Why the Prophetic Gift is Critical

Welcome to my show, Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. Very glad you decided to download this show. Matter of fact, don't forget to download, subscribe, go to the website for the show, icmcollege.org/selftalk. I'm starting a series, and I'll do an introduction to the series tonight on the prophetic gift. And don't turn away. This is critical for you, for your family, for your church, and for your future. Amen. So stay tuned. This is going to be a fun ride. I hope you enjoy it. God bless you.

Let me read this scripture to you, which I think is very critical for what we're getting ready to do here. Joel 2:28. “It shall come about after this I'll pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.” Folks, we're living in these times. The Spirit is being poured out, and sons and daughters and people are prophesying, and it is important. It is scriptural. You know, the apostle Paul, when he wrote his letters to the Corinthian church, he was very explicit about the prophetic gift. And I want to tell you something now. This is not just going to be a teaching. This is going to be a show that I hope will change your life. That's my goal. We need to hear what God has to say. You need it for your life. You need it for your health. We need God's voice for our children. We need God's voice for our jobs, for our community. We need to hear God's voice. God wants to speak to you. He wants to speak to your friends. He wants to speak to your family. He wants to speak to your church. And it's, it's too– it's been too long without this gift. This gift must operate. It is vital. This gift must operate. That's why in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 1, Paul said, "Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy." You see, prophecy is important. “The one who prophesies,” verse three, “speaks to men for edification, exhortation, and consolation. The one who prophesies edifies the church.”

Let me tell you something, folks. God wants to speak, and God wants to be heard. Many of you are facing critical situations in your life. What are you going to do about your job? What about your marriage? What about this diagnosis you just received? What about your financial situation? Do you know God's got an answer for all of this? And prophecy and the prophetic gift is one of the ways which He gives us answers. I cannot begin to tell you how many times in my life the prophetic gift has impacted me. Matter of fact, this show, the reason I'm doing this show is because of the prophetic gift. The reason I'm in Florida, the reason I'm married is because of God. Because of the prophetic gift. You see, God wants to be heard. The Bible says in Romans 8, “All those that are led by the Spirit are the sons of God.” To be led by the Holy Spirit, we must hear God speak to us to lead us. You know, Jesus made it clear when he said, "My sheep know My voice and they follow Me." 

Well, let me make this clear. The prophetic gift is, when it's operating correctly, is the voice of God. And I know it's been– there's times when the gift has gotten weird, and there's times when the gift has been counterfeited. There's times when the gift has been misused. I get all that, but that doesn't mean it's not valid. Just because it's been counterfeited probably indicates it's more valid because Satan will not counterfeit anything that's not valuable. The prophetic gift needs to be back in the church. It needs to be back in our homes. It needs to be back in our marriages. It needs to be a part of our life. 

Now folks, God just did a miracle in my life just about a week ago. So a week ago, I had an event. Maybe you saw it. Maybe you were there. It's called Fireside Chat. It's my Christmas gift to my students and to whoever else wants to log in. So, in the Fireside Chat was a webinar, and we had about 60 people log in. And I said, "I have a gift. God's given me a gift,” and I wanted to give it away. So, I was nervous, and I was stretched. But I prayed, and the Lord allowed me- the Lord, I say it's the Lord- allowed me to give a prophetic word to every single person that was logged in that night. And I've been very blessed to receive a lot of feedback that God was really speaking. I couldn't do that. It's impossible for me to do that. But I just step out, and I let God use me prophetically. 

It is so powerful. And God wants everyone to flow prophetically. I'm gonna say that again. God wants everyone to flow prophetically, not just people that are gifted. Pay attention to these…following scriptures, which I think are very clear. You know, Paul writing to the church at Corinth, he's given them some very explicit instructions. He's going, "Wherefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy and do not forbid to speak in tongues." King James says, "Covet to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues." 1 Corinthians 14:5, Paul says, "Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more…”, “...even more that you would prophesy. Greater is the one who prophesies than the one who speaks in a tongue." Okay. Then he says in 14:31, 1 Corinthians 14:31, “For you can all prophesy one by one, so that you all may learn and all may be exhorted.” “Earnestly desire to prophesy.” “The one who prophesies speaks to men for edification, exhortation, consolation.” Over and over and over and over, we see this gift, um, mentioned by Paul. Matter of fact, he talks about it. He mentions the prophetic gift 10 times in a Corinthian letter. 1 Corinthians 14:4, "One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself." Pay attention to that. Tongues edifies the person speaking in a tongue. “But the one who prophesies edifies the church.” That means builds up the church. Builds, increases, comforts, exhorts, encourages the church. Also, it does the same for you. Prophecy is important. It's one of the ways - it's not the only way, but it's one of the primary ways or one of the most important ways that God wants to speak to us individually and corporately. 

Sadly, so many traditional churches have just moved away from that. They, they have this horrible doctrine called cessationism, which means all those gifts were for then, for the New Testament times, and they are not for now. And the way they justify that is scriptures out of context and saying things like, "Well, that validated the New Testament. We don't need that now." Um, “The church was founded on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Therefore, since the church has been founded, we don't need that anymore.” That's ridiculous. It says “Jesus Christ, being the chief cornerstone.” So, if we don't need, according to that one verse, if we don't need apostles and prophets anymore, we also don't need Jesus anymore because He's part of the foundation. Crazy stuff. What happens is because a person doesn't experience it or because their denomination teaches it, they dismiss it. But if you just read the Bible, read the Bible, read Corinthians for yourself, you'll see how important this gift is. Just let the Bible speak for itself. Don't read the Bible with denominational glasses. Let God speak to you. I know from experience that the prophetic gift is real. It has changed my life. 

You know folks, I'll tell you a, a, a lighter story of a - a fun story about the prophetic gift of God. Now listen, when I say prophetic gift, that's God prophesying to me, God using me to prophesy to other people. But God spoke to me prophetically. I had met my wife, and she lived in another town. She lived 800 miles away from me, and I, you know, I was, I was smitten with her, but I just didn't know how it would work out. And then one day, one night, I was actually in a– teaching a class, and I heard the Lord speak to me very clearly. I'll say this is prophetically. And He said, "Ray, Christie is My perfect gift to you." Whoa, that's kind of heavy. You know, at this point, Christie and I were friends. I was interested in her, but I didn't really know if the relationship would go any further. Well, the next day, I'm doing something very spiritual. I'm out on the golf course playing golf, haha, and Christie calls me. Then I'm nervous. Do I tell her what I prophetically heard God speak to me, or do I not tell her? I was very nervous. Finally, I got up the courage to say, “Christie, I heard the Lord say something to me.” She said, "Well, tell me what it was." And I said, "God said that you are His perfect gift to me." And all of a sudden, Christie on the other end of the phone, she gasped. She go– [gasping sound] she said,  “Hold on a second.” She went, and she grabbed her prayer journal. And in her journal, she had received a prophetic word from a friend that told her these words: “Your husband to be will speak these words to you that you are God's perfect gift to him.” I had spoke the exact prophetic words that she had received several years earlier. And then God went on to give us prophetic word after prophetic word, confirmation after confirmation. 

You see, the prophetic gift is not just romantic, which that was pretty romantic, but we got a lot of confirmations before we got married. But the prophetic gift, maybe you're struggling with a, a disease. You don't know who to see, how to go, how to pray, what to do. God can tell you prophetically, you know, how to, how to handle it. What about your job, your finances? So many things. And what about what's going on in your church? What, what does God want for your church? What does God want for individuals? What is God's desire? It's so important, and it's so critical, and it builds your faith.

Jesus said in the Gospel of John, “I will tell you the things that” are– “...will come to pass, so when they come to pass, you will believe.” So Jesus would give His prophetic words, and He would tell His disciples, “The Son of Man will die and rise on the third day.” And He told them that so they would believe when it happened. Of course, they didn't always catch it. But a prophetic word can come from another person to you. It can come from a child to you. It can be spoken through a lot of different ways. Or it can be God speaking prophetically directly to you. But it's instructions for life. It will encourage you. It will edify you. It will comfort you. That's what prophecy does. We all need to be edified. We all need to be encouraged. We all need to be comforted. We all need directions. I guess you get it. I'm excited about this. 

So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to do a 4-week prophetic foundation series on, uh, my podcast. And in this series, I'm going to teach the prophetic gift. But in week four, I'm going to impart the prophetic gift to anyone who's listening supernaturally. I've seen this happen time and time and time again. We're going to impart the prophetic gift and teach you how to activate the gift in your life. I'm going to do that in a four-part series. We'll spend three parts just, it's like 20, 25 minute lessons teaching. I'm going to do this through my podcast, teaching on it. And then when you're prepared, I'm going to impart the gift to you, and we're going to activate, which means stir up the gift in you. Now folks, I'm– you– if people know me, I'm a very humble man. This is only by the grace of God. I have done these prophetic activation impartation conferences all over the country. I've done them for years and time and time again. It's absolutely incredibly amazing how many times God imparts the gift and the gift is stirred up. I've been in a room with a hundred people, and all 100 people would give a prophetic word. People who've never prophesied before in their life. 

You see, prophecy, the prophetic gift, is just hearing God speak and relaying what He spoke to you, if it's for somebody else, to that person; or God gives you a picture, and you relay that picture; or God gives you a vision, you, you speak that vision. Sometimes it's a very strong impression; you speak that impression, but it changes people's lives over and over and over. It changes people's lives. Um, people who know me have, you know, received prophetic gifts from me and, and I say this too: when I give a prophecy, you know, you pray, you wait on it, you make sure it's of God. You, you, you just hang on to it and just see what happens. Sometimes it doesn't make sense, but then it makes sense later on. You, you just don't know. And so, just recently, um, I had a prophetic gift manifest. It took me a while to figure this one out, but, it– probably 15 years ago, I was in a home group, and somebody prophesied to me, “I see you ministering in Arizona.” And I thought, that's strange. I don't have any desire to go to Arizona. I know it's a beautiful place. I have no desire to go there. And so I, I thought about it, I thanked him and, but I just kind of remembered the word. I guess we called– I just sort of set it aside. Well, in the last couple of years, I've ministered three times in New Mexico and Arizona. It's just…and then I knew, I knew that I'd received that prophetic word, but it also told me a couple of things. 

Why did God tell me ahead of time what I was going to be doing? Well, the reason He did was, remember, Jesus said, "I'll tell you what's to come to pass when it comes so when it comes to pass, you will believe." I believe that I was called to minister in that area. God was prophesying to me so that this would happen. And then when it happened, I knew it was of Him. And I could tell you a lot of stories, and you probably have stories in your life as well. But the prophetic gift, I want to see it come back to the church. I want to see it back in your life. Now listen, I'm going to tell you this. I've seen some weird and wacky stuff with this gift. I have seen some people pervert it, twist it, misuse it. Sometimes it's just their own imagination. Sometimes it's just, excuse me, but it's just hogwash. I have seen all that stuff happen. But that doesn't mean it cannot also be real. You see, I have the Holy Spirit, and you have the Holy Spirit. So to me, if I speak a prophetic word and it's coming from the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit in you recognizes that word and is in agreement with it. If I speak a word that is just my own imagination, and that can happen, the Holy Spirit in you goes, "No, that's not coming from Me." We have a way to judge and to know for sure if it's God speaking because it, does it align with the word? Does it bear witness with the Holy Spirit in you? Is it something a loving God would say? And we're going to be teaching about that. How to know for sure that God is speaking to you. But the gift of prophecy is so important, so critical, so important. It can, it can save your life. It can change your life. It can change your marriage. It can, it can tell you, give you direction for your children, for your job, for your career. Uh, it's, it's cri– this is why Paul emphasized it so much. He said, then he said in Corinthians, verse uh, 12:7, “The manifestation that's of the Holy Spirit,” that's evidence of the Holy Spirit, “is for the common good.” It’s for your good.

Sadly, we've gotten away from it. And you know what? God spoke to me recently. It's time to get back to it. I'm going to teach the prophetic gift more. I used to teach it for many years, but I'm going to teach it. I'm going to impart it. We're going to let it flow. And if you take this next four series, if you listen to the podcast, this next four, uh, podcasts, you're going to be imparted with that gift. You're gonna be imparted with that gift. Now, come January, I'm actually going to do online, a certification program in prophetic ministry, and that's going to be coming up in January. We'll be talking about that more. But I want you to know, you know, I love you. I appreciate you being part of my podcast. I hope this podcast has been a blessing to you. Be sure and download it and uh, subscribe to it. Uh, thank you for being a part of today. Go to the website for the podcast, icmcollege.org/selftalk, and there, please give us a like, please give us a rating, uh, and then share this download it and share it with people. Help us get the word out. Uh, if you'd like to donate, that'd be fantastic. icmcollege.org/donate.bThat's between you and God. Amen. I appreciate you being a part of Self Talk, and I just pray that the Spirit of God will touch you now, fall on you now, and give you the desires of your heart coming straight from the throne room of God. Amen and amen. God bless you. This is Dr. Ray, signing out.

Thank you again for being a part of the show. I appreciate you very much. I look forward to these next four weeks and also my School of the Prophets coming up in January. God bless you. Thank you so much for being a part of Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self.