A prophet is one who knows his times and what God is trying to say to the people of his times.
What God says to His Church at any given period depends altogether upon her moral and spiritual condition and upon the spiritual need of the hour.
Religious leaders who continue mechanically to expound the Scriptures without regard to the current religious situation are no better than the scribes and lawyers of Jesus day who faithfully parroted the Law without the remotest notion of what was going on around them spiritually.
They fed the same diet to all and seemed wholly unaware that there was such a thing as meat in due season.
The prophets never made that mistake nor wasted their efforts in that manner.
They invariably spoke to the condition of the people of their times. Today we need prophetic preachers; not preachers of prophecy merely, but preachers with a gift of prophecy.
The word of wisdom is missing. We need the gift of discernment again in our pulpits.
It is not ability to predict that we need, but the anointed eye, the power of spiritual penetration and interpretation, the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God's position, and to tell us what is actually going on.
verse
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, . . . to another prophecy . . . All these are the work of the one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
— First Corinthians 12:7-8, 10-11
thought
Prophecy is the evaluation of the present situation by looking into the past, peering into the future, or both. It is God who gives accurate evaluation.
prayer
Father, will You by Your Spirit, give to certain ones in Your Church the gift of prophecy.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
. . . there is at the root of true religion an inward witness, an awareness of God and Christ at the farthest-in core of the renewed Christian's spirit given to him by the Spirit of God.
This experience results from faith in and obedience to the Scriptures.
It is the end result of Bible doctrine but it is not that doctrine. It is a consciousness of God and spiritual things too deep and wonderful to utter or even think. If this sounds too extreme or mystical let me remind my readers that it was once an accepted and expected phenomenon in most Protestant churches.
In happier and holier times conversion was held to be (among other blessed things) an immediate acquaintance with God in living, spiritual experience.
This came about as the result of the Word preached in the power of the Spirit. And let's remember one thing more.
Even today there are those who can testify that they too know what I am talking about here.
We do not need to appeal to the dead past for support of our teaching. God still has His thousands who know what the inner witness is.
verse
Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
— John 17:3
thought
Eternal life is
prayer
O Spirit of God, show me Christ and the things of Christ.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Knowledge by spiritual experience is not mental, it is intuitive.
It is consciousness, it is acquaintance with something or someone by direct awareness.
It might help the reader to understand what we mean by such words as awareness and consciousness if he were to ask himself how he knows he exists, how he knows he is himself and not someone else, how he knows he is alive and not dead. The answer is simply that he knows these things by conscious awareness of which reason is no part.
Let him attempt to prove to himself that he exists, for instance, and he will find that the he who is doing the demonstrating must first be aware that he exists before he can begin to prove that he does. When the French philosopher, Descartes, sought to get to the root of all knowledge he thought away all accepted facts, went back till he found the one irreducible element of knowledge that could not be challenged and came up with his celebrated Cogito, ergo sum, I think, therefore I am.
But let no one imagine for a moment that with his little syllogism Descartes went all the way back. He did nothing of the kind. The truth is that he was by intuition aware of his existence before he ever began to notice that he was thinking. His self-knowledge antedated thought and all he did was to prove to reason that he existed by proof that it could understand: I think, therefore I am.
This illustrates but does not explain what we mean by religious knowledge by direct spiritual experience. Stated in other language this means simply that there is at the root of true religion an inward witness, an awareness of God and Christ at the farthest-in core of the renewed Christian's spirit given to him by the Spirit of God. This experience results from faith in and obedience to the Scriptures.
It is the end result of Bible doctrine but it is not that doctrine.
It is a consciousness of God and spiritual things too deep and wonderful to utter or even think.
verse
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
— Romans 8:16
thought
As we, by faith and in accordance with scripture, open our hearts to God, the Holy Spirit witnesses to our spirit that we are children of God. God's inner witness to us!
prayer
Abba, Father, thank You that I am Your child.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
In a recent letter a man from Jamestown, NY, quoted a statement from an editorial, Three Degrees of Religious Knowledge, . . . and asked for clarification.
The quotation was taken from that part of the editorial dealing with the third degree of knowledge: . . . it is knowledge by direct spiritual experience . . . Since it was not acquired by reason operating on intellectual data, the possibility of error is eliminated.
The letter comments on this as follows: This statement seems to me to parallel the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility. I was always taught that the holy Scriptures are the only rule of faith and life. My observation has been that most of the false cults base their so-called doctrines and revelations on personal spiritual experience. I would appreciate your further clarification on this editorial statement . . . defining the boundaries with which `direct spiritual experience can be depended upon without danger of departure from the revealed Word of God as contained in the holy Scriptures and as projected in the earthly life of Christ.
This matter deserves further explanation and I'll be glad to make it.
In my editorial I said that there are three degrees of knowledge open to Christians.
The first is the common knowledge shared with all normal persons, namely, the data furnished by the senses and by reason operating upon such data. This embraces all knowledge of natural things from the first scrap of knowledge enjoyed by an hour-old baby to the highest reaches of scientific information acquired by the pooled efforts of the race.
The second is the knowledge received by faith. It consists of data given by divine revelation and received by the believing mind without proof. It is taken on trust and cannot in the very nature of it be demonstrated as being true. Were proof possible then it would belong in the first category and faith would be unnecessary.
The third kind of knowledge is that given by direct spiritual experience. This differs radically from both of the others.
It has nothing to do with the senses and so is not physical or natural data. It has nothing to do with ethics or doctrine and so is not moral or theological knowledge. I do not believe that God teaches doctrine by direct unmediated experience. The exact opposite is true.
The Scriptures are the source of all rational knowledge about moral and religious things, except those things that are revealed by nature as mentioned in Psalm 19:1-4 and Romans 1:19-20, and they are few and inadequate.
verse
The man who thinks he knows something does not know as he ought to know.
— First Corinthians 8:2
thought
There is head knowledge, head and heart and just heart knowledge. In knowing God (not just about Him) the heart must be involved.
prayer
O God, I want to know You! Take me beyond intellectual knowledge to that of the heart. In Jesus' name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Our constant effort should be to reach as many persons as possible with the Christian message, and for that reason numbers are critically important.
But our first responsibility is not to make converts but to uphold the honor of God in a world given over to the glory of fallen man.
No matter how many persons we touch with the gospel we have failed unless, along with the message of invitation, we have boldly declared the exceeding sinfulness of man and the transcendent holiness of the Most High God.
They who degrade or compromise the truth in order to reach larger numbers, dishonor God and deeply injure the souls of men.
The temptation to modify the teachings of Christ with the hope that larger numbers may "accept" Him is cruelly strong in this day of speed, size, noise and crowds.
But if we know what is good for us, we'll resist it with every power at our command.
To yield can only result in a weak and ineffective Christianity in this generation, and death and desolation in the next.
verse
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
— Colossians 2:6-7
thought
Receiving Christ as Lord and continuing to live in Him is the way to life transformation. To preach Him and receive Him as less than Lord is to seriously modify the Good News.
prayer
May I personally experience and share with others the Good News, Father, without modifying it in any way for whatever reason.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/