Hi, NFJF!

Everything is going well. Kev is on the mend. Still a ways to go but God is so good. Doing better than expected. Thankyou for asking. Just tired and trying to keep up with everything.



This is me on RITA right now...lol

Thank you Benjamin, for clearing up any misconceptions it seemed to have gotten off track a bit. No one is denying that there are no Dreams/Vision for today because there are and I think you clarified that well. There have been Dreams/Visions posted on this site that were truly wonderful which I believe Glorified the Lord. All in All...if it does not Glorify the Lord then that Dream or Vision should be examined and tested, especially now as we are getting closer to the Lords Return for the Powers & Principalities of the air seem to be increasing their activity also, which means that deception is also on the rise even in the Church.

I initially responded to this when I posted.

"I have been troubled by some posts (on various sites, not just RITAN) that almost seem to say that God uses your feelings and your thoughts to provide guidance, even of a prophetic nature. I just cannot reconcile that with the fact that the Lord gave us the Scripture for our learning, for correction, for prophecy - is His Word not sufficient?"

At first I thought Lavoietheway was saying God cannot even do this for an individual believer. However upon doing a more careful reading of the entire thread I see the question really is if God will speak through a "prophet" to the church at large, since we already have scripture. As the thread developed, there was more and more explanation on the need to test the spirit. I apologize for being hasty and missing the overall message.

As some have already explained, I do believe he can speak through prophets today.

Prophecy is speaking words of comfort, exhortation and edification to another person. I believe in addition to "forth telling" prophecy can also "foretell". For example, tell a future event for someone's personal life or something that God would like to do in the church at large . It can also remind or alert us of an event already prophesied by the bible. It must always line up with what scripture say and what scripture reveals about the character of God.

Because, God is relational ( he longs for us and is himself a "Trinity") I suspect he still uses prophecy, even though scripture is complete, so that we can learn to depend on one another, be humbled and relate to each other.

"two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said." 1 Corinthians 4:32
It takes humility to recieve a prophecy from God and humility to have a prophecy you gave be tested and scrutinized.

Also, hearing a prophecy from another believer can confirm to you think God is telling you.

In my other post I wanted to stress balance, that we should neither throw away prophetic revelations nor trust them above scripture. Too often once some people get off balance and begin to trust their experiences over scriptures, there will be a cry to "stick with scriptures" as in don't even consider experience anymore. I believe this also wrong. You can easily become pharisaic if you are overly skeptical of dreams, visions, instruction or moves that actually come from the Holy Spirit. This is equally as dangerous as relying only on your experience. You still resist God and can even grieve him by rejecting a prophecy without even testing it.

Of course I'm 100% for testing the spirits. But because it common for us to go from one extreme to the other, I believe this is why Paul said these words " Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. " 1 Thess. 5:19-20

So, we can have the word and spiritual experience as long as we remember to test all things against the word of God and consult with other mature believers.

"Do not be overrighteous,

neither be overwise—

why destroy yourself?

Do not be overwicked,

and do not be a fool—

why die before your time?

It is good to grasp the one

and not let go of the other.

Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes"

Ecclesiastes 7:16-18