John Bevere - Thus saith the Lord?

If you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become My spokesman.

Jeremiah 15:19, nas May His heart be revealed through you to His people.

Acknowledgments

My deepest appreciation to...

My wife, Lisanext to the Lord, you are my dearest friend and greatest love. Thank you for the hours of editing you contributed to this book. I love you!

Our four sons, Addison, Austin, Alexander, and Ardenall of you have brought great joy to my life. You are each a special treasure to me. Thank you for sharing in the call of God and encouraging me to travel and write.

Loran Johnson thank you for the love, kindness, and wisdom you have selflessly given to our family and ministry. You are a true friend and disciple of Jesus.

Pastor Al Briceyou have seen our weaknesses and walked with us through our shortcomings over our many years of friendship, yet you have loved Lisa and I all the more. Thanks for being a true brother and pastor.

The staff of John Bevere Ministriesthank you for your unwavering support and faithfulness. Lisa and I love each of you.

David and Pam Grahamthank you for your sincere and faithful support in overseeing the operations of our European office.

Rory and Wendy Alec thanks for believing in the message God has placed in our hearts. We treasure your friendship.

Deborah and Barbarathank you for your editing skills in this project. But most of all, thanks for your encouragement and support.

Most important, my sincere gratitude to my Lord. How can words adequately acknowledge all You have done for me and for Your people? I love You more than I will ever be able to express. I will love You forever!

Ahhhh ! Finally a breath of fresh air on the ofen-confjsing subject of prophecy. John Bevere has gotten down to the core of truth.

Thus Saith the Lord? is a gem of insight and honesty. With this book, Bevere has cleared the air and given us a key to the door of discernment

Ted Haggard New Life Church Colorado Springs, CO

Foreword

O ne of the first ministry gifts being restored by the Holy Spirit is the prophetic ministry. Just as the truth of healing has been restored to the church, or the baptism in the Holy Spirit with its related spiritual charismata has been restored, so has the fivefold ministry of apostle, evangelist, pastor, teacher, and prophet.

Yet it seems that when something good is restored to the church, excesses inevitably occur. And in the process, people are sometimes hurtsome so seriously that it causes them to become bitter or to fall into unbelief.

For example, if someone is desperate for healing, believes in healing, and yet is not healed, that person is often disillusioned and devastated. If someone submits to a pastor and is abused by that pastor in some way, he or she may leave the church disheartened, afraid to ever trust a pastor again.

The area of the restoring of the prophetic seems most apt to be misunderstood or abused. Many Christians don't accept prophetic gifts as necessary for today, believing that God does not still speak to His people through prophets. If they do get over that hurdle and believe prophecy is for todayeven for themselves or their families they may still fall prey to being disappointed or even deceived by those who prophesy to them. They may accept any "word" that comes from a "prophet" as being from the Lord Himself. Others, excited about words they receive, begin to follow those with prophetic giftssometimes more than Christ Himself.

In my role as publisher of Charisma magazine, I have observed the Holy Spirits restoration of prophetic ministry in the church. God has raised up prophetic voices in our generation. My family and I have been blessed and encouraged by the prophecies we have received from some with prophetic ministries.

Recently in my own Bible study Ive noticed Bible stories that seem similar to the personal prophetic ministry we see at times today. In Genesis 18 we read about three men who visit Abraham and tell him that by the same time next year Sarah will bear a son! Sarah laughed, believing she and Abraham were too old, but Isaac was born later that year.

Even the ministry of Jesus included His encounter with the woman at the well of Samaria, where He told her how many times she had been married and that the man with whom she was living was not her husband. In astonishment she replied to Jesus, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet" (John 4:19). Then she told her friends to "come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did" (John 4:29).

While I have been personally blessed by prophetic ministry and believe it is a valid ministry to the church, I am increasingly alarmed by abuses that are occurring. Charisma did an in-depth report recently about a ministry that "sold" prophecies for donations of certain amounts. The bigger the donation, the more in-depth the prophecy. Another time a respected television ministry raised millions of dollars as one of their guests gave out "words" to donors who sent in donations for its telethon.

What can be done?

I believe God has placed certain people in the body of Christ to sound the alarm when something goes wrong. The late Jamie Buckingham, my long-time mentor, was such a man. When the Discipleship movement fell into error in the 1970s, he confronted the error by boldly proclaiming the truth in his pointed articles and in some of his books.

How much better for someone like Jamie, who loved the people involved, to confront the issue than to leave it to those critics who make a living attacking those of us who believe in the fullness of the Holy Spirit and in spiritual gifts. The witch hunts some critics have conducted have accomplished very little except to embarrass the church.

In the same way that the physical body has white corpuscles in the blood to ward off disease, the body of Christ needs men and women of conviction to point out where we stray from the pure gospel and to draw us back to the straight and narrowback to Christ.

I believe John Bevere is such a man. In the past few years God has raised him up as a voice to remind the church of the danger of holding on to offenses and to call the church to a new understanding of the fear of the Lord.

Now John writes a bold new book, which he believes may be one of his most important to date. He sees the devastation that comes when those with prophetic giftings get into error. He recognizes the trap of giving pleasant prophecies just because there is a desire on the part of some Christians to hear them. He identifies the casual habit of giving "words" as "thus saith the Lord" when the words are actually just personal opinionnot the oracles of God.

John Bevere does not call himself a prophet, nor is he "known" in this role in the body of Christ. Yet I believe John is a prophet, often crying in the wilderness just as his namesake John the Baptist.

In this book John is sounding an alarm. He is pointing back to the Scriptures as the measure of what is sound and false prophecy. But he does it without calling names, and what he writes is written in love, unlike some critics who only criticize out of a harsh, hateful spirit in order to tear down rather than build up.

I believe that in the same way an evangelist can stray from his primary call to bring people to repentance, or that a pastor can hurt rather than heal his flock, a prophetic voice can sometimes create havoc in people's lives that wasn't meant to be.

I challenge those who have prophetic giftings from nationally known ministries to local Christians whose giftings open ministry doors in their own local churchto read this book carefully. They need to analyze it to be reminded of what the Scripture says and to see if their own ministries line up exactly with the Word of God.

Pastor Ted Haggard of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado made some excellent points in a recent issue of Ministries Today :