CONTENTS

• Volume One - The Prophetic Ministry

  • Signs of the Prophetic Calling

  • The Prophetic Purpose

  • Prophetic Gifts

  • Prophetic Utterance
    
     

• Volume Two - Prophetic Operations

  • Prophetic Listening

  • Prophetic Intercession

  • Understanding the Anointing

  • Prophetic Music

  • Prophetic Praise and Worship
     

• Volume Three - Prophetic Training

  • The Preparation of a Prophet

  • Templates and Triggers

  • Resurrection is a Choice

  • Prophetic Training

  • Prophetic Mentoring
     

• Volume Four - Prophetic Warfare

  • The Structure of Satan's Kingdom

  • Our Victory in Christ

  • Strategies of War

  • Bringing Deliverance to Others

  • Prophetic Deception
     

• Volume Five - The Prophetic Office

  • The Prophetic Office

  • The Prophetic Key

  • Prophetic Rejection

  • Using the Prophetic Anointing

  • Prophetic Child

  • Prophetic Ministry in Marriage
    
     

1. The Prophetic Foundation
    
2. Prophetic Operations
    
3. Prophetic Training
    
4. Prophetic Warfare
    
5. The Prophetic Office

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Prophetic Foundation.
Excerpt from: Signs of the Prophetic Calling

...In conclusion I want to show you the signs of the prophetic call. As I have shared some of my experiences above you are probably shaking your head and saying, "Yes, I identify, been there, done that. I understand. Yes, I know what he's talking about. Yes, that has happened to me as well." Well, then you have been identifying with the prophetic calling. You have been identifying with the way God prepares His prophets. But here are a few signs to look out for.

Sign No 1 - A Ministry to the Church

Firstly, if God has called you to be a prophet, you have a burning desire in your heart to see the Body of Christ move into what God has for them. The Scripture says that God
has called the fivefold ministry to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, to bring them to the unity of the faith, and to bring them to the place where Jesus can
present it to Himself, a spotless bride without spot or wrinkle. Is that what is burning in your heart? Do you desire God's people to move into the place He has for them? Do you
want to see the church move into a place of perfection, to a place of maturity, to a place of dedication and commitment to God? Do you want to see the Body of Christ
come to that place where the Lord wants them to fellowship with Him and to walk in the light with Him? If that is burning in your heart, the chances are that God has
given you a prophetic call.

Sign No 2 - A Unique Approach

Perhaps God has given you some kind of unique approaches in ministry and you are a bit radical. You might be accused at times of rocking the boat. You are accused at times of being out of order. "We do not do it that way in this church, brother. Just keep your voice down. Just mind your P's and Q's here, please. That is not the way we do things
here." There is a good chance you are a prophet.

Sign No 3 - Swinging the Pendulum

If you are extreme and you go from one end of the pendulum to the other. If your emotions and your feelings swing. If at times it looks as though you are going into deception and you keep missing it badly, then you come back again and you seem to be unstable, it does not mean that you are being deceived. It does not necessarily mean that you are just some flaky character who thinks he is called. The chances are you are going through the turmoil of the preparation of being a prophet of God.

Sign No 4 - Humiliation

If God has called you to be a prophet, you are going to go through the pressure of becoming a servant. I remember what it was like when I did my military service, how they
treated us and berated us. They made us feel so low. I said to somebody one day that if I was to be treated as one of the lowest class servants of the time in that country, it
would be a promotion! I said, "I would love to be one of them right now." When God has called you to be a prophet you are going through worse than basic military training let
me tell you. You will be crunched and brought low, and you will have to learn a spirit of servanthood. You will need to realize that you are going to have to die to self, and you
are going to be humbled. If God has given you the heart to do that and if He has given you the heart to be able to give up all and to humble yourself and be nothing for the sake of the Body of Christ, the kingdom of God, and the call of God. If you are prepared to make that kind of commitment, then perhaps you have what it takes to become a prophet.

Sign No 5 - Singleness of Purpose

You find yourself moving in one direction all the time where it seems that people are being involved in all sorts of different types of ministries, but you keep getting channeled in this one direction all the time. There is a constraining force and you cannot move away from it. If this happens, it could be a sign that the Lord has called you to move into that narrow road that is the ministry of a prophet.

Sign No 6 - Unconscious Revelation

If at times you are ministering to people without even realizing it; if you are speaking forth words of comfort and edification and exhortation and giving people direction and instruction, and afterwards you think, "What made me say that to them?" Or people sometimes say, "Do you know the other day we were talking and you told me that I should do this or that, and you felt this or that was going to happen, you were perfectly correct?" You rack your brain and you think, "I do not remember telling them that." It could be you are a prophet in the making without even knowing it.

Sign No 7 - Allegorical Thinking

You tend to think in pictures and allegories and see things very symbolically. If you are a kind of visionary, and you find at times that you think more in pictures, there is a good chance that you have an orientation towards the Prophetic Ministry.

Sign No 8...

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Prophetic Operations.
Excerpt from: Prophetic Intercession

1Prophetic Decree

2 Now we come to the final type of prayer, the prophetic decree. Jesus said, "Pray this way. Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We miss the true power of that by not understanding the actual grammatical Greek structure that is given there, but both of those are in the imperative.

3 The imperative tense means a command. When the Lord said we are to say, "Thy Kingdom come," He was saying we are to give forth a command, "Come thy Kingdom! Come! Be done thy will on the earth." There is a big difference there.

4 You see, when you are sitting on the Throne and interceding from the Throne you are issuing decrees from the Throne. You are not praying up to the Throne, but you are praying down from there. And when you stand in that place as God's spokesman in the earth, His prophet, ordained and anointed by Him to speak forth His word into the earth, He wants you to issue a decree, a commandment.

5 If you read the book of Esther you find out how the King Ahasuerus had a ring on his finger. When the King made a decree and he sealed that decree with his ring, that decree went forth into the land and could not be broken or disobeyed. And in terms of the laws of the Medes and the Persians it could not be retracted either. So much so that when the King gave his ring to Haman, and Haman issued the decree to destroy the Jews, afterwards they said to him, "Stop the decree." But the King said, "I can't stop it. It is the law of the Medes and Persians. Once the decree is issued it cannot be retracted."

6 In Isaiah 55:11 the Lord said:
7 11 So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish what I desire, and it shall succeed [in the thing] for which I sent it.

8 It is going to go out and it will do its job. When that word goes out of my mouth, you had better believe it, it is going to hit the target! Have you ever tried to put a bullet back into the mouth of a rifle after you have pulled the trigger? Too late! When a prophet of God opens his mouth to speak forth the word that God places in his mouth, he is sending forth a decree into the earth that is the very Word of God, and it goes forth like the law of the Medes and the Persians. It cannot be retracted.

9 Amos 3:7 says:
10 7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets.

11 His secrets - what does it mean? It means that God plans to do things in the earth. And when God plans to do things in the earth, He looks for a man (or a woman) to be His agent. You see, if God's Word is to go into the earth, it does not come out of the ether. It comes out through a body that is made from the elements of the earth, because only a spirit living in a human body can speak forth the words of authority into the earth. It is the way God has made it. That is the way God has decreed it, because He put man in control of this earth. And when God desires to speak forth His Words into the earth, he will speak it through human lips.

12 When the prophets of old spoke, they predicted and they made decrees of what was going to happen in the last days and in the end times. They were not only predicting, they were speaking into existence the very thing that God had decreed. They were sending into the earth the very decree of Almighty God. They were uttering and issuing a decree, which could not be retracted.

13 Do you realize the awesome responsibility that there is on a prophetic intercessor? When he opens his mouth to utter into the earth the authority and the Word of God, the words he speaks are the words of God, and he must ensure that they are sent to the right place at the right time, in the right way. Do you know what an awesome responsibility God has placed upon us as His prophets? Then you wonder why He puts us through such a preparation. Then you wonder why He has to bring us to a place of total dependence on
Him; why He has to destroy all self in us; why He has to bring us low; why He has to teach us to have no confidence in the flesh whatsoever. All this, because He has called us to be His intercessors.

14 He has called us to speak forth His Word into the earth. As He speaks forth His rhema words to you of His will and His purpose, you speak it forth. And if somebody is looking to God in faith, exercising their faith in prayer and believing God, He sends the answer by coming to you and saying, "Issue the decree. Speak it forth now, that my servant's prayer may be answered."

15Waiting on God for Direction

16 Can you see the difference? So many people think that intercession is taking a whole list of requests and bringing them to the Lord and bombarding Him, and bombarding Him, and hammering it, and hopefully one of us will get it right and we will obtain the answer. No! I have found that the kind of prayers that bring instant results is when the intercessor comes into the presence of God and starts out by getting into the Throne Room and then waits. He says, "Okay, Lord, I'm charged, I'm ready! Just give me the decree and I'll issue it."

17 You can bring a request to the Lord, or you can bring a need or a person to the Lord and say, "Here is a need, Father, I see it. Lord, what do I pray?" And God says, "Nothing." Drop it. Drop it right there. Put it down, God is not dealing with that one. Maybe that person never exercised faith. It is not your problem, so do not dare pray about it.

18 As you begin to pray suddenly somebody comes into your mind that you have not thought about for a long time, and it comes strong, and God says, "Speak it forth. Pray for that person. I am going to work in their situation. Issue the decree." Intercessors should be spending their time not coming to God with a prayer list, but coming to God to receive a prayer list. And when God gives you the word, you speak the word.

19 Sometimes it helps to...

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Prophetic Training.
Excerpt from: The Preparation of a Prophet

The Spirit is the Source

What is it that stands in the way of a person being effective as a prophet of God, and as God's spokesman to speak forth His Word into the earth? Well, when God speaks through and in His prophet, He is going to impart by His Holy Spirit into that person's spirit, His Word, His decree, declaration or revelation. Whatever God is to do He will impart into the spirit of the person. God works that way in all of us. Whatever He does in us and through us is done through the Spirit. We have looked at it in a lot of detail in our Way of Blessing series. It is imparted in the spirit, and what comes out has to come out of the spirit. In order for it to come out of the spirit, it has to come out via the soul. And then via the soul, it must come out via the body and be expressed into the earth.

Releasing In Actions and Words

There are only two ways that information can come out of a person's spirit and pass into this world. That is through physical bodily action and spoken words. If a person stands still and does not speak you cannot tell by looking at them or the natural senses what is going on in their spirits. You can only tell it by the gift of discerning of spirits and gifts of revelation. Until a person speaks forth and acts out what is in their spirits, what is in their spirits cannot be communicated outwards.

If you go back into the Old Testament and see how God worked and moved in the Old Testament prophets they always did two things - they acted and they spoke. Aren't you glad that the New Testament prophets do not seem to act as much? Some of the prophets in the Acts of the Apostles still did the same. We read of Agabus, how he came and he took Paul's girdle off, tied himself up with it and said, "Thus says the Holy Spirit, this is what's going to happen to the guy who owns this."

The Old Testament prophets very often had to act things out. They would put a yoke on their backs and walk around and walk around until people said, "What are you doing?" Then they would say, "Okay, this is a picture of what God wants to say." God would tell the guy to go and lie on his side with a brick in front of him. They had to do some silly things at times, but they had to communicate outwardly what was in their spirits, and that is done by action and by words.

The prophet of God will have to be open to do both. He will have to be open to go where God tells him to go, to do what God tells him to do, and to speak what God tells him to speak. If anything stands in the way of that then he cannot be effective as God's prophet, because all of those things have to be involved in effectively discharging the duties of a prophet.

Dealings With the Soul

So God has to deal with the things that stand in the way. And what stands in the way? Firstly, what stand in the way are the natural faculties of the soul. Unless the soul is fully submitted to the spirit, the spirit cannot flow out through the body. And unless the body is fully submitted and under the control of the soul, which is under the control of the spirit, there cannot be an outward communication from the spirit, into the soul, into the body, and into the earth, in order that God's Word may go forth. And until God's Word goes forth into the earth through human lips and action, through the human body, His Word cannot accomplish anything. 

In Isaiah 55:11 God said:

11 So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish what I desire, and it shall succeed [in the thing] for which I sent it.

God has to send His Word into the earth, but in order for Him to do it, He needs to have a human channel to send it through, because God sends His Word into the earth through human agency. Now when the prophets spoke the Word of God, they were sending the very decree of God into the earth. It was not their words. It was not God giving them a little idea and them giving their opinion. It was God imparting something into their spirit, and that which was placed into their spirit flowed out into their soul, it flowed out into their body, and it passed out into the earth. It was the very voice, the very words, the very influence and essence of God that was going forth via those words into the earth.

God's Order of Spirit, Soul, Body

What is it that stands in the way? Well the soul has three main functions. Everybody should know it by now. It has been taught for so long. The three functions are the mind, the emotions and the will. That means that the mind, the emotions and the will, are going to have to all learn to be subject to the spirit within, because God's order is always spirit, soul, body. Paul writing in Thessalonians says, "I pray God that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord." We usually get it back to front and you hear people praying, "Lord bless him, body, soul and spirit."

I have heard that so many times. We are so taken up with our bodies we always put that first. You will find that people most frequently, when they refer to the three parts of man, give it in that order - body, soul, spirit. God's order is always spirit, soul and body, because the spirit is the most important. That is the part that is united with God. It is the part that came from God. The soul is the next most important because it is your control tower. The body is the least important, so that must always come last.

So, if God is to deal with you in order to prepare you to be an effective prophet, He will deal with it in that order. He is going to start with your spirit, work with your soul, and finally deal with your body. He is going to restore His order of spirit, and soul, and body. And when that order is restored then the spirit, which is under God's control, will be the highest part of your being. It will be the part of you that is in control, that is dominating, that is influencing. The soul will then be in subjection to the spirit, and therefore the soul will do what the spirit says. When that happens the body is also then brought into subjection. And it will be like the pecking order in the army where the General barks, and in the end the Private jumps, because it goes right down the line.

Getting the Spirit to Dominate

So God will speak into your spirit. Your spirit will say, "Attention, soul!" And your soul will say, "Sir! Pass the order down." The soul will pass the order down and say, "Body!" And the body will say, "Sergeant, do this!" Poor Private. That is the correct order. It will have to be established. It has to be that way. That is what the preparation of a prophet is about, and that is what God is trying to accomplish in your life. He is trying to bring you to a place where you learn to walk in the Spirit. That is all that walking in the Spirit is. It is learning to let your spirit dominate your life and control it so that it flows outwards in an even flow. And so here in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says:

8 [We are] troubled (hard pressed) on every side...

Crunch No 1 - The Emotions

Have you ever been hard-pressed on every side? I shared in my testimony on the Prophetic Ministry how when God first led us to move into another country south of us, that everything went wrong in our lives. I sat down the one day and made a list of everything that went wrong and everything that went right. I made two columns on a page: Things That Have Gone Wrong Since We Got Here, and Things That Have Gone Right Since We Got Here. And the one column was empty. There was nothing in it! Nothing had gone right. Nothing! I could not find one thing that had gone right for us since we had arrived. It had all gone wrong.

You know what it is like when everything goes wrong and everybody is against you; when your family is against you? You get up in the morning and your spouse is against you, and your kids are against you. You go to work and the traffic cops are against you. And at work your boss is against you. Oh boy, it does not matter where you go, everybody is against you! You go to church finally on the weekend and the church people are against you.

Troubled on every side! Things start to go wrong. Finances start to go wrong. In fact, anything that can go wrong goes wrong. You know that feeling? Troubled on every side, hard-pressed on every side. I will tell you what happens when you get hard-pressed on every side. You start to feel very low, discouraged and depressed. Your emotions go totally out of control. You cannot rely on your feelings anymore. Your desires are thwarted. Everything about your emotions comes to a grinding halt. You feel so low and so heavy that you just do not feel like doing anything anymore. God has put your emotions out of action. It is a wonderful situation to be in, isn't it? Paul says:

4 ...we are perplexed,

Crunch No 2 - The Mind

What happens when you are perplexed? Perplexed means, "I can't figure it out. I don't know the solution to this problem." Now if you are one of those analytical people who always likes to know the answers, that has to have the whole picture and wants to gather all the facts first before making a move and making a decision, then perplexed is hell on earth. For all of us perplexed is not a nice situation to be in, because we like to come to a solution. When problems come our way we are trying to figure it out. If there is less money at the end of the month, you are taking out your calculator and working out your budget, saying, "Who's going into the hat this month?"

When situations arrive that you have to make a decision about, you have to use your mind and your thinking capability to figure it out, to try and solve the problem, to try and organize how you are going to get out of the situation. But God is going to bring you to a place where nothing works. The solutions that worked before will not work anymore. The thing that you are trying to figure out will no longer work or make sense. No matter how you try, you will be caught in a maze, and whichever route you take through the maze, it does not matter, you end up at Dead End Street. There is just no way out of this maze. You are caught, you are perplexed. Your mind has become absolutely no use at all.

Crunch No 3 ...

 

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Prophetic Warfare.
Excerpt from: Bringing Deliverance To Others

4Dealing with Practicalities

5 We come to the final teaching on spiritual warfare, and in this chapter I want to deal with some more of the practical issues. We have dealt with a lot of theory and a lot of principles up until now, but now I want to deal with some practicalities. Deliverance ministry has become a big thing these days.

6 It is a keynote ministry in many quarters, and often you will ask somebody, "What kind of ministry has God given you?" and they will say, "Well, I have a deliverance ministry."

7 So what is a deliverance ministry, and what makes it so special? What makes it different to any other? The minute I hear somebody say something like, "I have a deliverance ministry," I know straight away what is in their mind. They are into casting out demons. They are into the demon thang! I know it will be a matter of moments and they will start talking about the devil and demons. They will start talking about spiritual bondage.

8Deliverance Ministry

9 Everyone wants to cast demons out of people. It gives you a feeling of importance, you know. It makes you feel superior when you can argue with a demon and tell him what to
do, and he has to listen to you because you have authority. It makes you look very spiritual and very righteous.

10 "After all, if I have authority over demons there is no sin in my life. There cannot be."

11 But, is deliverance ministry really Scriptural? We have touched on it a bit already, but I want to speak about it more here.

12 Another ministry that has proved very popular these days is the ministry of intercession. You ask people what their ministry is and they will say, "Well, I'm an intercessor." Usually when a person says that, most of the time what they are saying is, "We have a church prayer meeting and I take part in it."

13 "Well, we have a group of ladies who get together once a week and we pray, so that makes me an intercessor."

14Intercession Ministry in Warfare

15 I am not going to share on intercession too much here, except so far as the warfare aspect is concerned, because we have dealt with that in the chapter on intercession in Book 1 of this series. But most people do not know what true intercession is. And many, when they move into it, they try and get in over their heads. They do not have the faith to pray for the curing of the common cold, but they want to change world events! They want to pray for the President. They want to pray for the people in China. They want to change the world, and they cannot even change their own lives.
 
16 There is a lot of confusion on how to handle demon powers in prayer. And when people start moving into the ministry of intercession, it does not take long before they fall flat on their face and do not know what has hit them, because they started getting involved in things that they knew nothing about.

17 So I want to look at warfare in the correct context here, and I want to begin by looking at personal warfare. We are just going to start off on that and then go into the main thrust of what I want to deal with, which is warfare on behalf of others. Up until now we have been dealing in quite a lot of detail on how Satan works, on what we are in Christ, and on how we are to handle his attacks in the Lord.
 
18Know Your Enemy

19 We saw that you need to know your enemy if you are to overcome him, just like in a game in sports you need to know your opponent, and you need to be aware of his strengths and his weaknesses. You need to know your position in Christ. You need to be aware of what you are capable of, otherwise you are like one of those arrogant little guys who wants to go and take on the bully. You know, you are deceived into thinking that you are strong enough to fight this big guy, and all you can do is reach up to his knees.

20 We saw that we have people like that spiritually. You need to know how to overcome the attacks of Satan. We have dealt with that in a lot of detail insofar as it relates to us individually, with personal attacks in our spiritual lives and how to overcome them. A lot of the time people can handle that fairly well. They can overcome personal attack against themselves. They can believe God for solutions in their own lives. But when it comes to now getting into warfare on behalf of somebody else; when it comes to overcoming Satan and his demons in the lives of other people, it is a whole new ballpark.

21Helping Others Get Victory

22 I want to deal with a few of these. I want to look at the various aspects of how we can become involved in helping other people to break through to victory. And the first way we are going to do that is in praying and counseling with individuals. Here again, the first mistake that people make is they do not understand how demons work.
 

23Stupid Stories

24 We have all heard the stories. We have the story of The Exorcist. We have all the little comics and tracts that have been put out through the years about a person who was demon possessed and they had to fast and pray for weeks before they could come and deal with the demon. Finally they came against it. There was a big struggle and they cast the demon out! Then the demon went straight into somebody else who was standing by.
25 "Ooooh, I don't want to be in one of those meetings where they cast demons out. I am beginning to wonder whether the demon is headed for me. Who is he aiming for? When the demon comes out where is it going? Is it going to come into me when I'm not looking?"

26 It would be funny if it was not so pathetically true that people believe this. There is fear, fear and more fear created when deliverance ministry is spoken about. I loathe that term. You will not find it in the New Testament. Our whole ministry is a deliverance ministry! That is what we are called to do. Paul said the gospel is, "... the power of God unto salvation."

27 What is salvation? The Greek word sozo stands for everything, including deliverance. Deliverance is not a unique, special ministry. It is part and parcel of what we should be doing. It includes healing the sick. It includes casting out demons. It includes overcoming every work of darkness. It is not a unique specialized ministry that gives you the ability to cast demons out of people.

28Satan Enters Through Sin Only

29 You need to understand how a demon comes in if he is there. He can only come in one way, and that is through...

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Prophetic Office.
Excerpt from: Prophetic Key

9The Prophetic Key

10 So we come now to the prophetic key. What is it? We have looked at the keys of the Kingdom.

11Specific Key for Prophets

12 The prophetic key is one of the keys of the Kingdom, but is a specific key of the Kingdom. It is a key that God reserves for those whom He has called to the office of a prophet. I emphasize the office of a prophet, not the ministry of the prophet. God has given us a lesser key, each one of us as believers, that we may enter into a degree of releasing His authority; of exercising some of those keys that we saw that Peter exercised. We have the authority to bring people into the Kingdom of God. We have the authority to get people born again and saved. We have the authority to speak healing.

13 These signs shall follow those who believe: In My Name they shall cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover.

14 Those are all keys which have been given to every believer. But there is a special level of authority; there is a special access that God gives to those whom He calls and raises up to the prophetic office.

15 I want to share from the book of Jeremiah 1:10. God says this to Jeremiah, after having called Him:

16 Jeremiah 1:10 See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant. (GMR)

17Maturity Needed for Prophetic Key

18 This is not the type of key that you give to your kids. "Well, John, I've given you the authority to just go and destroy my computer. John, please be my guest. Take this screwdriver, open it up and take it to pieces and play around with it, and ... enjoy!" No, not a chance. He is not old enough and mature enough to do that yet. Now, I look at my older sons like my sons-in-law and they know enough about computers that I can trust them to do that. God does not give this kind of authority to anybody. He only gives this kind of authority to somebody who is capable of handling it. And we are going to take a look at that as we carry on looking at the prophetic key.

19Authority to Restrict Blessing

20 The prophet has the authority to restrict blessing, to shut it out, to stop the blessing of God in the lives of others.

21 1 Kings 17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, [who was] from the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, [As] the LORD [Yahweh] God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except according to my word. (GMR)

22 What an arrogant little upstart he was. This little nobody coming out of nowhere goes into the palace of the king, shakes his finger in the face of the king and says, "It is not going to rain until I say so!" I am sure they must have looked at him and said, "Where did you crawl from? How dare you. Do you know who you're talking to? I'm the king!" But I think they knew better because this guy was a prophet, and they came to realize that when a prophet said something, he was not just spouting words. He was speaking something that God had given him. He was using an authority that God had placed in him. He was using a key that he had a right to use.

23 So Elijah took the key and he locked the heavens. He said, "Okay rain you're locked out. You are not coming again until I say so. Not until I unlock you again will you fall." Rain was a blessing. Not only was it a blessing, it was essential. Without water no life can survive. Without rain there cannot be plant growth; there cannot be food; there cannot be anything. Life cannot exist without water, without rain. He shut out the very sources of life.
24 Why did he do it? Well he did not do it just because he felt like it or to show everybody how great he was. Elijah had read in the Scriptures that God had spoken through other prophets and He had declared to the Israelites, "If you will not obey My laws; if you will turn from My Covenant, then I will shut up the heavens and it will not rain. I will withhold My blessing, and I will withhold the rain from you." Elijah saw it and He read it, and I think it burned in him as he read it and the Spirit of God raised up in him. And God said to him, "Okay, Elijah, speak it forth. Elijah, take the key I've given you in accordance with My Word, in accordance with My instruction, and you lock the heavens until My people turn back from their sin and return to their Covenant responsibilities."

25 It is an awesome responsibility. This is the kind of key that can destroy the lives of people. It is not the kind of key that you give to the guy who cannot stand bad drivers. No he will just lock his steering so he can crash. He will just blow him out of the road. Oh, it is an awesome responsibility, an awesome authority that God gives to us as His prophets.

26Authority to Release Ministries

27 The key of the prophet gives the prophet authority to release ministries, to release those whom God has called, that they may go forth into the work.

28 Acts 13:1 Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.

29 2 As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

30 3 And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid [their] hands on them, they sent [them] away. (GMR)

31 There were prophets and there were teachers there, and God wanted to raise up from amongst them, apostles. God moved on His prophets and He spoke to them and said, "Now you take Barnabas and Saul, and you use your key to unlock the door for them to move into the ministry that I have called them to. You lay your hands on them and you speak forth the word of authority, that they may be sent forth to do what I have called them to do."
32 They could not go until that had happened. They could not go forth until they had been released.

33 God gave to the prophets the authority, the key to open the door that would open the way wide for Paul and Barnabas to go forth. And when they opened that door they were free to leave. And it says, they were sent forth then by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works through the prophet. He gives to the prophet the authority. Up until that point they were just prophets and teachers. From now on they were going to become apostles. And so they were released to be sent forth.

34 Although God had called them to be apostles, it took a prophet to release them, to open the door for them to move. And you will see that very often the prophet is given that very authority. I know, speaking from my own experience, that again and again God will reveal this. As we minister to people God will reveal a ministry and He will say, "I have called this person to do that particular work." And He will show us a picture of a door, and He will say, "Open the door for them."

35Opening Doors for Others

36 Now there is only one problem with the prophetic key. The prophetic key is used to open the door for others. I did not understand this when God first showed it to me, when He first began to lead me into this ministry, and I did not even fully understand that I was in the prophetic office yet. It seemed that I always became involved in helping other people to move into their ministry. And they would move in and they would become pastors of churches and start different works, then my time was over and I was just kind of pushed aside. And it seemed I never came in. I tried to move in myself. I tried to start works and become a pastor, but it just did not work.

37 I came to the Lord one day and I said, "Lord, what is going on? I'm helping so many other people to move into ministry, but you are not opening the door for me yet." And the Lord said to me, "I've given you a key to open doors, but when you open doors you will not go through them. Other people will go through them."

38 Prophet of God, you may be sitting in a local church, and God has given you authority, and through intercession you have spoken blessing down on that church; you have spoken blessing down on that pastor and the elders and the leadership of that church. You have spoken blessing down on individuals in that church; you have given them a prophetic word; you have sent them forth, you have launched them; you have identified their ministries, and you see people go off as a result of your ministry. You see them go off and you see them move into their ministry. You see a man of God rising up and becoming a public figure and becoming popular. You see the pastor of the church coming up and everybody is looking to him and in awe of him, and you sit there and say, "But I put him there." That's right. That is what the key is for. That is right. You are meant to open doors for others to go through. That is what the prophetic key is about. And we will look at it more as we go on.

39Speaking Blessings and Curses

40 The prophet, through the key in the prophetic, is given the authority to speak blessings and curses. In Numbers 22:6 we read of a wicked king who saw the children of Israel and became fearful of them because they were going to overrun him and take over his land. He
"The prophet, through the key in the prophetic, is given the authority to speak blessings and curses."
was afraid, and so he called for a prophet, a man by the name of Balaam. He was a recognized prophet of God, a man who displayed clearly the ministry of a prophet. And he said in verse 6:

41 Numbers 22:6 Come now therefore, I request of you, curse these people for me; for they [are] too mighty for me: perhaps I will win, [that] we may strike them, and [that] I may drive them out of the land: for I know that he whom you bless [is] blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed. (GMR)

42 He could see it. It was known. He was not even a famous prophet. (Of course he became infamous because of this particular event). He was not even a famous prophet, but he was a prophet of God. He stood in the office of a prophet and everybody could see and look and say, "This man is a prophet. When he speaks blessing on somebody blessing comes forth. When he speaks a curse that person is cursed."

43 The key of the prophet is the key to open doors and to close doors, to bind and to loose, to permit or to restrict or to bar. He has the right, as Elijah did, to lock up the blessing or to open it again. And later on as the people turned back to God, as
the prophets of Baal were killed, Elijah went and prayed and he used his key and opened up the heavens, and the rain came again.

44Not for Personal Advantage

45 Balaam unfortunately thought he could make some money out of this deal, and I am going to speak more about that shortly concerning the prophetic key. The prophetic key is not for you to use for your advantage. Balaam made a big mistake. He thought he could go and curse the people of God and be paid for it. But God would not let him. He was not allowed to. He had to speak blessing and blessing only.

46 Prophet of God be warned...

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