The Nature of Prophecy ...continued

Examples of Prophecy and their problems

By William Kay (used with permission)

ANSWER 9

9. A meeting of leaders has gathered for a few days of , prayer and quietness and to "recharge their spiritual I batteries". During this time, a prophecy is brought which " names two men and says that they are to begin a new stage in their ministerial work.

Here is a situation very similar to Acts 13. The first question to ask, therefore, is whether the two men have any sense of being prepared and called by God to a new stage in their ministerial work. If they have not, then the prophecy falls to the ground. But if both men have independently been ready and waiting to go abroad (or work for God in a new area) and both have received this call from God without communicating it to the person who prophesies, then we are on very strong ground in saying that the prophetic message was indeed genuinely from the Holy Spirit and that it is God's will to activate an extended ministry through the two men he has already prepared.

Care, of course, is needed in such situations. We should not want to force people on to missionary work for which they have no inclination or calling. It would be quite wrong to say to the two men who have been named that the prophet must be correct and they must be deaf to God and that, whatever they feel, they must begin a new work from God, perhaps even a new work for God overseas. It is vital that the men who are named have an inner sense of vocation independent of the prophecy itself.