Prophesying

God communicates with people on this earth in various ways. He is not limited in His ability to let us know His will. He has used many methods of communication, and He could still come up with new ones in the future. We must not try to limit God, but we should listen for Him and obey what He says. The fact is that we all need to hear a fresh word from the Lord on a regular basis. This is true even though we have the complete Word of God, and we have the Holy Spirit in us.

The Israelites who returned from the exile to rebuild the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem faced opposition from the pagan people who had been settled near Jerusalem, so they stopped their work. It was at that point that God sent them a clear message to keep building. (Ezra 5:1) "At that time the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem. They prophesied in the name of the God of Israel who was over them." It was their prophesying that led the people to resume the building even with the opposition they faced.

Prophets in the Old Testament had a special authority because God so inspired them that what they said was often written down for us, and now it is part of our Bible. That is why we refer to them as "The Prophets." We still have prophets today, but we are not adding to the Bible. The prophets today speak forth God's Word, so it is clear what the Lord wants us to do, and at times, they give us insights on what the future holds for this world. These people could be pastors or evangelists, but they can also be Christians sent by God to deliver His Word at the right time. (Ephesians 4:11)

The reason this verse spoke to me is that I believe we need to be especially sensitive to hear from the prophets we have in our churches and our culture today, because we do not want to get off track like the Israelites did when they stopped building the Temple. We are in a time when we need to be faithful to do God's will, even though we will have opposition. We must not stop doing God's will and being faithful until we die or until Jesus comes to rapture us out of this world.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Ezra 6-8.