Title:  Looking at Preaching Afresh

Part 4:  Preaching involving Prophetic Scriptures

Contents:

Introduction

Part 1: Difficult Prophetic Areas

  1A. End Times Prophecies

  1B. Israel 's Future

Part 2: Bad Uses of Prophecies

  2A. The Bad Fruit of Tunnel Vision

  2B. The Bad Fruit of Distortion

  2C The Bad Fruit of Division

Part 3: Failures of Understanding

  3A. A Question of Interpretation

  3B. Understanding Prophetic Workings

  3C. Difficulty with the Use of the Name, Israel

Part 2: Bad Uses of Prophecies

Whether it is focusing on End Times, Israel, spiritual warfare, angels or the Holy Spirit, focusing on and constantly majoring on one topic detracts from the wider spectrum of teaching needed in the life of the believer and the Church. Here are some of the ‘bad fruits' of such a narrow focusing:

2A. The Bad Fruit of Tunnel Vision

From the outset I would like you to observe a phenomena that is fairly common in church and always has been. It is the person who latches on to a particular doctrine and this becomes almost all-important. You know this happens when a preacher, or ordinary member of the congregation for that matter, keeps on referring to their particular issue. Focusing on any single issue to the exclusion of all others is, I suggest, a clear mark of deception and it is quite common.

Hold this thought before you as you observe people in the Church. The subjects as such are quite legitimate but when you hear them mentioned or prayed about constantly you know that here is someone with, to use an expression of the world, “a bee in their bonnet” and in Scriptural terms and spiritual life, that is not healthy.

The person who is always going on about, for example, Israel or the Last Times has, I suggest, lost focus. Those are common prophetic subjects I have noted over the years that have become ‘key issues'. We're simply focusing on the ‘prophetic' subjects here, but it happens also with non-prophetic subjects as well, I've noted, such as angels or the Holy Spirit. Each one, in themselves, IS an important subject but when they become a focal point you know this person is suffering tunnel vision.

2B. The Bad Fruit of Distortion

Where this happens, we find there are various other negative ‘fruits' that go with this. Once this ‘tunnel vision' sets in, what we find is that such people then spend a lot of time reading those who conform to their viewpoint as if to justify their stand, but are rarely able to quote Scripture to back their position, except out of context. What also happens invariably, therefore, is that this person resorts to verse snatching, taking verses out of the Bible to justify their stance.

Sadly so often what this involves is a distortion of the truth by twisting Scriptures to fit the ‘doctrine' while ignoring other Scriptures or even the general tenure of Scripture, the general big picture sense conveyed (we'll explain this further shortly.)

2C. The Bad Fruit of Division

What also accompanies this is a sense in the person that this doctrine is all-important and is being ignored by large numbers of the church and therefore needs to be brought to the fore by constant references by this person.

Of course the fruit of that is that other people either get fed up with hearing about it, or simply disagree with it, and may well have legitimate disagreements. However what this person's constant references to their theme does then do is create a sense of division in the body. Their insistence on the importance of their theme pushes a challenge to those around them to believe similarly, who are written off if they do not believe similarly.

In these cases, the suggestion to ‘agree to disagree' is rebuffed and there seems an inability in these cases to recognise that there are some doctrines of Scripture that are open to differing viewpoints. We might suggest that this stems from the insecurity of the individual in question, or even simple ignorance.

The very fact that there are differing schools of thought, over a number of such issues, is an indicator that it isn't spelled out as clearly as such people would like to believe. Yet, we find in them, a strong belief that the rest of us are clearly blind, and a crusading, divisive spirit prevails. I have also observed a judgmentalism that sometimes accompanies those who get into this mentality, that seems blind to the truth and to God's blessing on others, who often are the focus of almost a hate tirade – all in the name of truth of course. We may not understand others but the failure to love and disagree amiably seems to have its origins outside the kingdom of God .

Part 3: Failures of Understanding

Behind this tendency that we have been considering are two main failures of understanding and both need addressing. The first is that most Scripture need interpreting and the second is that prophetic Scripture need particular rules of interpretation and any attempts at suggesting fulfilments of prophecies, need particular care.

3A. A Question of Interpretation

The naïve claim that “I'm just quoting Scripture” is just that, a naïve and indeed ignorant defence. The reality is that Scripture needs interpreting and biblical scholars down through the years have formulated a number of rules of interpretation. Those rules of interpretation form article 5 in this series.

The following may be applicable here:

Let Scripture interpret Scripture

•  Understanding of a verse or passage to be checked by meaning of the Bible as a whole.

•  No passage to be interpreted so as to be in conflict with what taught elsewhere.

Interpret a passage in harmony with its context

•  Any particular passage comes in a flow of either history (narrative) or of teaching.

•  We therefore need to ask:

 

•  how does the passage relate to what is before it and what follows it?

•  how does it relate to the rest of the book?

•  how does it relate to the Bible as a whole?

•  how does it relate to the culture and background in which it was written?

Prophecy has its own set of rules

•  Interpret literally as usual, but figuratively where that makes sense

•  Where possible let Scripture interpret prophecy.

Hold those in the back of your mind when we give illustrations later on. Now the big difficulty with prophetic scripture is that it DOES need interpreting and its fulfilment can cause us difficulties.

An example of this is in the different schools of interpretation in respect of the book of Revelation

Taking the specific question of the word to the church in Laodicea , there have been those who suggest that this describes the period of the last days when the love of the church grows cold. The only trouble with this is that when you examine church history, such a description might have been applied at a variety of times. Whether it is past, present or future, we should let it speak as a warning and a challenge to us.

3B. Understanding prophetic workings

a) General Rules for Interpretation

When it comes to understanding the workings of prophecy some further rules apply:

•  Fulfilment may be in instalments, over a period of time

•  Sometimes the prophecy can have a figurative rather than literal fulfilment

•  Sometimes an apparently non-prophecy in the O.T. can be seen by N.T. writers as prophetic

•  Sometimes a prophecy will only be partially fulfilled in one generation, to be completely fulfilled in a later one

•  The N.T. writers see Jesus as fulfilling O.T. prophecies. We therefore need to understand those prophecies.

b) Second Guessing Fulfilment

These are the generally accepted rules of interpretation from biblical scholars, but I believe there is one very important thing to be added which comes out of the observation of personal prophecy over the years:

“Whenever God brings a word about the future it WILL always be fulfilled BUT frequently our attempts to guess how and when it will be fulfilled usually go wide of the mark.”

That statement needs a little clarification. Yes, there will be times when God says, for example, “Next month I will….” and it is clearly seen to be so, but many times the Lord gives more general words of direction or encouragement where a) we are given things to do and b) the timing of the eventual outworking is not specified.

Now I believe there are two reasons why this is so:

1. The Lord's desire is that whatever happens we are brought into a closer relationship with Him

•  Prophecy that is so clear cut can mean we no longer look to the Lord and therefore our relationship with Him is in fact being lessened not deepened.

•  With end-time prophecies, for example, Jesus specifically did not give times and so whatever may be happening at any time in history, the call is for us to remain faithful, however long we have to wait (see Lk 18:8)

2. Much prophecy is conditional on us responding in faith to what the Lord says. The Lord never forces us down a particular path and, although He knows what it is going to take to get us to the end description, we don't.

•  Numerous testimonies abound to confirm this, how the Lord spoke and it was fulfilled but in ways that could not have been foreseen.

•  Some things will be clear and specific but we in our pride or insecurity feel we have to demand clarity and specific answers even when it is not there in Scripture.

3C. Difficulty in use of the Name, Israel

Now I know we have considered the subject of Israel earlier on, but here is a little homework for the Bible reader. Probably no other name appears so often in the Bible (my Concordance software records 1841 times!). We may suggest the following uses of the name:

Now the only contentious one of those uses of the name is the penultimate one, but as you read prophecies, ask yourself, can this mean just the people of that limited land area, or does this mean the wider body of God's people? Happy and enlightened reading!

To return to Part 1 of this article, please CLICK HERE