Hi Scott.
It's interesting that you should post this today/ yesterday, because I have a friend who believes in much the same thing - that prophecy is "not predictive" - and he has been preaching this for many years now. But he related to me a dream he had just the other day, and it reveals where he is actually making his mistake. He has not signed off on this interpretation and likely won't, LoL, but it is precisely what the Lord is and has been trying to get over to him on the matter of prophecy, so I will repost it here. I think it's very telling.
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Assuming, of course, that you had this dream and related it accurately, it shines the light on a particular mistake I think you and others make when it comes to how the gift of prophecy actually operates...
- "I came home on my bicycle with a small bag of shopping, and when I got home I suddenly thought that I had left a much larger bag of shopping back in the supermarket."
Food in dreams and in Biblical symbolism represents various kinds of spiritual food, such as when the Lord told His disciples, "Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season?" The small bag represents what you've been receiving when it comes to the prophetic, and the larger bag represents what you have unfortunately not been receiving. This likely refers to how you receive prophetic words given on the local level but reject the idea that God still speaks prophetically to the nations.
- "So I asked my room mate to borrow his car and looked through the window and saw it was a 1901 vintage car, so I asked my friend if it was operated like a normal car."
Looking through windows is a reference to seeing things from a prophetic point of view, and relates specifically to what I'm sharing with you here. Modes of transportation such as bicycles, cars, buses, planes, etc. represent ministries, with cars representing stronger ministries because you can "transport" more people to a new place spiritually than on a bike. So the message is the same again. You have embraced the bicycle but are unfamiliar with the vintage car. Older cars represent older forms of ministry, and the 1901 vintage car likely corresponds with the Azusa Street Revival of 1901, where prophecy was restored to the New Testament church, and by that I mean predictive prophecy. This is why you are asking in the dream how it works, and if it is "operated like a normal car."
- "Then I realized that all I had was the small bag of shopping and didn't have to panic."
There actually IS no need to panic, but the important point to retain here is that there is a larger bag of spiritual food connected to the prophetic gift, as confirmed by the next sentence:
- "When I turned back to the table I saw a large bag of shopping containing things I had never bought, and I thought I would have to return it back to the supermarket to get it back to its rightful owner."
That there were things in this bag that "you had never bought" is a reference to there being many things about predictive prophecy that you have never subscribed to and didn't believe were of God, so you have sought to "return them," thinking that sort of thing does not belong to you.
- "Then a live weasel came out of the bag, and so I picked up and put it out the door. Then I woke up."
And this is the message of the dream right here. Weasels have a reputation for being sneaky, and they are cunning. They will steal. In this context it means that false prophets will steal from you spiritually, i.e. steal your food. So what you need to do now is "take the weasel out of the bag, and put it out the door." There are indeed spiritual weasels in the modern prophetic movement, Watchman, ones who need to be eliminated from what we receive from God. This is what I do. I'm extremely selective about who I listen to. I can count them on one hand, in fact. But there is a larger grocery bag of genuine spiritual food just sitting there as well, so what you have to do is simply get the weasel out. In essence, the message is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. What you need to do is simply eliminate what is false but keep what is good.
