Seminar 1 on Prophecy - Julian Adams at TOAM O7!

I mentioned yesterday that my notebook with all my notes from "Together on a Mission" was stolen from my bag hence blogging the sessions is going to be somewhat disrupted. However I spent a most enjoyable few hours listening to the 1st session from the Training Track on "Prophecy" that my dear friend Nicky went to. It was hosted by Guy Miller and Julian Adams spoke. Here are the notes from that seminar. I was profoundly affected while listening and absorbing the material in the notes. The sense of the Spirit of God on those meetings came through the recording wonderfully and the sense of activation is awesome. Do go listen to it!

"TT1 on Prophecy – Guy Miller and Julian Adams".

Guy Miller -

Track won’t be just cerebral – we will be ministering prophetically and listening to the Holy Spirit. Begin by standing and lifting our voices to the Holy Spirit inviting Him to be present. As sought God about preparing for track, God wants to take prophecy away from tame and normal and into the realm of battle. The army mentality is with us today! When it comes to the prophetic we can sometimes see it as a firework display and then wonder what it really was all about? We need to understand that God in His great mercy has called us His Church into a battle. We have been given grace gifts to succeed and one of the most important gifts to ensure victory is communication from heaven – hence the prophetic.

Three things seminar will debunk – 1. Myths that prophets are weird. Idea that prophets are looking into you reading your emails, mind. 2. Prophets are stars. Actually they are servants alongside pastors and teachers given to equip the church. 3. Whole super-spiritual aspect that you need a word from God to go to the loo.

Sharing with Julian and Sam Poe – grenades are going to be going off in these seminars! Keith Hazel – friend from outside Newfrontiers who has ministered again and again. Julian will be speaking today.

Julian Adams –

One of my passions is for the church to be all that she is in terms of things of the Spirit and flowing in the prophetic. The day of superstars is over and we believe in every member ministry. Trusting that today will be a real impartation.

Church is boring without the gifts of the Holy Spirit – in fact without HS! Been to many churches where God did not visit.

Grown up in charismania seeing weird and wonderful things. Grown up with hallelujah hops. There is nothing more exciting than seeing the real thing. Recommend a few books. Good theology shapes good practice and it’s important we have a good theology about the things of the Holy Spirit. “Convergence” by Sam Storms – “thoroughly baptised in HS”. Two classic books “Surprised by Voice of God” by Jack Deere – single most shaping book, read it once a year. Every time read it get more out of it. It is easy-reading theology on why we need the things and power of the HS. “Gift of Prophecy” by Wayne Grudem – more theological. “Growing in the Prophetic” by Mike Bickle. Helps understand how prophets and pastors work. We need happy prophets not weird ones! “When Heaven invades Earth” by Bill Johnson. Helps access and open doors in miraculous. Helps you come into a supernatural lifestyle.

Numbers 11 – the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. He is so breathtakingly beautiful that nothing compares to Him. Get addicted to the Presence of Jesus – without Him our meetings are pointless. Not looking for more information – we want revelation. (v24) “So Moses went out and told the people the word of the Lord. He gathered 70 men … took some of the spirit on him and put it on the 70. As soon as the spirit rested on them they prophesied … Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!”. One of the most exciting Scriptures in the OT speaking of a day when the Lord would put His Spirit on all flesh. Moses passionate desire was for everyone to prophesy!

There are two responses to prophetic ministry – 1. We run after them as though they are fortune tellers, queuing and waiting for a word. That should not be the point of call. The HS has been put on you and in you. It speaks of the prophetic lack in churches today when we fill our churches when a named prophet comes. There is no point prophesying into someone’s life if they aren’t linked into a church because you are prophesying into a void. 2. Joshua’s response – stop it! It makes it messy! Prophecy makes life, church, cell group messy. Because we feel things. It’s not PC – it’s not seeker sensitive. It’s time we became God-sensitive. Too long have we built our meetings around the feelings of people rather than a habitation of God and for His people.

It is so important that we understand we can’t shut down the manifestation of the Spirit in our meetings – it is what distinguishes us.

We can’t shut this thing down because who we are as Christians is simply us responding to the voice of God speaking in our lives. Until we realise that it is the voice of God that is key, we won’t see Him move in power.

God is a speaking, laughing, happy God who wants to speak to you!

Those who are the sons of God are led by His Spirit. We must get this clear – we are sons. Moses said he wished all of God’s servants would prophesy – that was fulfilled at Pentecost and the outpouring of the Spirit is the Spirit of adoption crying “Abba Father!”. We have prophetic DNA in us as part of us. You can’t be saved unless you have heard the voice of God. The Word of God is the ultimate key to revelation. It is not simply the Word of God but also the Holy Spirit bringing personal revelation – not all can read the Word of God. Without the Holy Spirit, the Word is dead. We must see that Moses cry was fulfilled.

Every single one of us could prophesy. There have been too many unhelpful expressions of the prophetic that we shy away. We are called to be a people in constant communication with the Father. The friendship of the Lord belongs to those who fear Him. “Friendship” or “secret counsel”. There is an opportunity today to hear God’s secret counsel. The Bible says in Proverbs 25 that it is the glory of God to conceal a matter but the glory of kings to seek it out. We have the glory to search out the heart and mind and will of the Father.

The basis is not a technological understanding of how we hear God’s voice but an experiential encounter. For many of us we don’t flow in the prophetic because we don’t understand our sonship.

We can read many books but if we don’t get it settled that we are sons then we will live as orphans for the rest of your life waiting for the command of God rather than the heart of God.

The prophetic is not about just hearing words but about an encounter with a real Person.

When we come to seminars we often want the “How-tos” before the “Who is”. The voice of God is about a revelation of His glory – about an experience of His glory. Today God speaks through His Son because He is the exact representation of His glory. When you hear Him speak it is not a cerebral exercise – it is an experiential encounter. That is hard for people who are wired cerebrally and academically but faith requires that we push into that which is not seen. The Bible says that understanding comes by faith not the other way round. The first point is sonship and experience. If you can’t win secret battles, you won’t have public victories. One of the things I find really difficult is hearing God for myself. I can have a line of people and prophesy over them but alone in my closet – it is hard.

Secrets are only revealed to those that are intimate with the Father.

The word in Hebrew “Prophecy” means to “Bubble forth with emotion”. It’s an experience! It’s not about how you say it, but it’s about what comes with it as you say it.

Keys to the Prophetic.

God wants to speak to many, but we are under no pressure to give prophecies. We must move a church from receiving to activation. The prophet’s most important job is not to prophecy but to equip others to prophecy. Most know how God speaks – visions, Word of God, still small voice, trances, dreams, and pictures. Very often see things not just hear things.

Hearing God’s voice is very simple – here’s the key. Spend time with Him.

The promise is “My sheep hear My voice”. I know it’s difficult to identify when God is speaking and this is the biggest thing I find in Christian circles. How do I know it’s God?

There are two other places it can come from. 1. The devil. He is easy to recognise because he’s not very clever. He is rushed, heavy, legalistic, condemning, guilt-ridden, and religious.

The prophetic will always unearth the spirit of religion because religion is the counterfeit that presumes what God would want us to do in any given situation and it blocks off His voice from us.

So if I smell religion I am like a bull in a china shop. I hate religion with a passion! The enemy is the spirit of religion. The spirit of Jezebel is similar to the spirit of religion and it comes straight from the enemy. Light, encouraging good words come from God. Don’t understand the fascination between correcting words and prophetic!

The prophetic always sees the best – even in correction, the prophetic always sees the best!

The discipline of God is like hot malt and honey. It hurts for a while but then the grace of God comes in. God never disciplines apart from grace. He can’t! Because His nature is gracious. 2. Self. The difficulty people find is between hearing whether it is them or God. If it is God it will build up people, the Church, and glorify Jesus Christ. If those things are covered I say “Step out!”. The worst thing that can happen is that you will get it wrong and it will deal with your pride. You must deal with the fear of man if you want to flow in the prophetic – it is a snare. We will see an increase of the prophetic in these days – both counterfeit and the real. We must stay firmly rooted to the Bible.

How to activate the prophetic.

1. Expect God to speak! Your expectation is God’s invitation. We have got to have faith when we approach God. We must believe that He is. Many of us don’t expect God to break in. We must believe God is not a silent God. We must believe that He is eager to speak. God will hide Himself not from us but for us. The Father seems to love to hide Himself from us – almost like an Easter egg hunt. The design of the hunt was the enjoyment of our faith when we find it.

2. We need to expect Him to minister and speak through us. Don’t get caught up in religious terminology. God has the ability to creep into any culture. The Church needs to rise in her authority again – we need to realise we have something to say.

3. Allow God to speak spontaneously! Don’t get caught in a rut.

4. Have more faith in God’s ability to lead you and the devil’s ability to deceive you. The Church speaks all the time of seeing demons and caution and guarding and discerning – but the Bible says in Luke 11:11 if we ask the Holy Spirit He will not give anything demonic. We must be indeed wary of the devil’s strategies but have more faith in the Lord’s ability to lead into ever increasing ability than the devil’s ability to trip us up.

We should not be just into speaking words but revealing God’s heart.