The Gift of Prophecy

SERMON: 2017-04-02--ac17168--the-gift-of-prophecy SOURCE DURATION: 00:48:35.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with the editor picking up a study point in Acts (Sermon Exposition). The content remains continuous through prayer and theological exposition until the final segment provided. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- One to pick up this morning then where we left off in our study in the book of Acts two weeks ago, Acts chapter 19, we're still on Paul's third missionary journey. He has stopped by Ephesus where he has found 12 disciples who have only been baptized with the baptism of John, not the baptism of Jesus. And they have therefore never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And so our text this morning, as I want to talk with you about the gift of prophecy, are these two verses that we've read before, verse 6 and 7, Acts 19, when Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about 12 men in all. This becomes the nucleus of the church at Ephesus to which later on the book of Ephesians is addressed and which shows up again in the book of Revelation as one of the seven churches in Asia Minor that Jesus speaks to. And there's a message in this for us this morning. Before we get to that, join me in just a moment of prayer. Lord, all of the things that we talk about in a place like this and all of the things that we sing about, your goodness, your greatness, the redemption that we have of the Lord Jesus, they so easily remain abstract for us because you live in an entirely different realm for where we live. And Lord, when we are busy with the ins and the outs of everyday living, the challenges of jobs and relationships and raising families or making friends, we so easily lose sight of the fact that you're involved in all of it and that you want to help us in all of it. And we acknowledge that it's only through the person and the presence of the Holy Spirit that the great realities of the faith, who you are and what you have done in Christ, come home to us in an experiential way so that filled with your life and joy, we actually want to proclaim your name and tell the good news to people around us. And so we pray again this morning that as we come to you, admitting our need and admitting our inability in and of ourselves to be faithful to you, Lord, just anoint us afresh, pour out a mighty baptism of your Holy Spirit, thrill us to the very core of our being with the knowledge that we know that we know that we know, that you're our God and our Father in Christ Jesus, our Lord, and that nothing but nothing can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So Father, we stand against all the forces of hell that would keep us from knowing and believing and experiencing you. We open up our hearts afresh and we pray that you will speak to us in the deep places of our lives even this morning. So bless your word. Help me as I deliver it. Give me what I need to make it clear and help all of us, Lord, to hear not only with our external ears, but with our spiritual ears. And then having heard, help us to obey and we'll be careful to give you the glory through Jesus Christ in whose name we pray, amen. Well, I pointed out two weeks ago that there are three instances in the book of Acts to date where God's people experience a powerful outpouring of God's Holy Spirit. The first obviously is in Acts chapter 2, which is the account of the day of Pentecost. The second is Acts chapter 10, where Peter preaches the gospel to the house of Cornelius and the Holy Spirit falls on that whole household. And then we have this instance here in Acts chapter 19 where Paul prays, lays hands on the twelve disciples, and the Holy Spirit came on them in power. And the common element in each of these three stories is that when the Holy Spirit is poured out, there is a spontaneous release of praise to God and an ability to proclaim his name. And the reason for that, of course, is that one of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is to empower the church to be witnesses for Jesus to the ends of the earth. Acts chapter 1, it's a verse we all know well, Jesus to his disciples just prior to his ascension into heaven, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And so the Holy Spirit releases a gift of proclamation. I pointed out last time, that's the significance of the gift of tongues in those passages, an ability to praise God, and the gift of prophecy, which was an ability to proclaim the name of Jesus. Jesus is a gift given to all God's people to one degree or another, that having been said, however, the Bible also talks more specifically about a unique gift of prophecy. And that's what we want to talk about together this morning. Paul refers to it in a number of different places in the New Testament. Verse chapter 12, verse 6 is one, he says, we have different gifts according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. The noun is prophecy, the verb is prophesy. Similarly, 1 Corinthians 14, 1, he says, follow the way of love, eagerly desire spiritual rewards, especially the gift of prophecy. So in the time that we have this morning, I want to talk a little bit about that specific gift with you, with a view to finding out what it is, how it functions, and what are some of the pitfalls that you and I need to be aware of in order to avoid them. So let's move right on into that. First of all, then the question, what is the gift of prophecy? Well, notice, again, it is first and foremost a spiritual gift. 1 Corinthians 14, 1, the verse that we just quoted makes that very clear, follow the way of love, eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy. Now, a spiritual gift, as I'm sure you know, is a unique supernatural anointing that God gives to his people through faith in Jesus Christ. It's why he said to the church, wait in Jerusalem until you receive power from on high. Spiritual gifts are an anointing to equip the church to carry on the mission of Jesus. You will recall that Jesus, before he started his public ministry, was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, the heavens were opened, and he was baptized in the power of the Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, that Spirit of Jesus was shared with the church. And while Jesus has all the spiritual gifts, you and I get little pieces of the pie. And the gift of prophecy is one of those gifts which God gives in a specific measure to certain people in the body of Christ. How does that manifest? Well, I can think right off of four ways in which the gift of prophecy might surface in your life and in my life. Now remember, God gives to each according to his sovereign pleasure. Just like you and I have very little to say about what natural gifts we're born with, though we can cultivate what we have, so we don't have a lot to say about what spiritual gifts God gives us, but God knows who we are, what we need, and how he wants to use us in the work of the kingdom. And so he gives gifts according to his good pleasure. But here are some tests by which you can test whether this gift is operative in your life. One of the ways in which it surfaces, I think, is when certain things just bubble up inside you about a particular situation or a particular person. Perhaps you have found yourself in situations where your mind is drawn to a given individual or to a given situation, and it's like in Old Testament language, the hand of the Lord is heavy on you, and you feel like, "Lord, is this something you want me to speak into that person's life?" Now a lot of times we don't. Sometimes when we do, we shouldn't. But I'm not suggesting we just dump every load that we have on other people that can be pretty dangerous and disastrous, but I want us to understand there will be times the Lord puts something in your heart that will not leave you alone, that needs to be shared for the upbuilding and the edification of another person in the body of Christ. That's the gift of prophecy. That gift can be cultivated, it can be encouraged. Another way in which it surfaces is in the spontaneous composing of worship songs and songs of praise to God. Think back with me to the Nativity story, especially in Luke's Gospel. What happened to the main players of that story when they were confronted by the mighty acts of God and they knew that the Messiah was coming? Well, you have this outbursting of songs. There's the song of Zechariah, there is the song of Mary, there's the song of Sibian. All through Scripture, the emphasis on new songs is that when God does a new thing in the earth or a new thing in your life, there is a certain category of people who are gifted musically for whom songs bubble forth. Now, I'm not one of those who wouldn't know a C from a D musically. We'll talk about that more in a moment, but I'm so happy to note around here Roberta has started gathering some of our musicians and singers and once a month they've been getting together and they're starting to share with each other songs that they have been composing. That's pretty exciting and I think pretty soon at some point or another, we're going to have a service where we start sharing some of those things because that is a prophetic gifting declaring the mighty acts of God. Every time there is renewal in the church historically, there is an outbursting of new songs and new music and almost always it leads to the worship wars because the old is always more familiar than the new, but God is constantly exhorting us to sing a new song. So that's the second way in which the gift of prophecy bubbles forth. Still a third way obviously is in the context of the preaching of the gospel. When the Holy Spirit fell on the apostles in Acts chapter 2, what happened? Not only did they all declare the mighty works of God in languages that everybody could understand, but Peter gets up in front of them and he preaches one doozy of a sermon that brings three thousand people into the faith just like that. That's the gift of prophetic declaration. As I said, for me, a gift of prophecy does not mean thinking in terms of music or songs. Roberta tells me she always thinks musically and she always has tunes going through her head. If I have a tune going through my head, it's really disastrous because I can't get rid of that. But for me what bubbles up is the spoken word. I can be in a given situation, I can be thinking ahead to the next Sunday and God in His grace will put a thought, and it's hard to describe and I don't really want to dwell on it, but it's like something bubbles up. It starts as a little seed and it expands and it becomes a word that God wants to speak to His people. And words of prophecy always have two components to them. Words of prophecy always call us to account for sin and always challenges us to lay hold of Jesus and become more like Him. And there's a fascinating example of that happening in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 in the context of worship where the Holy Spirit falls in the whole community and the whole community prophesies and Paul says this, and this is in the context of what's more important, speaking in tongues or speaking words of prophecy. His argument is that tongues is primarily for you and the Lord unless it's interpreted, but prophecy is for the building up of the body of Christ. And then he says this, 1 Corinthians 14 verse 24, "If an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, 'God is really among you.'" If you never ever feel uncomfortable in church, if you never ever feel like the Lord is putting His finger on something in your life, then you are either so saintly that there is nothing possibly wrong with you or the Word is not sufficiently prophetic to speak into the hidden recesses of our lives, and the prophetic Word is never intended to make us miserable, but it's intended to bring us to repentance. It's intended to help us to embrace the good news of the gospel so that we can live by faith in Jesus. That's prophetic preaching and that ought to be happening in communities and you want to be praying that God raises up prophetic voices to help move the people of God in the direction where God wants it to go. So sometimes it bubbles up in your heart, sometimes it'll bubble up for those of you that are musically inclined, you will just have a song that bubbles forth that you want to sing to the Lord, it'll bubble forth in teaching or preaching if that is your calling or your gifting, and then so the fourth area where the prophetic gift obviously operates is in what the Bible calls the office of prophet. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament, we have prophets. Paul writing to the church at Ephesus later on in chapter 4, verses 11 and 12, "It was he that is the exalted Jesus, gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up." Often called the five-fold offices of leadership in the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, each of which plays a separate role in the body of Christ. And a prophet then is one who has a recognized track record with the gift of prophecy. You could have the gift of prophecy and not be a prophet because it can operate periodically or whenever in your life, but if it happens regularly and the community recognizes you as a dependable spokesperson for God, then you occupy or you can be led to occupy the office of prophet. And again, prophets are God's provision for the church to help the church recognize where it gets off track and what it needs to do to get on track. They're no more popular today than they were in the Old Testament, but they are necessary for the well-being of God's people. That's the gift of prophecy, a supernatural anointing given by God to help us to speak for Him, to His people, for their well-being. Which brings me then to the second thing I want to mention, and that is the function or the purpose of the gift of prophecy. To recap, it's to help God's people stay on track. In the Old Testament, we've talked about this before, three main offices that God established for Israel, prophet, priest, and king. Job of the kings was to rule on behalf of God. The job of the priests was to stand between a sinful people and a holy God so the two of them could get along with each other, and the job of a prophet then was to speak into the practical situations of life to help people to remain faithful to God. The observation has been made that in the New Testament, the emphasis on prophecy is not so much on calling the church to repentance, though that is obviously there too, but to equip them and to encourage them. Paul mentions that in 1 Corinthians 14 verse 3, when he says, "Everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort." We all have those places in life where we wonder, "Am I on the right track? Is this a job I should be stepping into? Is this a place where I ought to be taking a risk? Ought I to be playing it safe?" The gift of prophecy is given to the church so that the Word of God can speak into our lives in those areas to help us to move forward and to be encouraged. And a good example of that is young Timothy. And Timothy, as you know, was an assistant to the Apostle Paul, and young Timothy had kind of a weak stomach. Paul tells him at one point, "Drink some wine for your stomach." And you can imagine that hanging around with the Apostle Paul took a kind of strong stomach. I mean, Paul got into a lot of trouble. And so Timothy prophetically was spoken over by the elders of the church to equip him. Two places in 1 Timothy where you find that referred to in 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 18, "Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you so that by following them, you might fight the good fight, holding on to faith and good conscience." In other words, "Timothy, here is the course. God has called you to this ministry. Stick to it. The prophetic word has been given to you. This is what God is calling you to. What God leads you to, He will lead you through. He will not abandon you." And then later on in chapter 4, we find a repeat of that where Paul says to Timothy in verse 14, "Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you." What are the most important things that any of us can receive in our life of discipleship when we try to follow Jesus and when things get tough is for somebody to come along who knows us and who knows the heart of God and who can speak prophetically into our situation and who can encourage us to run the race because we know that we are on the right track regardless of the things that are coming against us. And in that context, I might remind every parent here that in your household you are prophet, priest, and king to your children and perhaps even to your grandchildren. You are king because it's your job to rule your household on behalf of God in a godly fashion. You are a priest because you make intercession before God for your children that God will reveal Himself to them, that He will show Himself to them, and that He will keep them in the faith when there are so many temptations in so many different directions. But you're also a prophet. As a prophet, you're going to speak into their lives and when they're off track, you're going to correct them even if they're going to turn around and say, "I hate you," you're going to love them enough to speak the truth, but you're also going to speak into their lives and say, "Listen, I see gifting here. I see ability here. I see something that God may be calling you to. You can do this. We can do this together." And your children will benefit enormously by having parents who see them accurately, who love them truly, and who can be the voice of God calling them forth into what God is calling them to be. That's the prophetic office. That is the prophetic gifting. And to one degree or another, all of us as parents or grandparents have the privilege of sharing in that. So the gift of prophecy is a supernatural anointing. It's given by God to the church so that we can abandon ways that are wrong and that will lead to destruction, to encourage us to lay hold of all the good things that God has done for us in Christ, recognizing that God's kingdom is coming. But then, there are some pitfalls that we need to be aware of and prepared to avoid. Let's talk about those for a moment or two. Spiritual gifts, listen to me carefully, are power tools in the kingdom. They are meant to speed up the work of the kingdom with power and authority that comes from God, but like all power tools, they can be dangerous. Think of fire. In your fireplace, it warms your house. In the stove, it cooks your food. Put it out of the fireplace. Into your garbage bin, into your curtains, what happens? Burns down your whole house. And if you've ever seen a house burn, it is astonishing how fast it goes and how much power it's got. The same thing is true with spiritual gifts. They are an incredible gift that God gives to the church if used wisely and properly. When abused, can lead to a lot of trouble and heartache. So let me give you two things to be cautious about when it comes to the gift of prophecy. Here's the first, never submit uncritically to somebody else's word of prophecy. Let me say it again. Never submit uncritically to somebody else's word of prophecy. It's become very fashionable in the last 10 or 20 years with the rise of the prophetic movement in the Church of North America for people to go to prophetic conferences and receive personal words of prophecy. Many of you here have been in that kind of situation. Some of you have received personal words of prophecy. Not all bad. Those words can be encouraging. It can equip you. It can certainly represent the heart of God, depending on the person who is speaking. But it can also do a lot of damage. Because the reality is, there's a lot of flaky people out there. And there's a lot of flaky prophetic words. And if you ever want to do a serious study of that, I suggest you get John Biver's book, "Thus Sethelord Question Mark, How to Know When God is Speaking to You Through an Other." John Biver, if you know him, is part of the charismatic movement. He believes in spiritual gifts. He believes in the gift of prophecy. But he's been around long enough to know the horror stories. Tells us a story in his book of his own wife, pregnant with her fourth child. They have three boys. Would-be prophetesses are predicting that this is going to be a girl. The wife asks the Lord. The Lord says, "It's going to be a boy." Goes for an ultrasound. Ultrasound says, "It's a boy." Ultrasound turns around and says, "We're going to pray that the Lord will turn the boy into a girl." And he says, "We made short shrift of that and prayed against it." Because you can imagine, talk about gender confusion. And then one of them said, "Well, you know, sonograms have been wrong before." Undoubtedly true, but she responds and she says, "Well, and so have prophetesses been wrong before." Do not let other people direct your life unless it meets two conditions. Number one, it resonates with the call of God on your own life. There are tons of horror stories where people have received prophetic words, "You're going to marry this person," or "You're going to marry that person." They step into those relationships because they think this is what the Lord wants and it is disastrous. Don't do it. And if somebody ever tells you, "God told me you were to marry me," then your response is, "He better tell me, because otherwise, go fly a kite." Stupid and disastrous. It's got to resonate with your own heart. But number two, it's got to be affirmed by people who know you well. Did you notice in Paul's reference to Timothy, who prays over Timothy for the gift of the prophetic word? It is the elders, why? Because they have spiritual responsibility for Timothy. Presumably they know him. What bothers me about people going to different conferences receiving prophetic words, people don't know you. Very often those prophetic words appeal to the flesh because they promise you all kinds of things except the cross of Jesus. So that word needs to be confirmed by people who know you. Tells the story of, how does he word it? Somebody who has no ability to go to school whatsoever, being invited, I'll just read it to you real quick here, "One man in his forties that my family and I know and love is a gifted craftsman and handyman. He loves serving ministry and he has helped us as well as many others. A couple of years ago, he was told by a respected prophetic minister that he would astound men of the world with his business knowledge and wisdom. To this he would answer that he had learned it from his schooling at Harvard. After receiving this word, a friend called wanting to know how he could enroll in Harvard through correspondence. I was taken aback by his request because I knew he had a rough time graduating from high school and he had a good job working in maintenance and the story goes on to say that his life got shipwrecked because he thought he'd step into something that people who knew him well knew that he couldn't possibly do and that the prophetic word was misdirected because they didn't really know him and know his heart. Am I making sense when I talk this way? Do not listen to what people have to tell you unless it resonates with your own heart and unless it can be confirmed by those who have spiritual responsibility for your life. Second pitfall to avoid or to recognize, all prophetic words need to be tested. Be sure to test prophetic words. In Thessalonians 5, 2021, do not treat prophecies with contempt, test everything, hold on to the good. I love the way those two verses are structured because test everything is in between don't treat with contempt but hold on to what is good. You see the temptation is when you hear stories like what we're talking about and you see the trouble thus set the Lord causes in Christian communities, you want nothing to do with it. Who in the world wants to be led astray by people's flaky insights? Do not show contempt to prophecy because it is a spiritual gift and God can speak into your life if he can speak to Balaam through the voice of a donkey. He can speak into your life through any voice that he raises up, you just have to be careful. And that's why you must test it. All through scripture, there is the command to test prophetic words. And the reason is that there are not only true prophets of God in the world, but there is a multitude of false prophets in the world as well. Listen to this verse, 1 John chapter 4, "Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets, false prophets have gone out into the world." What's a false prophet? Well, it's one who thinks he or she is speaking for God, but is not. Because you see, the reality is inspiration, which is what we're talking about here, can come from three different sources. It can come from God through the Holy Spirit. It can come from the evil spirit who is very good at inspiring, and it can come out of the confusion of your own heart or any combination of the three, which is why you and I are called to test the spirits. Listen to how Jeremiah puts it, Jeremiah chapter 14 verse 14, "The Lord said to me, 'The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries, and delusions of their own mind.'" Can be from the Lord, can be from the evil one, can be from your own heart, and it can be any combination. And so our job is to weigh and to sort. I would never expect you to take what I or any other preacher says at face value without you yourself going back to Scripture, measuring it according to biblical truth and deciding, yes, this is true to the character and the heart of God. And we live in a day and age when false prophets abound with such subtlety that it's extremely difficult to know the truth. And at the risk of stepping on some toes here today, I want to give you a very practical example of a current issue. And that relates to the author of The Shack, William Paul Young. We've been having discussions about William Paul Young because we just received an invitation to see if we as a church would be willing to host a speaking tour that he is engaged on. He is, as you know, the author of The Shack. He's written a number of additional books since then that I'll talk about in just a moment. And if you've read The Shack, then you know it is a powerful work of fiction that gives voice to the pain of heartache and to the mystery of faith. How many of you here have read The Shack? It's a phenomenal bestseller. It was self-published. It sold more than 20 million copies around the world, and it's a good story. It's a good story, and it really resonates, obviously, with a lot of people. It's just turned into a movie. How many of you have seen the movie? Okay, a smaller number. I've read the book. I haven't seen the movie. The movie is powerful because it's the story of a man who has suffered tragic loss of a child and has all the usual questions of faith and "God, where are you?" And the book tries to, in a sort of an allegorical fashion, to address those issues. Many of us, when we first read The Shack, like the story, but had some warning lights go on about certain elements of the gospel that were being proclaimed in it, particularly about an apparent emphasis on universalism. Do you know what universalism is? Universalism is the teaching that in the end, God is so loving, he saves everybody, nobody goes to hell. And for quite a long time, Paul Young was pretty coy about what his real position was because he didn't want to say, or he wanted to leave people guess. And so a lot of people enjoyed the book, wondered about the theology behind it, but that was it. Unfortunately, he has written a nonfiction book called Lies We Believe About God. And in the book, he develops 28, I believe, short chapters that address lies that Christians have come to believe about God. The bulk of those, what he calls lies, lie at odds with the historic orthodox understanding of sin, salvation, redemption, and restoration. And if you've ever questioned whether he's a universalist, he makes it very plain in his book when he says these words. Let me find it here. He said, now listen carefully to this. This is quoting him from his book. So what is the good news? What is the gospel? Got your ears on? The good news is not that Jesus has opened up the possibility of salvation, and you have been invited to receive Jesus into your life. Get that? That's not the good news. The gospel is that Jesus has already included you into his life, into his relationship with the Father, into his anointing in the Holy Spirit. Jesus did this without your vote, and whether you believe it or not won't make it any less or more true. Get that? Then he goes on to say, are you suggesting that everyone is saved, that you believe in universal salvation, and then he says, that is exactly what I'm saying. Exactly what I'm saying. What do you do with the Bible stories about hell, he addresses that too. What do you do with the separation of sheep and goats? What do you do with the fact that only those who believe have their name written in the book of life? So this particular review we have posted online on our website and on our Facebook page so that you can read it for yourself, and that doesn't mean you can't appreciate or enjoy the shack for what it is, but understand that the theology behind it remakes God in our own image and in our own likeness, and that, my dear folks, is a violation of the second commandment that says, do not make any kind of graven image of who God is because you'll always get it wrong, and you'll never get it right. Now don't climb on your high horse and take on the whole world and use social media to blast everybody out of the water because you know the truth that nobody else does. Meet people where they are, but my job is to help you discern the difference between truth and error because false prophets abound in our day and age. It's anybody who tells you how to live a successful life without the cross of Jesus, without having to repent, and without having to come to faith in the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. It will always lead you astray. The way is broad and wide that leads to destruction, and many there be that walk at. You with me? So how do we know the difference? Well, you test the spirits, and Jesus point-blank addresses this in Matthew chapter 7 with these words. He says watch out for false prophets. This is Jesus speaking. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. You know how they teach bank tellers to discern counterfeit money? By teaching them what the real thing looks like and feels like. The better you understand the gospel, the better you understand who Jesus is, the better you know the Bible, the better you will be protected, and the more discerning you will be at all the teachings that come at you that sound so good, but can be so far off fundamentally because it denies the cross of Jesus, by their fruit says Jesus, you will know them. Sometimes we think we have to make an immediate decision, don't if you don't know. Put it on hold, wait to see what the fruit of it will be, because a bad tree cannot bear good fruit, and a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, by their fruit you will know them as time goes on. Now all of that said, our caution ought not to make us despise prophetic words, because prophetic words can come from the heart of God, and they can have a profound impact for time and for eternity. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:48:28.540; remove through 00:48:35.000] [ [CUT]BLANK_AUDIO] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:48:35.000; resume after this marked segment]