The Nature of Prophecy ...continued

Examples of Prophecy and their problems

By William Kay (used with permission)

ANSWER 3

3. You are a pastor and your congregation is thriving. You have been considering for some time the opening up of a branch work on the far side of your town. This is not something that you have told your congregation. One day, in your private devotions, you read that "Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall" {Gen 49.22) and you wonder whether the branches going over the wall is God's way of confirming your desire to work on the other side of the town That Sunday, one of the Sunday School teachers stands up and says, 'The Lord has shown me a lovely picture of a vine which is growing and growing. It is growing up a wall and then over the wall and it has many grapes on the branches".

This is easy. What the Sunday School teacher says was quite unprovoked by any prior knowledge of your intentions to start a branch work. Moreover, as a Sunday School teacher she is in good standing with the congregation and known to you. Her prophecy, given in the same week that your private devotions have led you to Gen 49.22, indicates that the Lord is leading you to begin a new work -and you have the added confidence that there will be fruit on the new branch.