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-- © GodSpeak International 2003 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.net> --

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Teresa Seputis ts@godspeak.net http://www.godspeak.net
Editor: Elvi Glass

A Prophet's Eye-View Of Bible History"

Lesson 1
Why Old Testament History Is Important To The Prophetic

By Teresa Seputis

Old Testament history might sound like a strange topic to study in a prophetic school. But it is extremely important for a person who ministers prophetically to have a good understanding and working knowledge of the Bible, especially of the Old and New Testament stories of how God met people's needs worked on their behalf.

Let me explain why this knowledge is important. It is important because God will often want to draw from that knowledge to give you an analogy or example in a word that He asks you to deliver. It is easier for Him to recall something to memory and mention it briefly to you than it is for Him to have to teach you Old Testament (or New Testament) history as you are in the middle of giving the word. It is also helpful to be very familiar with the Bible because then you know God's ways of doing things and can more quickly judge and discern if something that is not from God tries to sneak into a word.

There is a misconception among prophetic "beginners" that God gives all prophecy through word-for-word dictation (sort of like an executive might dictate a letter for his secretary to type). There are times that God does that, and in those times each and every word in the message is divinely inspired and highly critical to be delivered as given. But most of the time, God gives the message to us thought for thought and allows us to select the words to express His thoughts.

It is similar to how you might leave a message for someone on the telephone; you don't usually dictate a lengthy message word for word. Instead, you communicate the main points to the message taker. They communicate your message to the person it is intended for. Most of the time, they will not write down each word of the message, they will write down the main points of the message. Then, when they deliver it to the intended recipient, they select their own words to accurately convey your message. The idea and concept you wanted to share are communicated, but the message itself is not usually given word per word. Instead, it is usually given concept for concept or main idea for main idea.

Let me illustrate this for you. Phil calls Tony to tell him he will be an hour late to a pre-arranged meeting. Tony is away from his desk and Pat takes the message. Phil says, "Please tell Tony that I am going to be an hour late to our meeting because something unexpected just came up." When Tony gets back to his desk, Pat delivers the message as, "Phil called. Something came up for him at the last minute, so he will be an hour late to your meeting." Was the message given word for word? No, it was not. The order of the concepts was reversed and some of the precise wording was changed. However, the main points of the message were communicated faithfully: one was that something came up to cause a delay and the other was that this delay would make Phil an hour late to his meeting with Tony. So Pat delivered the message faithfully even though she did not use Phil's exact words.

A lot of the time, the prophetic works like that. God gives us a message to deliver, but He allows us to select the words we use to deliver it. He can (and occasionally does) choose to dictate a message word for word. But more often, He gives a message to a trusted messenger and then allows them to select the specifics of how to deliver it. The basic message and thoughts/concepts in it come from God, but the exact selection of words to express those thoughts come from the messenger.

God will often give us the main points of a prophetic word to communicate and leave it up to us to select the precise wording as we deliver that message. He might make an analogy between an Old Testament event and something He is about to do. Jesus did this before He was crucified. He spoke of His death and resurrection by saying, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" Matt 12:40.

And God will frequently use examples from Old Testament history as reminders of how He has been faithful or come through in the past. He might say something like, "Just as I was faithful to keep My promise to Abraham, so will I be faithful to keep My promise to you." Most people are familiar with Abraham's story, so God probably won't require that you expand on it. They know that God promised Abraham a son, but it was a significant number of years between when God first made that promise and when Isaac was actually born. So they understand that it may take longer than they had originally expected, but God will be faithful to come through and keep His promises, because He has done so in the past -- just like He did with Abraham.

At other times, God may want to use more obscure references. He might want to encourage someone who has had to fight every step of the way to enter into the ministry God called them to. People may be telling them that the difficulty and resistance are evidences that God's hand is not in what they are doing. They might be accused of trying to build this ministry from their own efforts instead of from His anointing/direction. And that person may be very discouraged and about to give up. And God may want to encourage them to stand firm in faith and keep on pressing in against opposition to do what He commanded them to do.

God may ask you to share a story from Nehemiah's experience to illustrate the point to press on despite opposition and resistance. Many people are not familiar with the details of Nehemiah, so they will need to have the story expanded for them. It is true that God can give you the bible history found in Nehemiah 4 as you are prophesying. But He usually prefers to ask you to tell them the story of Nehemiah having to have half of the workers stand guard as armed troops while the other half build the wall. And for you to tell them that story, you need to know that story. (Nehemiah's story is a wonderful example of the spiritual warfare side of obeying God. It demonstrates how someone can be in the center of God's will and still face fierce enemy opposition to what God has called them to do.)

I have seen people mess up really anointed prophetic words because they get small details of their bible history wrong. When people notice the error, it makes them suspect and discard the whole word. This is such a common experience among people just learning to move in the prophetic that there are a lot of jokes about this subject. Here is one of them:

There was a young couple that had a lot of prophetic potential. Their pastor, an experienced prophet, took the young couple with him on a ministry trip so that they could get some prophetic ministry experience under their belt. The husband began to give a word to a deacon couple in the church they were ministering at. The word was going very well and full of words of life and encouragement. Suddenly the young man said, "Thus sayeth the Lord, I will make you like Ananias and Sapphira and you will have experiences and a destiny like unto theirs."

There was a collective gasp from the congregation as he said this, and the couple he was prophesying to looked visibly shaken. But the young man was prophesying with his eyes closed and did not notice. He was about to continue on, but paused for breath.

His wife grabbed the microphone and said, "Thus sayeth the Lord, he means Aquila and Priscilla, not Ananias and Sapphira!"

(If you are not strong in New Testament history, you might need a bit of assistance in understanding this joke. Aquila and Priscilla were faithful servants, a financially prosperous couple who helped out Paul and traveled in ministry with Paul for a season. But Ananias and Sapphira were the couple who God struck dead for lying to the Holy Spirit. The man made a mistake and used the wrong names because he was a bit weak in his bible knowledge. That mistake made the word sound like these elders were in sin, lying to God and about to be struck dead in judgment -- when God was really saying they were faithful servants about to be launched into higher levels of ministry.)

As you can see, it is very important to get Bible details correct when you are prophesying. If you don't, it can totally change the meaning of the word you are giving. And the more you become familiar with the stories of how God moved in the lives of the Bible characters, the more God can begin to bring these into the words he gives you. This can add depth and power to the delivery of the words, because these stories tend to build faith -- as we hear about what God has done in the past, we get faith that He will do it for us too. That is why God likes to share these stories in the prophetic words He gives.

The more you are familiar with the Bible, the greater vocabulary you give God to speak through you with. We will send the next several lessons getting familiar with many of the stories in the Old Testament.


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-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.net> --

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