Prophecy II

 If we are to dispel the confusion around prophecy, the first step is to properly define what it is and where it originates. Prophecy is not a gut feeling. It is not an emotional response to a current situation, a guess, or a supposition, nor is it the logical deduction of a perceived outcome given a specific set of circumstances. Prophecy is not intuition. Prophecy does not originate with the individual, nor is it something they can induce, accelerate, or manufacture.

The true definition of prophecy is this: a statement or a message of divine origin that predicts the future, or proclaims a divine or supernatural will. It is not a feeling, nor is it tethered to emotion, but a message from God, delivered via a vessel of His choosing, to an individual, a body, a community, or a nation.

God does not speak in generalities. When a message is from God and is delivered as it ought to be, there is no guessing as to what God means or who it was intended for. The message is direct and clear, whether in its warning, correction, direction, or portent of some future event.

Both divine inspiration and divine revelation fall under the umbrella of the prophetic. Neither is meant to elevate the individual, nor is a prophetic calling a means of discovering a side hustle or a source of gain.

As a counterfeit to prophecy, the devil has his own version of it, commonly called divination. It is not God-breathed, God-inspired, nor does it originate from Him, and much of what passes for prophecy today, even within the church, is nothing less than the practice of divination.

I grew up in a country known for fortune tellers, palm readers, gypsies in brightly colored skirts eager to tell you your future for a few shekels, and though they try to differentiate themselves from evil by saying they were white witches, or something of the sort, the source of their power was not of the light but of the dark.

Tragically, some of these individuals had more power than those claiming to be prophets today, and could perform the parlor tricks with greater flair. They didn’t need ear pieces to tell you your mother’s name, or dog’s name, or your long-dead grandmother’s name, and their intuition was honed to razor sharpness.

If guessing someone’s zip code, or home address, makes them a prophet, then all the gypsy caravans roaming Eastern Europe have their own dedicated prophet or prophetess.

I had one experience with a gypsy woman when I was young and didn’t know any better, that I remember to this day. I was around seven at the time. We lived in a village, rural enough that we didn’t get much traffic, and one day, as I was playing in the yard, I heard a clatter coming down the unpaved road in front of our house. Being the curious sort since early youth, I stood on the bench beside our fence and peered over, only to see a caravan passing by. Three carts, heavily laden with pots, pans, and other sundries they sold as they went from place to place, and a handful of gypsies, the women of the group dressed in bright flowing skirts, with gold coins braided in their hair.

I didn’t wave or anything of the sort; I just watched as they passed, until a woman broke off from the pack and came to the fence, smiling and waving at me. I waved back, said hello, and after returning the greeting, she said, “I’ll read your future for a cup of water.”

Our well, still there the last time I drove through my home village a couple of years ago, was next to the fence, so I didn’t see the harm in giving her a cup of water. I pulled a fresh bucket, took a tin cup hanging on a nail at the base of the well, and handed it to her.

She drank it in one long pull, then said, “Give me your palm.” I extended my hand; she took it, looked down, then recoiled and said, “You’re one of them; you’re one of them. I can’t do it; you’re one of them.”

She let go of my hand, turned and rushed back to the caravan without another word or a sideways glance. What’s the point of this story? Simply that the darkness is aware of the presence of light, just as light is aware of the presence of darkness. Just because there is a supernatural element to something, it does not make it divine, nor does it ensure that it originates from God. Assume nothing. Test everything.

Yes, you may be called a wet blanket; others may demand you not question the man because the size of his ministry validates his calling, but fruit is fruit, and you can’t fake that, so no matter how well-known, how big, how much they might call themselves a prophet or a prophetess, take the time to see whether what they say is in harmony with the Word of God.   

God chooses when He speaks, He chooses whom He speaks to, and via whom the message is delivered, so thinking that anyone has the market cornered on prophecy and can guarantee a personal word from the Lord in exchange for legal tender is fallacious, wrong, and inconceivable.

You cannot monetize a gift that isn’t yours to do with as you will! That should be obvious, but given the current insanity plaguing the household of faith, it needs reiteration. If you’re a roofer and you learned how to put on a roof, that’s a skill you learned, and you are more than welcome to earn your daily bread from it. Prophecy is not a skill. It is not something you can learn. It is not something that another can teach you how to do, or impart upon you as a signing bonus.

God chooses the vessel; He chooses how often He uses the vessel, He chooses the extent to which He will use that vessel, and the vessel’s only contribution is that they remain faithful, walking in righteousness, and delivering the message they’ve been given verbatim, without taking away or adding anything to it.

It is not man’s job to guess what God was trying to say or to interpret the message they were tasked with delivering. I’ve seen more than my fair share of individuals having to walk back suppositions they made based on a word that was given because, rather than deliver the message and be done with it, they attempted to draw their own conclusions, whether regarding timeline, the means by which God would fulfill the word, or whether they, themselves, would end up playing an integral part in the fulfillment thereof.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.