archive.

“to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits” (1 Corinthians 12:7-10)

“…the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort” (1 Corinthians 14:3)

“Be eager to prophesy” (1 Corinthians 14:39)

In this series we have already looked at the ministry of the prophet in Ephesians 4 and also at the natural gift of prophecy in Romans 12, which is often related to the proclamation of the word of God.

Although these two gifts come from the same root as the manifestation of prophecy mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12, and all three are often linked together and have much in common, there are also many differences which we need to explore here.

What is a Prophecy?

Bringing a word of prophecy as a specific message from God is almost always a manifestation of the Spirit given to an individual just as the Spirit wills, and will usually be in response to a specific situation in the community or the nation (we will deal later with prophetic words for individuals, which often contain words of knowledge, although we broached this last week).

Words of prophecy or ‘prophetic words’ are not ‘owned’ by individuals or given only to those who have a prophetic ministry. Any mature believer who has a close relationship with God will be listening for his word and receiving his guidance all the time – it will be part of his or her daily life. The Lord desires that we are open and eager to share the good things we have received with others - especially those things that build up the Body (this may well include scriptural words of Jesus and of course, prophecy will never undermine Scripture).

When a mature believer is willing to be a messenger, God can use them to speak to the rest of the Body concerning the fellowship, the nation or the world. Edmund Heddle highlights examples from the New Testament of reasons for the use of prophecy – to warn of trouble ahead, to foretell a future event, to appoint church workers, to mobilise for action and to bring enlightenment.¹

Prophetic words are not ‘owned’ by individuals or given only to those who have a prophetic ministry – they can be given to any mature believer.

Having received a word of prophecy, the messenger is then tasked with portraying this word from God to others in the Body of Christ. This should always have as its main purpose that of building up believers in some way. The Spirit will not only give the word, but will also alert the messenger to what they should be doing with it – and usually will also open up opportunities for it to be delivered.

Figure 1.Many people think that ‘prophetic words’ always have to be given in the first person, as a direct word from God, in order to be authentic. But giving it as a word in the third person – ‘This is what I hear the Lord saying to me…’ - can be tested by hearers more easily, not only for its validity (see section below on Weighing Prophecy), but also for its source.

Distinguishing Between Spirits

The manifestation of ‘distinguishing between spirits’ is listed alongside ‘prophecy’ in 1 Corinthians 12 and is an initial safeguard which should always be exercised immediately that a prophecy is given. When an individual receives a word, others who have the allied gift of ‘distinguishing between spirits’ should, on hearing it, be judging whether it really is from God, or from an evil spirit, or - what is often more likely - from the messenger’s own spirit.

This is not testing the message as such, but identifying the source, and does not preclude the necessity to test every word that is received. As we can all be aware, there are many times that a message can start off well but then be influenced by the messenger who at times is tempted to ‘help God out’ – to express it more clearly and perhaps slightly change the emphasis! Many messages can be like the curate’s egg – ‘good in parts’ - and just because this happens, it does not mean that the whole word should be ignored.

A Word About Discernment

Distinguishing between spirits is not the same as ‘discernment’. The latter is not an instant gift given to specific individuals but can be seen much more as a fruit which comes with experience, available to ALL believers as they mature in their faith and become fully in tune with biblical teaching.

All believers should be able to discern between right and wrong and should be able to give reasons for this from Scripture.

Distinguishing between spirits is a gift given to specific individuals – discernment is a fruit which comes to all believers as they mature.

Prophecy in Practice

We are given a good example of prophecy being exercised wrongly in the local church in what went on in Corinth, from which we also get the teaching Paul gave to bring things back into order. We get the impression that this community of new believers were not good advocates for the faith and needed much help - from which we can also benefit!

The lovely passage on the nature of true love in 1 Corinthians 13 places the exercise of prophecy in context, so that all can be aware of what is needed as the gifts are being exercised. The great love poem used at so many weddings follows Paul’s significant teaching on how everyone is part of the Body of Christ, in which he emphasises that if love for one another is not shown and does not surpass everything, whatever gifts believers feel they have will be of no significance (1 Cor 14:1-5).

This is in spite of, or even because of, the fact that they were competing for what they felt were the ‘greater’ gifts. Instead, they were challenged to “try to excel in those that build up the church” (1 Cor 14:12).

Weighing Prophecy

There is a list of 12 ‘tests of prophecy’ elsewhere on this site with which we should all familiarise ourselves so that we can learn from the mistakes of the Corinthian church. Additionally, the same instructions apply to us today as did to them: “Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said”.

The fear of interrupting someone who speaks authoritatively in our society does not often permit us to follow these instructions: “if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged”. This is because “The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace” (1 Cor 14:29-33).

The Corinthian church is a good example of how not to do prophecy!

In addition to helping promote orderly worship, this certainly also helps us to understand that we should not be in a trance when giving a word from the Lord – we can be in control of our mouths, our minds and all our actions when we prophesy and we can be fully aware of what God is saying to others through us – but without adding to the word or distorting it.

‘Prophecies’ to Individuals

More recently in some circles the practice has been to bring prophetic words to individuals, who may also be identified by a word of knowledge. This needs to be followed up very carefully, as it can often mistakenly lay the recipient open to thinking that any word brought afterwards is a prophecy that will come true – especially if it promises healing.

Furthermore, there may be all sorts of reasons why people receive words for others and choose to make them public – so continue to test prophecies.

Finally…

Prophecy is NOT tongues, which is speaking TO God (we will look at this in more depth next week), but it is FROM God and given especially for believers to edify and build up the Church, so that the Church can be the prophet to the nation.

Witnessing a whole church prophesying can be very powerful – especially to unbelievers. An unbeliever can be convicted of sin by hearing a prophetic word and in this way it can have power:

But if an unbeliever or an enquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all, as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare. So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you!’ (1 Cor 14:24-25).

Finally, the manifestation of prophetic messages to the Church needs to be linked to the expounding of the word of God. The prophetic dimension of Christian life is often missing in the prayer life of the Church as there is a lack of expectation that God speaks to his people today.

Without this expectation, and without the manifestation of prophecy from God to each one of us, there will be no significant declaration of his word relating biblical truth to contemporary world events. But if preachers expound the word of God from the pulpit and draw attention to its teaching on these matters, it would transform the witness of the Church today.

References

1 See Heddle, E, 2016. Spiritual Gifts. Issachar Ministries. See also Figure 1.

Whilst there are usually other big world issues demanding our attention, anti-Semitism is never far from the front pages of our newspapers.

For the UK, the big issue for the coming months will be the EU referendum, but whilst responding to our personal and national priorities we must be careful not to lose a broader perspective. What else is going on that may bring balance to our understanding and prayers?

Terror Attacks in Paris

In January 2015, world attention was drawn to the terror attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Following this came the assault on a Jewish Kosher supermarket in the east of the city, where four Jews were killed and where the surrounding Jewish neighbourhood was shocked by this act of terror.

These may have seemed like two simultaneous but independent incidents, with Charlie Hebdo taking highest priority in the media. To gain a more balanced perspective, one had to look outside of this and make extra effort to search for other news that would shed biblical light on the overall picture.

Doing this, one would have discovered a growing unease in French Jewish communities. According to the Jewish Agency for Israel, due to growing anti-Semitism about 7,000 French Jews had left the country during 2014 (many emigrating to Israel); double the figure for 2013.¹ The attack on the Paris market was connected to developing anti-Semitism across the nation and not an isolated incident to be sidelined by other news of the day.

Anti-Semitism is never far from the front pages of our newspapers – but it is easily obscured by other big world issues that demand our attention.

Other Recent CasesIsraeli IDs for new immigrants from France.

Anti-Semitic feeling² is erupting in many corners of society and in countries across the world. On Holocaust Memorial Day Martin Schulz, the German head of the European parliament, warned that anti-Semitism was prominent in the whole of Europe, with many European Jews living in fear and afraid to wear their religious garments on the streets of the continent's major cities.³

Anti-Semitism has become so bad in Malmo, the Swedish city where the popular television drama The Bridge is set, that it contributed to actor Kim Bodnia's decision to leave the show.⁴

Another incident in France occurred on Tuesday 12 January, when a Jewish politician was found stabbed and beaten to death at his home in the suburbs of Paris, prompting fears of yet another anti-Semitic attack.⁵

Recently the German head of the European parliament warned that anti-Semitism is rife across Europe, with many European Jews living in fear.

In Britain

Recently there have been anti-Semitic acts in British football.⁶ In London, there was an incident sparked by the sale of t-shirts with slogans designed to provoke Jewish fans of Tottenham. There has also been frequent anti-Semitic chanting from visiting supporters of rival teams.

Only last week an incident was highlighted when Oxford University was ordered by the government to investigate allegations of widespread anti-Semitism. The university's Jewish society had reported eight separate racism allegations levelled against the Oxford University Labour Club. This followed the resignation of co-chairman Alex Chalmers, who said a large proportion of members of OULC "have some kind of problem with Jews".⁷

This was also linked to concerns about trends in the Labour Party, whose leader Jeremy Corbyn has expressed strong sympathy for Hamas and Hezbollah. He failed to apologise for past links to these organisations in his first meeting with representatives of the Jewish community since becoming Labour leader.⁸ Is there a danger of growing anti-Semitism subtly infiltrating the ranks of one of the UK's main political parties?

The Bigger Picture

These examples of continuing anti-Semitism in the world should cause us to consider our world from a biblical perspective. It is so easy to get diverted into the politics of the day and forget what is happening behind the scenes.

Closer to home, anti-Semitic feeling has been noted recently in such diverse arenas as British football, universities and political parties.

Learning from Another Era

I was privileged to be on the staff at the Bible College of Wales during its latter years, when Rev Samuel Howells was Director. I would talk with him in his study and he would tell me something of the war years, when he was part of the team led by his father Rees Howells. In their commitment to prayer through those years they saw clearly that underlying the intent of Hitler to bring in the Nazi regime to dominate both Europe and the world was a spiritual battle for the survival of the Jews.

The account of these years is set out in Rees Howells: Intercessor (2003, Lutterworth Press). Samuel told me of the time when his father came out of the prayer room, ashen faced, saying that the Lord had asked him to take responsibility for the Jews in the Nazi death camps – and he had accepted. The ministry of intercession deepened in the college from that time on, as the deeper issues of the war were understood.

After the war the UN was to vote on the partition plan for Palestine. Dr Kingsley Priddy was Rees Howells' deputy at the time and he told me that they had visions of angels around the UN building as the vote took place. Samuel also said to me once something I still try to understand. Speaking of the intercessory team, he said "We lost six million Jews in the war, but the nation of Israel was reborn." This is perhaps how someone who takes responsibility in intercession will describe the battle and its results.

Samuel also told me that his father, once a strong man, died at a relatively young age in 1950 - strained by those years of spiritual warfare. That indicates the depth of the issues that we will face in future struggles of a similar kind.

During WWII, Rees Howells and his intercessory team saw clearly that underlying Hitler's intent to dominate the world was a spiritual battle for the survival of the Jews.

Same Battle, Different Manifestation

Our spiritual adversary dragged the entire world into a physical conflict in Europe in 1939. There is, similarly, a spiritual dimension to the UK's relation to Europe in our day. The door is now open for us to untangle ourselves from the EU. After that we will have an opportunity to regroup as a nation under God, according to our constitutional position expressed most clearly in the Queen's Coronation Oath.

Now more than ever, we need to understand the spiritual nature of this battle, whilst remembering the central purposes of God's end-time covenant plan. We must take care not to become pre-occupied fighting on one front while neglecting central issues on other, seemingly peripheral fronts.

Growing anti-Semitism is a symptom of an important front of the spiritual battle today, just as it has been through the entire history of Israel. God has a plan for Israel that will be resisted by our spiritual adversary in many ways, erupting in diverse places in what we call anti-Semitism.

Now more than ever, we need to understand the spiritual dimension of the battles we face today, including the UK's relationship with Europe.

One day this battle will be clearer to discern, with an overt turning against Israel stirred up among the rising world coalitions. For now, it may seem a more peripheral issue, but those with understanding will perceive the danger signs and the priorities for our prayers.

Interested in learning more about anti-Semitic trends around the world, or catching up on the latest incidents? You might benefit from looking at the following secular websites:

• The Anti-Defamation League: The ADL has recently produced an index of world anti-Semitism, presented as a useful map. It also catalogues selected anti-Semitic events from 2015.
• The Co-ordination Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism: the CFCA publishes trend reports, articles and news items (see their website here).

Notes

1 Aliyah Hits Ten-Year High: Approximately 26,500 New Immigrants Arrived in Israel in 2014. Jewish Agency for Israel, 2 January 2015.

2 There are a number of attempts at a precise definition of the term anti-Semitism. This one is useful.

3 See, for example, Sanchez, R, Europe's Jews are 'living in fear', warns head of EU parliament. The Telegraph, 27 January 2016.

4 Danish TV star says anti-Semitism made him uncomfortable in Sweden. Jerusalem Post, 17 February 2016.

5 Samuel, H, Killing of Jewish politician near Paris prompts fears of anti-Semitic attacks. The Telegraph, 13 January 2016.

6 See, for example, Telegraph Sport, Chelsea crack down on sales of abusive Arsene Wenger and Harry Kane T-shirts. The Telegraph, 9 February 2016. 7 Ali, A, Oxford University Labour Club co-chair, Alex Chalmers, resigns amid anti-Semitism row. The Independent, 17 February 2016. 8 See, for example, Riley-Smith, B and McCann, K, Jeremy Corbyn fails to apologise for links to Hamas and Hezbollah in first meeting with Jewish leaders. The Telegraph, 9 February 2016.

Edmund Heddle looks at the deep symbolism behind the Spirit's descent on Jesus 'like a dove'...

We cannot answer the question 'What is a prophet?' adequately until we turn our attention to Jesus, the Prophet, and discover the secret of his prophetic ministry. Moses foretold the coming of a prophet like himself and yet greater (Deut 18: 15-19). The early church believed that Jesus was that prophet (Acts 3:22-23, 7:37). Jesus referred to himself as a prophet (Matt 13:57, Luke 3:33) and his contemporaries certainly regarded him such (Matt 21:11, Luke 7:16 and John 4:19).

Jesus and the Spirit

It is highly significant that Jesus' prophetic ministry did not commence until after the Spirit had descended on him, immediately following his baptism by John in the Jordan River. Jesus was the Son of God and the Word from all eternity, yet as man he had to receive and rely upon the Spirit of God to carry out his ministry as a prophet. If this was true of Jesus, how much more must it be true for us!

Jesus' prophetic ministry did not start until after the Spirit had descended on him. If this was true of Jesus, how much more must it be for us!"

Who saw the Dove?

What is the special significance in our being told that the Spirit descended on Jesus 'like a dove'? Some have been content to see this as a reference to the innocence and harmlessness of the Spirit, along the lines of Jesus' words in Matthew 10:16, "Be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves". But there is a much deeper meaning in this phrase 'like a dove', if we let the biblical references fill out its meaning.

Who saw the dove? According to Matthew and Mark the dove was seen by Jesus (Matt 3:16-17, Mark 1:10-11). Luke mentions the descent of the dove but does not say who actually saw it. John's gospel however indicates that the dove was also seen by John the Baptist, and that this was the pre-arranged sign by which he would recognise the Messiah (John 1:31-34). It is to be noted that none of the gospels indicate that the dove was seen by the crowds standing by.

A Real Dove?

We need also to note that the gospels do not say that it was a dove, but that it was 'like a dove'. As on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit revealed himself like rushing mighty wind and like tongues of fire, so here it does not say that an actual dove flew down and alighted on the newly baptised Jesus. It was real to Jesus and his forerunner John, and deeply significant to these two, both of whom had minds that were soaked in the stories and teaching of the Old Testament.

The Spirit's descent 'like a dove' would have been deeply significant to both Jesus and John the Baptist."

The Brooding Dove

We have only to turn to the second verse of the Bible to read: "The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." Some translators prefer 'brooding' to 'hovering', but both words describe the activity of a bird. The Talmudic comment on this verse reads: "The Spirit of God who moved on the face of the waters like a dove." Those who are familiar with Milton's Paradise Lost will recall the lines "...and with mighty wings outspread, dovelike sat'st brooding on the dark abyss".²

The descent of the dove on our Lord marks him out and qualifies him to be the one to bring mankind out of the chaos of a fallen world and into the "new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Pet 3:13). The dove is symbolic of the mighty creative power of God, which rested in fulness on Jesus. Yet at the same time it reveals the quietness of such power; expressed beautifully by Dr Alexander McLaren in the words: "The Spirit of God was brooding over chaos and quickening life, as a bird in its nest by the warmth of its own soft breast."¹

Dove with Olive Branch

The second Bible reference to the dove occurs in the story of Noah's flood (Gen 8:6-12). Because of the spread of man's violence and the unheeded preaching of Noah, God's judgement fell on all except those who took the God-provided way of escape (Gen 6:11-13; 2 Pet 2:5). After the floodwaters had receded and the Ark had come to rest on Mt. Ararat, Moses sent out two birds. The raven, a bird of prey, flew off and stayed away, doubtless feeding on what had died. The dove returned to the Ark as the earth was still covered with water.

Seven days later the dove was again sent out and this time returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf. The dove bearing the olive branch was messenger of hope to the prisoners in the ark, telling them that judgement was past. The raven, in contrast, was too intent on gorging itself that it brought no message.

The dove's descent marks Jesus out as the One to bring order out of the world's chaos, hope out of despair, life out of death."

Augustine put it like this: "As the dove did at that time bring tidings of the abating of the water so doth it now of the abating of the wrath of God upon the preaching of the Gospel." The dove that comes to us with a leaf plucked from the tree of life is symbolic of the redemptive power of our Saviour and of the good news that through him we have escaped judgement and have been reborn into his new creation.

Poor Man's Sacrifice

In the Old Testament system of sacrifices, the only bird that was allowed to be offered was the dove. The rich were required to bring a bull or a lamb, but the poor man (as in the case of Jesus' parents) could bring a pair of doves (Lev 1:14-17, Luke 2:24). We know that doves were acceptable offerings from the stories of Jesus cleansing the temple and his overturning the benches of those selling doves (John 2:14-16, Matt 21:12-13).

St. Cyprian sums up his understanding of the doves' acceptability as a sacrifice in the following words: "A dove, a gentle joyous creature, with no bitterness of gall, no fierceness of bite and no violence of rending claws".³ The Spirit who came on Jesus was the Spirit of sacrifice, the Spirit that led him eventually to offer himself without blemish to God (Heb 9:14). The voice from heaven that accompanied the descent of the dove declared that Jesus after living thirty years in Galilee was totally acceptable to God.

Jesus' submission to baptism by John in the Jordan and the descent of the dove upon him are the negative and positive aspects of his Spirit of entire self offering; of his oneness and identification with the sinful race he came to save and of his complete consecration to achieve their eternal salvation cost what it might.

In the Old Testament, the dove was the only bird acceptable as a sacrifice. The Spirit who came on Jesus was the Spirit of self-sacrifice, leading him to offer himself on our behalf- an offering with which God was 'well pleased'."

Spring and Lovers

The Song of Songs tells us that the dove is the herald of spring and is associated with lovers:

Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! the winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land...My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely (Song of Solomon 2:10-12, 14).

The Hebrew word for dove comes from the word yayin, which contains the ideas of effervescence and intoxication and refers to the warmth of doves' love-making. There is a 'twoness' about doves. The poor man's offering was a pair of doves. Doves live in pairs and lay a clutch of two eggs, "nurturing their young together; when they fly abroad hanging in their flight side by side; leading their life in mutual intercourse; giving in concord the kiss of peace with their bills; in every way fulfilling their unanimity" (to quote from St. Cyprian again⁴).

The coming down of the dove on Jesus symbolises our Lord as the lover of our souls, desiring to become one with his bride- the Church."

Their twoness becomes oneness, or as St Paul says to the Ephesians (5:31-32), "the two shall become one". Paul says he is referring to Christ and his bride, the church. The coming down of the dove on our Lord reveals him to be the lover of our souls who cannot be content until we respond to his eternal love-making.

The Dove Prophet

As well as the direct references to the dove in Scripture we have examined, there is a very instructive one, which is not immediately apparent. The Hebrew word for dove is 'Yonah' or 'Jonah': the name of a prophet who tried to escape from the responsibility of declaring God's message to the city of Nineveh. When Jonah was sent he disobeyed but the One on whom the dove came acted in absolute obedience, when his Father told him to leave heaven and travel to our earth with the message of God's pardoning love.

Jesus is the true and perfect Jonah, the final dove-prophet."

Sinful Jonah, when sent by God, disobeyed and found himself jettisoned into a storm of judgement. Yet in the incredible mercy of God he was saved by being swallowed up and vomited out! Sinless Jesus was completely obedient to God's instructions and yet found himself overwhelmed by the storms of judgement and death. But he rose again! Furthermore, the only sign he would give his generation was the sign of Jonah (Matt 16:4). Jesus is the true Jonah, the final dove-prophet, the missioner of God. It was when John saw the dove descend on him that he recognised his cousin to be nothing less than the Son of God, the Lamb of God and the Baptiser in the Holy Spirit (John 1:29-34).

Dove-Prophets Today

Those who are prophets today must be careful to make sure that the Spirit that is inspiring their speaking is truly the Dove.

A possible reaction to man's rebellion and violence and to its inevitable consequence of divine judgement and punishment, is that we become harsh in our attitudes, judgmental in our speech and separatist in our relationships. But we are not to manifest the spirit of the raven, but the Spirit of the Dove.

Those prophesying today must not manifest the harsh spirit of the raven, but the endlessly loving Spirit of the Dove."

Dove-prophets are to be endlessly loving, always seeking unity and togetherness. They must sacrifice their own plans and preferences for the greater joy of announcing forgiveness to those who would otherwise perish. They are to be ever hopeful; convinced that the last word is with the God who will yet have heaven and earth as he intends.

Commenting on the descent of the dove, Dr. Alexander McLaren said of Jesus: "Since he was a man, he needed the Divine Spirit. Since he was sinless, he was capable of receiving it in perfect and unbroken continuity."⁵ If he needed the Dove, so much more do we- and the thrilling truth is that our need has been met. Every Christian prophet today may by faith receive the Spirit in fullness; the Spirit that is 'like a dove'.

References

1 Commentary on Mark 1:9-10

2 Vol. 1.

3 Treatise 1, section 9.

4 See previous note.

5 See note 1.

First published in Prophecy Today, Vol 1, No 4, 1985.

In this second installment on the ministry of prophecy, Edmund Heddle looks at how prophets are called and equipped by God.

Neither in the Old Testament times nor in the New Testament Church did the prophets appoint themselves. Only a false prophet would dare to take that office upon himself (Jer 23:21).

Prophets did not inherit the calling from their fathers, nor did they receive it by human appointment. It was by God himself that they were chosen and called. The initiative in making a prophet rested with God alone and all true prophets received a specific and personal call from him.

The Prophetic Call

The prophetic call might come to men and women at different points in their lifetime and in a variety of personal situations.

No prophet is self-appointed: all are called and equipped by God alone."

• Moses, already an ageing man, received his call as he turned aside to contemplate a bush that blazed with flames and yet did not burn away (Ex 3:1-4, 17).
• The young Isaiah saw a vision of the thrice-holy God that humbled him to confess his sinful speaking. After cleansing his lips God challenged him to undertake the work of being a prophet, Isaiah gave a glad answer in the classic response: "Here am I; send me!" (Isa 6:1-9).
• For Hosea it was through the sad experience of his own unhappy domestic life that he came to realise that God was calling him to prophesy. God called him first to experience in his home circumstances the continued unfaithfulness of his wife before he was ready to proclaim the continuing love and the unwearying patience of God towards his unfaithful people (Hos 1:2, 11:8-9, 14:4).
• Jeremiah was still only a youth when God's call came, to which he responded with protestations that he was far too young for such responsibility. God replied by telling him that he had in fact been called even before his birth! God, however, reassured him by promising that he would be given the very words that he wanted him to speak (Jer 1:4-9).
• Many years before, another young man, Samuel, had heard the voice of God one night calling him to be a prophet. Like Jeremiah he also had been given a message he did not want to pass on (1 Sam 3:1-21).
• Amos, working as a herdsman in his native Judaea heard God calling him to leave those pasture lands and go to Israel to challenge the sophisticated priests and rulers in the religious centre at Bethel (Amos 7:12-15).
• Scripture does not tell us when and where Micah was called to prophesy but he tells how the anointing Spirit had come upon him, enabling him to speak God's word to both Israel and Judah (Mic 3:8).
• Ezekiel shared being in exile with God's people in Babylon, sitting where they sat and becoming overwhelmed by what he saw until in the fourth month of the fifth year of their captivity he was called to the prophetic ministry (Eze 2:3-7, 3:14-15).
• There were a number of prophets who were reluctant to pass on the message they had received, but only Jonah tried to escape from the prophetic call by running away. Only after alarming experiences did the persistence and mercy of God give his disobedient servant a second chance (Jonah 1:1, 3:1).

Not all the prophets of the Bible give details of their call, but we can be certain that none of them were self-appointed. They were speaking because they had to; they were speaking what they spoke because, having heard what God had to say, they were obliged to pass it on (Jer 20:9).

Today throughout the world there are still men and women who must speak out, because they too have heard what the Lord God has to say."

The Task of the Prophet

The nature of the work which the prophets were called to perform may be seen by a study of the Hebrew words which were used to describe them and their prophesying. In 1 Samuel 9:9 there is an editorial note to the effect that "he who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer". Such a verse as this and 1 Chronicles 29:29 appear to use these words with a discrimination that is not sustained throughout the rest of the Old Testament. However, there is a distinction between their meaning.

Ro'eh (translated 'seer') is an active participle of the verb 'to see' and chozeh (also translated 'seer') is a similar part of the verb 'to gaze at'. Both words indicate that a prophet was someone who saw things to which other men were blind. The ability to see was not to be attributed to their own insight, neither had it been discovered by an occult means similar to heathen divination; it was the result of illumination by the Spirit of God. Samuel was a 'seer' to whom people turned when they wanted to know of God's will or sought direction in national, local or personal affairs (1 Sam 7:3-4, 9:3-11).

In contrast to these two words translated 'seer', which together occur a total of not more than thirty times in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the word 'nabhi' (translated 'prophet') occurs over 300 times. The derivation of this word has occasioned considerable debate, but it is widely believed it can be traced to an Akkadian root 'nabu' meaning 'to call'. The choice in understanding lies between the prophet as being one who is called by God; or the prophet as being the one who calls, either to men for God or to God for men, ie by intercession.

The prophet is a person who is called to see what God is showing and to pass on its significance to his fellow men."

It seems better to understand 'nabhi' not in the passive sense of the one who is called i.e. the recipient of the vocation; but in the active sense of an announcer or messenger ie the one who is charged with carrying out the vocation. The prophet is a person who is called to see what God is showing and to pass on its significance to his fellow men. Today the world situation as never before underlines our desperate need of seers who can see with God's eyes and prophets who can speak forth his authoritative word.

Description of a Prophet

There are a number of significant phrases in the Old Testament which tell us yet more about the prophet and his calling. The prophet is called:

1. A man of God (1 Sam 9:6), implying that as a man of righteous character he was more closely in touch with God than other men. From the time of Moses down to the time of the monarchy the phrase was in use (1 Kings 13:1, 2 Kings 4:9).
2. The servant of the LORD. This is another description going back to the time of Moses (Josh 1:2) and it became the standard way of referring to all later prophets, especially when they were referred to collectively (2 Kings 17:13 and 23, Ezra 9:11, Jer 7:25). A prophet's primary task is to serve God and to do all that is expected of him, however strange God's orders might be (Isa 20:3).
3. The messenger of the LORD. This phrase found in the post-exile prophets shows that the particular service which the prophets rendered was that of passing on messages from God (Hag 1:13, Mal 3:1). 'Malachi' means 'my messenger'.
4. The man of the Spirit (Hos 9:7). This description draws attention to the fact that the source of the prophet's inspiration and power is nothing less than the Spirit of God himself (2 Chron 15:1-2, and 24:20, Neh 9:30, Mic 3:8).
5. My anointed one (Ps 105:15). It is clear that this phrase from Psalm 105 refers to the patriarchs and attributes their ability for hearing God's voice to the anointing of God's Spirit upon them. In Isaiah 61:1 the prophet claims that he had been anointed by the Spirit of God; an experience which years later Jesus declared had been fulfilled in his own experience (Luke 4:17-19).
6. A watchman. This word draws attention to the awesome responsibility the prophet has of first keeping his eye on what is happening and then not failing to issue the appropriate warning to the people (Hos 9:8, Eze 3:17 and 33:1-9).
7. A trumpet-blower. Closely associated with the duties of the watchman is that of blowing the trumpet (Jer 6:17). The prophet's word must be loud and clear so that there can be no mistaking the urgency of his message (Isa 58:1, Jer 4:5, Hos 8:1, Joel 2:1 and 15, Amos 3:6).

Reluctance

We have seen that it is God who chooses and calls individuals to serve as prophets. The first reaction may be one of unworthiness, unfitness or even total unwillingness. But with that call comes the deepening conviction that it is their eyes through which God's view of the human situation is to be perceived; it is their heart that is to sense and share his feelings about that situation and it is their lips that must patiently and courageously pass on what he has to say about it.

When God calls, first reactions are often feelings of unworthiness, unfitness or total unwillingness. But with his call comes deepening conviction..."

They may feel unfitted, as herdsman Amos did when he confronted the sophisticated ecclesiastics of Bethel. They may, like Jonah, try to run as far as possible in the opposite direction. They may even get to the lengths of accusing God of taking advantage of them (Jer 20:7-8).

Prophetic Imperative

But the 'goodly fellowship of the prophets' shares one common obligation; they must pass on what God has revealed (Amos 3:8b). This message may not be what the majority of people want to hear with their unending pursuit of peace and the 'smooth things' that false prophets promise (Isa 30:10). It may not even be the kind of message that the prophet himself likes passing on. In that case the prophet must put aside his own ideas, feelings and prejudices. As a watchman he must watch carefully; as a seer see clearly; as a trumpeter alert people effectively to their danger; so that as a true prophet he may faithfully pass on God's word.

Prophetic messages may not be what people want to hear, or what prophets like passing on. But those who God calls, he also anoints and equips to be faithful by his Holy Spirit."

No prophets could ever meet such demands from their own resources. It is essential to the carrying out of their calling that the anointing of the Spirit has come down upon them (Zech 4:6). All we have discovered about the prophets of the Old Testament applies equally to those whom God is calling to the ministry of prophecy today.

First published in Prophecy Today, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1985.

Who were the prophets and do they still exist today? Edmund Heddle unpacks some key aspects of this vital ministry and gifting...

To the man in the street a prophet is someone who predicts the future, and to prophesy is to foretell some happening; a view which is shared in many cases by the man in the pew. It is true that the prophets of the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments, do foretell what is to happen, but this predictive element forms only part of their message. They are primarily forthtellers!

Exodus 4:10-16 records an instructive incident that reveals the nature of the prophet's ministry. God had told Moses to go to Pharaoh to demand the release of the children of Israel from the slavery in which they were held. Moses, however, excuses himself (even after the encouragement of miraculous signs) on the ground of his lack of eloquence. God is displeased at Moses' refusal, but suggests that his brother Aaron, a good speaker, should take his place. According to Exodus 7:1, Aaron became Moses' 'prophet' and Moses is told:

You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth...He shall speak for you...He shall be a mouth for you. (Ex 4:15-16).

From this passage it is seen that a prophet is to be a mouth for God, a spokesman, whose task is to listen to what God is saying and to pass on that message.

How do prophets hear from God?

If a prophet is God's mouthpiece, how is he to hear what God wants him to pass on? The essential preparation is shown clearly in Numbers 11:16-17 and 24-30. Moses had reached a point where the burden of dealing with the people of God was more than he could cope with on his own. So God tells him to assemble seventy elders at the tent of meeting with the object of providing him with assistance.

Then God said, "I will take some of the Spirit which is upon you and put it on them." When this was done and the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. This was also true for two of their number who had not accompanied the others to the tent of meeting, but who were found prophesying in the camp. Prophesying is only possible when the Spirit of God has come upon God's man.

Prophesying is only possible when the Spirit of God has come upon God's servant."

Moses' servant, Joshua, thought his master would be upset that the two who had gone to the tent of meeting were prophesying and he presumed to ask Moses to silence them! Moses' magnanimous reply indicated that he had no desire to limit the number of prophets; instead he said, "I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!"

Who gets to prophesy?

This desire of Moses for the universalising of prophecy was years later taken up by the prophet Joel as he foretold the day when as a result of the outpouring of God's Spirit, the whole people of God would become a prophetic people.

And afterwards, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. You sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants [literally 'slaves'] I will pour out my Spirit in those days. (Joel 2:28-29)

These words of Joel were quoted by Peter as he sought to explain the happenings of the Day of Pentecost, just a few weeks after Jesus had returned to heaven. With the descent of the Spirit a new age had dawned, for this universalising of the prophetic potentiality constituted the greatest difference between Old and New Testament prophecy.

No longer was prophecy limited to certain individuals among God's people; instead both men and women, old and young and those without worldly status were alike able to prophesy. The New Testament makes it clear that not all of the Lord's people would have the ministry of a prophet (1 Cor 12:29) but all were able, and were encouraged, to prophesy. (1 Cor 14:1, 5).

The greatest difference between Old and New Testament prophecy is that since Pentecost, the gift of prophecy has been made available for all believers."

How does prophesying actually happen?

As well as showing the absolute necessity of the Spirit coming upon a man if he is to prophesy, the Old Testament has much more to teach about the process of prophesying.

The prophets of old were men who stood in the Lord's council, shared his secrets, were sent with his message and declared it with their words, actions and lives."

• The prophets of the Old Testament were men who stood in the Lord's council. (Jer 23:18, 22) They were granted the privilege of an audience with the Lord God himself. They were men in touch with the Throne and the whole quality of their revelations was dependent upon this fundamental relationship.
• The prophets were men who shared the Lord's secrets (Amos 3:7). Amos uses here a word that describes people in a close deliberation and what is shared at such times. He clearly believed that the Almighty shared with his prophets what he was going to do: a fact which is evident from a word from God concerning Abraham and the impending judgment of Sodom, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" (Gen 18:17)
• The prophets were men sent with the Lord's message (Amos 7:14-15). Amos said, "I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son...but the Lord said to me 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel'." So this shepherd from Judah was sent to prophesy to the Northern Kingdom. God not only gives his word to his prophets, he also directs them as to who is to be their audience.
• The prophets were men who spoke the Lord's message in the Lord's words (Deut 18:18; Jer 1:9). When the young Jeremiah complained that he was not old or mature enough for the prophetic calling, God promised to give him the very words he was to speak. He was given an 'instructed tongue' (Isa 50:4).
• The prophets were men who showed the Lord's message by visual aids (Isa 20:2-3; Jer 13:1-11; 19:1-15). In order to illustrate and enforce their message, prophets were told to perform unusual actions, like burying a new waistbelt or smashing a pottery vessel before a crowd. Others got their message over by the use of vivid parables or word pictures. Micah stripped naked (Mic 1:8) in order to show the shame and degradation that would come upon the city unless the people repented.
• The prophets were men whose lives constituted part of their message. Hosea finds himself married to a prostitute; Ezekiel is forbidden to mourn when his wife suddenly died and Jeremiah is forbidden to marry at all. In this way the prophets were enabled to feel in their own experience the sufferings of the God, whose prophetic message they were responsible to communicate.

How did prophetic ministries begin?

As well as describing the process of prophesying, the Old Testament gives some insight into how the prophets received their word from God.

A study of the opening verses of the sixteen prophetic books of the Old Testament will divide up the prophets into those who saw the message in vision and those to whom the spoken word of the Lord came.

As it stands, this last statement can be misleading as the word translated 'came' is part of the verb 'to be' and might be better translated 'the word of the Lord became a living reality to' the prophet. It would appear that the first group had a direct encounter with what they were to say, whereas the second group experienced the message coming into focus in their minds as they considered a situation under the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

What about today?

In ways like these, men called by God, on whom the Spirit had fallen, became a 'mouth for God' in their generation. Today, as never before, there are homes, communities and nations that desperately need to hear what God in his love is yearning to say to them. Nothing, therefore, could be more important than the recovery of the ministry of prophecy today.

First published in Prophecy Today, March/April 1985, Vol. 1 No. 1.

Clifford Denton's latest study on the Hebraic roots of Christianity turns to the tricky subject of the balance between 'law' and 'grace'.

The rift between Jews and Christians

The broken relationship between Jews and Christians has had immense consequences. Misunderstanding has often fuelled the flames of hate and aggravated the harm that has been done to God's people. There have also been consequences for the way we read the Bible, particularly since Hebraic thinking has been replaced by a Greek mindset. This has detracted from the continuity between the two Testaments and has unbalanced perspectives through the centuries.

Among the Bible themes disjointed by the ascension of Greek thinking is the relationship between law and grace, now often separated in the thinking of many Christians. The common error nowadays (despite the way some Scriptures seem to read otherwise) is to consider 'law' as completely done away with in favour of 'grace', because of the sacrifice of Jesus."

However, if we read the New Testament with a thorough grasp of its continuity with the whole of Scripture, and put it in proper historical context, the subtle relationship between law and grace takes on a clearer perspective. It was through God's grace that all His teaching (the Torah) was given to us. All the law that was revealed through Moses came through the grace of God. There is much to consider on this topic, but that is a good starting point.

Is this Judaising?

This call to flee Greek thinking and return to the Hebraic roots of the Christian faith must not be construed as 'Judaising'. 'Judaising' is the word often used to accuse those who seem to be too caught up with all things Jewish (in contemporary usage, it often carries with it a hint of anti-Semitism). Those accused seem to be overly fascinated with external forms of Jewishness that come more from tradition than from conventional Christian interpretations of the Scriptures. They are also often thought of as having a faulty understanding of law and grace.

There is a difference between Judaising - becoming overly fascinated with external forms of Jewishness - and developing a right respect of God's laws."

Paul gave plentiful warning against Judaising activity to the Galatians (eg chapter 2). However, there is a difference between Judaising and developing a right respect of God's laws. Let us now consider the situation in the First Century when the Gospel message began to move out into the Gentile world.

From Moses to Jesus

The teaching of God (Torah), considered to be founded on the first five books of the Bible, has needed practical interpretation ever since the time of Moses. Torah remains a set of written principles until interpreted into action.

An important principle was established when Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, helped Moses understand how to teach the people the way to obey the principles of Torah:

You shall teach them the statutes and the laws and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do. Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God......let them judge the people at all times. Then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge. (Ex 18:20-22)

From that time onwards, the burden of teaching was shared by the elders of Israel, comparably to the way Scripture is taught today through the ministry of teaching in the Church.

The purpose of the teaching was so that every member of the Children of Israel - every family, clan and tribe, and the entire Nation - would know how to walk out the principles of Torah. The Hebrew for 'walking out' is halakha - a practical application of Torah according to the wisdom of God (walking is also the metaphor applied to the life of faith for the Christian - see Romans 8, where Paul explores the walk in the Spirit).

By the time of Jesus, the elders whom Moses had appointed in his day had been transformed into the members of the religious authority called the Sanhedrin. In addition, schools of Rabbis had formed with different shades of interpretation of Torah. However, whilst these different Rabbinic schools were zealous to interpret Torah accurately, their walking out of God's law had become more religious duty than personal relationship with him.

Every human being is prone to legalism, feeling more comfortable with rules than relationship."

This is the main point in understanding what the term 'law' meant in Paul's day and, indeed, what it means in Judaism today. The flesh of all human beings is prone to legalism, feeling more comfortable with rules than relationship. This can be so for Christians as well as Jews, and was the reason for Paul's warnings in the New Testament. At the time when Paul taught about law and grace, law was not so much Torah (the Old Testament teaching of God in its written form) as it was the interpretation of Torah into principles of living (indeed, 'halakha' in our own day is still the term used in Judaism for legal interpretations of Torah).

It is therefore reasonable for us to suppose that when Paul talked about law, he was referring to the teaching of the Rabbis, whose method of interpreting Torah imposed binding rules on their disciples rather than encouraging a personal walk with the God of Israel. This close relationship had been understood by their own Prophet Micah, when he wrote:

He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. (Mic 6:8)

Torah and Halakhah correctly interpreted

Torah, the teaching of God brought through Moses, is subject to interpretation and application. It becomes the legalism against which we are warned when wrongly interpreted as obligations of the flesh, and sometimes even into rules made by men (Col 2:22).

God's law becomes legalism when it is wrongly interpreted as obligations of the flesh, rather than a living walk with him."

By contrast, the New Covenant was the means by which Almighty God sent his Spirit to us to write the Torah on our hearts (Jer 31:33) and mobilise our walk with him (halakha) in a new and living way. Understanding the subtlety of this helps us to rebalance our view of Paul's teaching and to reconsider the balance of law and grace in the whole of Scripture.

Law as a Protector

If the Law of God is considered to be replaced by the grace of God, this not only impacts individual understandings but so the stability of entire societies.

God's law works to protect and guide human beings who are not able to live by the inner workings of the Holy Spirit. Nations such as Britain, which have been impacted by the Gospel message over many centuries, have long been stabilized through biblical laws on their statute books. In Britain we can go back at least as far as King Alfred to trace the influence of biblical principles of law.

Consider this quotation from Sir Francis Palgrave's 'History of the Anglo Saxons'¹ (emphases added):

The third and chief principle which actuated Alfred, was his endeavour to impart the spirit of the law of God to the temporal legislation of his kingdom. Alfred's statutes are prefaced by the Decalogue, to which is added a selection from the Mosaic precepts, and the canons of the first Apostolic council. "Do these", he continues, "and if these commands be obeyed, no other doom-book will be required." We commonly say that Christianity is a part of the law of the land. Alfred had a clearer perception of the station which religion should possess in a Christian commonwealth. He would have wished to render Christianity the law itself. The necessity for any human law exists solely in proportion to our neglect of the Divine law; and if we were enabled to write the law on our hearts, nothing whatever would be left for human legislation to perform.

Do you see what the author had detected in a balanced understanding of law to be applied to a nation? It is instructive to note that Palgrave (1788 -1861) was born into a Jewish family and converted to Christianity, which adds special emphasis to this insight into the history of the British Nation, especially in the context of our study of law and grace.

For Study and Prayer

Consider the biblical principles of Torah and halakha in relation to what a Christian should understand by the word law.

Next time: We will continue to consider the balance of law and grace.

These studies are developed from the course Christianity's Relationship with Israel and the Jews, first prepared for Tishrei Bible School.

References

1 p114, The Collected Historical Works of Sir Francis Palgrave, Vol 5: The History of the Anglo-Saxons, 1921 [2013]. R. H. I Palgrave (Ed), Cambridge, CUP.