Spiritual Gifts Part 7 "Prophecy, Prophets and a Prophet"
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To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:
But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.
Introduction
Introduction
Welcome Katherine and Isaac
Margaret and Anthony
Prophecy is the first and greatest of the next group of gifts.
Prophecy
Discerning of Spirits
Divers Kind of Tongues
Interpretation of Tongues
Whenever Bro. Branham speaks about prophecy he almost always contrasts it with a Prophet.
From 1950:
(Gifts are in the Body)
Gifts of healing, gifts of prophecy, it might fall upon someone here tonight, this lady setting here, this man, or this man; and he may give a prophecy and it would be true. But it would never work on him maybe again.
See, that doesn’t make him a prophet. That makes…We’re in the body. By one Spirit we’re baptized in the body and subject to these gifts.
And when the body’s setting here…Remember what Paul said, “If something be revealed to one setting by, let him hold his peace and so forth,” like that? That’s the apostolic church. That’s where it should be now.
And here might be one tonight with the prayer of faith, that would pray a prayer of faith that would heal someone. That gift of healing might be on them tonight.
It might be upon this lady here tomorrow night, and upon this man over here the next night. It might come back to her. It’s in the church—the body.
Now, those are the nine spiritual gifts that’s in the body now. They work through the body. But then there is gifts and callings without repentance.
That’s an a vindicated prophet sent from God, from…You don’t receive that. That’s a gift sent from God, that’s born in your birth, come down through, and been set you down through. And that…A prophet, not a gift of prophecy…
Who ever stood to judge Isaiah, to see whether his prophecy was right or not? They knowed from his time through that he was a prophet.
Who stood to say to Jeremiah, when God told him He made him a prophet before he was born from his mother’s womb. And all those who lived right, they knowed he was a prophet.
But this Spirit of prophecy that’s in the church now. He said, “If one prophesies, let two or three judge. See if it’s a wrong spirit got into the church. See, this is the day, the order. 50-0810 - Expectations
From 1965:
Now, prophets. There’s such a thing as “gift of prophecy” in the Church; but a prophet is predestinated and foreordained for the hour.
Now, if a prophecy goes forth, two or three has to set and judge whether that’s right or not, ’fore the church can receive it.
But nobody set before a prophet, ’cause he was absolutely the Word of God. He was that Word in his day. You seen God reflect. 65-1204 - The Rapture
There are three types of prophetic gifts spoken of in the Scripture.
Gift of Prophecy (1 Sam 10:11; 1 Cor 12:10)
Minor Prophets (2 Kings 6:1; Eph 4:11)
Seers or Major Prophets (Jer 1:5; Rev 10:7)
There is a great example in 1st Samuel.
Samuel, a Major Prophet, anoints Saul to be king of Israel.
Noticed how detailed this is:
When thou art departed from me to day, then thou shalt find two men by Rachel’s sepulchre in the border of Benjamin at Zelzah; and they will say unto thee, The asses which thou wentest to seek are found: and, lo, thy father hath left the care of the asses, and sorroweth for you, saying, What shall I do for my son?
Then shalt thou go on forward from thence, and thou shalt come to the plain of Tabor, and there shall meet thee three men going up to God to Beth-el, one carrying three kids, and another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a bottle of wine:
And they will salute thee, and give thee two loaves of bread; which thou shalt receive of their hands.
After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines: and it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, before them; and they shall prophesy:
And the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man.
And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them.
And it came to pass, when all that knew him beforetime saw that, behold, he prophesied among the prophets, then the people said one to another, What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?
Gifts of Prophecy, Prophets, and a Prophet.
Zacharias in Luke 1:67
Caiphas in John 11:51
The Believers in Acts 2
Apollos Disciples in Acts 19:6
In Acts 21 we have the situation again:
And the next day we that were of Paul’s company departed, and came unto Caesarea: and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven; and abode with him.
And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy.
And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus.
And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.
And when we heard these things, both we, and they of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem.
Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.
Prophecy, Prophets, and a Prophet.
Agabus
And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.
Agabus was a New Testament prophet. Look at the Spirit of prophecy falling down there and telling Paul about it.
Then here come Agabus down from Jerusalem, and found Paul, and tied his girdle around him, and turned over and said, “THUS SAITH THE LORD, the man that wore this will be bound in chains when he gets to Jerusalem.”
Agabus, who stood up and told, foretold what would take place, he was a prophet, not a man with the gift of prophecy. 53-0609A - Demonology, Religious Realm
Bro. Branham speaks of how far the Pentecostal denominations had fallen into fanaticism:
They fail that still small Voice of the Word. That Word keeps you balanced to the cross. That’s where it lay. That’s why we don’t have genuine prophets in the church today, like Agabus.
That’s why, the church today, they hardly respect speaking in tongues when somebody speaks, because they’ve heard so much bogus and carry-on, till they don’t know what is right and wrong in it. 62-0121M - And Thy Seed Shall Possess The Gate Of His Enemy
(Interpretations)
Bro. Branham taughtthe Gentiles have never had a real prophet.
And nowhere through the church age, since in the early apostolic Church, has the Protestant church ever had a prophet.
Tell me who it was, and show it to me. Never! They had, in the early apostolic age, one called Agabus, which was a vindicated prophet.
But in…When the Gentiles came in, into inheritance of God, and Paul turned to the Gentiles.
After Peter, as we read last night, had received from the Lord, that, “He was taking a people from the Gentiles, for His Name, His Bride,” then they never has been, on the pages of history, a Gentile prophet.
Now you just go back through the history and find out. Why? Exactly, it would be contrary to the Word. Exactly.
When the first went forth, was a lion, that was prophets: Word. The next went forth, was the work, sacrifice. The next come forth, was the cunningness of man.
But we are promised, in the last day, that to return to the Church again, for the benefit of straightening up all that has been misled, missed, undone, left undone.
For, it’s predicted here that the seventh angel’s Message would finish the mysteries of God. And, then, we’ve went through It all. We see that It’s perfectly in harmony with the Scripture. 63-0324E - The Seventh Seal
Bro. Branham taught there was never two major prophets on the scene at the same time.
First, this age will have ONE Prophet-Messenger. Revelation 10:7 says, “When he (singular) shall begin to sound.” There has never been an age where God gave His people two major prophets at one time.
He gave Enoch (alone); He gave Noah (alone); He gave Moses (he alone had the Word though others prophesied); John the Baptist came ALONE.
Now in this last day there is to be a PROPHET (not a prophetess - though in this age there are more women purporting to give God’s revelation than men),
and the infallible Word says that he (the prophet) will reveal the mysteries to the end-time people, and turn the hearts of the children back to the fathers.
There are those who say that God’s people are going to come together through a collective revelation. I challenge that statement. It is a bald, invalid assumption in the face of Revelation 10:7.
Now I do not deny that people will prophesy in this last age and their ministries can and will be correct.
I do not deny that there will be prophets even as in the days of Paul when there was “one, Agabus, a prophet who prophesied of a famine.”
I agree that is so. BUT I DENY UPON THE INFALLIBLE EVIDENCE OF THE WORD THAT THERE IS MORE THAN ONE MAJOR PROPHET-MESSENGER WHO WILL REVEAL THE MYSTERIES AS CONTAINED IN THE WORD, AND WHO HAS THE MINISTRY TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE CHILDREN TO THE FATHERS.
“Thus saith the Lord” by His unfailing Word stands, and shall stand and be vindicated. There is one prophet-messenger to this age. CAB 09 - Laodicean
The gift of prophecy was set in order by Paul in 1 Cor 14.
We’ll get more into this order next time, the Lord willing.
If any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace.
For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.
And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
Subject to what prophets?
The preachers.
When Bro. Branham is putting the gifts in order he says this:
As the pastor has to do himself before he comes into the audience; he must take the Bible, study in the quietness of his room, in the Spirit, and be anointed to come out before the audience to speak.
If he doesn’t, he’s going to be confused when he gets out there. (Let each man and each woman, with a spiritual gift, come before the Lord.)
And being that the pastor has a single ministry, he is a prophet; the English word, a preacher, means “a prophet,” that’s a forth-teller of the Word. 63-1226 - Church Order
This is not an isolated statement.
Whenever someone tells you, “where is your prophet?”, it shows their ignorance of the Message.
We have a Prophet, William Branham. We have gifts of prophecy in the body. We have Prophets in the five-fold ministry.
We don’t always call them that because it confuses people. (Elder, Apostle, Bishop etc.)
People use Biblical words to gain unbiblical authority.
And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
By removing preachers they have removed the spirit of prophecy from the church, and the church cannot be kept clean.
The first thing I would say, according to the rules of the Church in the New Testament, at the first place, that people entered into the church of God in a Spirit of worship.
And they walked in, hymns were sang. And maybe the preacher would speak, for he was a prophet of the church.
(A New Testament prophet is a preacher; we know that: “The testimony of Jesus Christ is the Spirit of prophecy,” said Revelation.) 54-0103E - Questions And Answers #2
Now, to bring up this faith in Christ, there’s ministers. That’s the most important thing of the day, is a good God-sent preacher. I admire them.
And their gift is far beyond anything could be done in anything else, is a preacher, a man who knows how to rightly divide the Word of God.
It’s the most wonderful gift in the world, is to be a minister. Which is a…Which was a New Testament modern day prophet, a preacher.
“Prophesy” means “to foretell, or to tell some personal thing.” In other words, if you read the Bible and start tell…Then that’s a teacher. See?
But a “prophesy” is “to testify or foretell.” All right. Now…And the Spirit of Christ is prophecy. 53-0614E - I Perceive That Thou Art A Prophet
Now the English word, a prophet, just means a “preacher.” See? Anybody, every preacher is a prophet, ’cause he is foretelling something. Preaching the Word, under inspiration, is called a “prophet.”
But in the Old Testament, they were more than that, they were seers. See? They were man who told things that was coming to pass, and it happened.
That give him the rights to be the interpreter of the Word for that day, because God took the Word of that day and interpreted It, Himself, through that man. 64-0214 - The Voice Of The Sign
Gift of Prophecy - Speaks something specific to the local church. Can be a man or woman. Falls among the body. Must be in order. Must be judged by two or three.
Prophets - Modern day Preachers. Speak the Word under Inspiration. Must be qualified to preach. Must be according to the Word of the hour.
The Prophet Messenger - One to an age. Only one to the Gentiles after Paul. Vindicated by the “Sign of the Messiah” (Discernment) and the Opening of the Word.
We are to respect every gift, but we are not to believe every spirit.
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
The gift that William Branham had was unique. Like Moses or Paul.
And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house.
With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?
Bro. Branham is encouraging the people to come and be prayed for by their pastors.
I don’t say your pastor or anybody would be taking the gift of discernment. They don’t have to do that; that’s not their calling. That’s not their calling, to do that. That’s to be one in an age. 64-0621 - The Trial
Conclusion.
Conclusion.
We have seen our last sign, and a Message followed it. That Message is the vehicle that transports us from Earth to Glory. May we believe it with all of our heart.
I’m so Glad You Found Me.
