Preach the Word

Preach the Word

I was once given a prophecy directly from the Word of God

2 Timothy 4:1-5 (NIV)

“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge:

Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”

Given that, at that time, I had rarely stood before any church and spoken at all, let alone preached, this word came as a bit of a shock. The lady who gave me this word is a respected prophet in her own right and I have known her now for somewhere around 5 years. She said that God had first brought me to her remembrance, and then He had given her a definite instruction to speak these words to me as a prophecy.

So, what is the point I am making? The Lord has been taking me on a bit of a journey these last three to four years. He birthed my own prophetic ministry in October 2007 and I have learned a little bit of the art of oratory – a tiny little bit. Now, the Lord seems to be drawing me in from the wilderness, if that is where I have been, and He seems to be taking me on a completely new, totally unexpected adventure in which He is showing me speaking quite a lot and ministering even more than I do now.

The point is this – If the Lord can use someone like me to speak, to prophesy, to do all the Great Commission things, then He can and WILL use you too. I am not a particularly learned man. I have not been to any Bible School. I have not learned or even read about homiletics. In fact I have only been in serious ministry since I was 64 years of age. Oh – I have a reasonable intelligence and I seem to have a penchant for writing and communication, but unlike so many of my contemporaries, my own peer group, I have little or no book learning. I have a very little experience of prophecy, healing, and deliverance ministry and prophetically, I believe I am regarded as accurate, but in the worlds eyes, I am superbly unqualified to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Actually, I am probably totally unqualified in most of the Church’s eyes too and yet the Lord not only uses me now, but He has said through His prophets that He is going to use me much more in the near future. Believe me, I am praying earnestly about all of this because not only do I believe His prophecies, but I know He qill equip me too. Isn’t that the key? “Whom the Lord chooses, He uses and whom He uses, He qualifies and equips.”

So let me encourage those among you who have been called but who, perhaps, have yet to step out in faith. If the Lord has chosen you to preach His wonderful Gospel of Jesus Christ – then He will also surely qualify you, and equip you for the job He has called you to do. Better still, don’t go looking for the opportunity for it will equally surely come your way. All we need to do is to pray and claim the promises He has made to us. After all, God is neither a liar, nor is He any mans debtor and He will provide for you to do everything that He asks of you.

Mark 16:15-18 "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."