Date: November 8, 2018 ()

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I hope you are really growing in the Lord from listening to all of these teachings. If you have watched a lot of my shows you know that I go to Africa every year. I thought I would tell you something that I have seen in Africa and heard. What I have heard is that there are many, many great African preachers, many powerfully used of God, moving in signs and wonders, healings, miracles, prophecies, just wonderful things happening. There is very little teaching. They need teachers and I am a teacher. That is what God has done is to put me where I can serve Him the best. That has been my prayer for many, many years, “Lord, put me where You can use me the absolute most, where I can do the best that I can do.” I am in Africa you see all of those signs and wonders coming from the people there and you think, “How could that happen? Is that happening in America?” Yes, it is. I am here to talk to you today about one called moving in the prophetic. Signs and wonders, moving in the prophetic gift of God. Is that for everybody? Yes it is. You may not be called to be a prophet, but there are present-day prophets. They are reputable. They are accurate. They have God’s anointing on them to do that. There are not that many of them. All can prophesy because that is what the Bible says in I Corinthians 14, “Desire to prophesy and all can prophesy.”

Do you believe we are living in the last days? I do. I think Jesus is going to come back in my lifetime. I think all of the signs point to it. There are a lot of signs that were prophesied in the Bible about what the end times would be like. Jesus talked about it a lot. He described it. When he did he said things like there will be signs in the heavens, signs in the sky, signs in the earth, earthquakes, famines, war, rumors of war, people turning away from God. In the last days there will be a great departure from the faith. We have seen a lot of that. It especially feels like a lot in America. It is especially true in Europe. People do not really go to church much there. It is very sad. However, for it to be the end times all of those prophecies have to happen in a generation, in a designated time. When do most people think the last of the last of the end days started? I think most people think maybe around 1947 when Israel was formed in one day. In the book of Isaiah, he prophesied a strange thing, that a nation would be born in a day. For thousands of years people read that prophesy and thought that cannot happen. How could that happen? That cannot happen, but it did. In one day, the United Nations made Israel its own nation; in one day. That could be the beginning of the end.

What about all of the other prophecies that are in the Bible? Are there very many? If you take just the prophecies in the Old Testament about the Messiah, where He was going to be born, what was going to happen to Him, what was going to be characteristic of his ministry, there are hundreds. When Jesus came, He fulfilled every one of those prophecies. They all happened; every one of them. People who do not believe Jesus is the Savior, that He is the Messiah, that He is God’s son, maybe they do not really understand all of the prophecies in the Old Testament and how they were fulfilled in the New Testament times. There is a big gulf of years between those prophecies and when they happened. In fact, it even says in the New Testament, many a prophet of old, many a man of old would have given anything to see what your eyes have seen and hear what your ears have heard. I believe that is true. Here in the last days God is pouring out His Spirit. It is all being fulfilled. In fact, all of the prophecies in the Bible have been fulfilled except the ones pertaining to the last days and Jesus coming back. We are just seeing them every where.

People can have opinions but what does God’s Word say? What does it say in the Word of God? For you to know what you really believe, it is really better if you search it out for yourself in the Bible and say, “God, I want to know the truth. What is the truth about this or that?” God will tell you because He blesses and touches and encourages and sends confirmation to people who are seeking truth and asking Him for truth.

(Look at this picture of the pouring out of the Spirit, it is going everywhere, all over the world.) In 1995 there was a great move of God in Toronto, Canada and I wanted to go. My husband said, “No, you really do not need to go. We need to do something else.” I said, “Oh Honey, I am going to miss it. I am going to miss it. It is God. I want to see it.” He said, “Betty, if it is really God it will pour out all over the world. God would not keep one of his divine moves in one little church in one little place in the world. It will go everywhere.” It did and it had controversy with it. That is the other thing, people tend to think if it is God it should not have all of this controversy and people wondering if this is right, if that is right. No, it has controversy and this one did. Jesus had controversy. Can you imagine what the people in Jesus’ day tried to tell their mom and their daddy when they were saying this man says He can do miracles? He is from God. There was a controversy surrounding that. Never be concerned necessarily that there is controversy around a move of God. I believe it goes with it.

I will tell you another thing I think that goes with it. You see the real and you see the fake. Now, are these people being fake because they are charlatans? No, I do not think so. I am sure there are some out there; there always are. No, I think it is good-hearted people trying to imitate what they have seen that is surreal. In the case of Toronto and the pouring out of the Spirit, there were some pretty weird manifestations. I went up there and I checked it all out very carefully, did not jump to any conclusions fast at all and I saw and heard testimonies of people saying, “My life will never be the same. The fire of God touched my life, touched my ministry. I was drowning. I was dying. I wanted to quit the ministry and God touched me with his divine blessing.” He is doing it again today. God is always on the move, folks. He is always on the move. He is always moving forward, doing things that challenge you.

I heard a little statement the other day and I wrote it down in my Bible. If you can explain it, it is not God. Is that not right? It is hard to explain what God is really doing and yet something within you bears witness, the Spirit bears witness with your spirit and says, this is God. Many times in a new move of God, something God is doing, there is a lot of confusion, not all of the time. God is not the author of confusion so I do not mean it that way. I just mean that people cannot identify it very well. They are trying to talk about it. They do not know what to say and yet the people know that it is the Spirit. How else do you know it is the Holy Spirit? Because of the fruit. What is the fruit? Some people might say, “Well, a lot of confusion and people getting off track and all of that.” Somebody else might say, “Well there was that.” Over and above all of it, the greatest change was people’s lives. I will give you another time that happened; when the charismatic movement came in to America in the last 60s and 70s, I became a part of that. I had a hard time explaining it to our family. I did not know the words you used. I just knew it was God and I wanted it. I did not know what all you did with it. I did not know how to move in it very well but I knew it was God. I saw the fruit of that movement. What was it? People excited about Jesus. People turned on to the Bible. People turned on to God, out there witnessing, leading people to the Lord and doing amazing things and Jesus getting all of the glory for it. God is moving in signs and wonders today. Maybe it did start around 1947 with the healing crusades with Oral Roberts and those people, I do not know.

There are two verses in the Bible that talk about the last days. Turn in your Bibles to the first one, Joel 2:28-29. It says, “In the last days I will pour out My Spirit on all people, (all people, not just a few),
your sons and your daughters (that is little kids) will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions.” If you go over to Acts 2:18-19 and you look at this picture, you see that people all over the world are moving in God’s Spirit; every nationality, every continent and every country.
It says in Acts 2:18-19, on the day of Pentecost, this is what was prophesied by Joel thousands of years ago and it applies to today. “Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out My Spirit in those days and they will prophesy.” That is what God is doing folks. Where do you see that happening? It does not happen in all of the churches, not every church is open to the move of God’s spirit totally. They are afraid of it. They do not know what is going on. They feel like they need to be in control of it. The Holy Spirit is God. He is a God of order. He is a God of being in control, not us in control but Him in control. He does things properly, even if there is a little bit of confusion from people, you watch the overall thing and it is a wonderful experience for most people.

Can you move in the prophetic or in signs and wonders and not be baptized in the Holy Spirit? No. There are many, many Christians, many wonderful Christians, sweet Christians, that if you ask them, “Have you ever done a miracle? Have you ever had a prophetic word for somebody? Did you ever speak in tongues? Did you ever have a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom that was from the Holy Spirit for somebody and you could not even explain it? Yes, there are people that have experienced all of this. There are people who are Christians that never have, but it is from God. It is real. It is what he is doing. One time a man said to me, “I never see any of that in my church.” I said, “Maybe you are not in a church where it is going on because it is going on.” If you say, “I live in America and I have never seen it.” I have been all over the world. Jesus is not an American God. He is the God of the world. He is the Lord of this universe, this world, and He is pouring out His Spirit in every country I go to. I see it. It is beautiful.

Who actually moved in the prophetic in the Bible? Perhaps I ought to explain something to you. I am not going to do an in-depth teaching on the prophetic because it would take weeks. I have been teaching on this since 1994 so this is not unusual for me to teach on it or experience it or help people with it. There is really in the Old Testament and part of the New Testament before Jesus was really released, people prophesied things that were going to happen in future events and, even in the book of Acts, Agabus prophesied about what was going to happen to Paul and tell future events. It is possible for strong prophets of God to prophesy. They hear God telling them something and they say it and it happens. There is another kind of prophecy according to I Corinthians 14:1. “Let love be your highest goal, but you should also desire the special abilities the Holy Spirit gives, especially the ability to prophesy. One who prophesies does three things, strengthens others, encourages them and comforts them.’ If you go down to the next Scripture, I Corinthians 14:31, it says, “For you all may prophesy, one by one, that all may learn and all may be comforted.” Most of the prophecy that can go on that all can do; if it is not strengthening you, encouraging you, comforting you, it is probably not from God. Those people that come on and they act like they are a prophet and they are mean or they are harsh and they spout harsh stuff; that is not God. That is a person prophesying out of their own spirit and their own will.

Let us look at some people in the New Testament who prophesied. One was Anna. She was an old lady, very old. She had been a widow for many, many years and she spent all of her time praying in the temple. God let her see the little baby Jesus. She prophesied. Simeon was an older man that was there too. God had spoken to him and said you will not die until you see the One who will have the salvation of the world, who will bring it about. When he saw Jesus, the Spirit quickened him and he said, “Now I can die. I have seen the One.” He had to wait a long time. Some of you have never really moved out in God. You felt, “I am too old. That is for young people. I missed God. I wasted all of these years.” These people were old and God used them.

Who else prophesied? Peter, Paul, Agabus, the seven daughters of Philip the evangelist. You see, God wants to pour out His Spirit on women too. In this day and age I see that everywhere I go all over the world. Women are being released to speak for God. That is basically what prophecy is. The prophetic word or the Word from the Bible that God has given me for my ministry, and He has given it to me for probably 25 years is Jeremiah 1:5. “I have ordained you to be My spokesman to the world.” When you prophesy, you are speaking what God wants to say to an individual or to a group. It is not you speaking. Do you go in a trance? No, not at all. Do you shake and quake and act weird? No. What do you do? You just hear something in your Spirit and it goes over and over in your head and you think, “I did not think that. I did not think that and I am supposed to tell this person that.” You have to learn how to convey the message in such a way that it honors God and the person is encouraged or strengthened or comforted.

In Romans 12:1, it says, “If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.” It has to grow in proportion, like a little boy to a man. There are really three levels; we will call it that, of prophesying. One is all can do it, then you begin to grow in it and God calls you into it more and more and your prophesied at churches or groups or people groups and then the third level is the person who stands in the office of the prophet. In Romans 12:1 when it is talking about the gift, it says let him use it in proportion to his faith. The faith you had twenty years ago or five years ago, if you have continued to walk with God and step out and let Him really pour His Spirit through you, then your faith has grown and grown and grown. What I have the faith to do now I did not have the faith to do five years ago. In fact, in 1994 I really did not know how to move in signs and wonders. I just wanted to so much. I saw other people doing it and I thought, “You are not a respecter of persons, God, I want to be able to do it.” It was hard. I could not figure out how to do it and I did not have anyone to teach me. I mentored under a man who did it. I asked him a thousand questions. I probably drove that man crazy. How did you know that? What did you hear? What did you see? What do you mean you saw it in your mind’s eye? What do you mean you felt it in your spirit? What do you mean you saw a leg or a knee? How did you know to say that? What if you missed it? What did they say when you said it to them? I asked a thousand questions. The reason I did that was because one day in May of 1994 I had a quiet time one day. I heard the Lord speak to me and He said, “In September you are going to move out in signs and wonders and teach the ladies how to do it.” I was the head of a women’s ministry in my church. I said, “I do not know how to do that. Lord, I cannot do that. I do not know how to do it.” He said it again, “In September, you are going to step out in signs and wonders and teach the ladies how to do it.” It was kind of like, you better learn how to do it Betty and that is why I mentored under that man. I wanted to do it correctly and I was scared. It is not like you just have this great faith and you jump out. It takes courage and boldness. You can do it because the Spirit is calling you to do it. He wants to pour out His Spirit on you. You are all flesh. You are part of all flesh. He wants to pour out His Spirit on you and help people. It is designed to help people. I began to grow in it. I began to help the women grow in it.

Part of prophesying is that sometimes you hear a word of knowledge or a description of someone. I think I have told you about this one before. One time I was on the live show for GLC and I just heard “Fall leaves and has hurt their right leg.” I thought, “Oh my goodness, is that God? Did I make that up? I do not think I made that up, I think that is God.” It takes faith to step out. It says it in that verse. “Let him prophesy in proportion to his faith.” I can tell you God will always push you out there a little bit further and a little bit further out there on the limb. He does not ever let you stay in that safe place very long because He wants you to grown in Him.

It says in Ephesians 4:10, “He who descended (meaning Jesus) is the very one who ascended higher than all of the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. It was He who gave some to be prophets.” It is God’s idea for the prophetic to be operating today. You can get books on it. There are wonderful books on it. You can get on the Elijahlist.com and you can read prophetic words that are given out by reputable prophets. (If you look at this picture, this is three people of God in the world. It is really all over the world. It is really all ages. It is really men and women.)

It says in I Corinthians 14:3, “Everyone who prophesies to men speaks to men for strengthening, encourage and comfort. He who prophesies edifies the church, greater than he who speaks in tongues unless he interprets.” Never think prophecy is better than speaking in tongues as it is all from God. It is all God’s love gift to us and it has a purpose. With the message in tongues, there has to be someone there who can give the interpretation. I have done both of those. That was scary, but it turned out to not be any harder than anything else. I just had to step out. However, in a church service it says two or three prophets should speak and the other should weigh what they have said carefully. There is nothing wrong with carefully weighing what somebody has said. You do not have to take it and just swallow it, but there is something to learn about even doing that.

About this time back in 1995 I was having a women’s retreat at Angel Fire, New Mexico. I was conducting the retreat there, learning how to move out, and encouraging the women to move out. I was crossing the hotel lobby and a lady started walking toward me and all of a sudden I heard a word for her. I heard something God wanted me to tell her. I went up to her and I said, “How are you?” We were just chatting. I said, “I believe I have a word from God for you.” She asked, “What is it?” I gave it to her and then I got scared. I kind of chickened out a little bit. I said, “If that is not from God, just throw it to the ground and that will be that.” I walked off. She came back to me later and she said, “Betty, do not ever do that to anybody else ever again. I knew it was God talking to me. It was not you. I knew it was God and when you said that it put doubt in my head.” That kind of embarrassed me, but you have to grow and learn in all of this. I had a pastor in a church in Amarillo that I knew. I said, “Larry, can I talk to you a minute? Did I do the right thing by saying that?” He said, “No, the Bible says prophesy, let it be judged and if it is not just let it go. But you just speak and let God take care of it.” You can do it in groups or teams. You can watch others. You can learn how to do that. Sometimes you get part of a prophecy and you give it like a Rolodex, as soon as you say one thing you get the next thing. All can prophesy. All can prophesy.

I am going to prophesy real quick. Here is one. Someone who has waited a long time and you feel like you are a sojourner in the land. You feel unnoticed, nothing special. God says, “Wrong. I have my eyes on you for something very special.” Here is one for someone named Terry. You are a man. “There are those who are dependent on you, very dependent. Victory is ahead. There is a due season. Wait for it.”

God has words, even today on this show, for some of you. God Bless You. Grow.

QUIET TIME QUESTIONS

1. What is moving in the prophetic?
2. What is the prophetic meant to do?
3. Who is able to speak in the prophetic?
4. What importance does faith play in the prophetic?
5. What are the three levels of moving in the prophetic?
6. How can you judge if something you hear is from God?

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