Good Monday morning (12-27-10),

With the new year looming directly ahead, the newsstands are once again filling up with predictions of what lies ahead for our nation and world in the next year. Psychics make fortunes off the natural curiosities of peoples. Though Christians mostly know better than to mess around with the likes of astrology, we too sometimes turn to our prophets because of our desire to know what tomorrow holds, especially in such uncertain times as these.

Just because I was interested, I did a little snooping around on the net and found huge volumes of prophetic words written for the coming year, mostly dire I might add! One “word” has revival sweeping the globe, the next “word” predicts famine and destruction, while another “word” forecasts amazing prosperity for all. Obviously, they can’t all be right at the same time, and yes, that means most of these “words” are false and not worth listening too.

After my brief excursion into this realm of Christian foretelling, I reminded myself again that we must not design our lives around the predictions or influences of others who deem themselves as “The Oracle of God.” For safeties sake we must recall that each Christian can listen to the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit who resides within all who are born-again.

Often it’s with this quiet voice that God speaks to us; He speaks personal words of exhortation, words of comfort, and also words of warning.

I’m not saying that we should reject bona fide, Spirit led words given by others. These are given at times, and we must listen and obey in such cases. But we also must not be tossed around by the chatter of those who are speaking out of their own very vivid imaginations.

Jesus comforted His disciples by telling them that the Holy Spirit would be given to them in order to, “…guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”

The Holy Spirit will disclose to us what is to come, if and when we need to know it. Sometimes the distraction of knowing tomorrow is not a bit helpful, but sometimes it may be a matter of life and death.

These days, we shouldn’t be impressed just because someone has “words” which foretell impending doom. It doesn’t take much insight to just look around and, by using some common sense, discern that some scary events could lead us all over a cliff. But neither am I impressed by pollyannaish predictions which could serve to lull me into compromise, complacencies and carelessness.

This end-time generation must begin to put first things first by personally learning to hear for themselves the voice of God.

Not that we individually will discover our own path to God; I’m in no way saying that. The path of personal salvation and justification is plainly spelled out in Scripture. But individually we can hear God instruct us in our day to day affairs in things such as where to live or work, or who to marry, and such other things.

I shouldn’t have to rely on the voice of a prophet to tell me whether or not my needs are going to be met. I already know my needs will be met because the Scripture tells me that, “My God will supply all [my] needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

However, there are times as pointed out in Acts 11, when a true warning from God is given by the voice of the prophet. “Now at this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up and began to indicate by the Spirit that there would certainly be a great famine all over the world and this took place in the reign of Claudius.”

Those who heard that prophecy knew the words to be true. They heard the Holy Spirit’s quiet voice which then motivated them to gather up provisions in order to meet the coming need. In this case God supplied every need, because His people took action after they heard the true voice of the Prophet.

This much I know for sure, the world is very glittery and has lots of things to distract our attention away from hearing the Holy Spirit’s quite voice. Our lives are generally so busy that we can’t really be certain about what we should or shouldn’t do. That makes it so easy and tempting to rely on someone else’s insight, their supposed predictive abilities either providing a false sense of dread or comfort.

I’m thinking that in times such as these, we Christians need to more than ever follow the Psalm 91 prescription, which instructs us to dwell in the secret place of the Most High God. From this vantage point nothing can catch us off guard as God delights in telling us what we need know, when we need to know it.

As a result, we are no longer children, tossed here and there by waves of worries and cares, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.

Wayne Witcher

Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Psalm 37:3