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We have a prophetic chatroom that is designed to be a safe place for people to learn to move in the prophetic and to improve their ability to hear God's voice. We had a difficult situation arise in the chatroom that has left many of the regulars asking themselves some "hard" questions. I want to address some of those questions, because I think that they are relevant to everyone. (I don't claim to have all the answers, but I hope my insights will be helpful in processing this type of question.)
Let me start with a little background. Our prophetic chatroom is on IRC, an interactive chat environment on the internet. People from all over the world come together in this chatroom to grow in the prophetic and to fellowship with likeminded individuals. (If you would like to know more about the room, or when the facilitated sessions are, please see www.godspeak.net/chat)
We have a small group of leaders who help me run this chatroom. One of those leaders was a lady named Vicky, who was known as "jlea." She had been a leader with us for years, and a lot of people knew her from the chatroom. One day Vicky seemed to drop out of sight for a few months, and no one knew what was going on in her life. Her daughter contacted us about two and half weeks ago to let us know that Vicky was in the hospital with lung cancer. That was on a Wednesday. The following Saturday, one of the leaders asked those in the room to seek words of encouragement for Vicky. The words were emailed to Vicky's daughter for her to read to her Mom.
I wasn't there and I did not see the words. But apparently many of the people prophesied to her that this was not her time to die, that God had more for her to do, that she would recover, and other things along those lines. The words were all very encouraging, full of hope and a bright future. But Vicky died less that 48 hours after those words were given.
This lead to a crisis for a lot of people, and they have handled it in different ways. Some blamed themselves, or labeled themselves as false prophets. One person told me that they had spoken words of life over Vicky and now they are thinking that perhaps they should never prophesy again. Others got angry and wanted to blame someone else. A few have been openly hostile to the facilitator who asked them to seek words for Vicky, blaming her for the situation. Others are handling this by questioning the very fabric of the prophetic itself--e.g., they are wondering if prophecy is valid or if they should reject all prophetic words from here on out.
Other people did not go into a "crisis of faith" over this, but are still troubled by it, and they have a lot of questions. Some are soul-searching because they thought they heard God release words of life over Vicky, then she died right after that. Others did not release words but still question how God could allow words of life to go out in His name, and then let her die so soon afterwards. In short, the integrity of the prophetic is being called into question to one degree or another, because words of life were released and death ensued shortly afterwards.
There is no single "right answer" but I would like to throw out three things to consider.
Let me briefly discuss all three. I will discuss the first one this week and the other two next week.
The words might have been legitimate God-words
Many of God's words are invitational (or conditional) in nature. Some of the conditions are spelled out explicitly, and others have the conditions implicit in the word. Let me give you some examples. Isaiah 1:19 is an example of an explicit condition. It says, "If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land." The promise is prosperity and a bright future, but the condition is that you have to be willing to fulfill God's destiny and also obedient to His laws. The condition is made clear along with the promise.
Many New Testament prophecies are contingent on faith or on obedience, but these things are not mentioned in the prophecy. Both faith and obedience are very important. When Jesus healed people, He said things like, "According to your faith it will be done to you" (Matthew 9:20). When Jesus gave the great commission, He put an emphasis on obedience right in the commission. Matthew 28:20 says, "and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you..."
Now, some of the bible promises are "conditional" on these two things, but that condition is not explicitly spelled out in the promise. For instance, Jesus said in Matthew 18:19, "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in Heaven." The promise is that if two believers agree together, they can have whatever they ask for. But that promise is contingent on "asking in faith" and on living in accord to God's principles.
If two believers agree together for something that contracts God's principles, God is not going to give that to them. Let me give you an example--this example is so outrageous you might think I am making it up, but (sadly) it is a true story. One time a pastor from Miami called me. He wanted to know how long he had to wait for God to keep His promises, because he was weary and frustrated and had been waiting over a year. I asked him what situation he was talking about. It turns out that he had marriage problems and had "fallen out of love" with his wife. He was very attracted to another woman in his congregation, who happened to be happily married to some other man. So this pastor and his elder claimed Matthew 18:19. They agreed together that the pastor's wife and the other woman's husband should both die, so that the pastor could marry this other woman. He had waited "in faith" for over a year for these two people to drop dead so that he could fulfill his carnal lusts, and he wanted to know why God wasn't keeping His promise.
Obviously, Matthew 18:19 had an implied condition--that you had to agree together for things that are in accord with God's will, but he missed that condition.
It is possible that God's promise for life for Vicky had some implied condition attached to it that was not met. Perhaps it was the "if you are willing..." portion from Isaiah 1:19. Perhaps He was offering Vicky a choice: "I have these things I'd like you to stay on earth and do for Me if you are willing..." Maybe she strongly preferred to go home to Heaven instead of having more pain/suffering here on earth.
Vicky had told me on the phone that she knows for sure she will go to Heaven and that she is not at all afraid to die. Her daughter told me that at times Vicky wanted to just "quit" and go to Heaven instead of dragging this disease out any more. Maybe God offered her a choice between staying here longer or going home. Maybe the prophetic words spoken over her were an offer that God was making to her. But God ultimately let her choose whether or not to accept that offer, and He honored her choice.
We know that God's prefect will is not always accomplished. At times He defers to our desires and requests. Look at Hezekiah for example. He had lived well and had completed all the tasks God had for him. The Lord wanted to take him home to heaven on a triumphant note. (See 2 Kings 20 for the whole story). God sent the prophet Isaiah to tell him that. But Hezekiah wanted to live longer and pleaded with God to extend his life. God knew that Hezekiah would make a mistake that would cause Israel to go into captivity to Babylon, and God's perfect will was to take Hezekiah home before he made that mistake. But God honored Hezekiah's request; He healed his fatal boil and extended his life by 15 years. And shortly after Hezekiah recovered, envoys came from Babylon to see Hezekiah's treasures, which ultimately put Jerusalem on Nebuchadnezzar's "lands-to-conquer" list.
If Hezekiah had died at God's planned time, he would have gone to Heaven with an incredible record, and that was God's perfect plan for him. But God changed His plan in response to Hezekiah's pleas, and as a result, Hezekiah got a "black mark" on his otherwise prefect record.
The whole point is that God responds to our choices. Sometimes He gives us promises that are contingent on us doing certain things (or abstaining from them). Other times, God takes our will and desires into consideration, and He has been know to change His prophetic word in response to our desires. 2 Kings 20 is an example of that. Isaiah spoke a true God-word when he told Hezekiah that he would die. But before he could get all the way out of the palace, God told him to turn around and go back and then God had him prophesy the opposite of what He'd said a little earlier. God change's His word to Hezekiah in response to how Hezekiah responded to that word.
The same could be true for Vicky. Maybe those words were God's will for Vicky--recovery and more kingdom work to do. But maybe Vicky's response was, "Lord, please take me home now."
I talked to Vicky on the phone Friday afternoon, about 3 days before she died. She told me that she was not at all afraid to die because she knew for sure that she'd be going to Heaven. Vicky told her daughter that she was "ready to go to Heaven now." Maybe God offered Vicky a choice and she chose to "go home" to be with Him.
There is one more thing that I want to mention. I am pretty sure that this doesn't pertain to Vicky's case, but I should mention it to make the discussion on conditional prophecies complete.
We have already seen that Bible promises can be contingent on things not stated explicitly in that promise. The same can be true in promises that God gives to individuals through modern-day prophesy. He means what He says absolutely and 100%, but He requires a certain response from the person in order to get them. If they don't do that response, then they don't get the promise.
Take Ananias and Sapphira for example (from Acts 5). They were given a promise that if they give financially to God's work, God will bless them and out-give them (from Luke 6:38). They followed that recipe. They sold their property and gave a large portion of the profits to the church. Therefore they expected blessings (financial and otherwise) to be given back to them. But instead, God struck them dead because they lied to the Holy Spirit by saying that they'd given 100% of the profits when they'd kept a portion for themselves. If you look at Jesus' spoken promise (recorded in Luke 6:38), there were no conditions against lying explicitly stated in it. He simply said, "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." But there were conditions (obedience and faith) implicit in that promise. Lying to God is a form of disobedience, and instead of getting a reward for giving, Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for lying to God. In short, the word they acted on was conditional and they did not meet the condition.