And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. This they also did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.
Acts 11: 28-29
Some time ago during a time of worship, the Lord spoke plainly to me saying ‘In the last days I will restore the office of the apostle and the prophet to the Church’, at that time it was a strange thing to find people who called themselves prophets in the Pentecostal church, of course we had white garment type prophets but it was uncommon amongst Pentecostal believers here in Nigeria.
What the Lord was saying was that in this end period, the offices of the Apostle and the Prophet would be restored to their former significance and prominence, and more people would be openly identified with that office and would function in it, (this does not mean they were extinct in the Church, only that they were unrecognized and or maybe very few).
It would take a lot of Church history to explain this but we need to understand that the return of the Prophet and the Apostles is very necessary for the Church to function in her fullness (Ephesians 2:29-20, 4:11-20)
Ministers need to know how the different ministry gifts work together so that we can intelligently deploy their abilities to train our people and also do the work of the ministry more effectively. I discover that the Church is very unintelligent in this area and it has led to unhealthy competition and strife. I heard a man of God say ‘I operate in the fivefold ministry’ so my people have everything they need in me. My! That is ignorance gone to seed, anybody can teach but there is the office of the teacher, anyone can prophesy but that does not make the person a prophet.
Apart from the benefits that would come with ministries of the Apostles and Prophets, there would also be a corresponding release of apostolic and prophetic grace on the Church as a body, in other words, the body of Christ as she embraces these two offices would experience a restoration of the apostolic and prophetic dimensions to her, you need to understand that every ministry office carries with it a grace or flavor which it endows to the body. In my book Understanding the Prophetic I spoke about the distinction between the office of the prophet and the prophetic dimension of the Church, it is so with every other ministry office, for example, one can be evangelistically minded without sitting in the office of an evangelist, etc, when the office of the evangelist, for example, functions as it should then the Church would be strengthened in her evangelistic work
Is the prophet important? Yes! God raises the prophet primarily to bring the present mind of the Lord to the Church, while he is not given to us for our primary guidance ( that is the work of the Holy Spirit) He represents the eyes and mouth of the Lord to the Church and the nations depending on the circle of his influence and call.
The Church is built on the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets Jesus Christ being the Chief Cornerstone. (Ephesians 2:19)
Some pastors want to have nothing to do with the Prophet because of some misbehavior by some self-styled or misguided Prophets, that is understandable but not excusable; there are false prophets now as they were in the early days of the Church. We need to learn to distinguish between them and to judge prophecy like the bible says we are to do.
We need to pray that Jesus will raise true Prophets whose voices will be heard and we also need to pray that God will grant us the wisdom and the grace to accept (and judge) these ministries for our good and safety.
Prophets do not just jump out of the blue, that ministry requires great discipline and sacrifice! There is more to the office of the prophet than the experience of certain spiritual gifts, there is a call to the office of the prophet, it is a definite calling that carries great spiritual authority and so we must be careful to recognize that office and not intrude into that office. A word is enough to the wise.
If the Lord has called you to the office of the Prophet, embrace the call, submit to His training, and be bold to walk in the confidence of the call. The Prophet’s ministry is easily corruptible; and because of the nature of that ministry satan targets it, not only with his false prophets but to corrupt and trip up true Prophets of God.
Above all, make Jesus the model for the demonstration and practice of true prophetic ministry.
As I talk about the return of the Prophet, I must also warn that the rise of true prophetic ministry is coming with an explosion of the false prophetic, this is satan’s strategy to confuse, discourage, and distort what the Lord is doing.
In conclusion, I wish to encourage believers to be very open to the ministry of the Prophet, to learn to judge prophetic ministry, and treat every true Word as the Word of God. This will be very very crucial today. Our responsibility is to discern and distinguish between the true and the false.
I also encourage local Church Pastors to seek how they can bring their people into the stream of the prophetic it will bless them and turn their churches around.
This is the first part of a series on the Apostolic & Prophetic Restoration
