prophets

Israel’s new ‘School for Prophets’

Posted on December 4, 2012 by elizabethprata

Well, this is pretty interesting. Times of Israel reports,

Prophecy 101: Now in Tel Aviv
School in Tel Aviv aims to teach anyone to be a prophet
“Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos were naturals to the world of prophesy, but today’s budding conduits to the heavens will soon be able to learn the art of forecasting in the classroom, at a new school opening up in Tel Aviv. Named after Cain and Abel, the new institute’s goal is to “give the young generation of prophets” tools and guidance on their way to the truth. Set in the heart of Tel Aviv, Shmuel Portman Hapartzi — a self-named messianic Chabad follower — hopes to teach people all they need to know to become prophets of the Jewish people, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Monday. Official Chabad has criticized the initiative.”

Yedioth Net also reports,

School of prophets opens in Tel Aviv
New course aims to train next generation of Jewish prophets for first time since days of Second Temple
“In biblical times they could be found on every street corner, preaching God’s word to sinners in a rumbling voice and shining eyes. A new course opening this week aims to restore passed glory and train the next generations of Jewish prophets – for the first time since the days of the Second Temple.”

The article continues and several paragraphs later I found a very telling paragraph. There are two statements in it that are at odds with each other but are each interesting in their own way. First,

“But Rabbi Shmuel Portman Hapartzi, founder of the school of prophets, who says he is affiliated with Chabad’s messianic stream, believes that the generation of redemption has already arrived and that prophecies are permitted again. … “Our generation has been declared by many as the first generation taking part in the experience of redemption,” Hapartzi explains in an introduction to his curriculum.”

I believe this is a true feeling. Many people around the world feel that we are the last generation. They feel this is the imminent time prior to Jesus returning, or if not a believer in Jesus, the last moments before something happens. What they DO with the information is another thing entirely. See this next sentence from the article:

“The Cain and Abel School of Prophets aims to provide the generation of young prophets with authorized sources to direct their spiritual experiences to way of truth and honesty. So what does one need to know to become a modern prophet? According to the course’s syllabus, the future prophets will learn about face reading, dream interpretation and ways to achieve divine spirit.”

Oy vey.

Man cannot achieve the divine spirit unless he repents, and believes on Jesus Christ as the resurrected lamb slain for our sins. And no one can become a prophet. God calls them. Each prophet in the Old Testament and John the Baptist who spanned the last moments before the New Testament came in, was called by God.

Amos, for example, wrote, “But the LORD took me from following the flock and the LORD said to me, ‘Go prophesy to My people Israel.'” (Amos 7:15). Amos was not a professional prophet, like so many were in his day. The professionals would proclaim oracles “from God” for profit, or claim to divine the future- for a fee. Most were false prophets who just proclaimed what the people wanted to hear (Jeremiah 6:13-14). The School for Prophets in Tel Aviv sounds like a breeding ground for the professional prophets who go around saying stuff for a fee. Unless any of them are called by God and taught by God, they will be false prophets.

“Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.” (Jeremiah 14:14).

However I want to go back to the burden the rabbi had to create a school for prophets in the first place. He felt we are the last generation, and wanted to get ready. His preparatory methods are wayward, to be sure. However, many people feel the same pull. They feel the time is near and are beginning to prepare. There is another news article in Israel out today that speaks to this very thing.

Likud hopeful prays on Temple Mount, breaking taboo
“Likud politician Moshe Feiglin on Monday violated the unwritten rule that prohibits Jews from practicing religion on the Temple Mount, as he prayed at the holy site. … Though there is no law against Jews praying on the Temple Mount, for years both Israeli officials and the Islamic Wakf — the religious group in charge of managing the site — have told Jews not to carry out religious ceremonies or prayers at the site, for fear of violence and a potential outbreak of riots.”

Moshe Feiglin (in black jacket, second from right) prays on the Temple Mount, Monday (photo credit: screen capture/Channel 10)

Moshe Feiglin (in black jacket, second from right) prays on the Temple Mount
(photo credit: screen capture/Channel 10)

I wrote about this guy Feiglin a few days ago. He is the one who said the Jews should be building the third temple: “This is just the beginning,’ says Feiglin. ‘Eventually, we will build the temple and fulfill our purpose in this land.’

Did you know that God has partially hardened the hearts of the Jews?

“Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” (Romans 11:25-17)

He did this to make them jealous that he was using the Gentiles to bring the Good News of salvation to the world. (Romans 11:7; Ephesians 3:9; Romans 11:11). He is also doing this because he is building His church. At or after the rapture, He will unharden their heart and they will clamor to renew their covenant with him again. (Ezekiel 39:22, 25-29). This will happen at the conclusion of the Gog Magog war when He supernaturally saves the Jews.

So my question is, is this blip of a heartbeat of wanting their prophets and wanting their temple and wanting to pray the beginning of the unhardening? Could be. Hard telling, not knowing, as the saying goes.

We are blessed to be able to watch these events and ponder our placement here at the last generation. We are even more blessed to be able to watch for the coming of Messiah. If He comes today or next year or if some of us fall asleep in death prior to His coming, it doesn’t matter really. He will come.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)

end time, leonard ravenhill, prophets

Send us prophets!

Posted on March 14, 2012 by elizabethprata

Picture of a Prophet
By Leonard Ravenhill
The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men.

Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, “No man can be fully accepted until he is totally rejected.” The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences. They are his “brand name.”

The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him “Man of the year” when he refers to them as habituates of the synagogue of Satan!

The prophet comes to set up that which is upset. His work is to call into line those who are out of line! He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality. In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin-Sparks once said, “has almost always been that of recovery.”

The prophet is God’s detective seeking for a lost treasure. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him.
He has no price tags.
He is totally “otherworldly.”
He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile.
He marches to another drummer!
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration.
He is a “seer” who comes to lead the blind.
He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a “thus saith
the Lord.”
He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of
impending judgment.
He lives in “splendid isolation.”
He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright.
His message is “repent, be reconciled to God or else…!”
His prophecies are parried.
His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void.
He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead!
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with
epitaphs when dead.
He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few “make the grade” in his class.
He is friendless while living and famous when dead.
He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint
by posterity.
He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of
Life to those who listen.
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years.
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation.
He announces, pronounces, and denounces!
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire.
He talks to men about God.
He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men.
He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing.
He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in
the marketplace.
He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual.
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity.
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.

Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recover its strength, or that we save face over the Watergate affair, or that we find the answer to the ecology problem. We need a God-sent prophet!

I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the “seven years of plenty” are over for us. The “seven years of famine” are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11).

Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. “Come-outers” have “come out” and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival. Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?

GOD’S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history.

There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist.
Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and
stagnant “churchianity.”
Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.
Let him, too, say and live, “This ONE thing I do.”
Let him reject ecclesiastical favors.
Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous,
nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting.
Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move
men to God.
Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has
received the order of the day.
Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the
clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism.
Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision
no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the
wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where
enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.

God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!

bible, dreams, prophets, visions

"And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams"

Posted on September 30, 2011May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

There is a lot of attention being paid these days to a verse from Joel 2:28 and repeated by Peter in Acts 2:17. It says,

The Day of the LORD
“It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions.”

Many people take this to mean that we should accept the dreams and prophecies of everyone these days because these are the latter days and, well, the verse says what it says. But let’s take a close look at several interpretations for better decision-making.

Another interpretation is that it was fulfilled at Pentecost. It was Peter who repeated the prophecy from Joel, and the time was Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus had died and the moment the Holy Spirit came down. But if it was fulfilled at Pentecost, it was fulfilled at Pentecost. However, the verse’s context is the Day of the Lord (judgment), not Pentecost. The full verse is:

It will come about after this
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions.

29“Even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

30“I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth,
Blood, fire and columns of smoke.

31“The sun will be turned into darkness
And the moon into blood
Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.

32“And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD
Will be delivered;
For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
There will be those who escape,
As the LORD has said,
Even among the survivors whom the LORD calls.

At Pentecost, were there wonders in the sky and on the earth? Blood, fire and columns of smoke? Was the sun turned into darkness? And the moon into blood? No.

Now if we take the context, and the verses above the dreams verse and after the dreams verse point to the Day of the Lord, then let’s look at the Day of the Lord.

Got Questions describes it this way– “The phrase “day of the Lord” usually identifies events that take place at the end of history (Isaiah 7:18-25) and is often closely associated with the phrase “that day.” One key to understanding these phrases is to note that they always identify a span of time during which God personally intervenes in history, directly or indirectly, to accomplish some specific aspect His plan.”

It is not just one Day but a span of time, and we are told that span of judgment time will be either 7 or three and a half years (depending again on your interpretation of the Tribulation period). (Dan 9:27). The Joel verse begins by saying “After this”. After what? The day of the Lord. So the dreaming and prophesying is not during the Tribulation but after: the Millennium period. Further, the prophecy speaks of survivors.

Finally, some people say that the dreaming and prophesying began at Pentecost and continues through the Tribulation, that it encompasses the entire Church Age period. I discount that interpretation because the entire Church Age period has not been the Day of the Lord. Also, it leaves the canon open for all manner of personal experience to be placed alongside the bible. We do have a kind of Charismatic Chaos going on now as a result of so many people deciding that is what the Joel verse means. People say they are prophets and others say that are having dreams and their experience is placed not only alongside but higher than the bible itself. Phil Johnson recounts the chaos that results when this happens: “They speak of Scripture as the “dead letter,” compared to their modern prophecies, which they believe are “fresh and living words” from God. So they have effectively subjugated Scripture to questionable phenomena.”

No, I believe the context of the verse shows us that the dreaming and prophesying will occur after the Tribulation, after the time when the sun was darkened and the pillars of fire came. After the survivors whom the LORD calls. After The Day. Not now.

Besides, why rely on dreams and prophesies of some person as proof of Jesus’s work in the world, when their source cannot be 100% guaranteed? And when the bible as source, CAN?
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