Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you.
Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations with your host, Ben and Spencer.
Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through the powerful lens of love.
In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing fresh insights and gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith in practical ways.
So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the context of the Bible intersect to transform our lives.
Welcome back. I'm Spencer. I'm Ben. And we're joined once again by Les Cronk.
He we didn't scare him off the first time, though, if you are noticing that we look very similar to we did like four weeks ago, that's because we recorded them back to back.
That's how podcasts work. I shatter the illusion for people sometimes.
So technically we may have scared you off like that's entirely false. We haven't actually checked after today.
So we are we are in the middle of our spiritual gifts series and we are going to be talking about prophecy today.
But before we get into that, Les, first time I realized that we did not actually give you a proper introduction letting people know about you and like your story.
So can you take a couple of minutes and just kind of let people know who Les is?
Who is Les? Well, I'll make it a brief story.
But essentially, I'll start I can start with here for almost 30 years, which is the longest I've been in any one place my entire life.
Prior to that, moved an awful lot. But and since here, been a part of the assembly of God for the most of that time.
And gone through quite a few changes in the church. But my spiritual growth has been continual. I just learned more about that.
I being in a Pentecostal church, I wasn't raised in that. I was actually raised in the Episcopal Church.
And and I will say I've gone back to the Episcopal Church a few times and been really touched.
There's some awesome people there. And one of my current passions is following some stuff out of the Jesuit teaching.
So I'm finding that there's some excellent spiritual stuff throughout other denominations that we may not have noticed.
Yeah, I find that there is a lot of beauty in some of the liturgy. Correct. In other places.
Now, it's not a liturgy that I would necessarily identify with, but there's a lot of beauty in it and you can learn a lot from it.
And that's what I found. I discounted a lot of my early years in that church.
And when I went back to it, it's like, no, this really was good stuff. It was good foundational stuff.
But I'm more into the movement of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit operationally.
And that's why I'm sitting here today. And that's what my passion is.
Yeah. Speaking of facilitation of the gifts of the Spirit, like so you have actually taught in the past on gifts of the Spirit, correct?
Correct. I have. Yeah. For a number of years in the AOG, right? Yes. Yeah.
So this is not a new topic for you. No, it's not. Yeah.
So we obviously started off the series where we talked about we have to have this foundation of love, God, love of the people.
We have to be able to hear the voice of God. We have to understand like we need to operate in the fruit of the Spirit.
Like, what does that actually mean? And now we're actually getting into like actual gifts and we're not going to necessarily cover all of them.
I thought we would cover the ones that tend to be a little more controversial. Right.
So this week we're going to be talking about prophecy. Next week, Kyle Quinn is going to join us.
We're going to be talking about tongues. That's going to be a fun one.
And then we're going to talk about healing and deliverance.
The last week, I believe Pastor Sarah is going to join us again. But this week, we're talking about prophecy.
Yeah. Right. Prophecy is a good one to talk about. It is the most taught and most talked about in the New Testament of all the gifts.
And possibly the most misunderstood. Very likely. Right.
So the it's interesting because when you when you say when I say prophecy, I think people's like fantasy literature, like antennas go beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, right?
Because they're like, oh, the prophecy talking about the future.
Well, yeah, that is that is a form of prophecy. But generally speaking, prophetic word, that's not actually what it's supposed to be.
Now, interesting thing enough. So we're going to take take the word prophecy.
We're actually going to put it in context of the Bible. Love and Context. That's what our podcast is.
So we're going to do that. So I want to start in the Old Testament, talk about the prophets of the Old Testament.
So one of the things that I find really interesting is when we interpret the prophets, we forget that they're written by Jewish people,
which sounds really strange, like most of us understand the prophets written by Jewish people.
But then we interpret it as Americans. The problem is prophetic literature is a thing in Jewish circles, like prophetic literature, like the way that it's written.
Now, the interesting thing, I don't know if you actually know this, but from a Jewish perspective, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings are prophetic books.
And not not necessarily all of the ones that we would label as prophets. Do they consider prophetic books?
The prophets are people that God raises up. He speaks to them because something is happening in the in the nation that the people aren't listening to God.
Right. Usually they they just stop following Torah.
You have generations of people like who are who are forgetting who God is. They're they're doing evil in the sight of the Lord.
They're not actually following Torah. They're not actually involved with the priesthood.
And so they're finding themselves straying straight down the barrel of like what God says, hey, if you step out, this is what's going to happen.
And the prophet comes and he says, hey, you've got to fix this or else this is coming.
Now, people say, well, the prophet is proclaiming what God is bringing. No, your actions are actually proclaiming what God is bringing.
And the prophet is trying to bring correction and bring hope to you that you can be redeemed.
And the bigger problem is that Israel tends not to listen.
And the other thing I think to note about Jewish prophets is is we have a snapshot of their life.
Like they take Elijah, Elisha as examples, like we have a snapshot of their life.
But if you want to go, if you want to sit down and take a day and read through everything that's written down in scriptures about those two, you can.
Yeah. Right. It doesn't actually take super long to do so.
But they were also alive for a lot longer than that. Yeah.
So there are portions of their life that we don't have written down.
Yeah. Large, large portions. And a lot of that could be mundane.
There could be other portions of prophecy that we don't have written down.
But what we do have written down is just a snapshot. Right. Right.
Well, and so speaking of Elijah, Elijah, if you're familiar with his story, he's you find it in Kings.
And there is a guy role in the nation by the name of Ahab.
He has a wife named Jezebel. Neither one of them are particularly great people.
And Elijah shows up and he gives him this word. He talks about the heavens being bound. Right.
And it's really interesting to me.
People know they're like, oh, well, Elijah bound the heavens.
Well, yes, he did. But do you know what Elijah was quoting?
He's quoting Torah. When he comes and tells Ahab, he says, what you're doing right now, it says in Deuteronomy, if you do this, the heavens will not bring the rain.
And so he's actually binding Ahab to the word of Torah and saying, reminding him, he's like, what you're doing is actually causing this issue.
So is Elijah binding the heavens or is Torah binding the heavens or is the recognition that Ahab realizes he continues to walk out of out of God's influence, binding the heavens?
I don't know. I'm not there. I'm not sure how the cosmic stuff works.
But Elijah is actually pointing out to Ahab what he's supposed to be following and saying this is the path that you're choosing to be on.
Now, sometimes we'll get into that story because that's a really interesting story.
But if you actually go into the prophetic declarations that happen with Elijah and Elisha and all these very, very frequently, they will quote Torah right back to the people.
They're quoting Torah back to the kings.
The problem, the reason we don't recognize it is because most of us don't actually know Torah.
Right. There you go.
You know, and so then then you have Jesus, the Torah made flesh coming and dwelling among us.
And then all of the prophets and things that they had said, because they were once again, what were they quoting?
Torah.
Torah. So now they have these things that they have said, these prophets.
And in the New Testament, the authors pull this out and they say, hey, you know those things about the Torah that the prophets said, Jesus is coming and he is now the Torah made flesh walking among us as a son of God.
The Torah made flesh.
These are words that were they had relevance to that moment.
And then Jesus steps into that role.
Right.
And the reason I specify that is because I think what the Tennessee what what happens a lot is we read something like Isaiah 55 where it talks about the suffering servant and Jesus steps into the role of Israel in that in that story.
But when Isaiah wrote that prophecy, he wasn't necessarily thinking of Jesus.
He was speaking to something in that moment to bring hope to the nation then.
And then Jesus in the future steps into the role that God had ordained for him.
So the and you're like, why is this important?
Because we can't read the Bible from the future backwards.
We need it for you from back here forward.
What they're stepping into.
Does that make sense?
That context makes good sense.
It makes a lot of sense because otherwise what you're going to do is you're going to say everything in the New Testament, like everything in the Old Testament was always moving towards what God is doing in the New Testament.
Okay.
Doesn't mean that what God was doing in the old. It means that the New Testament is a continuation of what God has always been doing.
And so I think with the Tennessee sometimes with Christians and when we talk about prophetic where we're like, well, this was set so that 2000 years later they would know when okay, that word was spoken and all those people died.
So that would have been a useless word of prophecy in the day.
Because they all died.
It didn't mean anything to them.
But if it did mean something in the day and then you're able to walk forward with it and then God does something in the future.
It now means make sense in the day and all the way through history because God is really good at connecting his ideas.
Right.
Yes, he is.
So that was a really long way to talk about prophetic word that I thought we just needed to clear some things up, which now I just muddied the water.
So you're welcome.
So now why that's important, because then in First Corinthians, Paul is going to make talk about prophecy.
And we know that Philip had four daughters who were prophets and there was there was Anna and there was Simeon and there were these all these prophets that were existing in the time of Jesus.
And Paul is going to make sense, make a statement.
He says, I wish that all of you would prophesy.
And it's not about telling the future to each other.
It is not.
It's about hearing the voice of God, which we've talked about, and hearing the voice of God over other people and then coming and speaking directly to them.
Now, in your experience, like and so I'm going to stop talking here because I'm talking way too much.
That's, by the way, a common thing that happens on this podcast.
In my experience with this is that people who treat prophecy like fortune telling, like future telling, that's where we tend to run into the most problematic stuff with prophecy.
Correct.
And that's not what the prophetic is about.
Right. It's not about telling the future.
There's one case in Acts where they came and gave an example of where people were going to starve and be hungry and all.
And so that was a that was a here's here's what can be happening.
Come be prepared for it.
But the majority of the prophetic that you read about, it's not.
It's what Paul says in First Corinthians 14 is that it is for edifying.
It is for encouraging.
It is for comforting.
It's to speak the word to people.
And that's really what the number one thing we have to look for.
That's what the prophetic needs to be about.
It's about encouraging people.
It's about and is in correction is a small part of that.
I mean, I think people think that that's the biggest portion because that's what you see in the Old Testament.
It's like it's they're speaking correction.
You do this or bad things are going to happen.
And that's really not the focus of the prophetic in the New Testament at this point.
I think I think you're you're really nailing to the if there is a correction piece.
So Pastor Sarah, when she was here with us at the end of the women in ministry, she made a statement.
She says you cannot have correction without connection.
Right.
And a lot of times where I've seen people get into issues with this in in Pentecostal and prophetic churches is they've tried to bring correction with no connection.
Yeah.
And they're speaking something and they may actually be speaking with something that they hear God saying.
But they're speaking it with no foundation of love.
Right.
And if we if we back up in First Corinthians to 13, what does that end up being like?
Yeah.
Resounding gong or clanging signal.
Right.
Like that's what it ends up being.
And it causes a lot more difficulty.
Now, my biggest beef with coming from my Southern Baptist background for a lot of people who don't necessarily like the word prophetic prophetic.
And I want you to share your John Mark Homer story in just a minute.
Is that they'll say, well, look at X, Y, Z, who did this wrong.
This is why we don't do this.
And I was like, listen, just because everybody crashes their car doesn't mean that cars are bad.
Right.
It means that we need to teach people how to drive.
And if the church now abandons the ability or like abandons the responsibility to teach people how to prophesy, to actually let it be messy for a purpose, then we're going to end up with a lot of cars off the road.
But if we actually take the time to instruct and actually live into it, we're going to have some bigger issues, which is why we started with love God and other people hear the voice of God, fruit of the spirit.
Now let's talk about this.
Well, and there is an argument in scripture for structure being around prophecy.
Sure. Right. Absolutely. Right.
Like it's it's not actually designed from my understanding, at least it's not actually designed to just be a willy nilly type of thing.
Like like there's order like in the First Corinthians, there's actually order that Paul lays out for prophecy.
Yeah. When it's supposed to happen, how it's supposed to happen.
Right.
Prophecy can look different, too.
I was listening to this as here's the John Mark Comer story.
So I was I was listening to John Mark Comer speak one time and he was and he was like, yeah, have you ever had a Baptist friend like spend time in the word and prayer and then come up to you and be like, you know, I was thinking about you today.
And he's like, yeah, that's prophecy.
Yeah. Right.
And and we all like when we're listening live, we all just yeah, just lost it because it's funny.
We were like, that's funny.
That was pretty funny.
But to his point, I mean, how many times do people think it is? OK, thus saith the Lord.
Right. Yeah.
Well, first of all, I want to be real careful before I say, thus saith the Lord, because I listen pretty well to God, but I'm going to be honest.
I my ears could use some cleaning out sometimes.
Yeah. And so unless unless I have a very clear moment, I'm it's going to be more along the lines of like I was praying and I felt like God wanted me to say something to you about this.
Yeah. Is there something going on in your life that resonates with this statement?
And there's and there's also a way to have those conversations.
Right. Yeah. Like because at the core of prophecy, it's really to speak truth. Yeah. It's really to speak what is true.
Yeah. And it should be encouraging and loving.
And yes. Yeah.
So, I mean, you take the story of Apollos, for example, this doesn't directly tie into prophecy, but there's there's a connection here where Apollos gifted, gifted speaker.
Right. And Priscilla and Aquila came along and like gifted speaker loves Jesus, loves Jesus.
Now we need some direction. Doesn't understand the baptism, the second baptism, like the he understands the baptism of John, not the baptism of Jesus.
Yeah. Yeah. And and so like Priscilla and Aquila could have just called him out right then and there.
But would that have been constructive? No.
So what they did is they're like, hey, let's let's have a meal together. Yeah. Spend some time together. Let's talk.
Yeah. Right. They built that connection piece. Yeah. And then Apollos became a force for the gospel.
Right. And so much so that Paul even references Apollos and his other letters. Yeah.
I couldn't agree more. You know, two things in the teaching I've done on the prophetic and operating as well as number one.
And I spoke this every single lesson is it has to come from a pure heart.
Right. If we're hearing from God, we're a conduit for what God wants to bring to this world.
And this isn't just about prophetic. This is about our life and love and everything else.
But we have to be a pure because our own issues can get in the way and contain that.
And I've dealt with people that want to be a prophet in the church.
They want to jump up every Sunday morning and speak a word that they think they're feeling when I've told folks because there is an order for it and there is a correction for it.
And when we've been operating at that level, it's like you will clear that with somebody in the in leadership before you speak.
And some people don't like that. But it's like, no, that is the proper way to do that, because so often it's it's a feeling and it's not necessarily coming from it's it's tainted by what they want to say.
Yeah. And can we touch on something you just said, because I think it's really crucial when you choose to come under the leadership of somebody else.
You also choose to sit under their leadership, correct, which also means you're not going to necessarily agree with everything they do.
Correct. But that's part of submission. Correct.
Is learning how to how to bend the knee on something you think should be done.
So our pastors here, they're great. Yes, I love them.
We don't see eye to eye and everything. There's sometimes I'm like, I think we should do it this way.
And they're they're like, well, we we believe that God should lead us this way.
And I'm like, OK, we'll do it that way.
I'm operating under their authority. And so what I do in my role in this church is under their authority.
I may want I may I have a passion to maybe be a little bit more outgoing on some of these things.
But that's not where we're at right now. Right. And I'm OK with that.
Right. And even with the points of disagreement, we need to be OK even just amongst ourselves.
Right. To be like, OK, we might not see fully eye to eye on one thing.
Yeah. Right. We all come from different backgrounds, different stories. We have different experiences we bring to the table.
So we might not see eye to eye on something.
But is that is that something we don't see eye to eye on a something, a core Christian thing that's going to tear us apart?
Exactly. Yeah. Right. My my concern a lot of times what happens with when we say the word prophecy is people are like, hey, I've seen some weird stuff in it.
So I'm not even going to learn about it, engage it.
And I was like, well, that's also like just choosing to ignore a big part of what God is doing in the world. Yeah.
And so if you're if you're a non-Pentecostal, I was like, you know, obviously we talk about hearing the voice of God.
And I was like, but you read the Bible.
I was like, have you ever just read the Bible and said, God, give me one passage for somebody today and you don't speak a word.
You say, I was praying and God let me do this passage. I like to read it to you.
Like, guess what? You're engaging in prophecy. You're engaging in encouraging people, building them up and giving them the very words of God for them.
I was like, if that's what if that is something that you feel like you can engage in, I do it.
Do it. I have a strong suspicion that you're not going to have a place where you're like, man, I really regret speaking verses into people's lives.
Right. Yeah.
And I think we often intertwine prophecy to with with things like fortune telling visions, like stuff like that, which I just don't get me wrong.
I believe there is a place for for visions in the church. Right.
Like I have stories in my own life where that has been the case. Right.
And you can even see in biblical examples, God giving Joseph a vision to that Egypt is going to run out of food.
Yeah. The breadbasket of the world is going to run out of food.
Like he's telling us something that's coming up. Right.
It's biblical, like these type of thing. Yeah.
Warning Joseph in a dream that Herod's hey, Herod's going to try to kill you.
Right. And dreams are real and God speaks to those. Right. We don't always listen, but no people.
And I've so there is a place for that. There is a place. Yeah, it absolutely is.
But less would you say that sometimes we take those those aspects and be like, that's what prophecy is.
You're exactly right. And it's it isn't just one item of that. It's like it's not just dreams.
It's not just visions. It's not just jumping up with a feeling like you had a word at this time.
It's a flow of the Holy Spirit through our lives to show us what's going on around.
And what you mentioned, Ben, was perfect.
I know that in praying for people, I have had a vision of something going on in their life.
It's not something I want to share with them. And it's not for me to share. The biggest part of prophecy is wisdom.
Yeah. And what to speak and what not to speak. It shows me what's going on in their lives.
So I'm able to speak to the insecurity that's that's causing that the the whatever whatever other factor.
It gives you information to pray from and to minister from without being damaging with it. Right.
Well, and non damaging is is the biggest thing. Correct. Like.
I don't want to say that God's never going to bring a word of correction through you to somebody else,
because I think that that would be trying to put God in a box that he loves to flip over, you know, our apple carts.
We've we've talked about that where we try to put God in a box.
It's like trying to contain a lion with a cardboard box. Yeah, it doesn't work. Well, it just doesn't work.
But on the flip side of that, if you haven't practiced just being encouraging, I'm real hesitant to have you bring correction.
Yeah. Right. Is it fair to say that American Christianity, because we're Americans and that's probably the most the most applicable that we have.
We tend to be pessimistic or.
We tend to we tend to be antagonistic, pessimistic, complain about things like that.
That is a pretty, pretty big M.O. for the Christian church in America.
The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
We talked about that last week. So the evidence of walking in the spirit is going to be these things.
If you are a pessimistic person, you should probably hold off until you're demonstrative of the fruit of the spirit before you bring a word of correction.
Right. Correct. Yeah. Well, I think with the American church in particular, we have taken the idea of perfectionism that we see in our culture.
Yeah. We're like we want to do things we want to do them well. Right.
Like even even from a young age. It's like you're going to. We don't want you just to get passing grades. We want you to get good grades.
We don't just want you to go to college. We want you go to the best school.
We don't just want you to get a job. We want you to get the best job. Right.
We don't want you just to make a little bit of money. We want you to make a lot of money.
We don't just want you to have a little bit that we want to have a lot of debt right.
That goes with the best schools, right?
Yeah.
The story goes on and we've kind of taken that into the church where we've been like,
okay, we want to put on the best show possible.
And we've actually pulled some scriptures out of context for that.
When in reality, the first and foremost thing in the church should be our relationship with
God, our love for God and our love for the people around us.
And when we're doing that well, we're actually going to have a really messy church.
Yeah.
And not messy and like it's chaotic.
No.
But there will be messes.
There's no...
Unless you've preached a number of times, would you say that your first time was as good
as the last time you've preached?
No.
The first time was pretty messy, right?
It's messy.
Yeah.
But that's part of growing.
It is.
Right?
James makes scrambled eggs.
I'm sorry.
It's terrifying.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Well, he does it in the microwave actually.
He does it 30 seconds at a time and mixes them.
And when he cracks eggs, it's a little bit of like, where is that egg going to end up?
Right?
But the more he does it, the better it gets.
The first time he cracked one, it just dropped right on the floor.
So whenever Denver is like helping in the kitchen, our dogs are just right at the floor.
Just waiting for it.
They're just waiting.
They're like, we know something's going to hit the floor and we're ready for when that
moment happens.
And that's so true.
That's the church.
Yeah.
The church has to be a place.
But like when we're talking about prophetic word, long before you speak to somebody who
is not a believer, you should speak to people who are.
Yeah.
Like because they're going to love you.
And they're also like, especially if you brought a word or a verse to me, I'd say, I'd be able
to tell you, I was like, hey, I appreciate the intention that actually has no relevance
to what God's doing in my life right now.
Yeah.
And that's not a negative thing.
Like you, here's the thing.
When you share something that you believe got us speaking and to somebody and it doesn't
have relevance, well, guess what you just learned?
You learned one other thing that isn't God's voice.
Yeah.
It's either not God's voice or it's not God's time.
Or it's not God's time.
I will say an example.
You called me Friday morning.
Yeah.
And you gave me something that was on your mind and your heart.
That was the exact point I was in transitioning in my message.
And that was the exact, that's where I was going.
And it was just, and the phrase you put in there was exactly where I was heading and
what I was doing.
And that was like, you were listening to God.
You were obviously thinking about the message for Sunday.
And that was a word for me that was very, very encouraging.
So practical example, continuing off of that.
I had read what I was talking to him about three days before and I wasn't even thinking
about it.
And as I drove in, I had this phrase in my head and I said, oh, I need to call Les about
that.
And I was like, oh wait, no, he's probably at work.
I don't need to do that.
So I, I initially, I tried to downplay it, you know?
So then I just, I'm like, you know what, I'll just, what in the world?
There's a thumb, thumbs up on the screen.
That was weird.
Anyways, that's a prophetic image.
That's a prophetic image.
Yeah.
So, but then I shot him a text and I just said, I said, Hey, do you have a moment?
And he said, yes.
So I called you and went over it and it was, it just happened to be one of those moments
is just a confirmation for that you're on track.
It was a confirmation.
It was an encouragement.
It was everything it needed to be.
It was just right.
It was, and so that's one of those, that was a great example of how it can work and how
it should work.
It wasn't, I mean, we literally talked and I hung up and then you went back to your thing.
Like it doesn't have it.
I think sometimes we were making it into like, it's this massive thing and sometimes it can
be, right?
But generally speaking, it's learning how to be in relationship with each other and
God, right?
Learning how to trust that.
And as you talk about Messy and I, I've, I've taught in home groups and, and small, I'll
call it Bible studies at church on that in a safe environment to practice.
Right.
And, and I've literally walked up to somebody that said, God just showed you this picture
in your mind and they just, their eyes got real wide and they just went nuts.
And it's like, that's just God wanting to confirm that that's the message he's trying
to give you.
Yeah.
You know, and Lord, I looked at him and I saw that picture and so I, and it's a matter
of teaching people to embrace that.
It's like he's speaking, listen to that voice.
Yeah.
So, so would it be safe to say though that you've also experienced the other side of
the spectrum?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Where like example where like someone comes up to you and they're like, and they say something
to you and you're like, that has nothing to do with what I'm going through.
Yep.
Well, my favorite example is when a fella comes up to a lady and says, God told me you're
going to be my wife.
Oh yeah.
You, I know one example where that worked and I know a lot of other examples where it
did not.
I think maybe you're listening to something.
I just don't believe that that's probably listening to God.
And like to be fair, I think in my teenage years, especially, and probably early adulthood,
like there was times where interaction with somebody of the, of the opposite gender, I
was like, oh, this is what God is going to do.
Like this is where, let's just be thankful that he actually put me with Tara because
she's great.
Yeah.
Right.
And not saying anything bad about the previous people, but they would not have been the right
partner.
They would have been an Etzer Konecto for me.
They would have been a partner, but they would not have been the Etzer Konecto, the suitable
helper that Tara is.
Yeah.
And like, so I got a, I have a friend who, he, he got a clear vision from the Lord of
like, this is who you're going to be with.
This is going to be your spouse.
And he was like, he, he was like, okay.
So he started pursuing that nine years, nine years.
It took nine years before they finally got married.
Right.
And it was a roller coaster ride, but the whole time he was like, he was like, no, I
know this is what the Lord has.
And I was reflecting on that story.
I'm like, man, there's so many times where like it's a promise the Lord gave you.
Yeah.
Right.
There's so many times where he was tempted just to give up and be like, no, this isn't
happening.
Right.
I'm sure.
Right.
So sometimes, sometimes those prophetic words that are given to you, they, I would actually
argue a lot of times they don't come true right away.
Yeah.
We don't understand God's timing and that is so, so correct, Venter.
It is a tough one.
And I can say that there were things spoken in my life that in my, I'll say mid twenties,
that was a picture.
And I knew at that time that it was a picture where I was going to be 25 years later.
And it kept coming back to that.
But it's like, I kept wanting to rush that.
I wanted to rush that.
And you wanted to be 25 days.
I wanted to be 25 days, not 25 years.
And yet, and a lot of the misinterpretation is because, as I said earlier, it has to be
through a pure heart.
We filter through our emotions and that messes it up.
That muddies the waters and that muddies the word because it's like, God says, you're going
to have a wife and then you're all of a sudden, well, I want one right now.
And we end up jumping down the wrong trail.
So the thing about this, and I want to try to tie it to scripture and a few stories,
kind of what you just were talking about where God's call may come early, but it may be much
later.
Would we agree that Moses was called by God very early?
Right?
At birth, like we're told this story about how he's, as he's spared, even when all these
boys are being massacred.
And we know that Moses grew up in both Pharaoh's household, but well aware of his heritage,
right?
That he was a Jew the entire time because Pharaoh's daughter says, Oh, look, a Jewish
boy.
Well, because he's circumcised.
Like you, it's kind of a giveaway when in a city where everybody else would not have
been, it looks, it's very different.
So Moses is 80 years old when he comes back to lead Israel out.
80 years old, two thirds of his life didn't even apply to the call God had on him.
Now I stress he went, he hadn't stepped into that role, right?
But the first 40 years of his life, he grew up in Pharaoh's household, learning the ways
of Egypt.
The next 40 years of his life, he learned to be a shepherd in the wilderness.
Then the next 40 years of his life, he actually took God's people and shepherded them in the
wilderness and took them out of Egypt.
I think, I think a point to that is that there's a season of preparation that we might not
even be aware of.
Right?
Absolutely.
I mean, I think it was the last podcast that we had less on where you talked about story
like that.
But there's, there's times where we have these seasons in our lives where we, where the Lord
is preparing us for something and we have no idea what that is.
Right.
And it's a beautiful thing, but it's also, also being, being in that spot of waiting
can be very difficult, especially in a culture now, a culture now where it's here, now, everything
is fast.
Right.
I mean, we're in Alaska, so we don't get free, free same day shipping from Amazon.
Right.
But, but I know people in the lower 48 who do, they're like, we're there in the morning,
like, oh, I need this.
They order that and a couple hours later it's at their door.
Right.
And we, we are envious.
Like that is, that's a great thing.
That's true.
We are a little envious of that.
But at the same time we're called to often do the opposite where it's like lean into
what the Lord has for you and wait.
Yeah.
So true.
Okay.
So on a very base level, what is prophetic word into somebody's life?
It is a word of encouragement.
It is a word of comfort depending on what they need at that point in time.
From God.
I believe God is saying to you for them.
Correct.
Right.
And you use the word conduit.
So it's not really for you.
It's for them.
That's right.
It is for them.
And so that serves to accomplish two purposes.
One, it builds your relationship with God.
In other words, that you're understanding his words and you're partnering with him in
the ministry.
Yes.
And then for the person who's receiving, it's confirmation that they're also hearing God
and that they're, the way they're doing is actually what God is calling them to do.
Or it's giving them more direction into what God is calling them to do.
So the purpose of both of those is to build the kingdom of God and build relationship
with God.
Yep.
So would you agree then if you're speaking words and they're not doing those two things,
you're probably not doing prophecy right?
Correct.
Right?
Because you're not actually trying to bring people closer to God.
Correct.
And there is a lot of people who engage these things and they engage them very selfishly.
Now I want to specify that that's not the only spiritual practice that people do that
with.
There are preachers who get up every Sunday morning and they preach messages to build
their brand.
Correct.
There are singers, worship leaders who get up and they lead music to build their brand,
to build their popularity, to put their talents on display.
One of those things are bad to have, but you're not building your stuff, you're building God's
stuff.
Right.
And we are partnering with him.
And so before we want to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water, we need to understand
that what people complain about what happens with prophecy happens with a lot of our other
spiritual things too.
So what we need to do is not throw it out, but do it right.
I have learned very, very hard lessons in that process.
My first real encounter in the prophetic and learning to walk and operate in that was with
a pastor that was excellent at it.
And I went to actually a seminar in Tulsa, Oklahoma with him called School of the Prophets.
And I still remember that so powerfully to this day and it was a lot of years ago.
And the key spokesman at that school said that it goes sideways when three things, if
three things, the gold, the glory of the girls.
And that's where that's in within a year and a half, that particular pastor in that church
that I was going to took a high paying church in Scottsdale, Arizona and ended up having
an affair and within a year or two because he went the wrong direction.
Right.
And another case with another pastor was it was doing fantastic.
And then it became about him and his brand.
And God won't share his glory with anybody and that went sideways too.
So those are the difficulties and those are lessons learned.
And it scared me.
It's like I see these two men that I felt were well above me in spiritual hierarchy,
they couldn't do it.
And so I was intimidated and it took me a long time to recover from that, to trust God.
And it's also humbled me to where I'm a lot more open to just the Holy Spirit and really
focusing on that open conduit.
Right.
Pure heart.
Well, and one of the problems is that when you're trying to teach something, somebody
has to teach it.
And so that usually involves a somebody who is better at something is teaching somebody
who's not as good at something.
Correct.
Right?
And what happens though a lot of times is people then they start to build up the teacher
as something and the teacher is meant to facilitate the greater thing.
In other words, like Paul would say, you follow me because I'm following Christ.
Right?
And in the same way, I'm teaching you because Christ taught me.
Right?
And when you put pastors on a platform, we talked about this in our Deuteronomy series,
right?
When you put pastors on a platform, we start to treat them as something other than just
other persons in the royal priesthood.
Right?
We started to say, well, they're, you know, they have a special anointing, you know, and
we start to see our pastors and our prophets and our, and these people who are operating
is something more than the only thing that's more than in our life is how much we're willing
to yield to God.
Right?
I love the story of Dwight Moody.
Right?
Dwight Moody was a shoe salesman who heard a message that the guy said, the world has
yet to see what God can do through one man fully yielded to his will.
He's like, well, I can do that.
Right?
He's like, I don't got anything special, but God can do great things to me.
You know, like I'll yield to him.
And Dwight, D.L. Moody, one of the most prolific evangelists of his time.
Right?
Nothing was special about D.L. Moody, nothing special about Charles Spurgeon.
Nothing is special about these guys except that they were willing to yield to God's movement
in their life.
They're willing to lay themselves down and let God work through them.
They are still themselves because D.L. Moody and Charles Spurgeon had vastly different
ways they talked to people.
Yes.
Vastly different ministries.
Yes.
And they touched lots of different people because of it, because they yielded to what
God was doing in their life, not each other's life.
And yielding to what God is doing in your life is the key because you're not responsible
for the outcome.
Right.
Right?
Like you're responsible for being faithful and yielding to God and loving him with everything
you have and loving the people around you with everything you have.
Right?
So D.L. Moody, right?
Great ministry.
The Lord used him in miraculous ways.
How often do we talk about the person who led him to Jesus?
Right.
Right?
Right.
Same with like you look at Billy Graham's story.
Like he'll talk about the person who led him to Jesus and it was one individual.
Yeah.
Right?
Who was just there in his life.
Yeah.
Right?
And so with that said, it's like don't discount what the Lord is doing.
Because oftentimes we can discount and be like, well, I haven't led the thousands to
Jesus.
I've only led the one or two.
You don't know.
Yeah.
Don't discount that.
Right?
Don't discount that because we serve a God who leaves the 99 to go after the one.
So true.
Yeah.
Well, and you have this idea of like what I love about Paul saying, I wish that everyone
would have prophesied.
When he says everyone, he actually means everyone.
And I think there's this mentality that we've developed in the church and the way that we've
structured church.
Now we talked about, does church actually mean the same thing that it did in the New
Testament?
Probably not.
Right?
Because we structure things differently.
Does pastor mean the same thing?
Does like a lot of these things are different because we've culturally structured them differently.
And so we've kind of in a lot of ways we said, hey, pastor, we're going to pay you to go
and do all the things that actually make us a church rather than actually having the pastors
equip the body to be the church.
Now the thing is, I've been in ministry where I was working for the church full time.
You know what the main problem that I had with working for the church full time was?
I never ran into non-Christians.
And now having a job where I work in the community all the time, I run into people who don't
believe in Jesus all the time.
And you know what I get to do?
Speak prophetic word into their life on a massive scale.
I think it was JD Greer when he got hired at his church, they were like, okay, so you're
going to proclaim the gospel.
And he's like, no, I'm going to equip you to proclaim the gospel.
Correct.
I'm going to show you how to do that.
Because as a worker in the world, you're going to have way more opportunity to speak into
people's life.
The fallacies when you say, well, the pastor, the person equipping me is the person who
needs to go and do these things.
No, you're putting that spot for a reason.
God is speaking to you for a reason.
You know, I love the Dallas Wheeler.
We talked about him last time you were here about hearing God.
Dallas Wheeler makes a statement in his book, The Divine Conspiracy.
And I love this.
He says, you're supposed to be like Jesus, but you misunderstand that.
You're actually supposed to be, you're supposed to be you, but if Jesus was you.
And that's like, because if you try to be a Middle Eastern rabbi who's going to walk
around with Talmud for three and a half years and then be crucified, like somebody already
did that.
Right?
Like that's not actually what it means to be like, be like Jesus.
But if Jesus was a young life director, what does that mean?
If Jesus was, I actually don't know your title, but if he worked in your position, what would
it be like if Jesus worked in your position?
If Jesus worked in my position in finance, like what does that actually look like when
Jesus is an advisor in that capacity?
Right?
When you're a stay at home mom, what does it look like when Jesus does that?
Because Jesus is going to, the spoken word of Jesus, the Torah made flesh is going to
be prophetic into your life.
I guarantee you that.
Absolutely.
And we're speaking what the father is saying to you in the same way.
We do the same thing.
And so we speak the words of the father.
We speak the words of Jesus to other people through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Right?
Yeah.
It's not something like hugely mystical, but it is a muscle that has to be practiced.
It took me, I recall the transition when I learned that what I did here in the church
actually applied out there in my job.
Right.
And to where I could take it into a boardroom or a meeting and I could let the Holy Spirit
show me around the room and see what the people were thinking and feeling and be able to speak
to that and to be able to minister in the real world sense.
It was an amazing transition for me to be able to do that when somebody comes into my
office and sits down and I'm praying.
I'm talking to them.
I mean, it's not, you know, I don't use my position for that, but it's what I'm there
for and people, you know, it's been able to touch lives, but it took me quite a while
to get that.
It goes outside the church walls.
When I have appointments scheduled in the future, I actually pray before my appointments
and I ask God if he has something he wants me to talk about.
Good.
And not all the time.
Does he give me something?
No.
Sometimes.
Do you think it's fair to say that if you have not practiced hearing and speaking the
voice of God, like receiving it first and then speaking to others, that you're probably
going to suck at it at first?
No question.
It's practicing anything.
It takes time.
Yeah.
It's going to be real rough at first.
Yeah.
And that's one of the reasons why like small group of friends that love you, they're going
to encourage you.
Like we're working out.
That's what we're trying to do.
We're trying to learn to hear the voice of God.
And the number one thing is if you haven't read the Bible consistently, you need to read
the Bible consistently because it's going to be really hard to hear the voice of God.
If you're not going to take the ones he literally wrote down on paper for you, you're definitely
going to struggle with the ones that aren't written on paper.
Right?
Very true.
Yeah.
And so if you are going to engage the prophetic, what do we say?
We have to love God and love other people.
We have to learn to hear the voice of God.
We got to demonstrate the fruit of the spirit.
We got to know the word of God.
And then we practice and still know that we're going to kind of suck at first.
And we may suck the rest of our life, but it doesn't, just because I suck at my job
doesn't mean it's no longer my calling.
If I suck at sharing Jesus as my savior, it doesn't matter.
I don't get to change the call.
I'm still required to proclaim the gospel and to live my life as a witness to his resurrection.
And that's the real key right there.
Live your life as a witness to his resurrection.
That's the biggest, one of the bigger testimonies that we can have to this world.
What do we look like?
And it comes back to operating in the gifts or hearing the voice of God.
If I have not love, it's nothing.
And we have to have that relationship of love.
It did it again.
Thumbs up.
The Holy Spirit likes what you have to say.
I guess it seems like it.
For those of you that are listening, the video version for whatever reason, just had a bubble
thumbs up and I don't know, we don't know why.
Are you getting text messages?
No, I'm not getting text messages.
It's very strange.
I think it's the Holy Spirit saying he likes what's going on.
Yeah, he likes it when you say things.
So as we're kind of coming in to land the plane, we have by no means plumbed the depths
of prophecy.
In fact, we barely scratched the surface of just having a conversation.
It's meant to encourage, it's meant to build up, it's meant to speak the words of God into
the other people's life.
It's meant to be based in what you know to be the word of God.
It's meant to be done from a solid character.
It's meant to actually forward the kingdom.
It's meant to actually put Jesus on display.
If any of those things aren't true and you're speaking out, you should stop.
Correct.
Get your heart right, listen to the voice of God, but you don't get to give up.
Right?
That's right.
Yeah.
So some resources that I think are incredibly helpful.
So we haven't talked about the office of prophecy, Prophet.
That is something else we'll talk about at some point, but there are some books that
do talk about like the fivefold ministry.
Danny Silk has one called, it is, oh shoot, what's that book called?
I know the book and it's a good one.
Culture of Honor.
Danny Silk has a book, it's called Culture of Honor, where he spends a chapter where
he talks about the fivefold ministry and how churches that do a fivefold ministry, how
they recognize those particular places.
Even if you are not a church that does that, you just have a pastor, there's some helpful
things in there.
It's okay if you disagree.
It's totally fine if you disagree.
I do think that understanding like they have a culture of honor where they're going to
honor each other, that's actually a really beneficial idea.
Right?
So that is one book.
Also Practicing the Power by Sam Storms, I think is going to be incredibly helpful.
Now Sam Storms is going, he is a Pentecostal, but he's kind of, I would say if you have
a spectrum from here to here, he's like right in the middle.
Right?
And so he's going to give you some real practical ways to follow that.
One of the books we recommended a few weeks ago, Experiencing God is going to be helpful
because that's also going to be, you hear the voice of God and then you speak it into
other people's life.
Right?
Yeah.
The Forgotten God by Francis Chan, another great resource about just being connected with
the spirit.
Right.
And you cannot prophesy if you are not connected with the spirit.
That's absolutely true.
And that's an excellent book.
Yeah.
Excellent book.
It is loosely connected to prophecy, but is Raging with Compassion by Kendra Casey Dean.
And she just, she goes, she talks a little bit about prophecy in it, but really goes
into in everything we do, we have to do with love and compassion.
Right.
Including prophetic work.
So at the beginning of this, I talked a little bit about the Jewish perspective on prophetic
word.
So there are two works that would be really helpful if you want to try to understand that
a little bit better.
But they're going to be a little bit harder to grasp.
So one of them is The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann.
Walter Brueggemann is going to probably be, from a scholarly perspective, a little bit,
maybe a little bit more open than most people would like, but there's some good content
in there.
Yeah.
And then the other is actually a Jewish theologian who has passed.
His name is Abraham Herschel.
He wrote a book called The Prophets.
He also has a book called Sabbath, which is great.
But he's just getting into like the prophets and like their perspective and a lot of the
things that are going on there.
Abraham Herschel has great stuff, but he is dense.
So just forewarning anybody who gets into those books.
They're great, but they're dense.
That Francis Chan book that God can't share with people he doesn't trust.
Right.
He will share if you have that relationship and you build that and he knows you're, you
know, and yeah, practice, find people you trust, you work with, you know your leadership.
If you feel like you have something, share it with somebody.
Take it to Ben, take it to Spencer, myself, others, and just say, this is what I feel
like the Lord's telling me and practice.
That's really, you know, in home groups, small groups, great place to practice in a safe
environment.
Right.
And because that's where you're going to get better at it.
Right.
I also really like it when people preface.
I believe that God is speaking this.
Right?
Like where you're like, this is what I think he's doing, but I'm not speaking with all
knowledge and all perspective.
Correct.
Right.
What we talked about with prophecy is like, you're literally speaking the words of God.
So if you need a place to start, learn the Bible, pray through the Bible, speak the Bible
to people.
That's a good place to start.
That's a great place.
Great place to start.
And if you are like, I'm not sure about like this whole prophetic thing, like you could
be the most conservative denomination out there.
And they're going to say, if you read the Bible, learn the Bible, speak the Bible to
people, they're going to be right on board with that.
So you're not even going to be stepping out of your denominational things.
And that is engaging God, engaging people and trying to speak truth into their life,
you know, in a loving way.
Correct.
And the last piece is don't forget that you cannot correct without connection.
And you probably you shouldn't even like think about correction without connection.
We need to learn to like love people well.
That's right.
Les, we really want to thank you for being here.
I know you're a busy, busy man and we had fun.
I had fun too.
It's a pleasure.
I look forward to potentially doing it again sometime.
Yeah.
Well, to finagle you once you, because you're retiring at the end of this year, right?
That's my goal.
Yeah, that's your goal.
That's the goal.
Then your only hard part is going to find me finding me.
Yeah, exactly.
I don't think Laura is going to let him not retire.
Yeah, I don't think that's an option.
Yeah.
She'd have me retired about an hour.
Don't you mean an hour ago?
Yeah.
So I suspect you guys are going to have tons of questions, especially during this series.
Please send them.
Like we're trying to figure out like how do we have engaging conversations, but we recognize
that not everybody is going to be Pentecostal and not everybody is going to be engaging
these in the same way.
We're going to have real conversations and also make this as broad as possible for people
to follow God as closely as they can.
Because the biggest thing that we want you to do is grow closer to God and forward the
kingdom in your life.
Amen.
All right.
Well, take care.
Yeah, until next time.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context.
We hope you enjoyed this engaging conversation and gained valuable insights into the powerful
message of love within the Bible.
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Until next time, keep seeking wisdom, embracing love, and living out your faith in the context
of today's world.
Who do you think may even notice that I'm wearing the same shirt?
We were literally wearing the same clothes on both your episodes.
Oh, dude, I do.
They're going to post four weeks apart from each other.
Yeah.
That'll be fine.
He does.
Every time he does his little announcer voice, he's like, welcome to the Love and Context
podcast, podcast, podcast.
With the echo.
You got to quiet the echo as you could.
No, mine gets louder.
My echo actually gets louder.