Your Sons & Daughters Shall Prophesy - Prophetic Gifts Today In The New Testament Church

Message: Various Ways of Prophetic Expression

,· because, as we all knew, Brother Basher had been struggling with his pas toral leadership there. A confirmation of the message witnessed in Brother Basher's heart. Later he resigned his church and moved to Bible Temple. He became part of the eldership of that church, served there for years and learned much about the local church, church structure, government and all of those kinds of things. After some time he went out from Bible Temple to help plant a church elsewhere. It was thrilling for us to see the clear gift of God being unpackaged at the prophetic gathering that night and to see the positive impact, and the amen, on the heart of Brother Basher as God looked into his life and encour aged him, helping redirect him to the center of God's will. That was tremen dously encouraging. Toward the end of the prophecy, Brother Gentile paused for a moment and said, "I'm hesitant to say this, but brother, if I told you I saw a black man seated near the rear of the sanctuary there in your church, would you know who I was talking about?" Brother Basher nodded his head. Then Gentile said, "I really feel I need to tell you that when you return home, you must pray over him, lay your hands on him and invoke the spirit of prophecy over him-encourage him to prophesy the word of the Lord!" Now this was a very significant thing to us! We were familiar enough with Mike Basher's ministry to know that there was only one black man who ever went to that church, and he always sat toward the back. I don't think we were ever there when he wasn't sitting there. So to hear God use a man who had never seen Brother Basher before, had never been to his church and had little way of knowing any of these details-to hear God use him to speak something so very clear, so very precise, so very accurate, was a tremendous encouragement and inspiration. This whole experience framed my understanding of the power, effect and impact of New Testament prophecy, especially as I saw that the end result was to nurture, encourage and guide God's people into a fuller under standing of His will. I am very, very thankful to have experienced this very credible, very clear demonstration of the gifts of the Spirit coming through human instrumentality, yielding great encouragement and comfort to the Body of Christ.

REFLECTIONS

While scholars may try to classify different forms and styles of speech and writing (poetry, history, prophecy, etc.), this does not deny that there is one common factor: it is all God's prophetic word, and therefore absolutely authoritative. 26 Graham Houston

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