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

A Profile of the Ancient Hebrew Prophet

of the overhead speakers. The impact of that voice calling my name directly overhead was electrifying! This, I believe, is the dramatic fashion in which God sometimes spoke to the prophets. Some wonder, "Is the voice audible?" To the person who hears, this question is inconsequential, since the message is clear and undeniable. Prophets of old certainly had the capability to hear from God-but is this not possible for all of us? God speaks as easily to a person as we speak to one another. Each of us is capable of hearing from Him. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice" (John 10:27). While in prayer at the church sanctuary one afternoon, I felt the Lord urge me to leave the church property. In the car I felt the Lord speak to me to go into the Purple Heart used clothing store. It was as though the steering wheel spun in my hands without my guidance! Nervously I entered the store (which I had never been in before), bought a candy bar and tried to look inconspicuous as I wandered around, trying to figure out why God would want me here. Suddenly, near the back of the store, I encoun tered a woman who attended our church. Her husband, who always ran out of his house when I came around, was with her. He asked me if we had made arrangements for getting the cement for our sidewalk. (At the time our church was new and small with a big sidewalk problem.) To make a long story short, he talked himself into bringing two other men to deliver and lay the cement for us, free of charge. Only God could have worked out such an answer to our need. Was I glad I listened! We should not be consumed with how it happens, but rather spend our time positioning ourselves in prayer and attitude so that it can happen. God speaks; a man or woman hears and obeys. There you have it. It was so with the biblical prophets and it is still so today. I remember vividly when God spoke to me (a young pastor of 28 in Spokane, Washington) and said, "Go to San Jose and start a church." I understand this sort of leading is difficult for some people to accept, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had spoken to me. And when this happens, no per son or circumstance can talk you out of it. I realize, of course, that God does not limit Himself to just an audible voice. He also uses natural means such as dreams, visions, trances, sen tence fragments, single words, impressions and human messengers. 7 The audible voice here is our focus because it was used commonly in divine communication with the prophets. Perhaps some of the mystery of such prophecy will be dispelled, and it will seem more possible for our own time, if we consider the most ele mentary form of prophecy as "two-way prayer." In fact many Christians, regardless of their view of the gifts, would affirm the idea that if we take time to wait for God to speak in our prayer times, He often does. This

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