The prophet's handbook

declared, this is a peculiar distinction that can go unnoticed. The passage reads, “follow not, nor come to pass.” They appear to be repetitive statements so that you would only try a prophecy based on its coming to pass. However, the Hebrew terms from which they were translated convey two different intents. For “follow,” the Hebrew word hayah is used, and for “come to pass,” the word bow is used. Hayah essentially is talking about existing. Thus, if the thing (spoken by the prophet) does not exist, or in the case of bow, which means “to come or to go,” doesn’t appear or arrive, it is presumptuous. The Lord is making an important distinction between the two terms and apparently their separate prophetic events. Prophetically speaking, He is telling His people first of all that what a prophet says must exist. That is, it must be somewhere in his or her life or sphere of life. An example would be to prophesy something to a person who has no capacity to become what is prophesied, regardless of how many times the prophet wills it to be. (See Ezekiel 13:17.) Where verse six of that passage says the prophet hopes he can make the word come to pass. This is witchcraft because it is rooted in two things: divination (fortune-telling for pay) and spiritual manipulation (intending to coerce creation to perform or produce the word apart from God’s authority or approval). Prophecies can only come to pass when they exist on the person’s Psalm 139:16 book of life. This is because the sum of the hearer’s talents, abilities, and faculties must exist for a prophecy concerning them to be fulfilled. For instance, to predict a person will be a world renowned opera star when he or she cannot sing is false prophecy. The Lord would not say such a thing because He did not equip the hearer for it. Prophecies of this sort ignore or shipwreck God’s word of destiny on a life. Since He neither wrote nor spoke it, there is no place for the prophecy to come to pass. •Second, the prophet’s word must be appointed to the person’s life, or else, again, it cannot arrive at any time. The words of the prophecy must be empowered by God’s will and authority to come to pass. That is, to engineer themselves, the events that cause it to be must also be written on a given hearer’s page of life. Generally speaking, there are telltale signs in their interests, past exploits, experiences, or opportunities (or abilities) that hint at the word’s potential to come to pass. These are two separate ideas, although they appear to be one and the same. A prophecy must speak what is and not what the prophet hopes or fantasizes to be. To assure this, there must be some reference or hint of such an occurrence in Scripture, such as auto-powered vehicles like Ezekiel’s living creatures or