Chapter 3: The Most Important Thing About Being a Prophet is Simply Hearing The Whole Word

Every word of God is pure; …
⁶ Do not add to His words,
Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.”
Proverbs 30 5a-6

Therefore take heed how you hear.
Luke 8:18

Hear the Whole Word!

I love when God teaches me and it’s simple to understand. It’s not always like that. Sometimes he says things that take me YEARS to digest and grasp. But this one was simple, clear and easy to comprehend. He was asking me to train people to serve him as prophets and when I was preparing the materials one week he simply said this: “The MOST IMPORTANT thing about being a prophet is simply HEARING THE WHOLE WORD.”

It’s so simple! I can do that! All I have to do is listen! Easy—yet I soon found out—Uy! It is also quite hard!

In a simple sense when we handle prophecy we are but messengers. I know that’s the same word as ‘angel’ but it’s still true: ‘angel’ just means ‘messenger.’ And note, the Bible uses the word ‘angel’ to refer to what we call normally ‘angels,’ but it also refers to men (both good and evil) and to demons sometimes as well. Actually there are other words for ‘angel’ as well like seraph, cherub, etc., but the common word simply means messenger—which in the Hebrew is malak and is also the name of the minor prophet’s book, Malaki, which then seems to read something like ‘the Message from Mr. Messenger.’

This is odd because we think of angels as a race or kind of spiritual being. Seraph, the ‘ones who burn,’ and cherub, the terrifying guardians of God, are words which do refer to a ‘kind of being,’ but ‘messenger’ or malik only refers to a job description. So any kind of being could bring a message in this sense. It is not a term that defines a ‘race’ or ‘class of beings’—but nevertheless still we most often see these ‘ministering spirits’ as tall, beautiful, sometimes winged spiritual beings bringing messages, but also providing help, healing and doing warfare. And yes we do still just call them ‘messengers’ or ‘angels!’

And maybe you already noticed this, but when messenger angels speak for the Lord they often speak AS the Lord, saying, “I am God! I am here to save and deliver you!” They are obviously meant to be heard and not seen, much like the way we too could serve Him, in an ideal sense that is. “Thus saith the Lord, ‘I am your God and Savior! I am here to Save and Deliver you!’ Amen!”

Be Careful how you Hear!

But many things get in the way of ideals—one of the first problems and one I heard God mention, is that people are not really listening. They are distracted, opinionated, indoctrinated and they hear a word from God and ASSUME he is saying all kinds of things he never said and does not mean. God told us this is happening all too commonly when he speaks to people.

Here’s an easy biblical example: When Jesus was already resurrected and talking to his depressed disciples who quit being apostles and went back to being fishermen again, he was talking to Peter and someone pointed at John and said, “Hey, what about him!!” And what Jesus said is just so typical—so typical of Jesus I mean.

Ready? I probably shouldn’t be sharing this, but well, first, in John 21 verse 22 …

Jesus said to him, ‘If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me.’”

People then assumed Jesus meant he would not die:

²³ Then this saying went out among the brethren that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you?”

Then I suppose everyone reading that ASSUMES he did die. OK, let’s start right here. Did John die?

There are records of the deaths of every Apostle … except one. Most people assume anyway he died. But actually, why in Revelations 10:11 did the angel tell the already elderly John in exile on Patmos that: “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings.” But this never happened … not yet anyway.

I know there will be Two Witnesses in the End Times, major prophets who will torment the earth with their prophecy. I always wonder what TWO figures God intends to use in this weird ministry. I have a weird uncle God could use! Well, I think he has bigger plans than to use just anyone, including my weird uncle. But maybe. You never know. Unless God tells you of course. And then you do.

The text makes references to things Moses and Elijah did, so this may indicate these are the two. I would not be surprised. But anyway Revelations also clearly says John would “prophesy again” to many. Could one of the Two Witnesses be him? It doesn’t matter at all. And I really do not care if he is or not. It being Moses and Elijah or John and Jehoshaphat, makes no different to me, OK?

And why ask because it’s totally impossible anyway, right?

But then I heard two people recently who had visions of a man in the desert in Turkey. One vision showed an old man by a cave and a campfire with BLUE flames and the man seeing the vision asked God, ‘What am I looking at?’ and God said something like, ‘Oh, it’s John. He’s tarrying until I return,’ quoting I think the KJV rendering of that verse.

Now wait a minute … just hold on! In John 21:22 Jesus did not say he would not die but ‘if I want him to tarry or remain until I return what difference does that make to you!’ … You see, if he is chosen as one of the Two Witnesses, he will certainly die. Revelations 11 explains this, that after their ministry is done, 42 months of tormenting the earth with their plagues, the ‘Beast out of the Pit’ will kill them, and there was much rejoicing. Then three and a half days later and Ooops! He’s BAAAACCK!! He and his companion are resurrected and they go to heaven in plain sight of all, there’s an earthquake and people give glory to God.

So I certainly don’t know if this is going to play out like this with John as one of these Two. It does not matter to me at all! And we’re just having a casual chat, you and I, so relax about it. Let’s just call this a hypothetical situation.

But taking this as a possible (hypothetical) scenario, let’s start with what Jesus did say? If I want him to tarry until I return what is it to you!? People then ASSUMED he would not die. That’s probably a reasonable attempt at interpreting what Jesus said. I would probably think the same thing coming from a resurrected Jesus! And with everything else that was going on that month:

Matthew 27:50-53—Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. ⁵¹ And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; ⁵² And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, ⁵³ And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

And so taking my hypothetical at face value, that John could still be alive and waiting until Jesus returns, in which case yes, they were wrong but still maybe partly right. Like I said, it was a reasonable conclusion to come to. And according to this hypothetical then John would not die within a normal human time frame, so that much is true, but he would still die. And Jesus is not trying to confuse us, so he must correct them and says, ‘Wait, I did not say he would not die!’—Jesus writing the Bible said that I mean not Jesus speaking in person—so it certainly follows as possible according to the Bible text that John is still alive, waiting, praying—and it’s weird but if I met him I can only think of stupid questions to ask him. Can he order pizza in the cave? Has he ever tasted pepperoni? Does he know what a hamburger tastes like? I really only have stupid questions for him unfortunately. Why is that? I don’t know. But I just can’t relate to what it would be like to talk to someone like that. What good, meaningful things would you ask if you only had enough time to ask him three questions? ‘Is that really you? Really? Really?’ … See, what I mean?

But if John will in fact “again prophesy” to many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings and he is in fact one of the Two Witnesses, then yes, he will die—but also not die as normal men do. Am I confused yet? Almost.

So I was reading about Sadhu Sundar Singh the prophet who lived in what we now call Pakistan and India and Nepal and he met an old man in the mountains of Kailash, in the Himalayas, who was 300 years old. He spoke 30 languages he said and was born in Alexandria, Egypt. Bobby Conner was praying and in the Spirit and found himself laying down looking up at a very, very old man, and asked him, “What kind of being are you?” The old, old man said something like, “A man. One that tarries.” Turns out he was 500 years old.

So if that is bending your noodle, just relax. Maybe it’s not true. You need to test these things. How do you go about testing such a vision? Does the Bible have ANY evidence that people can live to be up to 500 years old? Oh, yes of course it does—a lot of evidence! So how else can you test this vision? You see, you have too many subjective filters in your own mind to test it logically. You do not understand the Bible the way Jesus did, or know God’s power, and have too weak a grasp of spiritual things to be able to test it with your own Bible knowledge alone.

The Bible experts of the day, and I mean they were really experts, but they did not recognize Jesus in the flesh was the Messiah—like, Duh!—but killed him instead. So do you think with much less of a grasp of spiritual truths and less training in the Bible text you can adequately test such a perplexing set of visions as these by applying your own reasoning and your own Bible knowledge to them? Won’t you come to the same (wrong) conclusions the ancient scholars came to, not on the true merits or facts of the case but based only on your own doctrines, prejudices, carnal thinking and ‘normal’ filters of reality?? Did you forget that with God ALL things are possible? Yes, you say but it’s still not possible. OK, well, then just never mind.

So do you see? It’s not as easy as it seems. So really, be careful how you hear.

So what did Jesus say?
People sometimes just can’t hear it.
People think God is saying things that he is NOT saying.
Again, be careful how you hear.

It may turn out to be humanly impossible to hear God correctly if all you have is a carnal mind to hear him or read the Bible with either. It may turn out that the only way to hear and understand him correctly is to listen with a spiritual mind, and with spiritual understanding. Oh, and the easy answer to that question of how to test a prophetic word that perplexes you is to test … by the Spirit. But you already knew that I bet! Didn’t you?

Man’s View of their Own Progress

But yes, the prophetic word is sometimes not so easy to discern and handle. Putting aside questions of transmission we unfortunately do not think like God very much sometimes. First of all, we think in time. Second, we trust what we can see and mostly only understand the Earth realm and how it seems to work. We are not very good at understanding spiritual or heavenly things since we just don’t have any experience with them. Third, much of our view of where we are headed is what I heard Jesus call, ‘Man’s view of their own progress.’ They can only see a few steps ahead of themselves on a clear day with no obstacles in the way.

But God has a HUGE view of our lives, and exists outside of time so in a way is standing in our Past as much as he is also at the same moment standing in our Future already—all the while also standing right here next to us in our Here-Today-Now Present. He sees it all at once and is not ‘predicting the future’ as you think of it, so much as he is telling you his ‘present’ view of things in our distant Tomorrow which he is standing right there looking at in plain sight because this is also his NOW!

Not only can Men not see this—they can’t handle seeing it either. You meet a girl, Abagail, you court her, you plan to get married and on your wedding day you meet a lady, Beth, and God says about Beth, “You will marry her.” The ceremony goes ahead, you and Abagail have three wonderful children and all the ups and downs of normal life and then you are getting coffee one day and see a lady, Oh, it’s that lady, Beth! Wow, I’m not staring but she looks pretty good and you see her wedding ring, and God says again, “You will marry her.” … A year goes by and wow, how much can happen in a year!—but it’s been a year and you go to the same coffee shop again and see Beth. She’s since been widowed … and I didn’t want to upset you by bringing it up but meanwhile your own wife ran off with a traveling salesman. You and Beth chat, you laugh, you cry … pretty soon, ding dong wedding bells are a-ringing.

You see, God saw all that before you were born.

People often don’t hear what God IS saying

Sometimes God even tells people things like this. But who can handle it? It does not mean God won’t speak it, I mean even if you can’t handle it—he still does sometimes because he wants you to learn to handle it! But people get very nervous and start to make funny doctrines. A common one I hear a lot is beginning prophets are not allowed to give words about “Mates or Dates.” People are reckless and the impact of even slightly off prophetic matchmaking, of what I assume are words to attractive young adults from other interested young adults, can be very disastrous. So in an abundance of caution I often hear pastors mostly outright ban any prophesying among the youth on matters of dating or predicting ‘such and such will happen’ by a certain day or time.

I don’t know how I feel about this, maybe we’ll talk more on that later.

But what we can clearly see is that fear and filters, strong opinions and especially doctrines affect the way we hear God speak. Jesus said “Be careful how you hear.” And at first it makes no sense, since listening is a completely passive activity, but Jesus knew otherwise.

Luke 8:18—Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.”

Sons of Thunder

Another example is how Jesus called his people Children of God. But in what sense does he mean that? Aren’t ALL humans and animals and plants too God’s offspring because he made them all? No, not in that sense because not all things God made can reflect his character. And only those from among the race of Fallen Man who turn to God and come into ‘union with the Messiah’ are made new, are a new creation, a ‘new self’ made in the image of God. So no, only the saved humans are God’s Children in that sense. Only people who have ‘turned back to God’ and now partake of his nature are considered his offspring.

Also the term “Son of a Thing” is a metaphor more than a literal term. Sons of the Prophets, Sons of Thunder, Sons of the Resurrection, and Sons of the Living God mean these are the people who are a part of or adherents to or believers in that thing. Today we use terms like ‘He’s a Chief’s Fan,’ ‘She’s a Fitness Freak,’ or ‘He’s so Goth.’ Well, biblically when it is mentioned people who have these associations and identities are often called ‘Sons’ of this or that.

I think I already shared this verse but in Acts 3 Peter said the people who believed in Moses’ words and the words of the prophets were therefore the ‘sons of the prophets.’

²⁵ You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

So if your filter is very sensitive to family relationships, and you have a ‘bee in your bonnet’ about ‘sonship’ or genders or controlling parents or just don’t think abstractly or poetically very well, you may either take offense at God saying this in a prophetic word, you may completely misunderstand it, or probably you’ll just ignore it altogether. Be careful how you hear.

Having Carnal Understanding of Spiritual Truth

The other issue, a bigger issue I think, is having man’s carnal understanding of spiritual things. When you have a filter about political issues or gender issues or food issues you are very much aware of it. When you begin to heal and your mind begins to be transformed by the Holy Spirit you start to reset these filters and when you hear one of your ‘trigger words’ you catch yourself, calm yourself down and can begin to think things through more clearly.

But what happens when you are totally unaware of your filters? This happens with the Bible and prophecy ALL THE TIME.

I ran across this in a teaching prophecy from Jesus to Mitt Jeffords and this is what Jesus told him in a word he titled, “My People are Perishing.”

But first of all, it’s long. I published an excerpt in our prophecy journal the HKI in 2009 and my excerpt is even too long to share. The Lord began by saying dozens of reasons of why his people are perishing. It’s for lack of knowledge, but knowledge of what? He starts by saying it’s lack of knowledge of his Truth, of his Love for them, etc. It’s because they seek to know themselves more than they seek to know him. And this lingering ignorance of Him makes them unable to trust him or come to him or draw near to him, or believe his words, or have faith in the Love he has for them.

He says his people are perishing because they don’t know their own carnal reasonings are what’s keeping them from him. It is their own wisdom, their own understanding, their own human thinking that is keeping them from enjoying his fellowship, communion, blessings and love. They don’t even know that it’s their reasonings that are doing this, keeping them from Him—and so they also don’t know that if they would only ask he would destroy those things and reduce their vain thinking to nothingness. They also do not know the grief this causes Him or the depth of his love for them to draw near so he can free them from this. It’s a lack of knowledge on so many levels!

He goes on to tell Mitt so many more things within us that are keeping us ignorant and distant. Wow! Too much I can’t share right now. But then he says this:

My people are perishing because they do not know that I am not like a man, and neither am I like the image of the thoughts that men imagine for Me to be. I am not at all like the idols of men’s opinions and imaginations of Me. I love to show mercy and forgive when men delight in judging, or in belittling, or in accusing, or in fault finding, or in criticizing, or in scoffing, or in the pointing of the finger, or in condemning. I am not like the images of love, or judgment, or truth, or life, or forgiveness, or goodness, or righteousness, or the meekness that the imaginations of men define Me to be; for that which is spiritual can never be understood or defined by that which is natural. I am the undefined love. I am the indefinable, the incomprehensible, and the inconceivable reality of love that natural man cannot understand, but that which all desire and yearn to have.

He goes on to say,

“I am everlasting love … I am love. My love is reality, and all else perishes. The righteousness of my love does not seem right in the sight of those who are perishing. The goodness of my love does not appear good in the sight of the blind. That which is blind and that [only] seems right [but is not] is perishing. My thoughts are always right towards man because my love always thinks to do good to man, even when the reasoning of man says that I am not thinking to do them good. My people are perishing because they do not know my thoughts. My thoughts are not as man’s thoughts. My thoughts are indefinable, inconceivable, and incomprehensible to those who do not know Me.”

Paul even said in 1 Corinthians 2, that the Holy Spirit taught him God’s spiritual truths and he did it using spiritual words that carnal people just cannot comprehend:

¹³ These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. ¹⁴ But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

So prophesying clear English words to a person who is yet carnal may itself cause confusion simply because they cannot comprehend the deep meaning of God’s spiritual truths, motives or desires even when he uses simple words. God’s thoughts are far above our human thoughts.

Mixing it up!

If you combine the problems of people hearing what God is NOT saying, of not hearing what God IS saying and plainly misunderstanding the very words God is using you can easily see how God can say, “I love you,” but they hear, ‘He wants to control me.’ When He says, “Trust me,” they hear, ‘He will let me down and hurt me.’ If He says he will always do what is right, and so they should likewise try to always do what is right, they think, No one just does what is right! What an impossible burden he’s trying to crush me with!

So you need to be careful—be careful how you hear!

The Mighty IF!

And I’d like to talk for a few pages about one of the greatest pitfalls I see in everyday personal prophecy and that is when people fail to hear God explaining simple conditions on his promises. But I think I’ll keep this main discussion for the next chapter where I will talk a lot about Romans 11 so I won’t bring it up here as well. Or Hebrews 4. But let me then mention Colossians if I may. This is Chapter 1 verses 21-23:

²¹ And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled ²² in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—²³ if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Do you see the pivotal phrase? You were reconciled “if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard…”

Paring it all down the key grammar is stark: You have been reconciled IF you continue in your faith.

I began to search and found this pesky little IF in every salvation verse I could find. It is in every blessing and promise as well. God is not forcing his way on us, even with regards to blessings, rewards and salvation. You can walk away at any time, but know this, if you do, you can’t leave him and take him with you. He IS the peace. He IS the wisdom. He IS the comfort and he IS the salvation. You cannot leave him and take the peace with you; it’s all or nothing in a way. That’s what he told me when he explained the dream ‘Fleeing Their Habitations’ to me. You can look it up or its also in the book “8 + Splash—How I learned about prophecy.” It’s on-line as well. But I’ll share some excerpts here in a moment also.

Anyway He told me you cannot leave Jesus and take his joy with you; the joy IS him. Isn’t that food for thought!?

So the main idea here is simply that I often hear people accuse God or prophet when a word ‘fails’ but looking more carefully you discover a tiny little word—“IF”—right in the middle of all God was saying. Sometimes the word didn’t fail, they did!

There are conditions on many and dare I say ALL personal prophecies, especially the condition of abiding in faith.

But I’ll delve more deeply into this topic in the next chapter.

Interpreting by Guesswork?

And concerning hearing we then need to touch lightly on interpretation but just a little.

The Bible makes a clear distinction between Man’s Earthly Wisdom and God’s Eternal Wisdom. In Proverbs 3 we are told NOT to lean on our own understanding but in all our ways KNOW him, be intimate with him, acknowledge him and THEN he will make our paths straight.

In that wise book there are TWO WOMEN who both call out in the marketplace to the youth telling them how to live their lives. One is the lady Wisdom, and the other is a counterfeit, a prostitute, a harlot. The harlot is also a kind of wisdom, but not God’s wisdom. It is the wisdom of Man, which God calls Stupidity and Foolishness but also Adultery—man’s wisdom is a harlot.

This earthly, carnal wisdom as James called it is foolishness to God. It is the Flesh, the enemy of God within us Paul said in Romans, and in 1 Corinthians 2 says that by this earthly wisdom they did not recognize the Christ and in fact crucified him. By their ‘wisdom’ they cannot understand God or his spiritual truths.

The problem is with what the Bible calls the Flesh. But what is it? I assumed it was like the sexy part of us, but God said not really. The Flesh, God told me is the Human Level Understanding, the Human Level Intellect, the Human Level Perception, the Human Level Desires and the Human Level Motives. The book of Romans says this Foolishness is the enemy of God that cannot be reformed, it must be exterminated. Matthew 25 divides the Body into two camps, one gets raptured, the wise ones—the other who are foolish to God but wise in their own eyes are left behind. Bet they didn’t see that coming!

God says the ‘Wisdom’ of man is Foolishness. It is the enemy of God within us. This ‘wisdom of man’ which keeps us away from God and his blessings, truth be told, is always rebellious, always disobedience and altogether evil.

The Cost of Dream Interpretation

So let me go back to talking about dreams for a minute. I said the hardest part of interpretation of prophecy usually comes from dreams since they are often so symbolic in nature.

For us, we realized we could seek God for prophetic dreams and started to encourage everyone in our weekly church group to do that. Soon, it began to happen and in our small group we were getting dozens of dreams a week. One time I had five dreams in one single night—that happened a few times actually!

But the next problem we ran into was trying to interpret them! One ministry offered to provide us with interpretations of dreams but for $25 a pop. Another said they would help us but only if we subscribed with a large monthly fee to hire a spiritual coach from them. Our family budget at the time as ministers was so low we could not do that, not even for one dream.

So then what? We had dozens of words, some of them pressing in importance and we just did not have enough money to pay for interpretations. Well, all we could do finally was just bring it all back to God ourselves! And so I sat quietly in his presence asking him to please tell me the interpretation of his dreams—and the result was nothing short of miraculous—life changing! When God began to openly talk to me for hours a day to explain his dreams to me, it changed my life.

The ones I publish are Fleeing Their Habitations, The Mountain Valley Vision and well, maybe a few others I don’t mind sharing, but dream interpretation can be a big stumbling block. But God is able.

Cutting Corners and Taking Shortcuts?

People try to fall back on using a system of interpretation, color charts and symbol dictionaries and this is not as helpful as you might think it is. I said before that the best person I know at interpreting dreams was John Paul Jackson, hands down. And there are videos of him interpreting dreams on the spot that make 100% no sense to me—but he had a very fluid grasp of their general meaning almost instantly. However, and he said this, his experience of interpreting multiple thousands of dreams had given him some foundation or base of knowledge so it came from a lot of experience, but nevertheless he could not know more than about 80 to 85% of what a dream meant unless the Holy Spirit revealed the full meaning to him. He said every dream has a dimension that only the Holy Spirit knows. And so we may be able to get a fair overview of the basics of a dream using other people’s insights, charts and lists of what common symbols may mean—but it is never going to be 100% accurate.

And moreover from what I experienced having a two- or four-hour chat with Jesus about his dreams to me, and hearing him speak at length on why he said this, what that really means, how he feels about so and so and just letting him talk for hours to get HIS VIEW on his dream and on life in general, well there is no comparison with that and only having a general overview of a few symbols’ common meanings based on a prophetic color chart.

But we don’t always have time for that, and sometimes we don’t need it either. So OK, having a brief overview in ten minutes is sometimes better than waiting weeks for a divine encounter even if that encounter will change our lives. Maybe.

But actually, the Bible says all interpretation of prophecy BELONGS to God. There is no such thing as a valid ‘private interpretation’ of prophecy as 2 Peter 1:20 says. So while we trust a dream system of interpretation made by established ministers to a point, God still warned me not to rely on such a thing, which I think I shared already.

Interpretation : The Mountain Valley Vision

For example, in his explanation to me of this dream which I share as the Mountain Valley Vision, and for this particular part I was up in a mountain valley and there was a small stream and I saw a Whale in it that thrashed and blew me a Bubble. I had to slide down a slope to reach it but I grabbed it—I laid hold of it! And God said he was happy with me for doing that. What is it? A ‘bubble’ is similar to the word for ‘prophecy,’ so I assumed it was a prophetic word from the ‘whale.’ But what was the whale itself?

He said first I was high up on the mountain of the knowledge of the Lord and in this higher place revelation was more pure.

He then said the Whale was BIG REVELATION to me about his plans for me … but then he said so many things in between … Well, OK, I don’t want to summarize it all or I’ll just butcher it, let me just quote what he said, and I already shared part of this in the last chapter, but this is more and maybe it will make more sense to you now. Anyway about being high up in the mountain valley he first said this:

My presence brings you into my deep purposes, as this level (depth or height) you begin to see me as I am—no illusion. It’s the beginning of your life hereafter and evermore.

The Fullness of Christ is attainable by you not under the operation of your will and being but by the law of the Spirit of Grace and Trust in you operating to conform you by my will and ability to my image.

Not the fullness of GOD, but the fullness of Christ—my Son—you can rise to maturity by my promises—set before you—my word spoken over you, in your hearing will draw you into Me so I can have my will over and about you—

Don’t separate journey and destination (destiny) regarding my prophecy—my prophetic, my spoken promises over you—you’ll soon come to see they are one and the same—I AM the way (the journey, the path) and the Truth and the Life (or the purpose, plan and destination) of all I have for you—I am the goal of your faith—I Am the exceedingly great reward for you, unto you, and all who believe in Me and Call upon my name.

The Whale is my calling of you, my destiny, my purposes, my plan, my endurance, my word of deep things too big and grand for your easy comprehension—you can’t swallow them. In fact, they have to swallow you. Being in the belly of the whale takes on a whole new significance now doesn’t it? It’s the place when you are arrested by my plans and purposes for you—you’ll be digested, transformed, changed—renewed by my word spoken over and about and spoken concerning you.”

Me: “That’s what I used to call an elephant symbolically.”

The Lord: “Yes, but you got caught up looking for a system of interpretation—but I will not give my keys to strangers. You can’t CRACK my Code, Edward—don’t even try—Men cannot figure me out—I resist their efforts to reduce me to a puzzle or a board game—my secrets are reserved for those who fear me, not those who devise a better system of interpretation.”

Me: “The Bubble?”

The Lord: “The revelation bubbling up—prophecy to others to manifest my deep hidden truths—”

The whale thrashed and made a bubble and gave it to you—you reached out and laid hold of it—laid hold of my purposes for you—I am happy with you for that.

You will go forth and prophesy to many people—nations, languages (tongues), people groups … that’s my will for you.

Don’t worry about the false sheep, worthless teachers of Egypt and Babylon—they have their place, their end, their doom is coming upon them lest they repent. Don’t fret.”

See what I mean? Reducing dream interpretation to “a whale represents God’s purposes,” satisfies my need to understand the dream in five minutes, but how much more did I receive when I was willing to sit in his presence and let him talk openly to me for as long as it took! This has been feeding me for YEARS! He said not to try to ‘crack his code’ or devise a ‘better system of interpretation.’ He won’t give his secrets to strangers. No one can ‘figure him out.’ Wow, so much beautiful wisdom!

Putting your own words to a Vision

Now someone will say, “So if I have a vision and there are no words given to me and I have to share it, can’t I just say anything I want?”

Yes, that’s actually true. I think that explains the passages in the Gospels about John the Baptist’s vision of Jesus’ shoes.

So John the Baptist had a few visions of Jesus we know of. One was him baptizing in Spirit and in Fire, which of course happened at Pentecost after John the Baptizer was himself killed. He also knew that the person on whom the Spirit fell on AND REMAINED would be the One they were looking for, the Coming Messiah. Third, he saw something about shoes.

When you get a vision it is mainly a picture, a movie, but other senses can be active and you can ‘know’ things, even things unseen and often not accompanied by any spoken words at all. John tells people he is so far inferior to Jesus that he cannot wear his sandals. In Luke 3:16 and John 1:27 he says he is unworthy to lose his ‘shoe’s latchet’ or ‘sandal strap.’ In Mathew 3:11 he tells people he is coming ‘whose shoes I am not worthy to bear,’ or ‘sandals I am not worthy to carry.’ Why the variation?

It seems to me he saw a vision regarding ‘shoes’ impressing how much greater the coming Messiah was to him. When it came time to share it, which I think he may have done many hundreds or possibly thousands of times, he needed to put his own words to explain this ‘impression’ so he would look back into his heart, into his spirit, and try to look again at the vision and then put words to what God had shown him. There were other parts like fanning the flames to burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire (a clear reference to the fires of Hell), etc., but the part I get a kick out of is about the shoes. It is his vision and he has to be the one to explain it, and without any ‘words’ given to him to quote (or misquote) he has to explain it whatever way he thinks is best.

How unlike a prophet like Isaiah who often quoted the Lord verbatim and in verse, or Ezekiel who quoted the Lord for long sections of prophecy. Different also are David and Asaph who were writing psalms, songs and had to craft meter and rhyme to fit the visions they were trying to share.

The first person to interpret a prophetic word is usually the person who saw or heard it. They are obviously the first to speak about it. So you heard God’s real, pure vision or even a spoken word, but how can you share it without polluting it and mixing it with your own natural, earthly wisdom as you talk about it? I first think of Proverbs 30:6—

Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you and prove you a liar. (BSB) … .

Also Psalm 12: 6—

The words of the Lord are pure words,
Like silver tried in a furnace of earth, Purified seven times.

For some reason I also always think of Proverbs 25:11—

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.

It does not always have to be so hard. Some visions are clear, simple and easy, but I recall one time when I heard God speak to me and his voice split into TWO and he spoke TWO SEPARATE WORDS AT THE EXACT SAME TIME. What can you do without the Holy Spirit? He asked me. Can you have lunch? Tie your shoes? Have a church service? … Then he answered his own rhetorical questions and said, “The Holy Spirit IS the SERVICE” but when he said the word ‘service’ he also said at the same time the word ‘ministry’ … “The Holy Spirit IS the Ministry.” Or maybe I have to say it like he did, “The Holy Spirit IS the Ministry/Service.”

I know exactly what he meant, but wow, He speaks weird sometimes!

The Spirit of a Prophet is subject to Whom?

So anyway, you have a great deal of control over your own prophecy. In fact once you receive it, you are in charge of it, for better or for worse. You can hide it, sell access to it, puff it up to be the biggest word ever!—or downplay it for dramatic effect—it’s in your hands and you can do whatever you want with it: Good, Bad or something in between.

This is because the spirit of a prophet is subject to whom? To the person, the human, the prophet. It seems wrong, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t the spirit of a prophet be subject to God? But that’s not what the Scripture plainly says. Be careful how you read!

So as vessels we are given discretion when to share, what to share, how—or even if we don’t want to share anything at all.

I recall Paul evangelizing King Agrippa and telling the story of how he was on his way to Damascus when he was slightly inconvenienced.

This was maybe 30 years after the actual event and he summarized it, adding his later instructions and other prophetic aspects of his calling and combined it all into one impactful message. This is in Acts 26. But shouldn’t he have quoted the first event verbatim? And then next who gave him what instructions, when, how and etc., etc., etc.? Is he adding to what God said? Is he mixing God’s seven-times purified words?

I doubt King Agrippa would have been confused by his sharing montage. It’s not a mater of doctrine or deep revelation he was teaching to disciples where you’d better be word-perfect because they are going to quote you! But here, in context, his sharing was not a specific prophetic word or touching on a matter of doctrine as such. God certainly didn’t call him out on it and King Agrippa was clearly moved and maybe even got saved.

So share your vision as you feel is right, and when you do reduce it to a sermon or article or video on YouTube and use human language you are easily misunderstood and need to be a little more careful. People are already skeptical and easily misunderstand and misquote and misconstrue and will attack you if you even change one letter in some cases—so just to be faithful and clear—for their sake, not yours, because you can do what you want, say what you want, however you want and in whatever language you want. The essence of a vision is and will remain in SPIRIT not textual, verbal or bound by human forms of communication—but for THEIR sake, just be clear and be consistent.

Can we agree just to be Careful?

So maybe all I think we can say from this for now and I hope we can agree, I hope, is that we must be careful when we share. Be careful that we have God’s whole word. Be careful we are not mixing it up or butchering it into meatballs. But once you have it, you are the prophet. You share when and how you think the situation and audience demands.

Just be careful. It’s your word, but it also NOT your word that you are sharing but yes, you are the one who is ultimately accountable. Just be careful, that’s all.

Is sharing in ‘Humble Confidence’ a Thing?

Then someone will always say, “Well, if this is the minefield of prophecy and it is really is so weird, I’ll hedge my interpretation by giving a long list of caveats: ‘I think I maybe have a word from God. I’m not entirely sure, and I could be wrong. You need to test it, and it’s not very clear but so maybe God could be saying something that sounds similar to …’ ” but by that time people already have decided you have no idea what you are talking about and won’t listen to anything you say anyway, right or wrong! How is that being faithful? It’s not!

So yes, I know, hedge your bet, tell them it’s THEIR responsibility to test it, but to go on and make excuses in case you are wrong is not really as helpful as you think it is. First of all, it’s YOUR word, YOU take the responsibility to test it BEFORE you share it. And really just have some genuine humility, have a second helping for sure if you still need it. Be humble but don’t debase yourself and apologize for an error that you did not make. “This is God’s word. I’m sure enough that I want to share it. You can test it, but yes, Thus saith the Lord ….” Having genuine humility with quiet confidence that this is God’s word that you are sharing is a good thing. Is ‘humble confidence’ a thing yet? Let’s make it a thing. Share prophecy in humble confidence.

He told Habakkuk to Write it Down!

The last thing I have to share on this subject is what I ALWAYS DO, which is to WRITE IT DOWN!

God told Habbakuk to write down God’s word to him, it makes it easier for people to share and also, you may forget! And also videos are not a substitution for written words for a few good reasons that I won’t elaborate on here.

But yes, ever since I was a young Christian I kept a faithful record of God’s dreams, words and visions to me and I have maintained that habit for over 30 years. Some things God speaks are far too deep and detailed to memorize. But even simple visions sometimes fade in my memory and I find myself sharing what I saw but based on how I remember I last described it. When I went back to the original written account ten years later—Ooops! I was straying from the details in a few key areas. The solution? Write it down! Review it from time to time. Think it over. And often go back to the most accurate or first written source.

Someone will say, “Yeah, but I don’t bother writing things down unless it’s important!” But really, how do you know if a word is important or not if you only just got it? Sometimes you do know, but some words I got and I didn’t value or think they were important at the time—one I didn’t even think was from God until he confirmed it, saying, “See, this is what I was showing you in that vision.” I saw an ocean on TWO levels and I decided it was just not from God because how can there be an ocean at one level and then I drive up a hill and there is another ocean up at a higher level above it? That makes no sense! It’s clearly not from God. Then a few weeks later he spoke to me to talk to me more about it, ‘This is what I was showing you.’ Oh wow, there is a vast ocean of revelation and blessings at one level and yet if we go up higher in the Spirit there is yet more revelation and blessings also open to us as vast as an ocean again but on a higher level! I didn’t even write it down when I got it!

So sure, you’re busy, facebook waits for no man, but I just realized it may be wisdom to take a risk, spend five or fifteen extra minutes a week and just write it all down, even when it might turn out to be less than earth-shattering or even wrong. Because honestly, you just never know until later when you have time to get confirmation and clarification or a chance to test it.

And keeping a clear prophetic journal is a far better habit than relying on memory alone. And when God begins to speak to you a lot you’ll struggle to even write down all that he says to you. That happened to me and I’m so thankful for my journals and have gone back and read things I wrote or pictures I drew that I have no memory of seeing or hearing at all!

A journal really helps you reflect, ponder and seek clarification more than you may realize because testing prophecy is best done by seeking the Holy Spirit’s private confirmation. This takes time and focus and quietness but it’s the most reliable way to test and confirm a prophecy.

Or I suppose you can always hire someone on-line to do it for you if you have the cash in hand. Are ‘have-prophecy_will-travel.com’ or ‘prophetic-word-for-hire.net’ registered domains yet? Is my sarcasm showing? Didn’t Jesus already whip those people merchandising in his house? How long must a whip be to sting the backside of someone selling prophecy on-line in the Father’s house today?

I have a Verse!” or “I need a Confirmation First”

Then that same person who has so much to say will stand up and comment, “Oh, I never do all that. I just open the Bible and find the right verse because that’s God’s word. That way I know I’m right.”

What could go wrong! I mean, good, do that. It’s often exactly what God wants you to do! But God also told us that the Bible has so many verses that cover so many topics and situations that a person can ALWAYS find a verse to back up any idea they want to believe. Having an opinion and throwing a verse behind it is not a valid way to test a prophecy, prove a doctrine or justify an opinion. How many times has the Lord given me a revelation that itself explained the verse that I had no idea about! Taking a verse and forcing it to apply to my vision is backwards. Making my favorite verses apply to my visions to make sure they align with my favorite beliefs is idolatry. So the scriptures can be used in a right way or in a wrong way. Cults often use the Scriptures. Even Satan did!

And people sometimes get a word they don’t like and then say they are waiting for ‘confirmation’ before they act on it—but this is often a mask for rebellion and people refusing to obey until God stops asking them to do it. It’s OK to look for confirmation Jesus told me, but there comes a time when you have to obey.

More on this later I think.

But wow, I hope I didn’t make things worse. The most important thing about being a prophet really is a big deal. Hearing the whole word God is speaking is funny in how easy it sounds to do—but also how hard it can be sometimes to actually do it well!

I don’t want to start second-guessing everything and over-thinking every single word and syllable we share—that would certainly not be helpful either! But it’s just good to be mindful of some of the pitfalls that exist in listening to God speak and hearing his ‘whole’ word before we do share or come to hard-and-fast conclusions. So do try to be open-minded—or rather spiritually-minded and avoid falling into any of these pitfalls we’ve discussed.

Just be careful how you hear.

That’s all I really want to say. Just be careful how you hear!