We’re here at the School of the Prophets this week in Vacaville, California, training and equipping prophets and prophetesses to impact the world with the goodness of God.
ARE PROPHETS THE PROBLEM?
Malachi prophesied about a last day’s move of God when he said, “I will send you Elijah the prophet…he will restore the hearts of fathers to sons and sons to fathers.” We often think of prophetic ministry as foretelling the future or speaking into important world events. This is certainly true. But it is also the responsibility of the prophets to speak into the roots of the destructive nature of humanity, and release the restorative power of God.
THE SOCIAL TWILIGHT ZONE
It’s no secret to most of us that the family structure in America, as well as abroad, is eroding. The sheer volume of children being born out of wedlock is staggering. And as if this wasn’t troubling enough, along comes the legalization of homosexual marriage. Aside from the morality of homosexuality, I am not sure how anyone can rationalize away a child’s need for a mom and a dad! Do you really think children need two dads and no mother, or two moms and no dad? Or worse yet, children need two men, one who thinks he is a woman, or two women, one who thinks she is a man? If you think kids are confused in single parent homes, wait until you experience the social twilight zone that is being spewed onto society!
HELL NO!
Yet in the midst of all of this craziness, there is a promise, a powerful declaration of hope emerging from the backdrop of deep darkness: Elijah is coming! Elijah is coming and He will restore hearts and reconcile families! Shout it from the rooftops! Sing it from the highest mountains! Write it over the doorposts of your house! Elijah is coming to restore hearts, to heal families, to love the hell out of the world!
THE DIVINE X FACTOR
Could this be the ultimate answer? I’m saying is it possible that God’s X-factor is once again His prophetess and prophets? Could they be the catalytic tipping point of our time, the missing link to the Master plan, God’s divine answer to man’s deviant destruction?
I can hear it now. “Kris, you have fallen off the sanity truck! You have lost touch with reality! You are pulling your religious wacko, Jedi mind trick, stuff on us!” I know, I know, but hear me out for a minute. Didn’t God often use the prophets to alter the perverted course of society throughout history? Remember Moses the prophet, and Miriam the prophetess? They led the children of Israel out of slavery. They were the Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King of their day.
DRILLING FOR PROPHETS
How about the prophet Daniel, who spoke into the lives of kings of Babylon and the dictators of Persia, and consequently altered the destiny of two world powers? You know the drill, the list goes on and on. Elijah, Elisha, Deborah, Isaiah, Hosea, and even the reluctant prophet, Jonah: they all had one thing in common. They ALL emerged in the darkest seasons of moral decay, and every one of them became a catalyst to the reformation of society.
The power of this last day Elijah Company of prophets is no longer in their ability to call down fire, as Elijah did under the Old Covenant, but now the full force of his mantle is to be laser focused and divinely directed towards hearts. The message is clear; FATHERS COME HOME TO YOUR FAMILIES, AND CHILDREN BE RECONCILED TO YOUR FATHERS!
THE PROBLEM WITH PRODIGAL PROPHETS
If this is true – if the prophets are God’s X-factor, His divine Amen to the world’s outcry, then two things have to happen: first, prophets and prophetess have to stop playing the “elder brother of the prodigal son role” and start behaving like fathers and mothers. Let me explain. Like the prophets of old, prophetic people are one of God’s most powerful agents of social justice. But UNLIKE the prophets of old who often shifted cultures through the fear of punishment, New Testament prophetic people are called to transform culture from the inside out, turning the HEARTS of the fathers to sons, etc.
The truth is that you might be able to punish people into morality (depending on what definition you use for the word morality), but you can’t punish people into purity. Purity ALWAYS begins with a pure heart.
MASTER CHARGE
Secondly, New Testament prophetic people need to understand that God “gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” We are not pretending that people have no sin, nor are we ignoring the destructive nature of sin in the life of people and society. We are simply applying the payment for sin (the blood of Jesus) to their accounts. In other words, we are saying “Your sin account has been paid for in full. God put your sin on Master Charge. We no longer hold you hostage to this massive debt.”
NOBODY IS SAFE
If ever a people need reconciliation, it’s now! America spends billions of dollars to try to solve the plight of powerless, the perversion of the virtue less, and the oppression of the vicious. At home, our prisons are packed to capacity, our schools have become war zones, and our theaters and malls are shooting galleries. All the while, terrorists are beheading babies, torturing the innocent and toppling countries.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Many Americans are hoping a new president will rescue us, or a shift in political power will save us. But what if God’s answer is His prophets? I am just saying what if, in the midst of this moral decay and social darkness, God is calling for His prophetic people to emerge from obscurity and be His divine X-factor? It’s happened before, so why not here, and why not now?
