Worship must be two ways. You open up and give to the Lord, but in that openness to the Lord, feel yourself drawing. Reach right up, loving the Lord, focusing right on the Lord, and at the same time breathe in and draw from Him.
There must be an exchange, a rhythm—drawing and ministering it, whether you are the one prophesying or someone else is. If you do this, the anointing will be increased upon you. The depth of anointing determines the depth of the prophecy or the singing in the Spirit. The depth must increase.
If we continue at the level we are now, we could be here for twenty years. But if we’re constantly concerned about a deepening of the anointing, we’ll break through. God’s intention is that we break through to the kind of prophesying that creates and shatters so that when we have prophecy, the next morning’s newspapers show what was accomplished by it. That is the kind of prophesying we should anticipate, and we’re not going to move into that kind of prophesying if we are content to stay on one level, so constantly be drawing more of an anointing upon yourself.
One way to get rid of spiritual attacks against us is to prophesy against them. We do not come together just to puff ourselves up, we come together to break through and maintain a spiritual level, and prophesy against the oppressions. To do that, you can’t say, “I prophesy against it,” just out of your mouth; go a little further by the anointing.
The effectiveness of the prophecy depends on the faith behind it. As Romans 12 says, you prophesy according to the proportion of your faith, and your faith is strongest when you are reaching in and drawing God’s faith, God’s anointing, and God’s Spirit into your prophecy, so you always prophesy not just out of a full heart, but out of an overflowing heart, an exploding heart.
Prophecy is more or less a safety valve, a release for the build-up within you. You prophesy because you have to; you are so full that you must have a turn to let it loose. Don’t be timid; be full. Build up your spirit by contact with the Lord. The whole congregation can increase the level of anointing on anyone’s psalm or prophecy by drawing from the Lord for that person. It is not up to the individual alone. If someone is preaching and the rest believe, there will be a deeper anointing than he would have by himself. As you begin to prophesy, stay with the continuity of thought that the Spirit is bringing, and the anointing will be deeper. There is always one keynote the Lord is bringing in a series of messages. Speak with force; believe your words to be doing it. When you say, “I prophesy against Babylon,” it helps a great deal to let the Spirit of the Lord give you a vision of it; you are prophesying about the city, watching it crumble, watching it burn; earthquakes, violence, Babylon is coming down. Prophesy against Babylon, “Come down, O walls of Babylon, come out of her my people; it is the day of release in the name of the Lord.” Put your faith behind it. See it, believe it; hit at it as if you are throwing rocks at it and bombing it.
Some tend to prophesy too long and get too involved; it is not how much you give but how you reach the people. You have to learn to impart prophecy through your hands, through your eyes, through your belly (“out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water”). You are like a sending station.
I am concerned about the depth of anointing we are going to enter into. Not everyone can do it at first. Don’t despise those who are just beginning and stumbling along; they have a great deal to give and they have to begin somewhere. Others who can should go on with as much force as they can. Let there be no such thing as spiritual pride, or despising a brother, or spiritual embarrassment.
The depth of anointing is not dependent on how loud the prophecy is, the monotone of delivery, or how rapid it is. In days past, if someone started yelling it out and carrying it on in one absolute monotone, he was supposed to be anointed. The prophecies that came in the beginning of this walk soon taught us that we had to be very concentrated and focused on what we were saying, and we had to feel when we finished that we had not just had a bubbling up of the Spirit, but that we had heard a word from the Lord.
Before you begin to prophesy, be concerned, not just about the fluency and flow. Have the word that God wants, and after you have said it, don’t go thrashing blindly through the jungle in every direction. It is better to say what God gives you to say in a few sentences and stop, than to say it and then detract from it by going down detours.
Someone else may pick up one of your detours and start prophesying from there. That’s the way a service goes off. If you hear a word from the Lord and when you hear the keynote, stay on that keynote, even if it’s a “me too” prophecy. Some jump up and say, “Me too, Lord, that’s right.” It’s confirmation. Listen carefully to those who prophesy at the first. There may, however, be five or six prophecies before suddenly it clicks on the mainline of what God is speaking. When you hear it, grab on to it and stay with it. The more you prophesy, building up, the greater the anointing will come. Stay right on it, and then the walls will come down and everything will start moving. This is when people really get the benefit of prophecy. Prophecy can be a little more effective than preaching, because people can sit and hear the preacher going through his points, but they may not get what they should be getting. A prophecy stays right on one line, edifying, exhorting and comforting the people. That whole church listens to a flow of prophesying that is concentrated and focused on the word that God is giving, and they say when it is over, “We’ve had a word from the Lord. God has spoken to us.”
The most practical step we can make in this time when we’re entering into spiritual warfare is to have teaching on prophesying, deeper prophesying, more anointed prophesying with more force in it. We’re going to prophesy against Babylon and against the devil powers that are standing against us. We’re going to prophesy the victory of the Lord, but we’re not going to prophesy on the same level. God is saying we have to come into a creative as well as a destructive level of prophecy. There are times when you can do more with prophecy than you can do with prayer, because by prophecy you can throw a bomb that tears everything loose. Sometimes your prayers are not full of the same faith that you have when you prophesy.
We must have boldness and courage, yet with carefulness, that moves right in and takes the promises in the name of the Lord. The prophet Isaiah said the yoke would be destroyed because of the anointing. Draw a greater anointing. If you come to a service and draw a deeper anointing upon yourself, whether you prophesy or not, the anointing will break the yoke. The yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing. If you look for the word of wisdom or the word of knowledge or counseling to solve everything, you may be looking for someone who can be a supercounselor. But that isn’t as effective as the anointing, which is wisdom itself. The anointing comes and breaks the yoke, breaks the bondage that is upon you. Keep drawing it and blessing yourself in it in the name of the Lord.
Concerning the predictive elements of prophecy and revelation over an individual, let there be no confusion—you have not had a word from God when someone points a finger in your face and says, “This is a word from the Lord: ‘Such and such and such!’ ” It doesn’t matter who receives a word to do something, we will wait until God shows all the parties concerned and confirms it; then we’ll move. It is very important that we enter into this, because the day may come in which God will say, “It’s time for the congregation to rise. Disaster will hit and we want everyone to pack up and be gone within the next thirty-six hours, and this is the specific direction in which you are to go.” If you had Jeremiah here, you would listen to him. If you had Isaiah here, you would listen to him. But you must remember that people in their day didn’t know the voice of the Lord and they didn’t listen to them. In I Corinthians 14 we read, “Let the prophets speak two or three and let the others judge” (I Corinthians 14:29). You should understand the difference between a prophet’s ministry and a predictive ministry on the one hand, and on the other hand, a straight gift of prophecy which does not involve prediction. It involves edification, exhortation, and comfort. “He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, exhortation, and comfort” (I Corinthians 14:3). That is prophecy, but what about this thing of prediction? We are going to need it in the church. It will have to be carefully regulated or a lot of people will spook and make all kinds of wild predictions that will not come to pass. Then the whole move of God will be branded as a false doctrine and occult.
Would you like to know the course by which prophecy can increase in its force and eventually can have even the element of prediction in it, and the force of creativity in it to such an extent that we’ll actually be that prophetic community of God in the end time? The operation of the gifts of the Spirit is like your hand. It extends in five different directions. One finger is the word of wisdom, another the word of knowledge, one the gift of faith that can create and move mountains, another the discerning of spirits, and one that is the gift of prophecy. It is wise to let every gift begin operating distinctly from other gifts as much as possible so it can be proven and established on its own. If you want to grow rapidly, heed this. When you prophesy, just prophesy for edification, exhortation, and comfort, but if you receive a word of knowledge, test it out, write it down, prove it out. Don’t try to prophesy it; don’t mix it with anything else; test it. When you receive a word of wisdom that predicts something, write it down and submit it. Follow through this course, for when you prophesy it, your prophesying may be all right, but the part which is prediction may be all off. Then the whole prophecy is confusing for the people, and those who judge it have a mess to straighten out until you get right on each gift. Stay with each gift separately until it is established.
When I began to receive the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom, I waited before the Lord. During that period I wrote down everything and proved it out; I checked until I could distinguish between the right and the wrong movings within those gifts. When I prophesied, I prophesied, but when I began to receive a word of wisdom, I knew I had to have it right so I separated the two and waited upon the Lord for those things.
When it comes to faith, believe God, work on your faith; appropriate that faith. Let it be operating in the Spirit, and then after awhile, when each of the gifts has moved separately, you will begin to prophesy with more projection of faith. Your proportion of faith will be greater. Imagine how you could grow in prophecy until you will stand and prophesy and it will be predictive.
The predictive element of foretelling is operating in the church, but it’s a little more concealed and veiled than it should be. We could have times when the prophets would speak two or three, and we would have direction for the church in these times of prophecy. After awhile it could flow together. When a prophet gets up and prophesies, you know he is using the ministry of prophecy, but he’s doing more than edifying, exhorting and comforting; he’s predicting, he’s creating by faith, he’s discerning by the Spirit and declaring his discernment. There are many gifts operative within a prophet when he’s speaking. But they develop best separately, and then as a mature ministry comes forth, they begin to all come forth in one solid whole.
The apostolic ministry of the living word is more than prophecy, more than exhortation or a word of edification. It is creative. It has a living faith; it is predictive. It creates visions and revelation of things to come. More than one of the gifts of the Spirit is involved in it—there are several involved. These gifts best evolve and develop as they are appropriated from God on an individual basis so that you can see what you’re doing wrong and see what you’re doing right.
We don’t want to see the church stay at the same level it is now. We want to see it come to the place where there are a dozen prophets speaking, and when they speak, something starts happening. They begin prophesying against something and it comes down. They agree in faith for things. I envision the day in which we can have a hundred things taken care of in a ministry service without it even causing a ripple on the surface. Someone is sick—we agree and he is well: All agree in faith believing. The prayers will not be long; that isn’t necessary. God saw the prayer before you opened your mouth, and He knew what you were going to say. While we were yet speaking, He was answering. We don’t have to have the fear of man on us or try to please man, but we have to say the word of the Lord and do the work of God and minister and flow together as rapidly as we can. Sometimes God moves in mysterious ways, and we’ll have to be prepared to have prophets and apostles lead us as a people because strange things are going to come forth.
It is hard to believe that God would ask of anyone what he asked the prophet Ezekiel to do: to lie on his side and be sort of an intercessor while the Lord laid the iniquities on him for over a year: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And again, when thou hast accomplished these, thou shalt lie upon thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it unto thee. And thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with thine arm uncovered; and thou shalt prophesy against it. And, behold, I lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to the other, till thou hast accomplished the days of thy siege (395 days on one side and 40 days on the other side was a long time to lie there, but that was just the beginning).
Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and smelt, and put them in one vessel and make thee bread thereof; according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, even three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. Thy food which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day (that was not much—equal only to the weight of a few coins): from time to time shalt thou eat it. And thou shalt drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin (only two or three glasses of water a day). From time to time shalt thou drink. And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it in their sight with dung that cometh out of man (that is what a prophet was asked to do: collect dried human dung to build a fire and bake his bread; lie on his side 390 days and eat that bread as a living illustration and a sermon).
If you’ve ever thought God has asked a hard thing of you, just go through the Bible sometime and really see what God has asked His people to do, and then you will say, “Thank You, Lord. It hasn’t been nearly as bad as what some of them had to do.” The Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations whither I will drive them. Then said I, Ah Lord Jehovah! behold, my soul hath not been polluted; for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten that which dieth of itself, or is torn of beasts, neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth. Then he said unto me, See, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread thereon. Ezekiel 4:4–15. The day will come when God may ask of us some very unusual things.
You don’t really know what’s coming; we must establish the ministry of the prophet and work on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and this church must be a reliable channel to know what’s going to come to pass in the earth. You may ask, “Can I get a magazine from here, a mimeographed page from over there, and something else and put them all together?” No, they don’t fit!
They’re all predicting different and contradictory predictions. We’re God’s remnant, and we had better find out what God wants us to do, what He’s going to do, and develop reliable channels of a multiple confirmation coming, because we are going to have to be a directed people in the end time. People who can’t get a leading of the Lord themselves, and don’t know the answers, demand ministry in every service. There ought to be ways by which they would receive it. Two or three brothers would come to a new one, “The Lord says this.” Another brother would come up later and say, “The Lord says this.” Soon another sister would come and say, “The Lord says this.” He has received a word and it is confirmed to him from different directions; he knows where to go and what to do.
There ought to be a silent work of confirmation, which there would be if there were a great deal of revelation. We will soon make great strides into the realm of revelation. To develop in spiritual gifts, go back and read about them. Covet earnestly the best gifts; seek them. When you get a revelation, always treat it very scientifically and not religiously because you will spook if you become religious and puffed up about it. When you think you have a word, write it down, and write down the date. Start looking for the Lord to show you, and confirm it. If it’s nothing that you can get any confirmation on and it’s predictive, see if it comes to pass. If it doesn’t come to pass, chalk it down as not good. The matter of dates is the most tricky thing of all because we are approaching the end of time, and shortly time will no longer be, when the angel stands with one foot on the land and one foot on the sea. Time as we know it now is a temporary thing. We almost have to come into a release from the oppression and deception that time brings to us. Time itself brings an illusion that comes into prophecy when everything else is right. Everything else can be exact, but the time element can be missed, so it doesn’t work out according to time. The early apostles walked knowing these things. Peter said, “I know that the time of my departure is at hand” (II Timothy 4:6). One day Elijah said to Elisha, “Now I am going to be taken from you. What shall I do for you?”
God will bring us into it so we will accurately know these things.