THE PURPOSE & EFFECT OF REVELATION
PART ONE
Personal, Interpersonal & Corporate
“The Lord told me you have the heart of a lion.” ~ My Mother
I must have been 10 or 11 when my mother spoke those words to me. I have never forgotten that statement. It has been revisited a few times when others have said the same unwittingly to me.
Here's the thing: I don't often feel like I have the heart of a lion. I usually feel like cowering or shrinking back. A few years ago, a minister told me he saw me as a man of faith. I was stunned and realized I didn't see myself in that way.
However, my mom told me I have the heart of a lion. Not only that, but the Lord told my mom I have the heart of a lion. I can't argue with the Lord, and especially not my mom. It’s a difficult thing for a son to argue with his mother and come out on the winning side.
When I feel like shrinking from the challenge of life, I remind myself of this: the Lord told my mom I have the heart of a lion so it must be so.
This kind of language is very personal to me. Rather than speaking something grandiose, it speaks directly to my heart and to who I am. It subtly defines the reason for my existence. That statement has stuck with me for 30 years, and I anticipate it to be around for a few more.
It is not that dissimilar to the time Anthony the Great prophesied over Abba Ammonas:
“Abba Anthony once prophesied to Abba Ammonas: ”You have the capacity to make progress in acquiring the fear of God.” St. Anthony led Ammonas outside his cell and, showing him a stone, said: ”Insult this stone and beat it.” Abba Ammonas did as he was told, without receiving any response or complaint from the stone. Abba Anthony said to him: ”You are going to attain to the same measure of dispassion as this stone.””
Or the time that Barsanuphius prophesied to his disciple John:
“Behold, I am sending you three testimonies from the power of God and from the Scriptures of the Holy Spirit, through which I am awakening your intellect to the vigilance of God and to the understanding of the Holy Spirit, so that you may know what the present time means. The first testimony is this: God said through the holy prophet Isaiah, “Come, my people, enter your chambers and shut the door behind you in hiding for a little, until the wrath of the Lord is past.” The second testimony is this: “Come out from them, and be separate from them, and touch nothing unclean, says the Lord; and then I shall welcome you, and I will be for you a father, and you shall be for me sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” And the third testimony: “Be careful then as to how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.””
Barsanuphius had discerned beforehand the difficulties that were going to present themselves to John and encourages him with three principles as seen through the Scriptures. The three principles are: stay hidden, keep yourself holy, and watch your heart. Barsanuphius spoke to who John was becoming.
There is another story handed down in the Anonymous Sayings of the Desert Fathers about a great old man who had a vision. While some of the brethren in the Egyptian wilderness of Scetis were building a dwelling place, the old man came to visit them. Looking sullen, the brothers asked the old man what was bothering him. The old man said, “This place is going to be deserted, my children. Indeed, I have seen a great fire in Scetis and the brothers putting it out with branches. It flared up again, and once more they put it out. A third time it flared up and spread throughout Scetis and none could stop it anymore. That is why I am grace and sad.” This indeed happened through certain theological controversies and the raiding of the monasteries by barbarians.
Another pertinent example is when the Roman Emperor Theodosius asks John the Short, a Desert Father, for prophetic wisdom about waging war against a rival who had laid claim to the throne. John assures Theodosius of his victory and Theodosius marches out to wage war against Eugenius. It was said that Theodosius “defeated his very powerful army more by prayer than by the sword (City of God Augustine, Ch 26, Book 5).”
In these examples we see prophecies that are personal (Anthony to Ammonas), interpersonal (Barsanuphius to John about the coming difficulties with others, and the vision of the destruction of Scetis), and corporate (Theodosius, John, and the war over the throne).
Personal prophecy is seen throughout Scripture
Paul reminds Timothy of the prophetic words that were spoken over his life:
I Timothy 4:14 Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership.
Abraham was given personal prophetic revelation:
Genesis 12:1 Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.”
But it also had an interpersonal dimension in the blessing spoken of to the families of the earth:
Genesis 12:2-3 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Isaiah spoke a personal prophetic word to Ahaz about the potential of a coming war:
Isaiah 7:3-4 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-Jashub your son, at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool, on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, and say to him: ‘Take heed, and be quiet; do not fear or be fainthearted for these two stubs of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and the son of Remaliah.
David was spoken to personally, but the utterance given through him by the Spirit applied to the lineage of kings to come after him (both personal and interpersonal):
II Samuel 23:2-4 The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, And His word was on my tongue. The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spoke to me: “He who rules over men must be just, Ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, A morning without clouds, Like the tender grass springing out of the earth, By clear shining after rain.”
Nebuchadnezzar is spoken to personally through the interpretation of his dream by Daniel:
Daniel 4:20-22 The tree that you saw, which grew and became strong, whose height reached to the heavens and which could be seen by all the earth, whose leaves were lovely and its fruit abundant, in which was food for all, under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and in whose branches the birds of the heaven had their home— it is you, O king, who have grown and become strong; for your greatness has grown and reaches to the heavens, and your dominion to the end of the earth.
As far as corporate prophetic utterances, the prophecy of Agabus is instructive:
Acts 11:27-29 And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.
Ezekiel is given a corporate prophetic word for the city of Jerusalem, meaning the inhabitants thereof:
Ezekiel 16:1-3 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your birth and your nativity are from the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite…”
Something to note about the nature of corporate prophetic utterances, these utterances were always instructive, always called people back to the heart of God, and were specifically defined around the locus of a people group. In the New Testament, the corporate prophetic utterances are directed at the church that the church might respond in kind (Acts 11:27-29, Revelation 1:11, Matthew 24:6-8).
Given the rise of internet/YouTube prophets today, it is a peculiar fact that the large portion of what constitutes corporate prophetic utterances bears little resemblance to what we find in the Holy Scriptures and in church history.
Who these prophetic utterances are directed at is ill-defined, or the purpose seem to to be to point out the machinations of various countries, or to predict the rise of the next great leader in a nation. These types of “prophecies” are so dissimilar in comparison to prophecy in the Bible and in church history as to be laughable in comparison. The public stage is too accessible, too lucrative, and too tempting.
Prophecies about coming kings were nearly always directed to the specific king and delivered personally, not declared nationally (1 Samuel 16:1-13, 2 Kings 9:1-3, Acts 1:21-26). With the advent of the internet and rise of popularity of prophecy on various platforms, there has been a corresponding rise in corporate prophetic utterances that have no particular audience in mind. Many of these prophetic utterances are geared to take advantage of social media algorithms. They use the right keywords that advance the scope of the prophecy. In no other church age could a prophetic voice practice their gift beyond the scope of their call like today.
If a prophetic voice is simply listing events that will transpire with no call to action towards the church, I find myself suspicious of their motives.
Are they trying to prove their accuracy?
Or are they interested in conveying the heart of God to a broken world?
It seems to me that much of what constitutes prophetic ministry is pointed to the world’s political and economic systems and not to the church and what it means to be radical lovers of Jesus. Corporate prophetic words, like the prophecy of Agabus to the church in Acts 11, ought to spur the church to radical works of self-sacrifice and love. The end result of prophecy ought to be feeding the poor and taking care of widows and orphans (those who have no family or place to call home).