The Prophet: Office Gifts of the Holy Spirit

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But we have spent the last couple of weeks going through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

This series is called the office gifts.

Why?

Because ultimately the offices of the Holy Spirit are also gifts.

See when Brent started out to kind of outline what gifts are, why gifts existed, how this stuff happened, it was important for us to look at one the gifts are grace.

They're given by the grace of God.

Why?

To establish, show, and continue to put forth God's righteousness in this earth.

And while we go into what are commonly known as the offices of the Holy Spirit, I don't want us to forget about the fact that they are gifts.

Why is that important?

Because offices traditionally go to a corporate mentality in Western culture.

And when we think of offices we think of authoritative titles.

We think of job descriptions.

We think of the the higher up or the the more credit that's there in that office title.

Somehow we've arrived.

I like to think of it this way.

If you are the assistant to the regional manager at Dunder Mifflin, it is not the same as being the assistant regional manager of Dunder Mifflin.

So that's an office joke for those who are looking at me like what in the world is he talking about?

So I apologize if you've never seen The Office but I felt like it was it was fitting for the fact that we're gonna talk about the office gifts of the Holy Spirit.

So Izzy thought I was funny and it only takes one.

Thank you brother for that.

But sometimes you've heard terminology around the office gifts of like the fivefold ministry, the authoritative titles.

These are a lot of times misused and abused.

And any time you get into authoritative words of God or you get into religion or you get into spiritual things, there's a lot of times that they are abused.

They're twisted.

They're used.

They're manipulated to control people.

You can't do this or you can't do this.

Well that's why we call them the office gifts because the office is not an office that somehow some person can just give to you.

I can't give you the office of profit.

Why?

Because it's a gift office that can be given from the Lord.

Now in community it is important how it operates as a body as Brent has said over and over and over again and we'll get into that a little bit later.

Pastor is a title we hear a lot.

I started off by saying pastor five times in the first couple of sentences.

Why?

Because that's not one that we normally get uptight with.

However when we start talking about terms like apostle, if I would have said hi welcome to HFF I'm Apostle Chris Frankie.

Some people have been like hmm I don't know about that.

Hi welcome to HFF I'm Prophet Chris Frankie.

I've got some people from Utah here they're like I'm out.

The Prophet I'm out like I'm done.

Like I've been in Utah we left Utah.

Nope we ain't doing that.

What about evangelist?

Evangelist Chris Frankie.

What about what about teacher Chris Frankie?

For a lot of us in the room our origin story comes in the the roots based side of Christianity and we hear a lot of teacher.

I'm a Torah teacher.

I'm a Torah teacher.

I teacher.

I'm a teacher of the law.

I'm a teacher of the law.

I'm a teacher of the law.

One thing I can tell you I have not heard a lot of in my 17 years is I'm a pastor.

Now if you call and you need marital counseling they will try to pastor or shepherd you but they consider themselves to be a teacher.

A Torah teacher.

I've heard people say you need to find Torah teachers.

Well that's why not Torah apostles?

Why not Torah evangelists?

Why not Torah prophets?

Why Torah teachers?

These are all things we're going to look at what the Word of God says over the next couple of weeks and what these offices are intended to do.

Today we find these offices specifically listed in the book of Ephesians chapter 4 starting in verse 9 through 16 where it says in saying he ascended what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions of the earth he who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.

That fulfilled thing he might fill up make full all things and he gave the Apostles the prophets the evangelists the shepherds and teachers to equip the Saints for the work of the ministry for the building up of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by human cunning by craftiness and deceitful schemes rather speaking the truth in love we'd like to pull that little portion out of there I'm just speaking the truth in love rather speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up and love dear Heavenly Father we thank you for this day Lord I just thank you for the honor and the privilege to serve your kingdom Lord I thank you for the honor and the privilege that you would continue to reveal things through your Holy Spirit in your word Lord I thank you for for your spirit in the park in Andrews Park last week as we celebrated Pentecost Shavuot Lord I thank you for the honor to be able to pray with people to feed them to clothe them Lord I thank you for each and every person in this room each and every person who will watch online Lord and may every single thing that is said and done today be a manifestation of your power in your might for it's in the name of Yeshua amen and amen before we go too far there's a couple of baseline things that I want to make sure that we understand these are kind of core foundational things when you start to talk about offices and you start to talk about manifestations Brent's kind of laid this out every week it's important to understand baseline things because that's how we approach these concepts if if I have a different baseline of concept of the Word of God then then my wife does but we read the same passage most likely we will end up at two different places because the starting point is with two different concepts this is part of what we see how you can have Americans who live in the same same subdivision who have the same economic status who have a very similar cultural background but have two complete opposite extreme political ideologies this is why they started a different point by having a different concept they end up at a different place and yet everything else appears like it would be in sync with each other so number one in baselines Jesus ascending reminds us that first God came to earth he wasn't born he wasn't created Jesus was first in the heavens with the Father so so Jesus has been around he is not a created being it's important to understand that so this is the Holy Spirit doesn't just come at Pentecost it doesn't just come Pentecost in the book of Acts it didn't just come that that time the Holy Spirit has been involved throughout all creation and so the Holy Spirit as Paul calls it is the Spirit of Jesus so Jesus has been around for all creations in the heaven first then to the earth and then back to the right hand of the Father number two Jesus gave these gifts to call and equip those who are called to him if you take the office of the Apostle without the Lord giving you the gift you're in deep trouble you might as well hide you know that Sunday school song it's like well hide it under a bushel no you better hide yourself under a bushel yeah if you're trying to take the office of the Apostle or of the Prophet or the pastor or something else if you're trying to take it and the Lord has not given it because it's a gift you are stealing a gift that's not yours and so then who is your adversary well it's not the devil it's actually the Lord because you've stolen something from the Lord you didn't earn it you don't deserve it to quote Corey Asbury God might take your life away Oh the overwhelming never-ending reckless judgment of God it's not theologically correct just like the original lyrics aren't correct but what apparently my jokes are funny and I caught you off guard with that one thank you okay this is the first we've asked for words of prophecy and words of knowledge and now we've asked for confirming witnesses and I got one today from the worship pastor so praise the Lord for this an illustration of this is that Jesus said that the Pharisees in the first century had seated themselves in the seat of Moses they had taken a position and a calling and a place that was not given to them it was given to Moses it was a narcissistic self appointment that began their downfall again these gifts and offices and callings are Christ to give they're not for you to take I could end the sermon right there let you marinate that on that one for a while this is something that is crucial for you to understand God must give it to you if you try to take it God is your adversary because you have put yourself opposed to God you didn't put yourself opposed to the elders of this church you didn't put yourself opposed to your mom or your dad or whatever you've made Yahweh Elohim your opposition because you've gone into something that is his grace his righteousness and given for those sakes and you've chosen to take it for yourself and claim it for yourself and if you get out of this world without the judgment it will come to you in the next one I can promise you that you don't steal from the Lord number three Jesus also does these things he equips you daily to bring the kingdom of God to this earth we see this throughout the New Testament he also built up the church and the other believers the Apostles the apprentices as I like to call he also practiced and created unity not discord and you can say well he went into the temple with it with a with a whip yes because they already had created discord and he was trying to bring his kingdom back together your gift should be unifying not tearing apart relationships churches and persons if your gift or what you believe the gift is that God has given you is causing you to have issues in your marriage causing you to have issues in your friendships causing you to have issues in your church if your gift or what you believe your gift is is causing you to be divisive and what you do so in discord I can promise you you either took it or you don't have it it's a telltale sign it's kind of like Brent talking about speaking in tongues the other day there's there's people who abuse the speaking in tongues but I can tell you by which and what fruit you bear and what you do tells me of its love the Lord or not because it's that simple and we don't even have to talk about offices we don't have to talk about gifts but if you are an absolute tuchus I'm down to like the seventh level of words I'm allowed to say from the pulpit if you are an absolute rear portion of your body to somebody else I can promise you that the gifts of the Lord are not in you I can promise you that the Lord is not blessing you I can promise you you're not bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit you're doing the fruit of a spirit but the Spirit is your own flesh in your own evil nature that you're wrestling against these gifts are given to mature us in the fullness of Christ not the fullness of self they're to stabilize us from the dangerous teachings it says in Ephesians 4 that it's a ship that's casting back and forth in the waters what happens anybody seen Titanic they're out there like and it's boom hits a rock they all die now it's very very dramatic but it's Ephesians tells us that if you're a ship that is cast around in the ocean the Holy Spirit is not working in you it's given to provide stabilization and if you're not stable I gave this analogy to somebody this week in a counseling session if you're not stable and you do what they teach lifeguards not to do let's think about that for a second so from where Brent is to where I am this is a pool we're all swimming I know it's hot outside I got to use a summer analogy and all of a sudden Brent is drowning in the water in the deep end the last thing they teach a lifeguard to do is to dive into him while he's flailing about in the water going help me help me help me why because what is going to happen he's gonna take me down to unless it's five feet because I can stand so what do you do when you're drowning when something's happening you throw something out and you reel them to you why because you're stabilized this is why community matters this is why when somebody tells me they're Torah observant or their Hebrew roots or whatever and they don't interact in a community I'm like no you're not because one of the most basic elements of this is that you need the community because at some point in time each and every one of us is going to be the person in the deep end going oh I can't swim and you need somebody to throw you a life vest and pull you to them which is stability just like Christ it's always stability this stability is to keep us from the manipulators the deviant and those who want to suck your spirit from you it's so they can prop themselves up so they can feel good about themselves this includes the trauma cycling the narcissism the gossip the slander and every work of the evil adversary why is it important to understand this because the gifts of the Holy Spirit are that dangerous because they have that much power when they're used properly why not because Brent has power or Chris has power anybody has power because you're talking about the power of God manifest inside of you number four Christ is the head of the body I've been sitting on this one for weeks Brent was talking about how the hands and all these and I'm sitting on I'm like I want to talk about it and it's like I gotta wait I gotta wait I gotta wait a lot of times when people talk about office gifts they use the analogy of Paul and they said we're all part of one body immediately it's like I want to be the head the smart brain because the brain controls everything all right fine I'll work like I want to be the heart the heart pumps all the blood Christ is the head of the body is what the scripture says Christ is the head of the body the book of Ezekiel a prophet and if Ezekiel says that Christ is the one God is the one who puts a new spirit in you and puts a new heart in you so if we're all making up a body Jesus has already called dibs on this Jesus has already called dibs on this and the life-giving power of that Jesus has already called dibs on it so we're all relegated like we're all relegated to a hand or finger or nose or or an arm or a leg or or something else and guess what can you can you survive without an arm yes can you survive without a leg yes it's more difficult anybody who's had injuries know it's it's a little difficult to not have full use of that body part but what happens when your head's cut off you're done you're done what happens if they take your heart out like Mortal Kombat from the 90s and they pull it out what happens you're done that was the least graphic way I could I could go through that one what happens you're done so if Jesus is the one who is the head and the brain in the mind and Jesus is the one who puts a new heart and a new spirit in you all of us at best we can be like a leg or we can be like an arm or we can be like a hand and if Adams family never existed we wouldn't have this concept that a hand could just jump around doing its own thing we would understand that a hand only functions a part of the arm and the arm only functions a part of the rotator cuff and the rotator cuff only functions a part of the pectoral and the back muscles and I'm trying to be as scientific as possible but Jensen's looking at me he's like technically there's a different term for those this is why we need Jensen in the body too because I don't know all the medical terms but everybody is interconnected but Christ is the head of that body we also see in first Corinthians 2 that that that this body and us as the body is to have the brain the mind of Christ the mind of Christ is it ultimately eliminates the fact that we can't be the brain well we all come from a background where teacher is the number one talked about and used title of the office gifts of the Holy Spirit raka kodesh what does the teacher predominantly do teaches you about things it's traditionally a brain function you're learning learning okay so if you're learning something that isn't the mind of Christ and it isn't the mind of Christ that's being put into you baseline then you need to pivot and adjust and number five all of these things are to produce the fruit of love for one another Brittany I saw your Facebook social media post today I did not share my sermon notes with your husband for so obviously the Holy Spirit is interlocking between the leadership of the church because all of these things are producing fruit otherwise they're not the Holy Spirit I go to church every single Saturday every single Sunday I'm in the church I'm in the church I'm in the church I'm in the church I'm in the church but you abuse your wife you're not producing fruit the Holy Spirit is not in you I make them a bazillion dollars a year but you're not producing fruit in the life of other people you're not sowing and reaping and sowing and reaping whether it's in your life and other people's life and the Holy Spirit's not in you now what do you do with that you pivot and adjust as long as you have breath in your lungs it's a part of the journey and you have the opportunity to repent turn around and have the Lord come and dwell in it and within you and don't tell me I really want to change my life I really want to change my life I really want to change my life unless your feet do something different your mouth is lying don't tell me you want to do something that your feet or your actions are showing me are different because then your mouth is lying because your feet and everything else that's controlled by your mind and your heart and your spirit and your soul is doing the same thing a prophet today we're gonna look at the prophet I thought I was gonna go in order Apostles and all these things and I started digging into the Apostles and I was like man every every time I dig more into the Apostles there's another door and I got like a beautiful minds like like it's not a chalkboard because it is 2024 but it like I've got this notebook with these lines and in like these thoughts and it's like well what the Apostles actually talked about as a prophet here and you start putting all these lines together and so I don't even know where the sermon on the Apostle is gonna go but the prophet was the one that came the first this is a sermon that came a couple of weeks ago so I sent this to Brent about two weeks ago maybe two and a half weeks ago while I was studying and putting it through and this one came easily maybe because a prophet historically versus a modern prophet is such a stark contrast a prophet in modern America anybody who's been any time on YouTube anybody who's spent any time on rumble or telegram or some of these other thing a prophet in America is somebody who is is almost exclusively looking at events in the world a lot of time geopolitical and they're forecasting out it this is what this is going to do about bringing the scripture to manifest on the earth and they have about the same accuracy as David Payne without Lacey they're calling for a lot of mezzo cyclones they're calling tornadoes on the ground but the truth is is that there was no tornado on the ground and everybody just got drunk in their living room because he just says stupid stuff so I want you to understand that you can't despise prophetic utterances but you absolutely can look at the fruit that is produced in 17 years of running international ministries I've had a lot of people email me I've had a lot of people call me I've had a lot of people stop me all over the country the West Coast is the crazy if all Craig made the cray cray out there but when I was on the West Coast these people are coming up and like I got a word from the Lord for you and I would I would listen to him and I'm praying against it it's like Lord if this isn't from you I don't want to accept this word if it is of you I need to receive it and accept it and then I would I would let it sit I would let it marinate I'd have it almost like butter melting to go on the it's just on low on the oven waiting for the Lord to reveal yes or no then I'd watch him the rest of the weekend and I'm like if this is of you you're gonna have to make it abundantly clear because I want nothing to do with what I'm watching happen there I was having this conversation with my wife this week in another family in the church it was a counseling week it's a really great counseling week I love getting to sit and talk with people but we talked about zitzit you know the the fringes on the garments and and at some point of time we'll get into the theology of that and what the Lord commanded the sons of Israel to do and all those types of things but I was telling them one of the greatest concerns I had in my life is that I saw our people starting to wear the fringes on their garments so you don't even need to know what they think but you can go to Google and you can say well fringes are either Judaism or they're Messianic or the Hebrew roots of their Hebraic roots or there's some element of this element so they worship Yahweh or Adonai or Hashem or the other names that are there but you can watch and I've watched people in this church who will wear the zitziot sometimes they're down to their knees like they're super long like they flow in the wind and so I watch them but what you see from a distance from them doesn't match the God that they outwardly say they represent in the 90s people would walk around and yet they wouldn't accurately represent the clothing they wore of who they said they represented with their actions and this was this was heavily convicting to me a couple of years ago because I was the same hypocrite and while I wasn't wearing zitzit I was wearing my Yeshua hats and my Yeshua t-shirt we're traveling all over the country and I was like while we sit in a restaurant tonight am I showing the person that says I'm representing on my shirt and the answer was no most of the time so we had to make an adjustment in our life so I say all that to say that the futuristic Messianic odds makers Christian odds makers everything's a harbinger everything's a key everything's a door everything's this everything's that guys it's 2024 I'm still here I shouldn't be I should have been left behind I should have been raptured I should have been on a greater exodus there's all kinds of things that should have America was supposed to downfall with Bill Clinton we had Clinton we've had Trump we've had Bush we've had Obama Obama was the Antichrist ten times we've had we've had Joe Biden we've had whoever's the president right now teaching Joe Biden's teleprompter we've had all these things and we're still here and yet every day you can go out to eat if you want to go out to eat every day you can go to work if you want to go to work and I've been told many many times we're not supposed to be here because all these things line up there's red heifers in Israel and there's stone in Israel and did you know that they did this in Israel and you're still here and so am I and so is Israel these bookies and soothsayers who have polluted and caused irreparable harm through their monthly magazines and their their their new calendars and everything else that aligns you with what God wants to do they've made a fortune off of irreparable harm to the actual prophets that God speaks about in the Bible and some of you in this room you're gonna say oh I think I know who you're talking about no who which one I just want to point out the irony of Donald Trump's last presidency at one point in time Trump was the Savior of the world the other point was saying Trump is the Antichrist and then there was a golden calf at a convention but it wasn't a golden calf literally any person at any point in time you can find people on opposite ends of wherever the middle line is that does irreparable harm to the office gift of the Prophet of God because when you claim to have a word from the Lord or to be speaking on behalf of the Lord doesn't matter what it is do you really believe that Yahweh is sitting up there and he's saying you know what I'm just I just need to make sure RFK gets four more votes so he can get on this first delegation conference with Joe Biden and Trump I think that's the least of his concerns I think he's sitting up there and he's saying I saw you go to church and beat the crap out of your wife that's right I said it repent he's not worried about Donald Trump and that he's worried about the sin that's in his own house repent turn this is a prophet in Exodus 412 we read about some of the first instructions of the calling of the prophets and it says now therefore go and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak if God is not with you and God is not teaching what to speak then you do not have the office gift of the Prophet Moses was called by God he saw him in a burning bush and yet he still says in Exodus go therefore I will be your mouth and I will teach you what to speak God is calling Moses who is a prophet to foreshadow his own son Jesus Christ it is God who is the mouth it is God who is the teacher and the Torah and the prophets a true prophet never spoke on his own authority he never shared his own personal opinions they shared and spoke only on what God had instructed them this is the first major test of a prophet you cannot be a prophet and speak on your own authority with your own opinions Exodus 4 I will be your mouth and I will teach you what you shall speak Deuteronomy 18 18 I will raise up from them a prophet like you from among their brothers I will put my words in his mouth he shall speak to them all that I commanded them Jeremiah 1 9 I have put my words in your mouth Hosea Joel Micah Zephaniah Jonah Amos all start with either the word of the Lord came to and or this is what the Lord says Amos doesn't say I was hanging out and I was hanging out at the beer garden and I think the Lord called me to do this it's definite thus say the Lord the word of the Lord came to and or this is what the Lord says that's how you know it's the Holy Spirit and not our spirit unless God instructs you to speak and gives you the words I have some strong biblical counsel for you zip it you cannot call yourself a prophet if you're speaking out of your own authority in your own opinion you are not a prophet of the Lord and it is not a gift that the Holy Spirit has given you it is a gift that you have tried to manufacture on your own now this isn't exclusive here Brent talked last week he talked about the gifts of tongues and the manifestation of tongues and people try to manifest that gift themselves well it's it's not exclusive to tongues it's not exclusive to words of wisdom I've actually been in ministry with individuals and and I've heard them ask really long questions for a long period of time to gather information and then they they go to two or three other sources and they confirm it then they come into a counseling session and they're like I believe I'm seeing from the Lord that that you have financial problems and that you're really struggling and in debt well it wasn't of us say at the Lord they had gone and gathered information there was no revelation of the Lord there was no word of prophecy there was no word of knowledge they chose to go gather information and then misrepresent it that's not a prophet and that's not a servant of the Lord that's a manipulator you must understand what the Word of the Lord says so that you cannot be manipulated and that includes by me in previous messages that Brent had given he kept driving home this point in the church the office and the gifts of prophecy cannot operate as a Lone Ranger you can't lack accountability and the leadership of your community and your church and your giftings and be operating in the power of the gift of a prophet operating out of order and disconnected from the accountability that God lays out in his Word is like saying that I don't need you to the body yet this is exactly what Paul told us not to do while operating in the gifts of the Holy Spirit 2nd Peter 120 through 21 says no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophets own interpretation of things for prophecy never had its origins in the human will but prophets through the human spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit just because I'm passionate about something or I I use stern language doesn't mean it's from God it's an opinion it's a strong emotional feeling I have when you speak as a prophet you don't speak of emotion and of your own situation you speak of exactly what the Lord has given you to say and nothing else nothing else prophecy does not equate you speaking your thoughts so when we look at world events and we look at what we currently see in a modern prophetic symbolism versus what the Bible says it's the opposite if we see this if Benny Gantz leaves the Knesset then this will happen and the government will fall and and Hamas will rise up and and this will open the door for the Antichrist and then when Benny Benny Gantz steps away from the Knesset and they go into another election year and God still shows himself manifested strong on behalf of Israel and we're still here why is nobody standing up and saying no thank you I'm not interested in your YouTube channel anymore why is nobody saying when we say well the stock market is about to crash it's about to crash we're on like we're on like the fifth year the stock market's about to crash well the Lord is gonna do this because the Lord needs at this point of time in his timeline for us to usher in a new world currency so that he can bring about the conclusion of the earth and yet the only thing bitcoins done to me is made me 23% of my investment so far Microsoft didn't do that I heard Bill Gates was the Antichrist so we have to be balanced in our approach to the things that are happening because biblically a prophet was somebody who only had the words of the Lord who spoke only on behalf of the Lord but yet we have in our culture today operating in churches operating intent revivals operating on street corners we have people who are consistently saying I'm a prophet I'm a prophet I'm a prophet and yet they can consistently say things that don't happen and even less than that because a lot of time people will say well I'm not a prophet I'm not prophesying but you're not even supposed to speculate if the Lord has given you the office gift through grace for his righteousness you're not even to speculate you're to only speak when the Lord tells you to speak this is how you know I'm not a prophet I speak too much I'm allowed to confess my sins to you ain't the first time won't be the last time it's kind of like saying well as a pastor I'm kind of like sitting in the seat of Moses no I'm not that's twisting the Word of God for manipulation there is no seat of Moses here but I've heard that one too somehow we just brought the seat of Moses into Oklahoma and all of a sudden I'm a Moses like figure I don't understand why we continuously as human beings who are desperately seeking the Lord desperately seeking the commandments of the Lord desperately seeking the power of God how we're so easily manipulated and then fall into the same manipulation because we're like you know what if that YouTube channel can still do this if that conference can still have all these things it's fake and it can be bought with this and the gifts and the offices and the manifestations can't be bought with any of this that's the power in the presence of the Lord not the power in the presence of Brent it's not the power in presence of Chris it's not the power in the presence of the elders of this church it's the power in the presence of the Almighty God who was not created who was and is and is to come kudos kudos laka holy holy is he I also need to point out that sometimes the prophetic word was not meant for any of us but it was meant for you I've had some people close in my life over the years who said they had this vivid dream and there was a prophetic word that was given to them and immediately when they said as I go that's for you I know that's for you I've been praying for that prophetic word for you and they're like no no I need to tell the world I'm like maybe you should sit on that one until the Lord tells you to tell sometimes the Lord will give you a prophetic thing and we're not talking about if you drive a hundred and fifty miles an hour on a wet road on a Kawasaki motorcycle you're gonna die that's not a prophetic word of the Lord that's common sense but we're talking about something that says like this this inclination it's like I'm not to go to school today or I'm I I don't think I'm we're supposed to buy this or you know I need to repent I need to do these things sometimes that word that gift from that office is given for you for you to do something sometimes it's not even for your spouse sometimes it's literally for you ladies I want to encourage you today after centuries of arguments on who can be elders and deacons and so forth I have really really good news for you today I have solved this age-old issue I see no gender lines in Scripture when it comes to the office of prophets we can still debate the elders and the deacons however Kings second Kings 22 yeah that prophet was a woman judges for a woman Exodus 15 we all love the name Miriam from the Hebrew side a woman it's also easily inferred by both Samuel first and second Kings that women were part of groups that would travel together and they would have gatherings of prophets who would speak prophetically and they were groups that would travel I got a joke in there I'm gonna read it for the sake of time I'm still gonna read it they were the original prophetic small group that's right one thing is for sure that men and women were and still are used as the mouthpieces of God even when it's frustrating but there's a key there men and women are used as the mouthpiece of God that means God chooses to make you the mouthpiece chooses to give you the word and he chooses to speak through his spirit and his calling and his conviction through you when you choose to do it on your own God is not choosing you to be the mouthpiece you are choosing to be the mouthpiece and you've taken and put yourself in the seat of Moses a seat of authority that wasn't given to you that is dangerous for you to do so how does one become a prophet there's schools out there did you know you can sign up for a profit school when you're done you get a nice certificate you can come see me I can do it in Photoshop in like 15 minutes but and I'll do it for free but it'll also say this is a sample across all of it so that way nobody's like hangs it up on their wall 1st Corinthians 14 1 pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts especially that you may prophesy so I just went ahead and told you something Brent already taught you just because again like it's good to go back and read you're to pursue love and you're to desire to prophesy if you desire to prophesy but you're not pursuing love of your community of your neighbor of your spouse and guess what it starts in your home first so guess what when somebody comes to me and they say hey I'm an evangelist or I'm a prophet or I have this gift or whatever I watch your home again number five early on you're to bear fruit this church is my family I get to be dad of this family along with a couple other dads and moms we have female elders and so your family is an extension that comes in to make up a bigger family so when when when you say we have this gift and I look into your family and I see that this fruit of the Holy Spirit which we're gonna go into for the rest of the summer after this series is not manifesting there then then I'm not gonna allow you to come into this family and say but I have the gift of prophecy I have the gift of this it's like go home and fix your home first so that you don't bring your issues from your home here now I will go with you and my wife will go with you and we will love you and we will help you and then all the elders will help you and we love you but don't bring it here so the first thing I'm gonna do and the first thing I ask you to do judge my home judge my wife come here on a Saturday she's standing out there talking through this and through the entire doxology she's getting drive-by meetings after drive-by meetings after drive-by meetings because she loves you she'll tell you she'll tell you we had a good week we had a bad week my husband's doing great my kids are doing great my husband's not doing so great so one thing about wives they have no problem in speaking the truth in love they're pursuing love and truth we're to pursue this love Christian and messianic prophet date setting and fear-mongering is built up an atmosphere where not one single person has been built up and strengthened in the Lord and see it it works against the actual biblical office of a prophet because the biblical office of a prophet is to speak the words of the Lord and a lot of times traditionally that is about you repenting or a group repenting or a group making adjustments in their life and so what we see is we see people who spend a lot of years worried about what might happen in the future where we might be at on Daniel's timeline or on Ezekiel's wheel or all these other things and as you get older what naturally happens to human beings our own mortality sets in well is am I gonna have enough to live oh wait that's also the propaganda machine of our American news media are you gonna have enough ROI return on your investment to live is Social Security gonna be there are they gonna take your retirement is Medicaid Medicare gonna kick and all these things are at work so the system of the world is trying to teach you to be enslaved to the world where the office gifts are to set you apart from the world so that you can bring the Lord and his gifts and his manifestations to the lives of the people all around you thank you not one go-bag not one prophetic calendar debate has ever helped us genuinely pursue the love that Paul calls for us to do in first Corinthians 13 which means we must adjust and realign it's easy to point out and recognize that these things have not accomplished what the scripture says but then the question still goes back to the first part so then we must okay we acknowledge something we must do something different because we can't judge somebody else by the fruit they're bearing if we refuse to do something different with ourself the Bible tells us in Samuel Isaiah 1 Ezekiel 11 numbers chapter 12 that it isn't our thoughts our guesses or our knowledge but is the audible and internal voice of God and visions from God these are the callings of the prophets so so if somebody claims to be a prophet it's not not out of line for you to ask when's the last time you heard the audible voice of the Lord that's why I can tell you I'm not a prophet the time I've heard the audible voice of the Lord is twice in my life once was very recent one was not so recent and both of those were not for any of you they were for me they were for me to repent for me to make an adjustment for me to make to Shuvah they weren't for anybody else they were for me why do I keep harping on the topic because the office of the Prophet is one that comes with great influence and sometimes even great material possessions so in in our modern way it's very easy for us to get caught up in that place if you name it and claim it I can see the Lord is gonna give you blessings and it's like yes I want blessings I'm tired of struggling I was talking to Tim this week it's easy to want blessings but when Moses was walking up Sinai to meet with his creator there was others who started that journey with him but he was the only one who made it to the top of the mountain because at some point in time they decided they were gonna stop they were gonna sit they were gonna do whatever it was Moses you go on I'm okay here so just because you start on a journey with people or friends or whatever doesn't mean that at the end that you might not be in some other place just with the Lord and they stop there that's okay normally what we do is we self-fulfill prophecy which is well I'm righteous because I'm the only one who made it to the top of the Lord and it's like yeah you've murdered every person on the way up the hill that's not the Lord we have to stop interjecting ourself into the gifts the offices in the text of the Bible and allow the Bible to transform ourself see the difference there when when I'm trying to transform the text of the Bible by myself I'm not doing what the Bible and the Holy Spirit were intended to do which is to transform me not the opposite way around I have seen the death of marriages death of friendships death of people all attached to the speaking falsely for God worship team you can come back you cannot obtain the office of the Prophet it can only be given by Jesus alone the primary role of the Prophet throughout the Bible was to do these things to proclaim the holiness of God publicly and privately I'm an introvert probably not a prophet because if you're not willing to publicly and privately profess the holiness of God then I would be cautious number to remind individuals and groups of their obligation to the covenant with God if you proclaim with your lips that Jesus is salvation you have a covenant with him and he has made a covenant with you and you have an obligation to that number three speak out against injustice this just isn't American political injustice guys I I'm gonna crop that and I'm gonna text that to you for the next year because we're in a political cycle you're gonna see all kinds of manufactured injustice in America according to the news over the next news cycle because we're in an election cycle and this is how they stir people against each other we're talking about real injustice like people who can't eat people who are being abused that's real injustice calling out idolatry calling out fake practices encouraging individuals and groups to remain faithful and number seven which is is all throughout the prophets promote encourage and proclaim repentance repentance is not something that we like to talk about I confess my sins okay are you truly repentant do something different that's the first step do something different surround yourself first and foremost by people who who acknowledge that you have confessed now they can help you actually make a different change in your actions that's a baseline prophetic gift a prophet who's calling others to repentance who doesn't practice a lifestyle in their own life of repentance is a parrot not a prophet a parrot can only mimic it's human my brother had parakeets loved them he taught a couple how to talk but the only thing the parakeets could say is what he taught them to say and it was repetitive over and over and over again over and over and over again so what we've seen in modern-day culture is that everybody's looking for an apocalypse so so if you're not practicing these things in your life and if the Lord isn't speaking to you you're not a prophet you're a parrot you're like ah Obama is the Antichrist Trump is the Antichrist we're repeating everything we hear human beings say not what the Lord is prophesying to us a prophet who's walking in the hypocrisy is also a parrot not a prophet you can't walk in hypocrisy if the Lord's called you to repent and to tell others to repent of something but you aren't actually practicing the repentance then you're not a prophet you're a parrot we have too many people who are creating parrots when only God can create prophets let me teach you what this sign will look like he like let's spend the next Saturday afternoons together and I'm going to teach you what a red heifer means so every time you see a red heifer for the next 40 years of your life you can say this to everybody on YouTube that's a parrot not a prophet only God can speak a prophetic word and give you an utterance inside of you that comes from him that is exclusive for what his kingdom has for what purpose to build up and edify the body of Christ even when you're talking about the prophets in the Old Testament in the Tanakh he didn't tell them to call them to repentance because it was divisive their behavior was already divisive their sexual immorality their lack of repentance their spiritual idolatry it was already divisive and he was saying repent so you can be made one with the blessings of the Lord I don't know and I'm pretty good at not knowing things I don't know which offices we're gonna do every week there's five of them so now you have an even lesser of a chance to guess it right it's gonna get easier every week on which one we're gonna do it's just a process of elimination like deal or no deal or family feud or as more things come up on the board it gets easier to figure out which one we're gonna do next week we're gonna do whatever the Lord tells us to do but as we go through the offices just like as we went through last week as we went through the scenarios of bread continuously talking about the manifestations of the Holy Spirit the church leadership is having conversations sometimes daily how does this look how does this practice what does the Lord want for this church because I truly believe now more than ever that as we see the darkness out there increase the grace gifts of the Lord is going to increase in the body of Christ because it's not the power of Tim it's not the power of Brent it's not the power of Chris it's not the power of chase it's not the power of us that is going to combat the sins in the darkness of the world it's going to be the fact that grace increases in the power of the Holy Spirit outpours from God through us well this word tells us how that happens he tells us why these office gifts and why these manifestations happen therefore the edification of his body to bring up strengthen and bring to maturity and fruition and that's what we need now more than ever we don't need to be tossed about to and fro with all these mindless speculations and genealogies we need to come together for the edification of the body and so as we go through this gift series some of you are like I don't want any of these offices I just want to show up on the weeks there's chicken dip I want chicken dip and then I want to go home and take a Sabbath nap that's fine but I believe every person has a gift because Ephesians 2 tells us that there's a gift and a calling and inside every single person it also says that we should choose to walk in it which means not all of us are walking in it and we want to be a church that allows the power in the presence of the Lord to manifest itself to raise up and to do what it needs to do because that's where the power comes as a community so as we respond today I ask you ask the Lord a couple of things one is there anything in my life that's prohibiting me from hearing the calling that you have on my life that is one two if you already know what it is repent of it today you don't need to come down here I don't need to splash it with holy water you and the Lord have that relationship you can repent of those things to him and he can remove them as far as the East is from the West and then he can start to rebuild the pattern of his power of his Holy Spirit and the other is asking the Lord mature me lead me and guide me and whatever this calling is because each one of you does even if it's just for your own personal relationship with the Lord even if that's what it's for God doesn't pour out a spirit in you so that you would go into this this deep dark place he pours the spirit out in you so that your home would be better your relationships would be better your communities would be better your workplace would be better the people you would come into contact with would be better and so today as we respond ask the Lord is there any of those things that I need to work on Lord in my listening for your voice or am I just regurgitating everything I hear somebody else say and I believe he'll speak to you