As the dust settles in Nepal, Charles Gardner considers the prophetic significance of earthquakes...

Frightening scenes of the earth shaking in the Himalayan region, bringing death and destruction to Kathmandu while trapping climbers in an avalanche, are stark reminders of our insecurity on this planet.

And although this is a terrible tragedy for the people of Nepal, where thousands of helpless souls were caught in its grip, I believe this is a prophetic sign from heaven as the mountain range known as the 'rooftop of the world' threatens to bring the 'house' down – that is, everything we have held safe and dear during our temporary stay on terra firma.

Wake-Up Call for Israel

In fact, a recent Jerusalem Post editorial referred to the first Nepalese earthquake as a "wake-up call" to Israel, urging the government to ensure that the nation is better prepared for a similar disaster, pointing out that the Jewish state lies on a 'fault' line which runs down the Jordan Valley and that a quake could strike at any moment.¹

Experts have been warning for a number of years that Israel is at risk of a big earthquake in the near future.

Reinforcements are still necessary for schools, hospitals and other public buildings more than 35 years old (ie built before stricter quake-resistance regulations were introduced). Apparently Israel experiences a serious quake every 80-100 years, and the last one occurred in 1927.²

The findings for such a scenario (prepared for Israel five years ago) – that a quake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale (less than Nepal's) would kill an estimated 16,000 people and render 377,000 homeless – are sobering indeed.³

Earthquake Prophesied at Jesus' Return

Yes, it's scary, and we should prepare for the worst. However, such an apocalyptic vision will inevitably become reality for Israel – it's in the Bible! The prophet Zechariah foretells of a time, at the end of the age, when all the nations would come against Jerusalem, causing terrible distress. But the Lord himself will go out and fight them in the day of battle.

On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. (Zech 14:4)

In a recent blog for the Times of Israel,⁴ I mentioned how Yeshua, the Jewish rabbi whom Christians (and a growing number of Jews) worship as Messiah, indicated that earthquakes would strike with increasing frequency and severity, as labor pains on a woman in childbirth, immediately preceding his return.

The Bible tells us that when Jesus returns in glory, he will stand on the Mount of Olives and it will split in two"

And the New Testament records that it was from the Mount of Olives that – 40 days after Passover – the risen Jesus ascended to Heaven. Luke, thought to be the only Gentile to have authored any book of the Bible, said Jesus was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 'Men of Galilee,' they said, 'why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.' (Acts 1:9-11)

Verse 12 tells you that this dramatic incident occurred on the Mount of Olives. So we believe that Yeshua, when he returns, will place his feet there and the ensuing quake will shake the foundations of every man and woman on the planet.

Solid Foundations

We must ensure that the foundations of our lives are solid, rooted in an absolute trust of Elohim⁵, and not just in our temporary homes on this earth, so that when everything else shakes around us, we at least emerge with our faith intact. And when all is said and done, that's what really matters. For all who have not built their 'house' on the only strong foundation there is will be left naked, ashamed and forlorn.

If the foundations of our lives are solid, rooted in absolute trust of God, then as everything else shakes we will emerge with our faith intact."

Famous British author and journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, in his book Jesus Rediscovered, wrote:

The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves to be at home here on earth. As long as we are aliens, we cannot forget our true homeland.⁶

There are many people, including Christians, who are convinced things will get progressively better. Their worldview is based on a utopian aspiration that believes our efforts can bring heaven to earth. But as Jews for Jesus international director David Brickner says, this is not the worldview the Bible presents:

Anyone who thinks things will become progressively better in our world either hasn't heard or hasn't believed what Jesus said in the Olivet discourse (in which he discussed the end of the age). In a word, it is cataclysm, defined as 'a flood, a deluge, any violent change involving sudden and extensive alterations, an upheaval, a social or political one'.⁷

Brickner states: "Jesus says to expect a geopolitical, religious, economic, ecological, sociological and astronomical cataclysm".⁸ But as the world around us disintegrates, if we believe and trust in Yeshua, he promises to help us, strengthen us and guide us to a bright and beautiful eternal future where the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Hab 2:14).

References

1 Nepal wake-up call, 26 April 2015.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Earth-shaking events are signs from heaven, 29 April 2015.

5 This Hebrew name for God (Gen 1:1) traditionally signifies God as Creator and Judge of all.

6 Fontana, 1969, p30-31.

7 Dystopia: the truth behind the fiction, May 2014.

8 Ibid.

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.

Prophecy Today’s role has traditionally been to watch what is happening in the nation and on the international scene and give advance warning where we see trouble ahead.

Today we foresee dark clouds ahead, but bright light breaking through the clouds.

We do not have to rely upon the accuracy of polls to know that there is trouble ahead following the General Election. The plain fact is that as a nation we have turned our backs upon the word of God: we have rejected truth, we have spurned all the warning signs and now the great shaking of the nation is about to hit us with unrelenting fury!

What can we expect to see? The Bible has plenty of examples of what happens when a nation rejects God’s moral and spiritual standards of truth. Deuteronomy 28:20 says “The Lord will send on you confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to.” The leaders of our nation will not know how to deal with the shaking of the political system that will affect us all. The social stability of the nation and the economy will be shaken.

What can Christians do? Yes, of course, we must pray for the Lord to exercise mercy in the midst of judgement. But we believe God is calling for action as well as prayer!
Christians are being presented with the greatest opportunity for evangelism we have had for many years. God is calling for the church to be the Prophet to the nation: to be active in bringing help and stability to the nation in a time of turmoil.

God is calling for the church to be the Prophet to the nation.

What can Christians do?

First, we have to explain what has gone wrong. This was always the task of the prophets in biblical times and it is the task of the church today. As a nation we have turned truth upside down, calling good evil and evil good. Isaiah 5:20 says “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.”

As a nation we have turned truth upside down, calling good evil and evil good.

We have grossly failed to teach our children right from wrong, so that most of them are sexually active by the time they leave school and there is an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases among young people.

We have undermined and destroyed stable family life. The lives of millions of children have been shattered by family breakdown, which has also caused massive mental health problems (eg depression and suicide among adults) and has had a disastrous effect upon the economy.

Each family breakdown triggers a demand for another house, so we have a housing crisis: and family breakdown causes more people to be supported by the state. The Centre for Social Justice estimates the cost of family breakdown at £44 billion a year¹ – a huge drain on the nation’s wealth.

What are Christians doing?

Christians are already active in supporting their local communities through Food Banks, Street Pastors, Mums and Toddlers Groups, Senior Citizens Lunch Groups and in hundreds of other ways. This needs to be increased and used positively to help people to understand what’s gone wrong in their lives and what to do about it. One-to-one sharing of our faith with our neighbours in the community will have a transforming effect.

New Unity

The social situation we are about to face will demand new unity among churches and Christian groups across the country. Fresh vision and action will not only transform local situations but it will transform relationships between churches which will command a blessing from God.

Day of Opportunity

A day of great opportunity lies ahead. God is shaking everything and Christians need to understand what he is doing. Already there is widespread disillusionment among Muslims in the wake of the Islamic State. Reports from Egypt and other parts of North Africa and the Middle East speak of large numbers of Muslims accepting Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

Here in Britain many Muslims are turning to Christianity in cities like Leicester where churches are active among them. But the whole population in Britain is going to be shaken by the political and social upheaval on the horizon.

If Christians will rightly respond to what God is saying to us today this could result in a great spiritual awakening and transformation in the nation.

This is a day of good news as the storm clouds approach. We should keep our eyes fixed upon what God is doing – the fields are white for harvest!

References

1 Family Breakdown, Centre for Social Justice

Prophecy is divine truth revealed through the activity of God. It is the product of the self-revelation of God to human beings and through them to the nations. The task of the biblical prophets was to declare publicly the word of God that had been revealed to them. They were the mouthpiece of God.

Moses and Aaron

This is well illustrated through the arrangement that God initiated between Moses and Aaron when Moses protested that he was unable to speak to the people. God’s response was:

You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. (Ex 4:15-16)

A Common Error

The popular view of prophecy is foretelling the future, but this formed only a small part of the ministry of the prophets in the Bible. Their main task was declaring the word of God for their generation. This sometimes meant looking ahead and foreseeing the future with either warnings or messages of encouragement.

God’s Nature and Purposes

God used the biblical prophets to reveal his nature and purposes. Through Isaiah, God said, “I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no Saviour. I have revealed, and saved, and proclaimed” (Isa 43:11-12). This self revelation of God to human beings was completed through Jesus the Messiah whose mission was summarised by the Apostle John:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:16-17)

New Testament Prophecy

In the New Testament prophecy did not add to the revelation of God but it guided the mission of the Church. It was recognised both as a Ministry and as a Gift, or manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The Ministry was exercised by individuals recognised by the churches, often as an itinerant ministry: whereas the gift could be exercised by any believer receiving a revelation within the local church and sharing it with others in times of prayer and worship (the contrast between the Gift and the Ministry can be seen in Acts 21:9-10).

Today prophecy is used in much the same way as in the New Testament Church: for giving guidance to the local congregation, or bringing a word from God to the wider Church in order to enable the Church to be the prophet to the nation. For biblical guidance on how to weigh and test prophecies, see here.

The ministry of Prophecy Today has its roots in two significant conferences which were held in Israel climaxing at Easter 1986. First, a leadership group of 153 met in an isolated location on the eastern summit of Mount Carmel. This was followed by a large international conference of 5000 in Jerusalem.

These two conferences were foundational in setting the direction for the early years of the magazine Prophecy Today. We have been witnessing the Lord accomplishing His revealed purposes in the nations ever since - and are still doing so today. We are therefore publishing a brief review of those events and their immediate aftermath here.

Review

Strategic Purpose
The Lord speaks to His people
The Lord's message -- shaking the nations
The Lord's message and the end of Soviet might
The Lord's message -- Israel and the Church
Watching the prophecies unfold

In the book 'Prophecy Past and Present' Clifford Hill set out twelve biblical tests of prophecy. These were compiled from reading the Didache and other Early Church writings, which present a picture of practices in the early centuries of the Christian church.

When writing to the Thessalonians Paul urged the church not to dampen the fire of the Holy Spirit or to treat prophecies with contempt, but to test everything they received. They were to hold on to that which was good but reject “every kind of evil” (1 Thess 5:19-21). These tests need to be studied carefully by the churches today, and especially by ministers and worship leaders who have leadership responsibilities within the body of Christ.

The following is a brief summary of those tests:

1) Prayer. All prophetic revelation should be received in prayer and should be prayed over carefully for discernment.

2) Witness of the Spirit. Those who have the Spirit of God within them should have an immediate witness of the Spirit as to whether what they are hearing is of the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of truth - or is from some other source.

3) Scripture. No prophecy today will contradict the revealed word of God in the Bible. If it is not in accord with scripture it is false.

4) Meditation. It is sometimes necessary to take time to discern the significance of a prophetic revelation and whether or not it is a clever deception or truly a word from God.

5) Confirmation. If the word truly comes from God there will usually be confirmation of this through various ways.

6) Unity. If the word is truly from the Lord and there is love and trust within the fellowship, a prophetic revelation will increase unity and all the believers will affirm it to be a word from God. If not, there is something wrong, either with the word or in the fellowship, and there is great need for that fellowship to pray together until love and unity flow through the body.

7) Build up. Every true prophetic revelation will build up the faith of the body of Christ even if it is a difficult word.

8) Love. Every true prophetic word will be spoken in love even if it is a call for repentance.

9) Glorify Christ. Every true word that comes from God will always glorify Christ.

10) Conditions. If a prophetic word is one that includes a promise of either blessings or judgment, there will be conditions.

11) Fulfilment. If the word is of a predictive nature and is truly of God, it will be fulfilled.

12) Character. The moral and spiritual character of the prophet was always regarded as of crucial importance in the New Testament churches and in the Early Church of the first few centuries. So it should be today. For God does not use unholy lives through whom to convey his precious word to his people.

Below we have re-published Clifford Hill's lead article from the first print edition of Prophecy Today, March/April 1985. Entitled 'Take Off the Graveclothes!', it was a clarion call to the church to rise up and be counted, and is still highly relevant today.

These are exciting days to be a Christian!

We are living in one of the most significant periods in the history of mankind. There are many signs that these are the times that former generations have longed to see – the times of which Jesus and the prophets spoke. The need for clear discernment has never been greater in order that we may rightly interpret the signs of the times and rightly convey the Word of God to our generation.

In a world armed to the teeth with the most incredible weapons of destruction there has never been greater danger facing mankind. Yet with the mounting evidence of spiritual awakening around the world these are also days of limitless opportunity for the Gospel.

Spirit of violence vs the Spirit of God

There appear to be two mighty forces at work in the world today and moving towards a climax of confrontation. The contrast between the two is almost too vivid and blinding to comprehend. A spirit of violence has been loosed into the world; and, the Spirit of God is at work among his people.

The destructive forces of violence are to be seen in every part of the world. Assassination, terrorism, urban guerrilla warfare, revolution, plus 37 actual wars at present in progress are ample evidence of this. The threat of the world being plunged into a nuclear holocaust comes not only from the clash of the giant superpowers but from the smaller nations. The day is in sight when nations such as Libya, Syria, Iran, Pakistan - all experiencing an Islamic fundamentalist revival – will each have their own nuclear weapons (the threat from militant Islam may one day prove to be greater than the threat from atheistic Russian communism). The world is rapidly entering a highly dangerous and unstable period.

"The Holy Spirit is being poured out on people of all nations today just as the prophet Joel foretold and at precisely the right time when the forces of darkness are threatening to overwhelm the world."

At the same time the Spirit of God is at work in the world bringing new life and hope. In nation after nation there is a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit bringing spiritual awakening and revival. Today the church worldwide is growing at a faster rate than at any time since the days of the New Testament church. The church in Africa, south of the Sahara, is growing at a rate of more than 7 million per year. The new birth rate has overtaken the natural birth rate; so that the day is in sight when most of the population of central and southern Africa will be committed Christians. Similar things are happening in Korea, in China and in many other parts of Asia, also in South America and in Central America. Even in Russia and Eastern Europe there is evidence of a fresh move of God.

The Holy Spirit is being poured out on people of all nations today just as the prophet Joel foretold and at precisely the right time when the forces of darkness are threatening to overwhelm the world.

Re-arming the Church

God has entered the battlefield against the principalities and powers! Through a fresh move of the Holy Spirit worldwide, God is re-arming his church for battle. The time is drawing near when the battle of the ages will take place, the battle of which Paul hints in Ephesians 3:10, when through the church God will take on the world rulers of darkness that have for so long been driving mankind.

The word God spoke to Jehoshaphat are a time when Israel was under threat of annihilation is relevant to us today:

"Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. The battle is not yours, but God's." (2 Chron 20:15)

Traditionalism dying

The greatest danger facing us today is that of missing the timing of the Lord through failure to understand the signs of the times and failure to understand what God is saying to us today. While many of the new and younger parts of the church are full of life and vigour and eager response to the Spirit of God, many of the older and more traditional parts of the Body of Christ are showing signs of geriatric decay and hardening of the spiritual arteries.

Right across Europe many of the traditional churches are sleeping peacefully, occasionally stirring to murmur, 'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be' or are so caught up in the immediacy of institutional organisation and of social programmes that their spiritual eyes are blinded and their energies are diverted into unproductive cul-de-sacs.

The traditional churches with their centuries of scholarship ought to be the eyes and the ears of the church but they are failing to discern the dangers confronting our world today and the biblical significance of the days in which we live.

Prophecy neglected

For centuries there has been a neglect of the ministry of prophecy due in part to the very right and wholesome fear of being misled but also due to the Reformation emphasis upon Scripture as being not only the final authority on the word of God but also as being the final utterance of God, although this is contrary to the teaching of Jesus in John 14-16 on the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church.

Jesus taught that through the Holy Spirit God would continue to communicate with the believers. He said:

"I have much more to say to you all, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth…he will tell you what is yet to come." (John 16:12, 13)

In times of crisis God has always raised up prophets to speak to his people. The task of the prophet is to stand in the council of the Lord and to bring the contemporary word of God to the contemporary world (Jer 23:18, 22).

"God wants his whole church to be a 'prophetic people' to communicate his word to his world in these days of crisis."

Just as God spoke to his people of the old covenant through prophets to give them encouragement, warning or clear guidance in times of crisis, so God is speaking to his people of the new covenant through prophets today. The major task of the prophet is the forthtelling of the word of God. The prophet gives vision, clarity of purpose and understanding to the people of God. He enables the Body to discern the word of God for our times that it may rightly proclaim that word to the world. God wants his whole church to be a 'prophetic people' to communicate his word to his world in these days of crisis.

The Church constricted

The major blockage to the proclamation of the word of God to the contemporary world is the degree to which the world has infiltrated the Western church destroying its simple trust and expectancy and replacing it with all the complexities of institutionalism, unscriptural theology, materialism, secularism and unbelief. These are the graveclothes with which we have encompassed the Body of Christ. These are the constrictions that are imprisoning the word of God today. But the fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit we are seeing today is a worldwide movement. God is longing to renew his church in the West that it may fully accomplish his mighty purposes in this critical period of world history.

The Lord Jesus is weeping over his church today as Jesus wept over the tomb of Lazarus his friend. He wept for the slowness of understanding and unbelief of those whom he loved. "Roll back the stone!" he commanded. Then followed the words that demonstrated his claim to be the resurrection and the life. "Lazarus come forth!" Slowly Lazarus shuffled out of the tomb, his body completely encased in the graveclothes that enwrapped him and impeded his movements. There he stood, filled with the new life given to him by the Lord but unable to exercise it because his body was imprisoned within the tightly wrapped graveclothes. He had already received the precious gift of new life but he was virtually paralysed by the graveclothes.

"Dead tradition, unbelief, sterility and institutionalism have put the Body of Christ in a straight-jacket as binding as the graveclothes around the body of Lazarus."

That is a picture of the Western church. The precious gift of new life in the risen Christ is imprisoned within the Body by dead tradition, by blind unbelief, by sterile scholasticism, by the complexities of institutionalisation that have put the Body of Christ in a straight-jacket as binding as the graveclothes around the body of Lazarus.

Take off the graveclothes!

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead he did not rush forward to help Lazarus or remove the graveclothes from his body. He turned to his friends and said to them, "Take off the graveclothes and let him go!" (John 11:44). The Lord of the church is turning to his people today and saying, "l have already given you the new life in my Spirit, now you must remove the graveclothesl Let my church go into all the world with my word of life."

Let he who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches today.

"Take off the graveclothes! Let my church go!" If we do not hear and heed the word of the Lord today we will miss his timing in this most critical period of world history for 2000 years. Tomorrow may be too late!

Prophecy did not cease after the First Century Apostles. We must consider, therefore, how the prophetic ministry is to be understood in our day compared with the days of the biblical Prophets.

Prophecy is a gift to the Christian Church...

God has always communicated with His people through His prophets. The prophetic ministry is as essential today as in every age. Paul made it clear in his letter to the Ephesians that this ministry is given for the strengthening of the body of believers:

He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting… (Eph 4:11-15)

Prophecy did not cease after the First Century Apostles. We must consider, therefore, how the prophetic ministry is to be understood in our day compared with the days of the biblical Prophets.

The Biblical Prophets were rooted in Torah

The Old Testament was traditionally divided into three main sections, the Torah, the Prophets and Writings. Torah is the foundation of all Scripture. The Hebrew word 'Torah' means teaching/instruction and refers specifically to the first five books of the Bible. These five books are the foundation of the Old Testament. They contain all the major themes of the Bible, including the account of Creation, the Fall, the call of Abraham to the life of faith, the Covenant with Abraham, the call of Israel, the Covenant with Israel and the teaching of Moses with conditions of the Covenant.

A careful study of the ministry of the Hebrew Prophets reveals that they do not add to Torah, but simply interpret the times in which they lived in terms of Torah. They look back to what the God of Israel covenanted with His people, and the conditions of the Covenant. The Hebrew Prophets also looked forward to the coming Messiah. The valleys and peaks of Israel’s history conformed to the terms of the Covenant, and Prophets arose when God’s people needed help to understand the times in which they lived, and prepare for the future.

   "Prophets of every age understand God’s ways through their understanding of Scripture"

The ministry of a prophet, in every age, is strengthened when the prophet has a mature understanding of the Bible, especially the promises and purposes of God revealed in His Covenant. Israel’s Prophets were able to interpret the signs of the times and discern the Word of God when they understood the Torah. It is the same today: we understand the situations of the world best when we are mature in our understanding of the entire Bible. The prophetic ministry is also subject to the call of God on a person’s life. Prophecy is directly from God and is given for the edification of God’s people through whom God Himself chooses:

No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Pet 1:20-21)

Responsibility and Privilege

The call of each of the biblical Prophets is set out in detail in the Books of the Old Testament and shows the awesome responsibility laid upon them. The prophetic ministry in our day is no less serious and the call is equally clear, as borne out by testimonies of those who have been called by God.

The prophetic ministry is as essential in our day as in former days. These words of Amos are still relevant – Surely the Lord does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7)

Modern Day Context

What has changed in our day is that the Covenant is to be understood in terms of the Sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah. Also the Gospel has gone to the whole world so that men and women from all nations are being called into the covenant community of faith.

In addition, the body of believers is now called to act together as a prophetic people within whom the prophetic ministry has a specific role. We no longer stand alone in ministry as in the days of the biblical Prophets. Moses prayed for the day when the Spirit of God would raise up a body ministry – Oh that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them. (Num 11:29)

Joel prophesied that this would indeed happen. Peter identified the beginning of the outpouring of the Spirit according to Joel’s prophecy. This was on Temple Mount on the special Day of Shavuot (Pentecost) when the promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit began to be fulfilled: "...and it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams, and on my menservants and maidservants I will pour out my Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy." (Joel 2:8-32, Acts 2:17-21)

A New Era in our World

We are in days of great significance and the God of Israel is working out his end-time purposes across the entire world. The prophetic ministry is given for building up believers to understand these purposes and prepare for the future. There is continuity in the role of the prophet and the call is no less serious than in former days. Maturity is gained through study of the entire Bible, and through prayerful consideration of the times in which we live.

We do not stand alone and are to submit ourselves to one another because everything must be determined through the witness of others with like ministry. The Bible- New and Old Testaments -states it this way: everything is determined by the witness of two or three witnesses (eg Deut 19:15, 2 Cor 13:1).

As in every ministry appointed by God, we do not volunteer for the ministry of the prophet within the congregations of believers, but when called, we begin a journey to maturity. We must root ourselves in the Scriptures and in prayer, being ready to speak or write when moved by the Holy Spirit. We are entering turbulent days on this earth and, as a body, it is time for the covenant people of God to help one another understand the times and prepare for the future. Is there anything more important?