{"id":62057,"date":"2023-02-02T07:19:33","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T07:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=62057"},"modified":"2023-02-02T07:19:33","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T07:19:33","slug":"conflicting-prophecies-on-nigeria-understanding-gods-voice-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=62057","title":{"rendered":"‘Conflicting’ prophecies on Nigeria: Understanding God’s voice 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

From: The Preacher<\/strong><\/p>\n

3. The Human Veto to Prophetic Options<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can such negative possibilities emanate from a good God? Can opposite prophecies proceed from the same God? Does He contradict Himself? The answer is in the verses between verse 15 and verse 19, where God shows that whichever of the options becomes a possibility was going to be determined not by His omnipotence but by the lifestyle and choices of the people, whether they would obey Him or rebel. In other words, the power to \u2018fulfil\u2019 any of such prophetic options would not be divine determinism but human prerogatives. In other words, some future (not every future) is a set of undetermined possibilities any of which can be \u2018created\u2019 by the human choice. God respects the choices that earthlings make in their space (1 Samuel 8:4-7; Psalm 115:16), which explains why He once lamented thus over Israel, without interfering,<\/p>\n

https:\/\/everyday.ng\/2023\/01\/conflicting-prophecies-on-nigeria-understanding-gods-voice-1\/<\/p>\n

“O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! (Deuteronomy 5:29).<\/p>\n

Human choices are important in creating some \u2018fulfilments.\u2019 Everybody might not always vote a choice, but a certain critical mass can be a \u2018majority\u2019 in the prophetic parliament that passes a motion for the rest of the land. Everybody might not have turned from their sin, but we can speak of a revival when there is a prominent or reasonable righteous majority.<\/p>\n

Except in cases of divine intervention and a heavenly veto, numbers as well as the authority of thrones and altars, of kings and priests and gatekeepers, can be a significant factor in the fate of a land (Genesis 18:32; Ezekiel 22:30). When Jesus lamented over Jerusalem in Luke 19:41-44, it was not because there was no righteous person in all the land; it was not because everyone had been blind to the season. At least Jesus Himself was there, as well as some of His disciples who understood the times to a certain degree (Acts 1:6-7). Nonetheless, the lamentation became inevitable, and disaster imminent, because the \u2018critical mass\u2019 was blind. When Prophet Jeremiah warned his nation, king after king, about the coming disasters as consequence of persistent national transgressions, himself was part of the land that eventually lived through the woes of which he had warned, as well as such holy younger folks like Daniel and Ezekiel, who later became mighty prophets in exile in their season (Jeremiah 19:10-13). When it is said that a land repents, it does not always mean as in Nineveh where repentance became a national decree and even infants and animals fasted; it could mean a spiritual critical mass of hearts and voices, while there still might be the drunkard somewhere battling his convictions, or the adulteress in some corner awaiting her own encounter.<\/p>\n

Depending on what is at stake and other variables known only to the Divine, sometimes the prophetic critical mass for a land could be as low as ten righteous persons, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:32); or more, as seems to have been the case of Jerusalem in Luke 19:41-44; or much less, as when Daniel and Nehemiah raised their singular voices for their land whose time of divine visitation had come, as verily appears to be the case with the country Nigeria (Ezekiel 22:31; Nehemiah 1:5-11; Daniel 9:1-23).<\/p>\n

4. Prophetic Parts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Apart from the fact that God could confront a people with prophetic possibilities, even opposite possibilities at times, God\u2019s particular message could sometimes be so large that the human agent is able to see and report only a part of it. Paul acknowledged that fact when he remarked that _\u201cwe know in part, and we prophesy in part\u201d_ (1 Corinthians 13:9). By using the collective personal pronoun \u201cwe,\u201d Paul included himself in that handicap, lofty though he was in relation to God and spiritual matters. If the mighty Paul should say so of the class, who then considers themselves so prophetically exceptional as to exclude themselves?<\/p>\n

No one prophet knows it all, no matter how \u2018great\u2019 the prophet. For any prophet to insist that his \u2018part\u2019 to a matter is all there is to the great mind of God on that matter, is not wisdom at all. For any person to think that until God has spoken to them, He has spoken to none on a matter, could be pride disguised as spirituality. About eight years ago, before the present government of a disaster came upon Nigeria, I was in conversation with a brother and stated that intercessors in the country seemed unanimous in their persuasion that Buhari was not God\u2019s perfect choice for the throne. He quickly cut in and said, \u201cI am also an intercessor. God has not told me so. Buhari is the coming Cyrus, to rid the land of corruption.\u201d I gave up. If God had not spoken to him, then God had spoken to none? There could be nothing that God would have said to someone else which God did not say to him? Little me, I probably couldn\u2019t understand his most intimate relationship with the Almighty God.<\/p>\n

Another way to look at the subject of prophetic parts is from the designation of the revelation gifts of the Holy Spirit. One of them is called \u201cthe *WORD* of wisdom\u201d \u2013 just a \u2018word\u2019 (not a sentence, not a book) but merely \u2018a word\u2019 out of the fullness of God\u2019s wisdom; and the other is \u201cthe *WORD* of knowledge\u201d \u2013 just a \u2018word\u2019 out of the fullness of the library of God\u2019s mind (1 Corinthians 12:8). In other words, an entire vision that a prophet gives could be just a \u2018word,\u2019 compared to the vastness of God\u2019s global and eternal purposes. God\u2019s \u2018whole\u2019 is so big that mortal vision cannot comprehend all of it. Each one sees merely a part of it, even though some persons are able to see a larger \u2018part\u2019 than others, depending on their proximity to God and to the matters that they report. The problem is when any prophet insists that their part is the whole. Apart from the fact that some prophecies could be false or even fake (we shall get to the difference later), some of the apparent contradictions in prophetic parts arise from the inability or arrogant unwillingness to hear (and even judge) other parts.<\/p>\n

Let us imagine the mind of God as a big box, as big as a house, one side painted black, and the other half painted white. If we should put a prophet at either end of the great box and ask each of them to report what they see, they will tell of that box relative to where each of them stands. If one should say, \u201cGod has placed before us a white box,\u201d he would be correct. If the one at the other end should say, \u201cGod has placed before us a black box,\u201d he would also be right. They would appear to have contradicted themselves, but each prophet has merely spoken their \u2018part\u2019 of a very large \u2018whole.\u2019 The contradiction is not inherent in the nature of God but in the limitations of the human vessels. The complete picture would be in the mature alignment of the parts and the interpretation thereof, which is where sometimes we also err: the wrong interpretation of a right vision. We shall also shortly get to that question of *perception* and *discernment*.<\/p>\n

Whereas it is possible for some prophetic reporter to see only the \u2018black\u2019 side, or only their \u2018white\u2019 \u2018part\u2019 of a big matter, some Moses could stand at a privileged vantage point where he is able to see more widely than others about that matter, and be able to say, \u201cBehold before you this day, life and death, good and evil, blessing and cursing, white and black; but please choose white, so that it will be well with you and with your children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes someone believing themselves to be a prophet, and determined to prophesy, when they have received no message, have bamboozle the house with noises without substance, speaking lofty words couched in King James jargons and esoteric sentences laced with Bible references. Intent to impress their hearers and readers with their prophetic eminence, they confuse all of us with their loud trumpets that give no specific message (1 Corinthians 14:8). After hearing them, you ask yourself, \u201cSo, what\u2019s the message? What has he\/she said?\u201d Those are \u2018part\u2019 of the confusion out there. They are not any \u2018part\u2019 of the wholesome Truth. Later, we shall address how to discern and relate with them.<\/p>\n

\u25aa\ufe0e The Preacher can +2348035115164; +2348035115025;; info@thepreacher.info; http:\/\/thepreacherdiary.com\/; <\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/facebook.com\/www.thepreacher.info\/<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From: The Preacher 3. The Human Veto to Prophetic Options Can such negative possibilities emanate from a good God? Can opposite prophecies proceed from the same God? Does He contradict Himself? The answer is in the verses between verse 15 and verse 19, where God shows that whichever of the options becomes a possibility was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":56922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5772],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}