We are unique, inasmuch as we are believing to be a prophetic company. By that I mean we renounce the idea that we are capable by our own intelligence of governing our own destiny and determining the will of God without any mistake. This concept is freighted with a great many dangers and pitfalls. The premise is sound. Nowhere in the Scripture has God said, “Feel your way along, and by-guess-and-by-golly you may find the will of the Lord.” That principle is not established anywhere. It is true that God gives a word and guidelines and then allows us in our own initiative and faith to pursue after the will of the Lord. This we are aware of.
In this walk with God, there has been a great deal of general direction given. God may say to one man. “You are going to walk as a prophet,” to another, “You are going to move in an apostolic authority,” to another, “You are going to be an elder.” He may even specify which gifts he has or should develop or will have. Then comes the real problem. Day by day there will be a crisis, something in which this individual will have to determine what is God’s perfect will. That decision has to be made, based upon the principle in Proverbs 3:5–6: Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. We are faced with the fact that it is not for us to reason out what we are to do. We are not to lean on our own understanding. In the past, we were taught to rely upon our judgment and to try to develop a right judgment, but we know that is a lost cause. By its own powers, the human mind is not capable of always determining—or even rarely determining—what is best. This is the frailty of human wisdom.
Now we come to the real important issue: How do we find the will of the Lord? How do we find the guidance? This leads to the dedication we now have to be a prophetic company. We are determined that God can lead us. If He led the children of Israel in the wilderness by a pillar of fire, if He spoke to the early Church and directed them, He can direct us also. We do not need a pope or an archbishop or a general supervisor to tell us what the will of God is. In fact, these men rarely have found it for themselves and have become blind leaders of the blind. So what do we do now? We believe that God can raise up the apostolic company and elders in the local church, and in divine order there will be the function of gifts and ministries of the Spirit, so that a need can be presented and ministry come over an individual as we look to the Lord to reveal the answer.
This is where the problem arises and the frailty of man enters in. We say, “Lord, we want Your will,” but because we want certain things so badly, we also say, “Lord, we will that this shall be Your will. We want You to want this for us, Lord.” And we may not always want the right thing. We may be guilty of something that even Gideon was not guilty of. Gideon really wanted to have confirmation when he put out the fleece. But I think some people sneak out at midnight and throw water on it in order to get the answer they want. Have you ever been tempted to do that very thing? I can remember that in old order the favorite way of finding the Lord’s leading was by a box of promises. People would say, “I want the Lord to lead me, so eeny, meeny, miny, mo, I’ll take out a card and read a promise. Ah, this doesn’t seem right; I’ll put it back and try again. Here is another promise. This one is just about what I want, but it is still not too good. I’ll make it the best two out of three and try one more.” Have you ever seen that done?
How do I really find the will of God? In this way: And let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment. I Corinthians 14:29. Qualified men with spiritual capacities moving in multiples is the answer. This we call confirmation. At the mouth of one witness a man could not be put to death under the Mosaic law. This is the New Testament principle: Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses. I Timothy 5:19. Even if you saw one of the elders rob a bank, you could not bring it before the church unless there were two witnesses. You could go to him and say, “You should not have robbed that bank,” but you cannot bring an accusation against him. God puts a certain protection in that order. Whether it is a witness against a man or prophecies over him, there must be two or three witnesses.
This is tremendously powerful.… If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. Matthew 18:19. Where two or three cry unto the Lord, it will be done. The prayer, coming forth in confirmation, in unity, is very important. This witness had to be followed in the early Church. The disciples were always sent forth by two; the seventy were sent forth by two. There were always two. Even the book of Revelation in its symbolism speaks of two witnesses in the end time, showing God confirming His words of judgment over the whole world by two witnesses.
If we become absolutely addicted to God’s principle of confirmation, we have safety. This is important for us to grasp. We might clarify this principle with an illustration. A beautiful young widow in the church was anxious to marry the handsome young bachelor minister. She came to him and said, “The Lord told me that we are to get married.” He replied, “We need confirmation; let’s wait until the Lord tells me too.” The witness of one person is not enough—not in any major decision like that. Find out what the Lord has to say and let it be confirmed.
This confirmation can be rigged. You could come to someone and say, “I was praying about this situation. What do you think about it?” It is not enough for the elder to answer lightly, “I confirm it.” Confirmation should come—the very best confirmation. This is the policy I adhere to: When God has given me words and the whole congregation has confirmed them, I still wait for another confirmation. I take the witness of the congregation as being one witness, and therefore I want another witness.
God has established a perfect pattern for a better way of prophecy and a better way of guidance than that used in Bible times. I do not go independently to someone and say, “This is a word from the Lord.” We do not cast lots as they did for Matthias, to find someone to fill Judas’ place; we have a better way. God will confirm and establish His word. When someone comes along and says, “This is a word from the Lord,” say, “Thank you very much.” Then do not feel guilty because you do not act on it immediately; but neither are you to reject it. Just hold it in your heart until God brings another witness and confirmation from some other source. When He brings that other witness to you, then you can say, “Well, Lord, there are two; now may I ask for three?” Do not talk about it; just wait on the Lord. When the Lord brings another witness to you, then you have a word from the Lord and you can step out upon it. Now you can walk on water because you have the confirmed word of God. Do not just look around and say, “Do you confirm this, brother?” Look to God to miraculously lead someone to bring confirmation by revelation.
This is what happened in Acts 13:1, 2. The Holy Spirit spoke as they were all waiting on the Lord with fasting and prayer: Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. Barnabas and Saul of Tarsus (now converted) had heard it from the Holy Spirit. They had the word hidden in their hearts. The rest of the prophets and teachers did not know this. But now they also said, “This is what the Lord has for you.” Then Saul and Barnabas had confirmation, but God had spoken to their hearts first.
When you ask for personal ministry, saying, “Here is my problem; I want you to look it over and give me the word of the Lord,” you make a big mistake. You still need confirmation. It may possibly work out all right, as the word begins to work and others confirm it, and after you pray about it, God confirms it to your heart. But I think it is a lesser form of confirmation, than if you followed the other procedure. This procedure which I have recommended should be followed: When you have a question, do not give it to anyone. First go to the Lord with fasting and prayer, seeking His answer. When you get the answer from the Lord, write it down on a piece of paper and put it in your pocket. Then take your question to the elders and ministers and say, “I have a problem.”
“What is your problem?”
“Well, that is for you to find out. The Lord has spoken to me and given me a word and I am looking for confirmation.”
They may fool around, beating the brush trying to get the jackrabbit to come out, so to speak, without any success. That is their problem. You still have to seek confirmation. Do not say, “Now I’ll give you three hints,” and play charades with them trying to give them a good guess as to what the problem is all about. Look for the Lord to give the answer miraculously. You may think that this makes it too difficult for the elders, but they are not here just to look important; they are going to produce. They must be men of God with a word from the Lord. They will persist until they can hit it right on every single time and say, “This is the problem, and this is the word of the Lord.”
Do you consider this too high a standard? That is exactly what we must have. If we are going to be a prophetic company, it will not be by three guesses. We will have the answers with confirmation backing up everything—a miracle walk of revelation! It is very essential that we be this prophetic company. This takes the problem away from leaning on our own understanding and trying to figure it out or becoming victims of an emotional decision that is all wrong. It will bring us to the place where we will have the word of the Lord to walk in.
“This was one of the first principles I found in this walk in the Spirit that answered many questions for me. In Pentecostal circles in the past, we tried to move ahead, listening to prophecy, to dreams and visions, and soon we were doing everything. We had our fingers burned so many times that we turned away from it all.
You can listen to the prophecy or the dreams or visions and hold them in your heart, and when the confirmation comes, you had better pack your bag and be on your way.
“It is so important that we do this, especially as elders and ministries. We cannot mull it around and talk it over with the wife and get a confirmation from her. It will take more than that; it absolutely has to be a word from the Lord. I also believe that sometimes God will allow you to give a word which you would swear is a word from the Lord, and yet there will be no confirmation to that word. Then you will wonder what happened and why the Lord allowed it. Do you know why? To keep you humble, because there is absolutely no sure way that you can absolutely guarantee you have a word from the Lord by yourself.
“The first time this principle of confirmation was ever used is described in Genesis 41:32: Now as for the repeating of the dream to Pharaoh twice, it means that the matter is determined by God: Joseph had his dream twice and received the interpretation. Pharaoh also had his dream twice; it was repeated. I love these principles because they answer all the problems. We can minister and pastor a church without leaning on our own understanding.”