Now more than ever, we must pay attention to prophecy and the word the Lord is giving through the Holy Spirit.
We must be able to recognize Jesus as He is coming so we can recognize Him at His coming. Much of our recognizing Him will come through the operation of the Holy Spirit through prophecy. “And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10).
We can see in Acts 2:17-18 that the spirit of prophecy is vital in the last days: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy…And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” The spirit of prophecy not only brings the outpouring, but it perpetuates the operation and moving of the Spirit during the outpouring.
Some Holy Ghost inspired utterances concerning the future (or we could say words that come by the spirit of prophecy) are no more automatically fulfilled than the written Word. Mark 4 tells us the devil comes to steal the Word and he has many strategies to accomplish his goal. Paul charged Timothy to wage warfare for the words of prophecy he had received. “This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare” (1 Timothy 1:18, New King James Version).
Waiting on God
Waging war or standing in faith “against [all] the strategies and the deceits of the devil” is primarily done through prayer (Ephesians 6:11, The Amplified Bible). Without it those precious words from the Lord may never come to pass. None of what the believers experienced as recorded in Acts 2 would have happened without prayer. Acts 1:14, The Amplified Bible, says, “All of these with their minds in full agreement devoted themselves steadfastly to prayer….” That says so much to the Church. Those 120 gave up their schedules and obligations. Their priorities were completely rearranged to do what Jesus had told them: “…tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).
Even though the promise of the Holy Spirit had been given, there was still a need for waiting on God in prayer like they did in the upper room. It’s that kind of waiting that brings power upon us. Nothing, absolutely nothing, takes the place of waiting. Jesus said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church. This means that when He chooses to speak, it is still up to us to hear.
The following word of the Lord came forth while I was ministering in Wales in 2006:
These final hours of the closure of this time, of this generation, are but the beginning of all ages yet to come. And for centuries yet to come, men will look back on these days and reflect and say, ‘Ah, those days, those hours, those times when the signs and wonders of God and the miraculous expressions of His abounding grace poured forth out into the streets, and were demonstrated in men in such great strength, such great power, such great might, that men could hardly stand to behold the goodness of God.’
Though God has demonstrated a degree of His wrath in the earth (as seen in Exodus), there is still an outpouring of His wrath yet to come. But not before the great outpouring of His goodness. Not before the great demonstration of His blessed love. Not before the great demonstration of the great manifestations of His presence be poured out in all the earth so that all men might see and might know. For only in God’s justice would He pour out His wrath, and never would He do so before all men had opportunity to see and to know the depth of His goodness, mercy and compassion that flow in streams of love from His throne. It is this throne of mercy and abounding grace that you approach. Look toward Him and gaze upon His grandeur and know that every light, every gleam of light that glows from His Brilliant Being are manifestations of love.
‘Demonstrations!’
“Demonstrations of the Spirit!” This must be the call of the Church, for it is the call of His Spirit.
Call for Me and I will demonstrate for you. Call for Me and I will demonstrate for you the goodness of the Lord. [Don’t read past this lightly.] I will show you His abounding, great wisdom in ways that you did not know were possible. I will demonstrate for you His knowledge that abounds beyond the human scope of reasoning. I will demonstrate for you the vastness of His kingdom. I will demonstrate for you how deep and how wide and how humanly fathomless the goodness and mercies of our great God are. [Can we even picture what that would look like?]
Call upon Me. Call upon Me that My mercies pour forth on those who do not know the mercy of God. Call upon Me that mercy would reach out and rescue those who blindly move toward darkness, raising men from all the depths of darkness that can be experienced on the earth. I will demonstrate the goodness of God…not only to those who have been blinded by the deceit of sin, held captive by darkness so highly developed you cannot begin to comprehend it…but I will demonstrate mercy to you. I will show you what Love has done. I will show you what Love can do.
Call upon Me and I will demonstrate to you. Call upon Me in faith. Call upon Me, believing. Call! I will hearken to the voice of His Word in you. I will hearken to the voice of His command through you. I will hearken to your request. Call! And I will move upon the nations. I will move upon the streets. I will move upon the governments of this world. Call! I will move in the bush. I will move in the jungles. I will move on people you know nothing of….
Notice the Lord says, Call on Me, believing. That means we call in the Spirit of faith expecting Him to respond. Then notice He said He will respond to the voice of His Word through us. Too often believers call upon the Lord but in the same way they did as a sinner, with a sense of unworthiness and panic. If we pray that way, our prayer is diminished in effectiveness and I dare say may be useless altogether. Unworthiness was wiped out at the Cross and we were re-created in His image. So we don’t come to the Lord with a sense of inferiority but boldly with unquestionable submission to His lordship. Sin consciousness is diminishing but righteousness in submission is empowering.
With that in mind, let’s continue to look at the instructions received in the word from the Lord:
You must come to Me, you must approach Me, you must know Me and you must know My ways. You see, the authority that I have given you is not an authority of your own. Remember Jesus said in His earthly ministry that “My authority is not My own. I speak only what I hear Him (the Father) speak. I do only what I see Him (the Father) do….” Do you not understand that you are in your earthly ministry? You now must walk in your earthly ministry the same as He walked in His earthly ministry. You must listen for My voice, but to hear My voice, you must know My voice. You must be acquainted with the things that I say. You must be acquainted with the things that I do. All that you need to know for the future is recorded in My Word as records of the past. For everything that I have done in the past is quick and alive for your present and it will be quick and alive in your future. [Think on this statement. And remember, His Word is alive!] If you will walk with Me, if you will seek My ways, if you seek My counsel, if you will seek Me in all you say, seek Me in all you do, then I will show you My ways and My words by My Spirit. Then My words and My ways will become My miracles. And My words and My ways will become My outstanding signs for this hour, and they will become the signs and miracles for this hour through you and through your earthly ministry.
What marvelous promises! Let’s hear and heed the great cry of the Spirit to Call on Me! The Word of God clearly calls us all to prayer, and the Holy Spirit has spoken to us and said, Call on Me!
The world is crying out. The Church is crying out. If you’ll listen, you’ll know that your own heart is crying out for those streams of the Spirit to flow through your spirit, your soul and your body, just as powerfully as in the early days of the Church. We want God and the nature of His Being to flood us until we sound like, act like and are like Jesus, the Anointed One. If we will but call upon Him and then seek out His ways through prayer and His Word, He will not only answer us with the greatest awakening the world has seen, but He will do it through us!
