Why does the prophet know my name and phone number? Part II

By Bishop Dave Chikosi

The Dinner Bell Concept

When I was in boarding school at Old Umtali, the practice at dinner time was for dining hall staff to ring a bell. O how elated we would become to hear the precious sound of that bell. Students would come out from every nook and cranny running at breakneck speed. The authorities knew that the quickest and most efficient way to get everyone to the dining hall was to ring the dinner bell.

The Kingdom of God works in a similar way. The Authority in heaven knows that the quickest way to get people to the table of Eternal Life is to ring the bell of supernatural manifestations of the Spirit. The dinner bell of miracles, signs and wonders always catches the attention of the spiritually hungry and draws them, even as the dinner bell at my school caught our attention and caused us to draw nigh. Without the bell lots of students would miss their dinner.

This is Kingdom strategy. The supernatural elements of Christianity were designed and put in place by God for two reasons. The first reason is that God cannot help but reach down to earth and miraculously intervene to lift up helpless and broken humanity. Divine compassion dictates that our God do something and move supernaturally on behalf of His creation. He really can’t help it. Divine compassion simply won’t allow Him to turn a blind eye on suffering and dying humanity.

And so the Almighty heals the sick, opens blind eyes, unstops deaf ears, loosens the tongue of the dumb and makes the lame whole. It is said of Jesus that when He saw the multitudes He “was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed their sick” (Matt 14:14). Compassion has been, and always will be, God’s raison d’etre for intervening in the affairs of man. But the real neat thing is that God doesn’t do this work alone. He uses His ministers “working through them, confirming what they say by many miraculous signs” (Mark 16:20) 

But the second reason for the manifestations of the supernatural in Christian ministry is what we are dealing with in this essay, and to this we now turn our attention.

Manifestations of the gifts of the Spirit (there are 9 of them) are given by God to His ministers to act as a dinner bell that summons people to the smorgasbord of His holy Word. As they arrive and sit at the dinner table, the babes in Christ will find the Word of God to be milk to them. The more mature Christians will find it to be strong meat. Some will find it simply as the Bread of Life, while for others it is like water in a dry and thirsty land. For those of us with a sweet tooth, the Word will taste sweeter than honey in a honeycomb. But whatever your type of hunger or thirst the Word will satisfy it all. And the dinner bell is what gets many of us to the Table.

But along with the 9 gifts of the Spirit, God also gave to the Church the “five-fold” ministry gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. The purpose of these 5 offices is “to equip God’s people for works of service, so that the Body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith . . . and become mature” (Eph 4:11-13).

The False Doctrine of Cessationism

“Cessationism” is a false teaching that says the gifts of the Spirit ceased when the last apostle died. Cessationists say that the offices of apostle and prophet were needed to get the Church off the ground. Now that the Church is up and running, these two offices are no longer necessary. They are now closed for business. God shut them down.

But this makes no sense. If these offices were instituted for the purpose of equipping God’s people for works of service, until we all reach unity and maturity, does anyone seriously think that this mission has been accomplished? You have to be delusional to think that the global Church is now united and that believers worldwide have reached the place of spiritual maturity. No, there is still plenty of work to be done. Every one of the five offices is needed. The world needs to know that both the offices of the apostle and prophet are open for Kingdom business. 

Let’s quickly point out that all of the above-mentioned 5 offices come with supernatural manifestations of the Spirit. But our focus in this paper is on just the activities of the prophet. The prophet operates in at least 3 of the 9 gifts. These 3 are called revelation gifts. They are: word of knowledge, word of wisdom and discerning of spirits.

The gift of “word of knowledge” enables the prophet (seer) to see events past and present in people’s lives. The gift of “word of wisdom” enables the prophet to see future events. The gift of “discerning of spirits” enables the prophet to see and distinguish between good and evil spirits, angels and demons.

Prophets Are Not Omniscient

Let me also quickly add that, contrary to what many people think, prophets don’t know everything. They are not omniscient. Only God is omniscient and knows everything. Prophets only know what is revealed to them by the Spirit at that moment. They are not necessarily going to be able to help you identify the pickpocket at a bus terminus – unless the Spirit wills. Nor will they be able to tell the driver why his commuter bus broke down – unless the Spirit reveals it.

They don’t know everything. This is why sometimes in a church service they will ask you to fill in some details. They may get, in a vision,  part of your name, date of birth or phone number, and have you tell the rest. They strictly must not go beyond what is revealed. If they do they quickly become turncoats and spiritual renegades. They move into the realm of sorcery, fortune-telling and witchcraft, a very dangerous place to be. It’s quite a slippery slope, even as the Biblical example of Balaam has taught us. This is why it’s important for them to say no more than what’s revealed to them in a vision. They may say less, but never more than the Spirit reveals

Revelation of Your Personal Details Is Not For You

Our failure to understand the dinner bell concept is what causes many of us to pooh-pooh and dismiss as useless the prophet’s ability to reveal an individual’s personal details in a service. “What the heck was that for?” people ask. “I already know my own name and phone number. Can we move on to something else please?”

O foolish Galatians! Why in the world do you think this revelation is about you? Granted, it’s your name, your address and your phone number that we hear announced over the PA system. But (sorry to burst your bubble) this ain’t about you!  It’s about those people who will not come to the dinner table and commit to a life of faith unless they hear the dinner bell of such demonstrations of the Spirit.

Call them weak in faith, immature or whatever, the point is that they came to the meeting and found Christ after hearing the dinner bell of the supernatural. Hundreds have been converted via this method. The divine Fisherman in heaven knows His fish very well. He designed His fish (you and I) to respond to the bait of the miraculous. And so when your name and phone number is called out stop whining and belly-aching. You should be grateful that God even cared to include you and your personal details in the plan of someone else’s salvation.

How Nathaniel Became A Disciple

The dinner bell method is how a man named Nathaniel became a disciple. One day Jesus sees this honorable, guileless and pedigree-proud Jew approaching. Immediately the Lord began to prophetically reveal to this man his character. Nathaniel is immediately blown away. “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered: “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you” (John 1:48).

You saw me? How? I was in a different location miles away from here. What do you mean you saw me? Well my friend, seers see. Seers, by the grace of God, can see events and people in faraway places. They don’t have to physically travel to those faraway places. They can spirit travel.

The prophet Ezekiel one time felt a Hand grab him by the hair and transport him from Babylon to Jerusalem. His body did not travel: it remained in Babylon. “The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court,” (Ez 8:3). Ezekiel then spends the rest of the chapter describing what he saw in the temple during his “spirit visit” there.

Jesus Goes Microscopic On a Sister

Nathaniel was not the only one to hear Jesus’ dinner bell of the gift of word of knowledge. Jesus also used the same gift on a Samaritan woman who met Him at a well (John 4). The sister had romance issues. Plus she wasn’t living right. When Jesus asked her about her love life, she went smoke and mirrors on Jesus in an attempt to cover up. Jesus, in turn, went microscopic on her prophetically and blew the covers off.

Jesus revealed to her that she had been married and divorced five times, and that she was currently ‘shucking-up’ with a sixth guy. She couldn’t believe her ears. How does this guy know that much about my private business? He must have a gift. And so she ran back into town and told everybody to come see this Prophet. The whole town turned out and heard the Gospel.

This is how the Kingdom works. The revelation of the romantic details of her life was not for her. She already knew how many times she had remarried. No, the revelation was for the sake of others who had never heard the Gospel. It was the dinner bell that Jesus used to get her attention. And once Jesus got her attention, she went back home and got the attention of the whole town. The revelation of a sister’s romantic life got a whole town saved. “How unsearchable are God’s judgments, and His ways past finding out!” (Rom 11:33)

Lost Some Donkeys? Ask the Prophet!

 Some people are of the view that God is too busy running the universe to care about petty things like a person’s people’s address, date of birth etc. And because God doesn’t care, His prophets shouldn’t. Prophets should instead concern themselves with weightier matters of doctrine, nation-building, poverty reduction etc. Why waste time on trivia?

But just who decides what is trivial and what is significant? On what basis? Don’t forget that God often uses “the foolish things of this world to shame the wise” (1 Cor 1:27). He used three lost donkeys to bring together a prophet and the future king of Israel. That future king was Saul. The donkeys that Saul lost belonged to his father Kish.

After searching for the animals in vain, Saul decided to solicit the help of possibly the greatest prophet (seer) to have ever lived. Evidently Saul did not think it inappropriate to ask the prophet Samuel to help him find his three miserable little donkeys! But neither did the prophet Samuel, whose response to Saul’s petition was: “Don’t worry about those donkeys that were lost three days ago, for they have been found. And I am here to tell you that you and your family are the focus of all Israel’s hopes.” (1 Sam 9:20)

“What’s God’s prophet messing with donkeys for? Hasn’t he got something more important to attend to?” But this is where we humans go wrong. We judge by carnal instincts. The point of the story is that even though Saul approached the prophet with an earthly or material concern, God used the occasion to reveal Israel’s next chapter in history. Saul was going to become the next king of Israel.

What led Saul to the throne of Israel? Three silly little donkeys! Saul came looking for donkeys and found a crown. Many have come to prophets looking for answers to existential concerns. They walked away with not just the answer to their concern. They also found Christ in the process.

The Apostle Must Be Turning In His Grave

 The Gospel has been over-intellectualized. The spirit of Delilah has crept into our church pulpits and surreptitiously shaved off Samson’s hair and plucked out his prophetic eyes. Powerless and visionless the church finds herself on a treadmill of man-made tradition and religiosity. We are running very hard but getting nowhere. We have “a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof” (2 Tim 3:5). We seem to be unaware that “the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power” (1 Cor 4:20). 

The Apostle Paul must be turning in his grave. This is not the Gospel he envisaged or preached. He tells us that his own message and preaching “were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Cor 2:4). But today we mock preachers who have demonstrations of the Spirit. We are quick to call them Beelzebub. But isn’t this the same name they called the Master?

Paul made it very clear that the Gospel has not been fully preached until it’s been demonstrated by signs and wonders. He says: “They were convinced by the power of miraculous signs and wonders and by the power of God’s Spirit. In this way, I have fully presented the Good News of Christ from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum (Rom 15:18-19).

Preacher, if you are proclaiming the Gospel with signs following, then you are in good company. You are walking in the footsteps of Jesus, Paul, Peter and the rest of the Apostles. Expect to be persecuted and pilloried, even as they were persecuted and pilloried. Take every attack as a compliment. All that sabre-rattling from the devil and his minions is proof that you are right on cue.

Don’t cave in. Not now. Not ever. Keep ringing the dinner bell of the supernatural. They will come. And as they come give them the Manna from heaven. If you stop ringing the bell, many will go to hell in a hand basket. On your watch.

(The concluding Part 3 of this series will deal with distinctions between true and false prophets. For enquiries, prayers and more info, send me an email at [email protected]. You can also visit my blog at http://davechikosi.blogspot.com. God bless you!)