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

Mind: How Did Prophecy Come to a Prophet?

"the word of the Lord" permanently with him.He instituted the training of prophets and originated a prophetic order and procedure that was the prototype for succeeding generations.For these reasons, although he was also a judge, he is often thought of as "the first of the prophets." Three verses from the New Testament seem to confirm this: • "All the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days" (Acts 3:24, KJV). • "After that [God] gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet" (Acts 13:20, KJV). • "What shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and ...Samuel, and of the prophets" (Hebrews 11:32, KJV). Samuel was the last of the judges as well as the first of the prophets. His appearance also marks the beginning of the institution of the monar chy.The time of the judges with its sporadic leadership had been difficult for the new nation, and now the Philistines were growing more menac ing and demanding.The people panicked like sheep without a shepherd, and a national cry, led by the elders, arose for a king with political and military might who could defend them.The history of the rise and fall of the Israelite monarchy, starting with the anointing of the first king, Saul, by the prophet Samuel, is recorded in the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.In a sense this registry is an account of the interaction between kings and prophets. The first three chapters of 1 Samuel tell the fascinating story of a des perate couple's desire for a child, the wife's sincere prayer that produced the miracle and the introduction of the boy Samuel to the prophetic realm. The national religious scene was deplorable.The priest Eli and his prof ligate sons had corrupted the priesthood and the worship of God's peo ple.Yet into this hopeless situation the baby Samuel was born and, as a child, dedicated to begin his service in the house of God. The account reminds me of a scene I saw more than thirty years ago on my first missionary trip to Brazil.In the dirtiest of barrio settings I spotted a solitary orchid blooming, obviously not planted by the hand of man.This beautiful flower seemed oblivious to the awful filth surround ing it.So, in similar fashion, the child Samuel was brought, newly weaned, to the aged priest Eli as the seed of a new ministry-to bloom in the worst of spiritual conditions. An unnamed prophet (one of the few of that time) had previously come to Eli declaring impending judgment on the priest and his sons and pre dicting a restored priesthood and the voice of God in Israel.The old man, 85.