Getting Prophecies 2

In ‘Getting Prophecies 1’ we compared the method used by the Family to receive prophecy with a number of incidents in the Bible where people actually ‘heard from the Lord’. We found that in contrast to the Family methods, people in the Bible did not initiate receiving any of the prophecies, with the possible exception of Daniel, who on one occasion only was so desperate for his own life that He begged the Lord to send the answer to his problem. It is interesting to note that this incident in Daniel chapter two was the only time Daniel actually asked God for a message, and as we have mentioned, it literally was a life and death situation. It is therefore unwise to take this isolated incident as the basis for a general doctrine that applies at all times.

Family verses on prophecy.

There are a number of verses that the Family uses to justify its position on ‘hearing from God’. As we look at each passage, the question we’ll be asking is whether the verses are actually talking about the Family’s method of receiving prophecy or not. Unfortunately, it does seem that the Family views the Bible more as a convenient supporting reference manual, rather than the source of inspiration. In other words, we should not use the Bible as a place where we can find confirming Scriptures. Doing that means we have come up with the doctrine ourselves and through careful selection of verses here and there, it is usually not too difficult to find ‘confirming Scriptures’ to support just about any doctrine imaginable. The Bible, however, is not to be abused in this manner. It is the Bible that contains the doctrine and we should read it carefully to find out what it is telling us.

The first example is that of Jeremiah 33:3.

Call unto Me.

Jer 33:3 ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’

We can read this verse two ways. Firstly, we can decide that we want to find verses to support the Family teaching of hearing from God. We are pretty sure that the doctrine is right, so all we want to do is find some verses that go along with it. We think, ‘OK, I need a verse that says something about receiving new revelations whenever we have personal prayer and prophecy time.’ So, we start looking for a verse along those lines and before too long we stumble across Jeremiah 33:3. It doesn’t takes us very long because all we have to do is pull out the Family’s Memory Book (published in 2000), turn to the section on ‘prophecy’ and Jeremiah 33:3 is the first verse listed. We exclaim happily, “See, the Bible agrees with this teaching!” and then move onto another verse.

The main problem with this kind of Bible teaching is that it becomes almost impossible to receive the truth this way. We have cut ourselves off from hearing what God might want to tell us, ironically while reading up about hearing from God! The Bible is the source of truth; it is the primary manufacturer of the doctrine in the first place, not the convenience store where we purchase additional supplements.

The other way of reading Jeremiah 33:3 is by opening the Bible to the chapter and reading the passage to get an understanding of what God is talking about.

Jer 33:1-7

1 Moreover the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still shut up in the court of the prison, saying,

2 “Thus says the LORD who made it, the LORD who formed it to establish it (the LORD is His name):

3 ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’

4 “For thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and the houses of the kings of Judah, which have been pulled down to fortify against the siege mounds and the sword:

5 ‘They come to fight with the Chaldeans, but only to fill their places with the dead bodies of men whom I will slay in My anger and My fury, all for whose wickedness I have hidden My face from this city.

6 ‘Behold, I will bring it health and healing; I will heal them and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth.

7 ‘And I will cause the captives of Judah and the captives of Israel to return, and will rebuild those places as at the first.

The first thing we notice when reading this passage is quite remarkable: the subject here is not prophecy. This is not a chapter of instruction on how to pray or how to hear messages from God. Therefore, while we can rejoice that verse three says our prayers will be answered, we cannot say that the main application of this verse is in our personal ‘prophecy’ time.

Secondly, we see just how Jeremiah himself received this prophecy. He was in prison (verse 1) and ‘the word of the Lord came to him.’ Does it say that Jeremiah asked God to explain what was going on? Does it say Jeremiah prayed to get a message of encouragement while in his cell? We cannot assume things that are not there. It says ‘the word of the Lord came.’ The prophecy just came. How did it come? Verse two says the Lord made it, formed it established it. Some translations give verse two as God establishing His creative authority.

Jer 33:2 “This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it-- the LORD is his name: (NIV)

How are we to pray? ‘Call.’ That’s the only instruction given to Jeremiah, and that’s the only instruction we can appropriate ourselves. We are to call on God. We call, we pray, we beg, we supplicate, we plead. It does not say that God is obligated to give prophecy on demand, it does not tell us to empty our mind in preparation to hear God’s voice, it does not say that we can receive directional prophecies to cover every part of our life. It says ‘call’.

Next we see that the main intent of the phrase ‘show you great and mighty things, which you do not know’ in verse three is what God said in the rest of the passage from verse four onwards. God was talking to Jeremiah and showing him the future of the land in which he was imprisoned and of his own people. God showed Jeremiah great and mighty things about which Jeremiah was totally ignorant. God can similarly reveal great and mighty things to us about which we are ignorant, but it is stretching the verse a bit too far to say that the real meaning of verse three is that whenever we wish to ‘hear from the Lord’ He will give us prophecies.

We call, God answers. We pray but it is God Who reveals His truth, God Who shows the great and mighty things if He chooses to do so. In other words, the verse just does not say that God will give us a prophecy whenever we decide we want to get one. It does not say that we should attempt to hear from God by receiving messages in our mind or seeing visions etc. What does it say we are to do? Only this: call.

Amos 3:7

Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.

The Family uses this verse in two ways. Firstly, that God primarily reveals truth through chosen prophets that He has ordained on the earth, and secondly that whenever we wish to know God’s will, He will tell us exactly what He is doing.

We will not discuss the first application in detail here, as it is beyond the scope of this study. Suffice it to say that the Bible says that one of the reasons that the Holy Spirit has been given to Christians is that each one may know and understand the truth of God personally and individually, without the need for a chosen man (or woman) to be the mouthpiece of God on the earth. For more, see the studies on the Holy Spirit and New Revelations.

The implication of the second application is that God is somehow bound to tell us what He’s doing whenever we ask. If we want to know what God is up to, then we can claim this verse and He has to tell us.

Let’s have a look at Amos chapter three to see what the passage is really talking about.

Amos 3:1-8

1 Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying:

2 “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

3 Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?

4 Will a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den, if he has caught nothing?

5 Will a bird fall into a snare on the earth, where there is no trap for it? Will a snare spring up from the earth, if it has caught nothing at all?

6 If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there is calamity in a city, will not the LORD have done it?

7 Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.

8 A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken! Who can but prophesy?

In verses one and two, we see that the prophecy was given primarily as a rebuke to the children of Israel. God had made a special covenant with them that He did not make with any other nation. God promised them blessings that He did not give to any other people, and when they fell into sin, they would be punished in a way that was fitting for a nation that had a special relationship with God.

Verses three to six present a series of cause-and-effect statements in question form: If this happens then that other thing will happen. If two walk together, it only happens because they are agreed. If a lion roars in the forest, it is because he has caught some prey. Connecting this with verses one and two, we understand what God says in verse six, ‘If you see calamity in your city, it will be because the Lord will have punished you for your sins.’

Therefore verse seven states the fact that God never sends punishment upon His people unless they know exactly what they are doing wrong. God does not sneak up on us from behind and beat us for things that we had no idea were wrong. In Old Testament times, God was faithful to warn His people through the prophets. Since Jesus came, God remains just as faithful to warn His people, His children of faith, but now He warns us directly. Jesus told us that one of the functions of the Holy Spirit would be to correct us for our sin.

John 16:7-8

7 “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

8 “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

A Spirit-filled Christian will be warned by the Holy Spirit when he heads in the wrong direction. God will always tell us. Now, note that it does not say that God will continue telling us if we ignore Him, nor does it specify the method by which He tells us. The point is that God tells us. Before God punishes us for our sins, He will have been faithful to correct us, to rebuke us, to warn us so that if the punishment does eventuate, we will be without excuse. No one will be able to whine before God, “But I didn’t know!”

Amos 3:7 does not say that God must tell us the future when we ask Him. Rather, as we look at the passage as a whole, from the beginning of the chapter, we can see that there are a couple of points that are the focus of this passage. First that Israel would be punished for their sins. The special relationship they enjoyed with God also brought with them the responsibility of total obedience to Him. Second, they could be assured that any disaster that came was from the Lord. Third, they were being warned in advance.

There are a number of additional lessons we can learn from the passage, but only after we understand the main point and only while we understand that these are minor points. An example is in verse three, ‘Can two walk together unless they are agreed?’ We can learn good lessons on Christian unity or marital unity or on the danger of independence etc but we cannot say that verse three explicitly teaches the doctrine of unity. Amos 3:3 is primarily part of the series of cause-and-effect questions God asked to illustrate the facts that (1) Israel’s sin will cause calamity and (2) this calamity will come from the hand of God. It is a misrepresentation of Scripture to hold Amos 3:3 up as divine doctrine on unity.

Similarly Amos 3:7 does not state that God is obligated to tell us the future when we ask Him. It does say that we will know the reason for our punishment, but that will not be because we or some prophet demanded that God tell us; we will know because God will have already shown us.

There is an interesting additional point in verse eight where two more cause-and-effect situations are given.

Amos 3:8 A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken! Who can but prophesy?

If a lion roars, we will be afraid (especially if the lion roars because we are his prey!) Secondly, when the Lord God speaks, who can but prophesy? When God really has a message that He wants to send on the earth, He will send it and no one will be able to hold it back. The implication here is that either God actually forces prophetic messages through the voice of the prophets so that the message comes regardless of whether they want to give it or not, or the message comes with such authority that the recipient has no choice but to give the words. Either way, the message came from the mind of God; it did not come because the prophet wanted to know the future or desired to ‘hear from the Lord’. The Lord spoke, which caused the prophet to hear.

One of the problems with the Family’s ‘hearing from the Lord’ doctrine is that it is in the wrong order. Saying that we can hear from the Lord whenever we want is saying that God speaks because we ask Him to speak. However this verse makes it clear that God speaks because He wants to speak, and then the prophet cannot help themselves, they are either forced or under obligation to give the message.

This verse also does not support the Family doctrine of God ‘broadcasting all the time’ where we just have to ‘learn how to tune in’. The ‘broadcasting all the time doctrine’ says that God is somewhat like a radio station and whenever we wish to ‘tune in’ using our mind or our spirit then we will hear what God is saying. However the necessary implications of this doctrine are that (1) as God is always broadcasting, many of His words are lost due to the fact that we are not always trying to hear them; or (2) that God’s messages are impersonal in the same way that a radio station is impersonal, where everyone gets the same message, regardless of the content. In order for God’s message to be personal, the ‘radio station’ would have to be broadcasting on millions of different channels simultaneously, one channel for each Christian. This would necessitate vast volumes of God’s words to be broadcasted without anyone hearing them. However, according to Isaiah 55:11 that cannot happen.

Isa 55:11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

God is not broadcasting all the time. Rather, God chooses when and how and to whom He wants to speak, then He gives the message. No messages are ever lost due to the prophet’s unfaithfulness or inability to ‘tune in’. When God speaks, the message always gets through.

As the responsibility is on God to get the message through, there is also no possibility for the message to be ‘tainted’ or ‘coloured’ by the prophet themselves, as the Family has said. When God called Jeremiah to his ministry as a prophet to Israel, Jeremiah was unsure of his ability to fulfil the role of a prophet. God encouraged him by saying that he would speak the Lord’s words.

Jer 1:5-9

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”

6 Then said I: “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.”

7 But the LORD said to me: “Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.

8 Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you,” says the LORD.

9 Then the LORD put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.

When it is God Who sends a message, the prophecy will be beyond the will of the prophet, and it will always be absolutely correct. If the message has been ‘tainted’ in any way by the prophet, then this could not possibly have originated from God in the first place. It is simply not possible to alter a message when it is God Who sends it.

A final point about Amos 3:8. The lion has roared! Be afraid! This brings us back to the setting of this passage, God rebuking the Israelites for their sins, and giving them the warning of imminent calamity. The lion roared and there was no room for self-exaltation by the prophet. When God spoke, the Israelites had cause for fear. They knew their sin and they knew the punishment. And that is the main lesson we can learn from these verses in Amos chapter three. The main lesson is certainly not that we can expect that God will tell us the future, nor does it say that He is under any obligation to do so.

'Getting Prophecies 3' studies what happened on the day of Pentecost, and looks at other verses the Family uses to justify its doctrines on prophecy.

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