New Testament Prophecy
We must ask ourselves, “Are we a people who would welcome and heed a voice such as this?”
The primary message of the New Testament prophetic voice must be, “Remind, remind, remind!” For everything that needs to be said has been said already. This is the sufficiency of Scripture we take so much comfort in.
Yet, how quickly we slip, how quickly we slumber. How easy it is to entertain a thought and allow a little old leaven to leaven the whole lump.
How cunning is our enemy and how crafty are those who creep in unnoticed, taking captive entire households, enticing them with clever words of human wisdom.
Against these and more we must be reminded, stirred, and called to remember and return to our first love, to the purity of the Gospel by which we were saved.
We must be encouraged to pursue and hold on to this purity in all things: affection, gaze, good works, witness, doctrine, mind, etc. Remind! Purify! Encourage! This is the message that lies at the heart of New Testament prophecy and it is a voice much needed today.
Yet before we lament the lack of such a voice, we must ask ourselves, “Are we a people who would welcome and heed a voice such as this?”
Would we make room for that voice?
We live in a world where love has been turned into acceptance and tolerance, and we have allowed this world to back us into an uncomfortable place. “Make room, make room,” is the world’s cry and so we accommodate their requests. Anything to get ourselves out of a tight spot.
Nothing is sacred, everything can be touched without fear. We no longer even know what it is to call a thing profane.
So what would happen to a voice in your midst who no longer tolerated such practices? Who called sin as sin? Who reminded you of the holiness of God and the fear of the Lord? Who demanded a return to purity?
Who rebuked your insatiable desires for sport, entertainment, culture, fashion, hobbies and nice things? Who called your attention to the number of hours you spent thinking on these earthly, temporal things, pursuing them, learning their intricate details, finding time for them, all while claiming you are too busy to pray, to worship, to wait on the Lord?
Who pleaded in agonized encouragement to return to your first love, the affection you once felt for Christ, how you used to run to the secret place to be alone with Him, but now there is no time and little interest?
Who prodded you with questions such as, “do you still study to show yourselves approved or has the palette of your mind become so unrefined that you no longer crave the pure spiritual milk of the word?”
Would you welcome and heed a voice such as this? Would you cheer for a voice like that to be found in your midst?
I hope yes, but I fear not.
Granted, we have many words being spoken today, for we live in a time where squabbles are considered holy discourse.
Squabbles: a noisy quarrel about something petty or trivial.
This posturing intellectualism poses as prophecy, yet true prophecy is not petty, nor is it trivial. It has little concern for winning arguments or the approval of a select group of men. True prophecy is too preoccupied with God for any of those matters.
Again and still I ask, “Where are the voices?”
So we press on, not despising prophecy, but rather desiring it. We long for the true prophets - the emergency men as Ravenhill puts it. We have heard it repeated, "without revelation people run wild - without vision, the people perish." Yet how rare it is to hear this type of pure, unwavering, unquestionable holy decree!
We will hear voices like this again. Voices that are known more before God than before men. Voices that speak with so great authority we do not question their credentials. They need not raise their volume in tenor, nor ramble on in length, to cut to our very core with even a handful of words.
We will hear them again. The question we must ask ourselves is, “Are we a people who would welcome and heed a voice such as this?”
In love,
Derek