Interpreting Prophecies
INTERPRETING PROPHECIES
By Rodney W. Francis
Have you ever stopped to think that those prophecies you have had spoken over your life ~ and have not come to pass to your satisfaction ~ may sometimes be the result of the way we try and interpret what has been prophesied over us? In recent times I have had my eyes opened more to how easy it is for us to interpret the wording differently to that which was meant by the Holy Spirit when given. Let me give you an example:
I had an unusual experience of prophecy back in the year 2000 when I was in Northampton, England. A respected Pastor (Gareth Lewis) did an unusual act on me when he ~ quite out of character, and having some fun with me ~ used a small pair of scissors to trim my ear hairs. This happened in the church office. I was quite startled at first to think that someone would even do that to me; however, I felt to relax and let him do it. It turned out to be a prophetic act. When that was done, and we had said our “Good-byes,” I returned to where we were staying, which was upstairs in the church. About half-an-hour later there was a knock on my door and there was Elaine Roberts. She said to me that God had given her a vision and that she needed to share it with me. She then told me how she saw me standing in America, and there was a bright light shining behind me; as the light shone my ears silhouetted and looked huge like Mickey Mouse ears. At the same time the hairs on my ears started to fall off and land on the floor. They did not just land on the floor where I was standing; they fell as though they were being sown like seeds. She went on to tell me (Jean was present too), that I was going to have an office in America and a large Ministry in that country. Elaine had no knowledge of what Pastor Gareth had done to me just half-an-hour before she told me these things! She was not there. These happenings were more than coincidence (no one had ever trimmed my ear hairs publicly or prophesied about ear hairs before or since!), and so I held on to the prophetic word for 12 years, believing that we were going to have a literal office in the USA, etc. After 12 years I felt to do something I had not done before and that was to have an open discussion amongst a group of about 40 people about my then unfulfilled prophecy. As we discussed the matter, one person spoke out and said, “Rodney, have you ever thought that maybe the word ‘office’ was speaking more of a ministry rather than a literal office?” That made me start to think that perhaps there was another way to interpret the prophetic act and prophecy.
The next morning I felt the Holy Spirit ask me to look at our Web Page statistics ~ the part that tells us what countries are looking at it. That was something I did not normally do. When I did that, to my amazement I saw that America had two-and-a-half times more people viewing our Web Page than the second-highest country. Wow! Something is happening in America and God is using The GFM Web Page to fulfil a prophecy He had given me those 12 years previously. Amazingly, since that time, America has risen to up to nine times more people viewing our Web Page than the second-highest countries (which vary). Daily we are receiving mails from America now, and God is using us to touch a lot of people in that nation ~ and we do not even have to leave our home to do it!
RIGHT BELIEVING RELEASES GOD TO FULFIL TRUE PROPHECIES!
It seemed that God was using this experience to show me that when I am believing for a prophecy to be fulfilled ~ and I’m believing it to be fulfilled in a different way than He intended, that it was actually being a blockage in the spirit to its having a fuller impact ~ for as soon as I ‘saw’ that the word ‘office’ was not as I thought, it was like that released the Holy Spirit to step in and start fulfilling the prophecy more. I say this because from the time I looked at the statistics, they immediately began to grow and grow!
If you are aware of an unfulfilled prophetic word for your life, then let me encourage you to listen to, or read it again and see if your mind is interpreting some of the wording in a different way than originally intended? Today a lot of our English words have a very different meaning to that as when used in the Bible.
Is the prophecy speaking of a literal fulfilment, or is it speaking of a spiritual fulfilment? If, after meditating afresh on your prophetic word(s) you are still unsure, why not submit it to a group of prophetic people and allow them to discuss it with you? It is all well worth it. Less than one year ago we had only a few people in America on our mailing list, and I thought that ‘nothing’ was happening there for this Ministry. But when I obeyed the Holy Spirit and did some checking out, to my amazement we were actually in a growing and now major ministry! The prophetic act that Gareth did and the words that Elaine spoke into my life that day were the Holy Spirit showing me what was to come. But my interpretation and mind-set was limiting God in releasing it like He wanted to.
What I have just shared with you has really challenged me to look at prophetic words in a new way. We cannot trust our minds to interpret correctly that which is prophetic, for the prophet realm is that of the Holy Spirit and not natural man’s thinking. The Bible is quite clear in stating: “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit Who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For ‘who has known the mind of Christ that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:11-16, NKJV). Now I am praying more, “Lord, please help me to interpret correctly what You are saying to me through prophecies.”
I think a lot more Christians would see a lot more prophecies fulfilled concerning their lives if we were to look afresh at what was really spoken ~ and what God was really saying ~ at the time the prophecies were given. The giving of prophetic words is a large part of New Covenant Christianity and it is sad when the prophetic is disregarded as irrelevant or untrue, when in actual fact it can be the way we have interpreted what was spoken over us. The end result of that can only be disappointment and even our not entering into all that which God has for us. It is God Himself Who has ordained that prophecy should be flowing in the midst of His people. We are told that “the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit (“advantage”) of all” (1 Corinthians 12:7); “not to despise prophecies” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-24); and Paul certainly warned Timothy to remember the prophetic words that were spoken over his life, so that he would receive the benefits of what prophecies are given for (1 Timothy 1:18-20). (See my book, “It’s Time To Prophesy!!”). May God bless you as you rethink, discuss and pray through any unfulfilled prophecies in your life.
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