The prophet's handbook

teaching out of the church, and thereby forestall the sanctifying process that is inherent in God’s truth. I have attended services at churches whose congregations were proud of their praise being so powerful that they never had time for the Word of God. I reacted with concern, recognizing the remark as the stage-one tactic to making the church powerless. Prophets know that this is not God, as it is only by His Word that people grow and are grounded in His truth. Scripture shows that when Jesus could do nothing else, He taught God’s Word. Being the Father’s very truth Himself, it was impossible for Him not to do so. Over time, sensuality replaces spirituality in such churches, and the congregations never notice when it takes place. All they know is that they have become tired of singing and want to be fed the Word of God. It is an old tactic, but a highly effective one. Another of Satan’s popular tactics to keep the power that comes with God’s Word out of the church is spiritual experiences. Satan does this by stressing meditating, basking or soaking, getting “drunk,” or other physical actions that stimulate purely sensual responses. Such deviations are blamed on God’s Spirit and are cunningly devised to replace teaching and study of the Lord’s Word. The goal is to addict the congregation to sensuality by exclusively stressing what feels good. This serves to foster within it an intolerance for Scriptures and an irritation toward wise and intelligent Christianity. Prophetic wisdom and knowledge enable prophets to inform, if not persuade, their churches of the inevitable outcomes and consequences of neotheology, pseudo spiritual antics, and risky ventures. Because they can easily detect wolves in sheep’s clothing, prophets’ service objectives should always be God’s truth, holiness, and righteousness in the Holy Spirit. True prophets incessantly trumpet these words as divine commands. The wholesomeness of the Lord’s purchased possession emerges as foremost in resident prophets’ minds. For this to happen, church prophets must be well-versed in God’s Holy Scriptures, and sadly, far too many often are not. Bible knowledge skills, vital to credible prophetics, add reach and depth to the revelatory word of God when merged with other prophetic assignments. They also enhance prophetic accuracy. Otherwise Scripture light prophets just declare releases of the people’s heart desires more than they unfurl divine revelation. Thus, their revelatory emphasis can be restricted to the congregation’s most pressing temporal needs and fluctuating emotional states. The membership’s spiritual state of well-being is generally ignored by church prophets under such circumstances and so becomes stagnant once its growth has been stifled.