1 Corinthians 14:1

Mention the word ‘prophesy’ today, and people come running, as did the Athenians and strangers who confronted Paul, “which spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing,” Acts 17:21. What is called prophesying today in the majority of congregations is vain, empty babbling, and nothing similar to that of Scripture. What then is it to prophesy?

1. The word means ‘to foretell, or proclaim’ the word of God revealed. It is not as some pretend to have a vision, or personal revelation, but rather, taking what God has revealed in His Word and declaring it unto believing sinners, “but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe,” 1 Corinthians 14:22. Peter heard the voice of God on the mount, but said, “we have also a more sure word of prophecy,” in the inspired Word of God, 2 Peter 1:20, 21.

2. The message in all scriptural prophesying is Christ and Him crucified, 1 Peter 1:10-12. Peter describes the three-fold message that the prophets foretold, which any who prophesy today also declare.

i. ‘Of which SALVATION the prophets have inquired.’ Salvation is of the LORD, Jonah 2:9. Anyone who does not proclaim a salvation that is entirely of the LORD, from beginning to end, is not prophesying according to the truth.

ii. ‘who prophesied of the GRACE that should come.’ Salvation is by the eternal, redeeming, justifying grace of God exclusively, without condition placed on man, but every condition fulfilled by the LORD Jesus, Titus 2:11. 3:7, ‘that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.’ Any prophesying (preaching, witness, or testimony) that does not declare the free and unconditional grace of God in Christ alone, is false.