(Prophecy) Prophecy in the Old Testament — Zac Poonen

Today we want to continue our study in the subject that we started yesterday, the truth about prophecy. And we want to look at the Old Testament today, what we're going to do is look at the New Testament tomorrow and then on the last day we'll have a time of questions and answers.

So if you remember what I said yesterday, in the Old Testament there were seven words that described the seven ministries that a prophet was supposed to have. Now the only reason we look at that is so that we get a background understanding of what the prophetic ministry was all about.

Now it's very easy if you look up a concordance, you'll discover something that in the Old Testament, prophesying, the word prophesying is mentioned very little, but prophet comes very often. But when you come to the New Testament, you hardly read the word prophet, especially after the Day of Pentecost, where the New Covenant begins, but you read more about prophesying.

And there are hardly any prophets mentioned in the New Testament. This is an amazing thing, that you just need a concordance to discover that, but hundreds of them in the Old Testament. So the emphasis in the New Testament is on prophesying and the ministry, but in the Old Testament it was the person of the prophet.

The Old Covenant Background to Prophetic Ministry

Now whenever people have not understood the New Covenant, like most Christians have not understood the New Covenant at all, they tend to go back to the Old Testament for everything. One of the clearest proofs is that when Christians don't live a life of victory over sin, it's a clear proof that they are back under the Old Covenant, because victory over sin was not promised under the Old Covenant, it's a New Covenant promise.

It's just one example, I could go to many others, but just that much as an introduction. So we look at the Old Testament to provide us a background, because in a sense it's these ministries that should characterize all of us, to a greater or lesser measure.

We saw yesterday that the New Covenant promises that God will pour out His Spirit on all mankind, that includes you and me. It's not on a special person here or a special person there. My dear brothers and sisters, young brothers and sisters, you must seek God with all your heart that the Spirit of God is poured out upon you.

You'll never be able to serve God effectively with Bible knowledge, no matter how much you study the Bible, you can spend a hundred years studying the Bible, you will not be able to serve God if the Spirit of God is not poured out upon you, and you must claim this, that when the Spirit of God is poured out, you, being a son and a daughter of God, will prophesy.

So it's with that in the background that we study the subject, it's not theoretical, nothing in the Bible is meant to be theoretical, it's practical, intensely practical, so everything I say does not apply to some full-time workers or pastors or missionaries, but for every child of God in the New Covenant.

The Seven Ministries of a Prophet

So what were the seven ministries I mentioned yesterday? First, a prophet is a seer. That's mentioned in 1 Samuel 9, verse 18, he was one who could see, because God gave him discernment. We need that today, to see the dangers there are if we go in a particular direction.

And a prophet needs to warn a church about that. And the second word we saw was a mystic or a man with vision, one who is a worshipper, who lives close to God, who sees the glory of God, and because he lives in God's presence, his spiritual faculties are sharpened to see and have vision concerning the future, and therefore he can direct God's people in the right direction.

So these first two words relate to a man's connection with God. And then the third word was a burden-bearer. Prophets carried a burden, a burden which God put upon their heart, and they stuck to that burden till the end of their life, and nobody could remove it.

And when God calls us also, he gives us a particular burden. The fourth word we saw was a herald, or one who proclaims something, and the fifth was one who is a spokesman or a mouthpiece of God. These two relate to speaking forth God's word, and then the last two we saw was a watchman who stands on the wall and watches for the enemy, and the last one was a shepherd.

So all these ministries were there in the ministry of a prophet to a greater or lesser extent, and as we seek to prophesy to a greater or lesser extent, these things must characterize all seven, must be found in us to some extent.

It's not only a pastor who is a shepherd. Even a young 15-year-old wholehearted Christian can be a shepherd to a 7-year-old child. So all these ministries can be found in us. Now we go to the study of the prophets and prophecy in the Old Testament, and I want to show you something that the first two people who prophesied in the Old Testament, the very first two, were Enoch and Noah.

Enoch and Noah: Prophecy Begins With Judgment and Walking With God

Now the prophecy of Enoch is not mentioned in the Old Testament, but it is mentioned in the book of Jude, in verse 14 and 15, where it says about Enoch prophesying the second coming of Christ. In Jude, verse 14 and 15, about Christ coming to judge sinners.

So Enoch spoke about judgment upon the ungodly. Now it's very interesting to see this, that the first prophecy mentioned in Scripture by a man was a prophecy concerning Jude, verse 15, judgment on the ungodly for all their ungodly deeds which they have done in their ungodly ways and the things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

So in Enoch's prophecy, four times he's speaking about ungodly people. Now that is generally speaking the emphasis of all the prophets in the Old Testament and the New Testament. They are hitting out against ungodliness and sin.

Please remember this. The second prophecy is from Noah concerning his son. You know the story where his son Ham came and spoke about his father lying naked, and Noah made a prophecy there in Genesis 9, verse 25, saying, Cursed be Canaan, who was Ham's son.

A servant of servants will he be to his brothers, and blessed be the Lord of Shem and Japheth. And that prophecy was literally fulfilled, showing that Noah was also a prophet. Again, notice this. The prophecy was concerning judgment against sin, the sin of a disrespectful attitude towards his father.

So it's very interesting to see this, that prophecy begins in the Old Testament with this warning to sinners, not to play the fool with God, but that God would judge them severely for sin. The other thing that we notice about both these men, Enoch and Noah, I don't know whether you've noticed it, that both of them walked with God.

It says in Genesis 5, verse 24, that Enoch walked with God. And it says in Genesis 6, verse 9, that Noah walked with God. The first two people who prophesied and who were prophets in the Old Testament were also people who walked with God.

Now that's also significant, that prophecy comes out of a walk with God. This is how prophecy began in the Old Testament, and that's how God intended that it should continue all the way through. That's not, unfortunately, how it's gone.

But if we want to come back to God's original pattern and plan for prophesying, remember it doesn't begin with predicting the future. No, it begins with walking with God. Prophecy is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and we can compare it to a vessel, say a beautiful glass, but the life which the prophet has as a result of his walk with God is what is inside the glass.

So a person can have a fantastic gift of prophecy, it's like a beautiful glass, and if he doesn't have life, it's empty, there's no water in it, it doesn't satisfy the thirst of somebody who is needy, even though the glass is beautiful.

And another person may not have such a fantastic gift of prophecy, but he's got water in the glass, he's got the life of Christ in him, and that man can actually bless people more with an inferior gift of prophecy than the other person with a superior gift of prophecy but who doesn't walk with God.

So that's why these two things must always be balanced, and that's why we see right at the beginning of scripture, the two first prophets walking with God and prophesying. And if you want to do it God's way, that is the way.

And that's what we should look for, first of all, in any person who calls himself a prophet. Do I sense that this man is walking with God? Do I sense that this man is walking with Jesus Christ? Now how do we know?

The more you walk with Christ, the more you become like him. And that is the thing that we should look for. Now having said that, we go to Genesis chapter 20, where we read about the first reference to the word prophet in the Bible.

Abraham, Moses, and the Prophet as God's Spokesman

And there it's God himself saying concerning Abraham, God saying about Abraham, Abraham is a prophet. Again, what do we see? Abraham was a man of faith. He didn't predict the future, but he was a prophet.

So we see that a prophet does not necessarily have to predict the future, but he could be a spokesman for God, speaking forth God's word without necessarily predicting the future. It's very important to see that.

Abraham is called here a prophet. We go now to Exodus chapter 7, verse 1, where we read the second time the word prophet comes in the Bible. And here is where we can really understand what prophet really means.

Because when we think of prophesying, remember this applies to us according to Acts chapter 2, verse 17 and 18, if the Spirit is poured upon us. Here is what it means to prophesy. Here is what it means to be a prophet.

It's interesting, this is not referring to a prophet of God, but a prophet of Moses. Exodus chapter 7, verse 1, the Lord said to Moses, I am going to make you like God to Pharaoh and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.

And there we understand what the meaning of prophet is. You shall speak all that I command you, in other words, he would tell Aaron, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh. So you see, a prophet is someone who is a spokesman for somebody else.

Because Moses went up to God and said, oh, I can't speak God, I don't have any ability, he said that in chapter 4. And God said, okay, Aaron will be your prophet. He will speak, you tell him what to speak.

So what is a prophet? A prophet is not necessarily somebody predicting the future. It's a wrong understanding that a lot of people have, that the only person who is a prophet is someone who predicts the future.

It's someone who is speaking forth on behalf of somebody else. And we'll see that more when we come into the New Testament, where there's very little of predicting the future. 99 of New Testament prophecy relates to speaking forth the word of God, telling people what God is saying, not predicting the future.

A lot of Old Testament prophecy was predicting the future concerning the coming of Christ, concerning the judgment of the nations, etc. But not all. In fact, the greatest prophet of all, do you know who that was in the Old Testament period? Was John the Baptist.

He lived under the old covenant. Remember the new covenant began on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. And up until that time, the greatest prophet, Jesus himself said, born of women, was John the Baptist.

The greatest prophet of all time. He did not predict one thing about the future, but he spoke forth God's word. And what was the message of the greatest prophet of all time? John the Baptist. Repentance.

True and False Prophets: Holiness Rather Than Prosperity

Do you see that? How in the Old Testament began with Enoch preaching to ungodly sinners to repent less God judge them. And ends with John the Baptist preaching repentance to sinners so that they can turn to him.

The burden of the prophets throughout the Old Testament was holiness, holiness, holiness. Not prosperity. Prosperity was promised to the Israelites in the new old covenant. It's not promised to the Christians in the new covenant, but it was promised to the Israelites under the old covenant, but it was contingent on their repenting and turning to God.

And the false prophets were the ones who offered Israel peace and prosperity without their being holy. That's one of the ways we can distinguish a false prophet from a true prophet. A true prophet emphasizes holiness, repentance, turning from sin, God's judgment on ungodliness.

A false prophet emphasizes prosperity and it doesn't really matter how you live. God wants to bless you materially. It's right through the Old Testament. And that's why if we see this clearly in the Old Testament, we'll be protected from the multitudes of false prophets that are roaming around in Christendom today.

Balaam: Accurate Prophecy and the Love of Money

Now let's turn to Numbers chapter 22. What I'm going to do is take you through the Old Testament and show you some of the important things in relation to prophecy that we find in the Old Testament. In Numbers chapter 22, we read of another prophet and this is Balaam.

It's interesting. Balaam was a prophet and if you read his prophecy in Numbers chapter 23 and 24, you know, Balaam, I told you yesterday, predicted the coming of Jesus Christ. You read that in Numbers 24, 17, a star will come from Jacob.

Balaam was a man who predicted the coming of Christ. One of the first prophets in the Old Testament to predict the coming of Christ was a man who went after money. So just because a man says something which is going to be fulfilled, it does not mean he's a man who's accepted by God.

Isaiah predicted the coming of Christ, Balaam predicted the coming of Christ, Isaiah went to heaven, Balaam went to hell. If you needed advice, whom would you go to, Isaiah or Balaam? There are Isaiahs and Balaams in the world today.

Be careful, just because something happens, everything that Balaam said about Israel was true. But notice what it says about him in Numbers chapter 22 and verse 7, when Balaam, the king of Moab, wanted Balaam to come and prophesy against Israel, it says he sent the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian, and notice this, with the fees for divination, divination is another word for witchcraft.

A lot of people who were involved in Old Testament prophesying, the false prophets especially, were very closely linked with witchcraft. They didn't know which spirit was operating on them. You see, it's not just the Holy Spirit who knows about your past life.

The devil knows every detail about your past life. He's got enough demons floating around the world to know the exact details of someone's past life. So someone possessed with a demon could tell you every detail about your past life, not knowing anything about you, and you'd think that man is a prophet.

He's not a prophet, he could be possessed with a demon. In fact, some years ago I read in the newspaper about a small baby born somewhere in North India, and when she began to speak, she spoke, speaking about her past life as an old lady who died in some other part of India the same day when she was born.

And there were people who, she was a Hindu girl, and they said this is the proof of reincarnation, that when a soul dies it's born back into the world, and they said here is the proof. This little girl says every little detail about a thousand miles away where some old lady who died when she was over 80 years old, every little detail of that life.

Now a person who doesn't know about demons and about the devil would be absolutely surprised. And that sounds like a real proof of reincarnation. I mean, as soon as I read it I knew that's just a demon.

A demon got into that girl and knowing all the details of that other person's life, describes it. Now I'm surprised that Christians are fooled by this type of people coming forth and saying something about your past or some detail about your life and you wonder how in the world did that person know.

Don't imagine that that's always from God. So that's just a warning. Divination. The point I want you to notice here is, King knew that if I want to get Balaam to prophesy, I've got to give him money.

Notice how money comes in straight away right at the beginning of the Bible with false prophets. That's why I told you yesterday, it's by a person's attitude to money that you discover whether he's a true prophet or not.

It's a fundamental point. And that's why the early apostles warned people that if a man is interested in money, he can never be a true prophet of God. I have followed that rule literally, totally, and I have never once in my life been deceived or disappointed.

It's absolutely true because Jesus said there are only two masters in the world, Luke 16, 13, God and money. A true prophet serves God, a false prophet is interested in money. And haven't you seen pastors and prophets claiming to be Christians, quoting the Bible, interested in money?

I'm amazed that people who read the Bible can be fooled by such people. Remember, Balaam prophesied everything correctly, including the coming of Christ, but he wanted a salary for his services. And the king knew that.

And when he didn't come first, the king knew, well, if I offer him a higher salary, he will come. And he went with more money. And that's exactly how a lot of people, Christian organizations, are drawing people, well, I'll offer you a higher salary if you don't come for the first salary I offer.

Where did it start? Balaam is the first example of it in the Old Testament. And he was a false prophet. That's not Christianity. Jesus didn't offer a salary to Peter and Paul and Peter and James and John when he called them to serve him.

There's tremendous amount of deception. But if you can keep this one thing in mind, is this guy interested in money, then he's a false prophet. As far as I'm concerned, I would write him off immediately as a false prophet.

So we see, they recognize that, in fact, in the Old Testament, we read another example in the book of Judges, chapter 17, where a man wanted a priest and he said, come and be a priest in my house and I'll give you so much salary, I'll give you a change of clothes and the guy came.

Examples of this in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, Balaam is mentioned a number of times. Peter says in 2 Peter 2 .15 about the madness of Balaam. What is the madness of Balaam? This man who prophesied about the coming of Christ.

His madness was that he ran after money. And it also says, at 2 Peter 2 .15 and 16, in the book of Jude, we read about the error of Balaam. In Revelation 2 .14, we read about the doctrine of Balaam. So we see, Balaam is mentioned in the New Testament as a warning to New Testament people who seek to prophesy.

Testing Signs and Wonders Against the Worship of God

Yes, you can prophesy when the Spirit comes upon you, but remember Balaam. And don't become spiritually mad like he was. Now we go to Deuteronomy chapter 13. In Deuteronomy chapter 13 and verse 2, let's start with verse 1.

If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true. Now you see, as soon as that happens, a sign or a wonder comes true, most Christians would immediately swallow it, provided the man calls himself a Christian.

Now this is not talking about some heathen religion. It says here, arises among you. That means there's a man there who accepts the law of Moses, he was an Israelite worshipping the true God, and he speaks of a sign and a wonder.

Now if a non-Christian man did it, we would all reject him. But what if a Christian came and did a miracle in the name of Jesus, prophesied in the name of Jesus? This is referring to such a case. And gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true concerning which he spoke to you, but he says, let us go after other gods and let us serve them.

You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. I told you there are only two gods, God and money. So when you have a prophet arising among you, saying something and it works, his sign comes true or the miracle takes place or the words he speaks comes true, and then you find he's interested in money, or he tells you how you can make more money, how you can get a better car or a better house, that's another god, that's not what Jesus came.

Jesus came to lead us to worship the true and living God, our Father in heaven. But when he leads you in another direction, remember always this, what Jesus said, there are only two masters in the world, Luke 16, 13, God and money.

Nobody will ask you to serve the devil, Jesus did not say the two masters were God and Satan, that's the mistake we make and that's why we go astray. Babylon, that you read off in the Old Testament, you read chapter 17 and chapter 18 of Revelation together, you find that Babylon is not serving the devil.

Babylon is an economic religious system. Chapter 18 is describing Babylon as an economic system and 17 as a religious system and it's the combination of the two, it's the combination of Christianity plus money that produces Babylon.

Jerusalem, that's why Babylon is called great 11 times in the book of Revelation and Jerusalem is called holy. The true church is holy, it's not rich, it's holy and that's the primary characteristic of true Christianity.

So here we see a prophet leads us to be interested in materialism, in material things and how we can get this and how we can get that and the devil knows that everybody in the world loves money unless Jesus delivers us from it.

You shall not listen to the words of that prophet. How many Christians obey that? Why does God allow such a false prophet to come into the midst of his people? Listen to this. This is the verse that tells us why God permits it.

It's exactly like the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden. Why did God place that tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden? You know the answer, to test. Even Jesus needed to be tested in the wilderness.

How much more you and I. Do you know how God, he tests us through many ways. One of the ways he tests Christians today and he tested the Israelites in the Old Testament was by allowing false prophets to come into their midst to see what are these people really interested in.

Are they interested in me or are they interested in money? So the false prophet comes and it says here in verse 3, the Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul or whether you love the Lord your God in a little corner of your heart and most of your heart is interested in a comfortable life and in money and things like that.

I tell you there's nobody who can find that out in your life like a false prophet. He comes along and he prophesies some material gain for you and God immediately finds out the condition of your heart.

So there we are told Christianity is a supernatural religion. I believe that. We have to experience supernatural answers to prayer in our life, particularly after we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we enter the realm of the supernatural.

But everything supernatural is not from God. Please remember that. And here is an example where it is shown that the miraculous is often used by God to test his people. People who come in the name of Jesus can do miracles, but they may be workers of iniquity as I said yesterday.

Presumptuous Prophecy and the Fear of God

Now we go to Deuteronomy chapter 18 and verse this is speaking about the true prophet in verse 20 and 22. The prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.

A prophet may speak in the name of Jehovah or Yahweh in the name of the Lord. But if he speaks what the Lord has not told him to speak. It was such a serious sin in the Old Testament that the prophet had to be killed.

You couldn't play the fool. You couldn't say, well, I think what I'm saying is from the Lord. There are a whole lot of people today trying to learn how to prophesy. There are a lot of people going around teaching people how to prophesy.

I heard recently of a meeting where people sit together and they are told, whatever comes into your mind, just say it. That's a prophecy. Imagine if you were in the Old Testament, they'd kill you. It's a good thing you're not in the Old Testament.

It says, imagine if a prophet presumptuously seeks to speak in my name saying thus said the Lord, and you say whatever comes into your mind, according to that Old Testament law, you've got to be killed.

You know, the trouble today is God's people don't fear him. I don't believe in saying thus said the Lord, unless it's a word from scripture that I can say. Thus said the Lord, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved.

Sure. We can be absolutely clear when we are quoting scripture, which is the word of God. But if you are presumptuous to say something which God Almighty has not commanded you to say, my brother, sister, you better be careful.

We're supposed to fear God in the New Covenant more than in the Old Covenant. Why? Because we have a greater revelation of God in Christ than they had in the Old Covenant. And so, here is something that should bring a real fear into our heart about presuming to speak something.

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, number of places he says, concerning this matter, I have no commandment from the Lord, but I give my opinion. And at the end of the chapter, in the last verse of 1 Corinthians 7, he says, I think I have the spirit of God.

I would any day trust such a man than all these multitudes of people going around saying that said the Lord humbugs. Be careful, don't be deceived. The other thing we read about a prophet here is verse 22.

You may say in your heart, verse 21, how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? How do we know whether this man, this is a very real question, a lot of people have today. How do I know whether this man is from the Lord or not?

Okay, here's the answer. When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you shall not be afraid of him.

Now you know what that means in practical terms. Now if I say it's going to rain tomorrow, that doesn't make me a prophet. I hope you know that. Or if I say there'll be sunshine day after tomorrow, that doesn't make me a prophet just because the sun shined.

I mean, there's a high degree of probability that might rain tomorrow, sun may shine day after tomorrow. You know, we got to not be deceived by people who say generalized things like that. But the meaning of this is if a man says a hundred things in the name of the Lord, and if one of them does not come to pass, he's a false prophet.

You got it? If one out of the hundred things he said did not come to pass, as far as I'm concerned, he's a totally false prophet. Why do I say that? Every true prophet in the Old Testament, they said so many things.

Think of the things they said concerning Jesus Christ, the prophecies. Every one of them was fulfilled right down to the last detail. There's not a single thing that was not fulfilled. There are verses in the Bible that say that not one thing which the Lord promised was not fulfilled.

Moses was a true prophet. Isaiah was a true prophet. Every single jot and tittle of everything they said was fulfilled. That's the mark of a true prophet. Please remember that. I'm absolutely amazed at the number of Christians who either have not studied the Bible, or they have no respect for the Bible, who just swallow what people say, and imagine that people who say things which are not fulfilled are still true prophets of God.

Be careful about what you say. You know, we can't afford to be in error in prophecy. It's not like the gift of healing. In the gift of healing, if you pray for a hundred people, and one of them only is healed, like in many people with healing ministries, they pray for a hundred people, percentage success rate is about 1%.

One person is healed. Okay. But he's not done any harm to the other 99%. I mean, they didn't get more sick after he prayed for them. Okay, he prayed for a hundred people, one person was healed. Thank God, at least one person was healed.

99 were not healed. But think of prophecy. Supposing a man goes around prophesying to a hundred people. Now, thus said the Lord, you must marry so and so. Or, thus said the Lord, you must leave your job and go here.

Or, thus said the Lord, this is what the Lord is supposed to do. And a hundred cases, 99 times he's wrong. Can you imagine the confusion and chaos and destruction he's brought into 99 of people? It's not in the same category as healing.

In prophecy, you've got to be, the success rate has got to be 100%. It's very, very important. And that's why in the beginning, I would say, stick to the word of God. I'm amazed that so many people who want to prophesy, say, I don't read the Bible carefully.

How in the world can you prophesy if you don't read the scriptures? Here is something which is definitely God's word. Okay, we move on to 1 Samuel chapter 3. Here we read of Samuel as a little boy. You know, it's amazing in the Old Testament, there were little boys who were prophets, there were farmers, there were kings, all types of people and prophets.

Samuel and the Listening Heart of a Prophet

And here we read that in those days, 1 Samuel 3 .1, the word from the Lord was rare and visions of God were infrequent. That means there was no man who was living close enough to God, who was interested in God.

It says in the book of Judges, there was no king in Israel. Everybody did what was right in his own eyes. But in the midst of it, there was this little boy grew up who had a very young age. He began to have a hunger for God.

And the Lord spoke to him and he said, speak, Lord, your servant is listening. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. 1 Samuel 3 .9. This is the attitude of a true prophet. He lives before God's face every day and he's listening, listening, listening, listening.

It says about Jesus in Isaiah 50 verse 4, the Lord God has opened my ear to listen, to listen, to listen every morning, every day God woke him up to listen. This is how a true prophet must be, listening.

And then he says, because I got a word from my father, Isaiah 50 verse 4, I could give a word to the weary person who came across my path that day, who needed that word. You know what a tremendous privilege it is to prophesy like this.

Who knows that tomorrow some weary person and the world is full of weary people may come to you. You may never stand in a pulpit in all your life, but some weary person may come to you. And if you have had the habit of listening, listening, listening, you can be a one who prophesies.

You may not be a prophet or a prophetess, but you can prophesy to that person. What does that mean? Like Aaron spoke what Moses told him, that's what the Hebrew Nabi, which is used in our, some Indian languages too, prophet, speaks forth what God spoke to you.

And that's exactly the word that he needs to encourage him and lift his spirit. I believe all of us can develop this habit. And if we allow the spirit of God to rest upon us and fill us, we can prophesy almost every day of our life.

OK, so we read here of Samuel and one amazing word. I remember this word challenged me tremendously when I was a young man, in my early 20s, and I started preaching God's word. And I read this verse in 1 Samuel 3, 19, where it says, Samuel grew and the Lord was with him.

This is the mark of a person who is listening to God. God is with him. And God did not allow any of Samuel's words to fall to the ground. That means if Samuel spoke 25 words in a sentence to somebody, 25 words.

What's that? One sentence? All 25 words went straight home to the person's heart. My brothers and sisters, that's how we should speak. Let your conversation be always with grace, that you know, Colossians 4, 6, that you know exactly how to give an answer to everyone who comes to you.

I believe that's how we should preach from the pulpit, where not a single word is wasted. Every word goes straight home to people's hearts. Whether you speak for five minutes or 50 minutes, that it must go home to people's hearts.