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

6

MESSAGE: VARIOUS

WAYS OF PROPHETIC

EXPRESSION

"It is Your message I have given them, not my own."

Jeremiah 17:166 (NLT)

THE ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE is an awesome gift of God. Unlike whales and birds and chimpanzees, who can make known only some of their most basic wants and feelings, we humans have a vastly superior and highly sophisticated language ability. It is part of the image of God stamped in us. Adam quickly discovered his innate ability to speak, and humans have been talking ever since. After man's sin God particu larly desired to communicate His concerned thoughts to the fallen crea ture made in His image. From the divine standpoint, prophecy is God speaking His mind and sharing His words with mankind. From the human point of view the prophet is the conduit, channel or spokesman for those words, and in such use speech is elevated to the highest possible function. For the cur rent of divine revelation to flow, there must be a live contact at both ends. The prophet-spokesman, obedient to God and sympathetic with man, was God's human contact. In this chapter we will discuss the variety of ways prophecy was ex pressed. Since prophets are people (although God did speak once through 97 ■