The prophet's handbook

instrument. Through prophecy God dispenses His truth, enlightens His people, and issues His judgments in the earth. Prophecy declares God’s plans and actuates His words and will in their seasons. All this makes it so much more than a predictive tool, establishing it as His rod of correction, staff of rulership, and creative implement, too. With these, prophecy also acts like a trigger mechanism with signals that call into action the embedded commands of the Lord dormant in creation until their time. The greatest example of this is the Revelation of the apostle John. The entire event, unfolded to him by Christ’s angel, is but a series of prophetic spurs that rouse and initialize the words of God asleep in creation until their preappointed time. Prophecy is how God extends His hands to the world and causes what He wants to appear in it to do so on time. Thus, it further serves as His inducement arm. The Old Testament word for the ministry used in Hosea 12:10 links prophecy to the hand of God, translating the word ordinarily used for hand (yad) as “ministry.” Together, this says that prophecy is the Lord’s means of invoking the powers and agencies responsible for exteriorizing His word and manifesting His power and will in action on earth. Beyond this, the prophetic serves as God’s avenue of divine enactment and legislation, according to Galatians 3:19 and Hebrews 2:2. As instruments that invoke the terrestrial agencies, angels, principalities, and powers of creation, prophets participate in their summons via the medium of prophecy. (See Ezekiel 9:1–11 and Zechariah 3:1–10.) Other words for agent are listed below to give you an idea of the scope of the function in God’s mind and that of any legitimate organization. An agent is:

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