We would like to see our prophetic services take two or three steps up. Let me explain something that will help you. We are still exhorting too much. One gets up and says, “O people of the Lord, this is what you’re to do and that’s what you’re to do.” It is fine, but it is still a transition prophecy.
We will always have prophecies that edify, exhort, and comfort. When we edify the people, we build them up, and when we exhort the people, we cause them to draw near to the Lord, almost with an element of preaching. It is prophecy, but there is a higher plane of prophecy that we need. Sometimes people are already exhorted; they don’t need to hear over and over again, “Now do this and do that. Now get with it and praise the Lord.” What they need is the word of prophecy that is creative, that binds and looses in the name of the Lord and lifts the level higher.
We have a lot of this first level of prophecy. The young prophets and prophetesses start exhorting, and they continue to exhort and develop a tremendous flow of exhortation. After awhile you feel, “That really is in the spirit, but we’ve had too much soup; we need some meat.” We have been exhorted and exhorted in every service. These exhortations would be appropriate for a denominational church, but let’s try moving a little higher, and let’s start to loose things into God, or bind what is hindering, or speak the word that is creative.
The distinctive mark of end-time prophecy is the creative element in it. Exhortation will be very necessary. There are times when I exhort people thoroughly. We are not going to eliminate that, but let’s get to the place where we start speaking things into being. First you believe in your heart, then speak the word with your mouth, and the thing is brought into being.
We should have less of the exhortation and more of the creative word. If you don’t think it is difficult, wait until you try to do it. Invariably, you will go back to exhorting: “Oh, today is the day for this and that …” It is easy to just go on exhorting and proclaiming, but to speak something into being, and loose and speak the people into faith, is what really counts.
In this walk, there is a shift from prophecies that were predictive to prophecies that actually create and impart. That is one characteristic of this walk with God. If you say to a person, “You are going to prophesy the word and sing psalms,” they will do it because the word creates it in them. We want the word that is creative. There is a new order coming in this restoration move of God’s Spirit; God is making His people a prophetic community!
We must do more than just continue with the exhortation level of prophecy. It is not even predictive; it usually does not have the word of wisdom or the word of knowledge in it; it just exhorts the people to draw into what God is doing. You come into exhortation, and then where do you go? The next step is to come into wisdom and then prophesy by wisdom, prophesy by knowledge, and prophesy by the gift of faith.
We are called to become a prophetic community, and that is going to be absolutely essential. The Scripture says, Where there is no vision, the people perish. Proverbs 29:18. The Revised Standard Version says, Where there is no prophecy the people perish. That is true. They go in circles. It says there is no vision because in the Old Testament a prophet was called a seer, and what he saw was his vision. Where there is no prophet’s vision, where there is no seeing, no revelation, the people will perish. We must become a prophetic community. It is an hour of crisis. It is one thing for us to gather together and sing, “Bringing in the Sheaves,” but it is another thing for us to gather together and sing in the Spirit, be led by God, have the word from the Lord and speak it.
This is the day of Ezekiel’s boneyard: “Can these bones live?” But we don’t want to bring bones together. We want the creative word. We want to prophesy until the bones are covered with flesh and the Spirit of the Lord enters them and they stand an exceeding great army! The ecumenical movement is bringing dry bones together and that is the end of it. The bones are never resurrected. But what God is concerned about is that we prophesy life into the army of the Lord. It is done by prophecy. Look into Ezekiel 37:1–14 and see how it happens. “Prophesy unto the winds, son of man.” The Spirit of the Lord came to breathe upon them and to make them an army of the Lord. So we take that unto ourselves in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We loose ourselves into the flow of faith that predicts.
There is not as much liberty when a person begins to prophesy this creative way. Those who prophesy this way are more deliberate; it slows them down a lot because it is very stifling to the soulish nature to get out of exhortation prophecy and into the flow of creative prophecy. A person doesn’t just get up and create without having a word from the Lord; he must have a word from the Lord.
You have to prophesy according to your faith. You become an instrument in the hand of God to speak something into being, to proclaim something—not to foretell, but to create it! It is the day that God would look upon the chaos of His people and say, “Let there be,” and there shall be, according to the word of the Lord.
We will be no stronger in the churches the lord is raising up than we are by the words of prophecy in our mouth, because we have left the realm where we could teach and educate people into a walk with God, we prophesy them into it. We have left the realm where we could bring a soulish hop, skip, and a dance, and clap our hands and start growing. We will not grow until the day that we begin to say, “We’re going to get revelation from the Lord; we’re going to prophesy the word of the Lord, and we’re going to bring it into being, into sight.” The apostolic company will not come forth with jumping and shouting and soulish manifestation. That does not have the creative flow in it; it is dissipated in a soulish blessing. We want something more than the soulish blessing. We want the creative word of God.
When you are in the Spirit and you are dancing you are actually in a different realm, and you can weave in and out of people and never touch them, because the Holy Spirit is actually dancing through you.
We want to persevere until it happens—the worship of the Lord and the creative word that brings it into being!
You were not raised up to become an extension of a pentecostal movement, but you could fall into it because many of the people are young and exuberant, and exuberance can easily give way to a joyfulness that becomes soulish and dead ends. You could be going around in a circle, but you’re not going to do it because we will speak the words that will shake nations. We will speak the words that will bring forth the sons of God. We will speak in the name of the Lord. Speak the word of the Lord! Proclaim it—not just to foretell it, but make it happen. By the anointing of the Spirit within you, you make it happen, and you create it.
We will pursue this high level of prophecy. Wait on the Lord for it. It isn’t something that you come and bubble over with. You pray and then come and speak the word. We will be molded and directed by the word of God that is spoken.