The prophet Isaiah prophesied in the Old Testament that the yoke would be destroyed because of the anointing.
One thing we should learn, as we are beginning to prophesy and sing psalms in the service, is to ever strive for a deeper depth of anointing. The depth of anointing is what is important.
We can usually tell the difference in the prophecies that come, not by the content of the words that are spoken or the ideas, but by the anointing which varies on each individual. On some the anointing is a lot deeper. It is not detected by the volume, or rapidity with which a person speaks, although I do think there are a few simple physical rules that should be followed. The best prophecy in the world doesn’t accomplish much if no one is able to hear it. So prophesy a little louder if you cannot be heard. It is in the hearing of the word that an impact is created, but the anointing on the words you hear is of the utmost importance. Sometimes it is called unction.
In the Old Testament they put an anointing of holy oil upon kings and priests of the Lord. But now the Holy Spirit anoints us and the flow that comes forth is either rich in the Spirit or it is very shallow. If you overcome the first hurdle of getting into the mechanics of prophecy, then concentrate on drawing a heavy anointing. The depth of a prophecy, which might be called the overflow of the Spirit, is readily detected, and it is a great blessing. This is important because without it the prophecy may be very beautiful, but still inadequate.
We must reach that level when we prophesy, where we know we’ll read in the morning paper that what we prophesied has happened. Prophecy has to be creative. It is the instrument of God for the end time. This must be impressed upon us, for if we become skillful in the mechanics of prophecy only, we’ll remain at a lower level.
What we should concentrate on in one of the services is to pick a goal and begin to prophesy, and before the week is over hear of the fulfillment of the prophecies. Every advance we make in a particular realm shakes Satan and everything else in that whole realm, whether it is spiritual or physical.
This end-time change isn’t just taking place in the spirit world, it is taking place in customs of nations. Times and seasons are changing. Ideas are changing. Everything is changing. We have come to an end of old order and it is going to be shaken down. Every time you prophesy, if you have that heavy anointing upon you, you are helping to bring an end to the thing that God had condemned and move into the thing that God has. This sense of destiny has to be added to those who have broken through the first fear-of-man stage and have begun to prophesy. Just expect it, “I prophesy, and things are going to happen. I believe it with all my heart.” Romans 12 tells us that we prophesy according to the proportion of our faith. The element of faith has to be there: the greater the faith, the stronger the prophecy that comes forth. Another important point is persistence.
An important mechanical aspect was revealed when a sister was singing, and in the middle she switched to prophecy. This was very wise because her anointing is not as much for singing psalms as it is for prophesying. I have sometimes seen the opposite. One elder in the church would try to prophesy, get all hung up, cut it off, and then begin to sing up a storm. His anointing was in the psalms. God wants to teach us which channel to use to achieve the greatest anointing. And then there must be a persistence in it. That is why we print a great deal of the prophecies for you. You must review them; your faith has to hang onto them. They can’t be something that comes to your mind and then is forgotten. A prophecy is turned loose by God and your persistence and insistence upon the fulfillment of that prophecy gives it a great deal of force.
Prophecies should be concentrated and shorter. Be careful not to override the anointing. When the anointing comes up on a crest, follow it up; prophesy, and then leave it there for the next person to give a prophecy. When we hear a prophecy that is extended beyond the crest of anointing, slowly it just goes down, down, down—changing it for the next person or the whole service. One person can change the course of the service and cause it to miss the fullness of what God was giving. Suppose five or six prophecies come building up the anointing, and one rides it right down to the ground. Then the anointing of the whole service is depleted; one individual has drawn it off. The order of the service has to be changed at this point. God would have a dozen other prophecies of great value for the people if it were not for one person riding it down. You have a great responsibility to prophesy and keep it up. You can never prophesy too short a prophecy. The danger is always in prophesying too long.
I am concerned about brevity in preaching as well as prophesying. You have more truths reach you with impact in five minutes of this anointed word than you would have in the average sermon of a half hour duration. I make a deliberate effort to stay on the line in what I’m talking about, opening up a lot of avenues to the people so they start thinking and meditating. Usually half the congregation takes one of those lines of exploration that the word of God emphasizes and begins to walk in it. Give the people as much as you can. Be more concentrated and focused, so that when you finish you have said something in the Spirit; you have given them a word from God.
Another important thing is the boldness and courage, with carefulness; this bypasses the fear of man. There is to be a carefulness in all of our prophesying, not just running off with words. Yet there has to be a boldness and a courage. This is one characteristic of a heavily anointed message. The disciples in the New Testament were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God with boldness. Boldness is essential.
How do you know what to prophesy? Listen for the keynote of the service. Sometimes by listening for the keynote, you will tune into what the Spirit wants to say on that one particular thing. But the best way is to concentrate on having faith for the meeting and blessing others who are prophesying. That has more to it than meets the eye. I have seen people who couldn’t get anywhere themselves because they were self-conscious and didn’t know what to say or do, but if they could be distracted from themselves for a moment, their conscious minds would drift to something else and their spirits would reach right through to the Lord. We did that in the days when we had meetings to pray people into the Holy Spirit. In those days many tarried long; it was difficult for some to receive the Holy Spirit. I learned one secret in those days. A lot of the people who have sought long for the Holy Spirit to fill them with tongues, or who have sought to prophesy, can be helped a great deal if you just distract them. The preachers would say to someone who was discouraged, “Oh you don’t seem to be getting too far tonight.”
“No, I’m not doing so well.”
“All right, I’ll tell you what to do. Brother So-and-So over there looks like he’s going to do fine tonight. Why don’t you go over and help him? That would really be worthwhile.” So he would start praying for that brother, and when he had forgotten himself in praying over his brother, he would be filled with the Spirit himself. The distraction was there. You can be very, very hungry for God and yet be so self-centered in your seeking that you miss the biggest thing that could come to you. If you get hung up wondering what you are going to prophesy, listen to the keynote and start blessing other people’s prophecies; be really concerned, and before you know it you will think, “This ought to be said,” and you will be prophesying it because you are in tune with it. You have forgotten yourself and tuned into the flow of prophecy, and it comes easily.
Remember, the gift of prophecy comes for edification, exhortation, and comfort. It is not intended to be conveyed as God speaking mechanically in the first person through a human channel. That is a hangover from reading where God dictated prophecy in the Old Testament, or from Pentecostal tongues and interpretation which was very often off: “I, the Lord God Almighty in heaven, saith unto you people …” When you prophesy in the first person, you are taking too much on yourself and not enough on yourself at the same time. When you wisely prophesy in the third person, that leaves a responsibility for the prophecy upon you. You prophesy according to the proportion of your faith and your revelation. When you are responsible for your prophecy, and it is off, you can’t say, “Well, it was God speaking.”
First-person prophesying takes too much on yourself: “I say unto you, on such and such a day this will happen, and I say unto you that you’re to do this and that!” You become a director, speaking for God, speaking as though you were God Himself. It takes too much on yourself. Yet I know there are times that the Holy Spirit so moves to bring it in first person, but it is very rare. There are many people putting out books and songs, implying they are writing for God. Satan is bringing it forth as a sidetrack because there is a very high level of the living word beginning to come forth. Those who don’t take responsibility for their prophecies will go quickly off. You can’t have the attitude:
“Well don’t look at me; it’s God talking through me.” It is a word by the Holy Spirit and you are the human channel. It is flowing through you, and you have a responsibility to flow in the spirit. This keeps us sane with our feet on the ground, and it keeps something very solid coming forth.
Similar to prophesying in the first person is ending a prophecy, “Thus saith the Lord,” implying that word by word, God is speaking through you. The Scriptures have come forth with inspiration—“Thus saith the Lord” assumes a plane equal to the Scriptures, and that should not be. The Bible must remain the plumb line by which everything is judged. This does not mean your understanding of it; you possibly may not understand what a verse says. Some doctrines and expositions that have been taught formally are not right. All of our prophecy and teaching should measure up to the Scriptures, and if there is any discrepancy we must search the Word and weigh what is said. As God anoints us, the Scriptures will give us the plumb line.
How can we become more specific and creative in our prophecies? Predicting should be moved into very carefully and accompanied by a word of wisdom and a word of knowledge that God would give to that individual. If I were an individual wanting to move into it, and thought I was moving into it, I would test that word of wisdom and word of knowledge by writing down things as God brought them to me and testing them in another operation of the Spirit, over and over, before I would begin to bring it out into the open public. In other words, you could write it down and submit it to the elders; either it will come to pass in the next six months as you prophesy, or it will not. You should check it out, and if you begin to hit it with even ninety-five percent accuracy you are doing very well, and it is time to begin to combine the prediction with the flow of prophecy. But you must divorce the flow of prophecy, as we know it, from prediction, and you almost have to develop prediction apart from prophesying in the service until it becomes sure and accurate. Because people have “spooked” so, we’ve had to leave prophecy to the scriptural basis of edification, exhortation and comfort and that which searches people’s hearts. Let prediction operate through another gift until it reaches some peak, and then as you develop in the different gifts they will have a way of dovetailing together. I’ve seen it happen—finally a man has a gift of faith, a word of wisdom to see which things are coming, a word of knowledge, the gift of prophecy, and real discerning of spirits, and then one day the Lord begins to combine them all so he discerns and prophesies against the spiritual assault that is coming. Great faith enters into it and it becomes creative, he predicts because he has the word of wisdom. Finally the gifts are flowing together, but they developed almost separately for the sake of testing them and proving them. Accuracy has to come, and it is quite a step to move out of that which is inaccurate or just partially right.
What does the Scripture mean by two or three judging a prophecy? That prophecy is automatically judged if there is no confirmation and continues to be no confirmation. There are times when people take a great deal of liberty walking into an assembly. It’s their ego that motivates them, they are back-seat-drivers who denounce the pastor and everyone in the church; they don’t know what they are talking about.
When someone comes in and prophesies out of order, usually it’s better to let them go ahead. To stop them would be like burning a house down to get rid of six termites. Let it go; it won’t be confirmed. Let the prophets speak two or three and let the other judge. Someone says something that is positive, then a second prophet gets up and says it is right, and then a third prophet says it is right, and you’ve had a word confirmed to you. It isn’t a word unless it’s confirmed anyway so it’s not binding on you.
If someone says, “I’ve got a word for you; you’re to do ‘this’ and ‘that,’ ” wait for confirmation, and see what the Lord says about it. It is not a word from the Lord, nor is it binding upon you, until the prophets speak two or three and someone judges it for you. There is a story about a woman who came up to a bachelor preacher and told him the Lord had told her that they were supposed to get married. He answered, “Let’s wait until the Lord tells me too!” It is not a word from the Lord until all parties concerned get the word. A word may not necessarily be a false word; you must hold it and see. Some words have been dangling for twenty years. We have had twenty years of sure ministry and counsel with few exceptions. Don’t be disillusioned. We may have missed it a few times, but many more times the brothers have said, “I feel the witness,” and it works out.