How to test prophecies (Part 1)
Men naturally want to know how the next day looks. Those who do not have Jesus consult witchdoctors or seers while Christians consult Prophets but both want to have information about their future.
Above all, we must understand the purpose of a prophecy. A prophecy is simply a message from God to inform, guide, edify and correct his people. However, there is a big difference between the prophecies of the Old Testament and those of the New Testament.
In the Old Testament, God always sent a prophet to inform his people, and everyone had to listen and follow his instructions exactly as it was said. In the contrary, in the New Testament, God informs his people through the Holy Spirit who resides in the body of the believer. This is why Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will tell us things to come (John 16: 13).
In reading the Old and New Testament, it is clear that in the New Testament, God rarely informed his people by means of the prophets as it was the case of the Old Testament. If you read this teaching until the end, you will clearly understand that our time is totally different to the time of Moses because today the law is spiritual and not carnal.
God is no longer limited in a tabernacle, but He is in our body which is his temple. This means that in the New Testament, most of our divine messages are often sent directly to us and rarely through the prophets. I say this because this is what I see in the Bible and especially in the book of Acts.
God often spoke through the Word (preaching and different letters of the apostles) but it also happened that he spoke through prophets. We also need to understand that there is a difference between a gift and a ministry of prophecy (I will talk about it in the teaching).
In the Old Testament, a God’s prophet had to be listened in silence and everybody was supposed to obey and execute the prophecy without any discussion because the Holy Spirit visited the prophet during the prophecy. But today, in the New Testament, the Bible gives us the right to review all prophecies and only keep what is good (1 Thessalonians 5: 20-21) because we have the Holy Spirit within us. In fact it is the same Holy Spirit in the prophet that is in us and He helps us to discern whether the prophecy is true or false.
My goal is to give to God's people the tools to unmask the false prophets (without judging them) that hide in the Church behind the Word of God. These tools are in the Bible and the devil does not want us to discover them.
To be continued in Part 2
Chris Ndikumana
