The Prophetic Christ

The Prophetic Christ

a sermon by Don Franklin

June 2007 in Kassel, Germany

I'm going to speak tonight about the prophetic Christ. The first thing I would like you to know is that the Bible says that all may prophesy. That means that everybody in this room if they wanted to, if they were interested, if they desired it could prophesy. Now I don't know how many of you have in the past. Just out of curiosity if any of you have prophesied can you raise your hand? Well, that's quite a few; that's quite a few.

Do you know that even Caiaphas prophesied - the high priest - and he wasn't even part of the church, and yet he prophesied. The basic definition of prophecy, now very basic, is to say something that is inspired by God. Now, I think many of you have said things that were inspired by the Holy Spirit and you just didn't know it. I think many of you have already moved in the gift of what we call prophecy and just were not aware that, that was what you were doing. Because when you say something that is inspired by the Holy Ghost, it is a form of prophecy. So, welcome to the prophetic.

I don't believe that Caiaphas knew that he was prophesying. He said that for the sake of the nation one man must die. That was a prophetic statement. So, if you are a Christian, and you've been born again, that means that the Holy Spirit has regenerated you. You have the Spirit of God in you and it is very natural for the Spirit of God to speak of things to come. So, without knowing it you may already be saying some things that are prophetic. Isn't that wonderful; that wasn't so hard, was it. That is being used in what we call a gift of the Spirit. Now, of course, there are many degrees of being used. And when you begin to reach some of the higher levels it gets really interesting.

Jesus said in John 20:21, "As my Father sent me, so send I you." Jesus moved in the gifts of the Spirit. He would tell people things before they would happen; he would tell people things that they had already done, and he would talk about things that had not yet happened but were going to happen. He knew all those things because the Holy Spirit showed him.

I believe the Holy Spirit in you is probably showing a lot of you things that have happened and will happen. But you might not be aware of it yet that that is actually a gift of the spirit working in you. You really can't separate the gifts of the Spirit from the Spirit. If you've been regenerated by the Holy Ghost, I guarantee you the gifts are in you because they're in the Spirit. Many times you may sense something, or feel something, or know something and not really be aware that you're being given that by the Holy Ghost. And that is the basic gifting of the Holy Spirit working within you.

It is not always a big mystical experience. Have you ever said, "Where is my child? Something's happening with my child. I just feel it; I know it." And you start looking for them and all of a sudden you find them and they are ready to fall of an edge of a ditch or run into the street and you catch them just in time. Many times that's the Holy Spirit in you giving you a word of knowledge telling you something that you couldn't know any other way. Now you may call it just a feeling or intuition, but I believe that many times the Holy Spirit is helping you.

You may feel real heavily that you need to call somebody. You say, "I don't know why, but I need to call Arkadi." But you just have this feeling or burden that you need to contact somebody, or pray for somebody or do something. That's the Holy Spirit working in you, and whether you want to call it that or not, it is the gift of the Spirit working in you.

Jesus said, "As my Father sent me, so send I you." Jesus moved in the fullness of the gifts. There are many people alive today who have opened up to the things of the Spirit and are trying to learn all of it that they can and they are moving in some of the very very powerful gifts of revelation.

This started happening to me thirty years ago. I didn't know what was going on. I was in a prayer meeting with about two hundred people and I'd been going there for months. The room got quiet and I felt a heavy heavy anointing of the Spirit on me. And the lady next to me said, "Don, God wants to say something through you." I said, "What?" I said, "No!" But I just kept hearing this little phrase, "My people, my people." I was scared. I was a big strong guy. I think I was twenty-one or twenty-two. But I'll tell you, my knees were shaking and my heart was beating and I was scared to death. I think they waited about three or four minutes for me, and finally I shot out with, "My people, my people, I love you, my people." You would have thought WWII had just ended. They clapped; they cheered; they thought it was fantastic.

That was the first time that I consciously knew that I had been used by the Holy Spirit to say something. It was kind of a scary experience because I was nervous, but it was very exciting and very exhilarating. That was the beginning of the actual visual prophetic coming out of me. Now I think I had heard a lot of things inside before, and I think I had probably said a lot of things that were probably from the Lord, but I didn't know it. That was the first time that I knew that the Holy Spirit was speaking through me.

That was thirty years ago. Since then it's just grown into a river, almost like the Amazon. Prophecy and dreams and visions and things like that come to me a lot. They're very normal to me now. I don't think anything about them. I mean, I marvel at them and I respect them and they're wonderful, but they have become commonplace in my life. I don't walk on water. A lot of times my back hurts.

I'm as normal as anyone, but the wonderful power and gift of the Holy Spirit is able to move through me. Why? Because I want Him to; I'm open to him; I'm willing to learn; I'm willing to be corrected; I've made a lot of mistakes trying to hear God. I thought, "Well, that must be God," and I would try to do something, and then I'd feel real bad at times if it wasn't. Sometimes the enemy would trick me. I was so eager to learn. And sometimes I'd feel real bad, "But at least," I'd say, "I'm trying."

When a baby learns to walk how many times does he fall down? Hundreds! When we are trying to learn to move with God and walk with God, are we going to fall down a little bit? Yes; it's not the end of the world. I'll tell you what, it keeps you humble. You don't get all puffed up saying, "I hear from God."

It got to the point where it kept growing in my life, and I began to realize it was more than just being used in a gift. And then I found out that God still uses the office of the prophet in the New Testament and that really scared me! I thought, "Oh, my goodness; what is this?" The more I read the more I could see that it was in the New Testament.

I had all crazy ideas of what it would be like, but I found out it is very normal; believe it or not it is. You have pastors; you have evangelists; they're not from outer space. You have men like me that hear from God and are used in some of these gifts. I don't come from Mars.

The gifts of God when they operate are wonderful. Now there are always crooked and crazy evangelists. There are bad representative of every office in the church. We don't throw pastors out because we've had some bad ones. We don't do away with some evangelists because we've had some bad ones. And there have been some people who have misrepresented the prophetic, but we should not let that stop us from developing the office and allowing it to function in the New Testament church under the supervision of the leadership in complete submission to the church, out in the open in the public, nothing hidden, nothing behind the scenes.

Jesus said these things were not done in a corner. They're out in the open in the broad daylight. And the bible says that you are supposed to judge prophecies. You have the Spirit of God within you. He will witness to you whether something is right or wrong. So, I feel that everything that I prophesy or that anyone else does prophesy should be judged by the pastors and the leaders of the church and by the Body itself. And if you do not think it is from the Lord, then simply don't receive it, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water. There's a lot of good things that we can receive from the Lord through these gifts.

When Jesus came and he did his ministry here on earth, we know of him as the suffering Christ. We know of him as the healing Christ, the forgiving Christ, Jesus the intercessor who prayed all night, the saving Christ the one who saves our soul, but he was also the prophetic Christ. And he said, "As my Father sent me, so send I you." So we're going to do a little bit of suffering; God's going to use us in some healing; we're going to forgive one another as we go; we're going to do a lot of intercession and prayer; we're going to go out and save the lost - bring them to Christ, and if you so desire you can move in the gifts of the Spirit and also prophesy.

The bible says all prophesy. It does not say that all will be prophets, but that all may be used in the gift of prophecy. So if you would like to be involved in that or learn about it, it is available to you.

(John 4:15) - the woman at the well. Jesus was moving in a word of knowledge there. He knew that she had already had five husbands. And you know if we can learn to cooperative with God in these gifts, what I want to point out here is the value of being used in a gift. Because he could tell her that she had, had five husbands, she was so impressed she went and got everybody and said, "You have to come hear this man who told me everything I've done." This not only resulted in her salvation, but the salvation of a lot of people there.

Whenever Jesus healed anybody, a lot of people got saved when they witnessed that. The same thing can happen when you move in the gifts of the Spirit. People can be so drawn to what happens that they can receive salvation. So the real purpose of the gifts number one, it is to edify the church. The bible says that prophecy is given for edification, comfort, to build up the saints; it is also given to bring the lost to Christ.

Prophecy is like a double-edged sword. We can help the church and we can bring the lost to Him. That's the purpose of the gifts. It's not to make us look like a big shot. It's given to edify the church and to help bring in the harvest. And when the gifts of the Spirit are used that way they are a tremendous blessing.

(John 1:45 - 49) Isn't that amazing. Jesus saw Nathaniel under a tree and he was so impressed at the gift of God that was working in Christ, that he said, "You must be the Son of God, " and he got converted and became one of the twelve disciples. How amazing! Jesus saw a picture of Nathaniel before he met him, and then he told him what he saw.

I know people who do that all the time. I am friends with some of the prophetic people in America and sometimes they'll call me up, they'll tell me where I went. One guy told me eleven things; he told me eleven things I did the day before. Let me tell you, he made a believer out of me. He said, "Have you been to a music store? I said, "Yes." He said, "Where you looking at a keyboard?" I was! "Yes." He said, "God's going to give it to you." Things like that; it gets used on me, too. Good and bad.

I had one guy call me and he said, "God is sick of your excuses." I swear. I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "He wants you in Europe, and he's sick of your excuses!" This is before I came to your country the first time. I said, "If you only knew how hard it was." And he said, "God doesn't care; he told you to go to Germany, and you haven't done it." And he said, "It's not going to get any better until you obey." That was a word of knowledge, but I'm telling you that helped me make the decision to come. You like that don't you.

It was actually a word from the Lord from another prophet who had established credibility with me. I'd heard from him many times and he was accurate. So I knew that when he told me God was fed up with my excuses that it was real, so that helped me to come here. That's how a gift of a Spirit can help. Since I have come here to get to be with you and know you, and I've laid hands on you and prayed for you, people are coming to me and telling me things. One of your young men, a guy named Sergej - the one who is from Russia - he came to us the other night and he said, "Do you remember when you prayed for me the first time you were here?" And I said, "No." He said, "Well, you prophesied to me about dreams and visions and I never had those before, but I had one the other night. I had a dream and in this dream I was told that in ten days on June 1st that a friend of mine would do certain things." And he said that exactly ten days later on June 1st, his friend did those things; and he said, "I want more."

So, I prayed for him right in the hallway and I felt the prophetic anointing hit him, and I started to prophesy to him. And I said, "Sergej, you're going to start seeing things and you're going to start prophesying about them." I said, "I believe by the next time I see you, you're going to be giving prophetic words." Hallelujah. Here's a young man being equipped to move in the gifts of God.

It was a gift of God that helped me come here. I might have gotten here anyway, but I'm telling you, it sure helped. So now young Sergej is beginning to learn about these things. I'm so excited. He's so happy. I'm glad that I came because my reward is helping you, is seeing you start to do things that are beneficial to the kingdom of God. I've been sent to equip you, to train you, to teach you, to be your councilor and friend in these things. And it is a joy to see God using me to help the church.

I want to tell you a little story about how God has developed me some. I was sleeping one night minding my own business and all of a sudden I got yanked right up out of bed wide awake. It was two o'clock in the morning. I was sitting straight up in bed like it was twelve o'clock in the afternoon wide awake. I heard a voice say to me, "Prophesy into your tape recorder." Because I get so many things, I usually keep a tape recorder close to me. And I sat there and I went, "No!" I went back to sleep. I said, "That is crazy! I'm not doing that!" So I went back to sleep.

Guess what happened the next night; talk about the next night - two o'clock in the morning, exactly, exactly two o'clock in the morning. It was like somebody grabbed both of my arms, yanked me straight up in bed and I'm wide awake! Not even a bit sleepy. And a voice goes, "Prophesy into the tape recorder."

I grabbed that thing and started speaking in tongues! And I gave this big long prophecy into my tape recorder. You want to guess who it was for? The pastor of our ten thousand seat church. I didn't want to give it to him. I was intimidated, you know. He's a very important fellow, a very important man. He could squish me like a bug. He sat on the board of ministries like Oral Roberts. Do you know Pastor Cho in Korea? He sits on his board. He's an executive presbyter of the United States in the A/G; there's only seventeen of them.

So, I have this prophecy and the prophecy says, "The Lord is saying, you're going to go to Russia and you're going to bring the House of Romanoff to me. You're going to go to England and you will bring the House of Windsor to me. You're going to go to the kings of the Middle East and bring them to me. You will go to the White House and meet the president." It went on with a few other wonderful things.

And so, I had to take this thing to his wife, I'm going, "Here." I said, "They're going to kill me." So a couple of days later his wife got back to me and she says, "Don, I don't think so." That's what she said; that was great to hear. But you want to know what... about two months after that there was a man in America called Gerald Derstine; he called Pastor up and he said, "You are going to the Middle East with me, and I watched that man drag Karl Strader to the Middle East, and Pastor Strader didn't want to go. But he knew he had to. I could see it on his face. It was not something he wanted to do, but he went and they met a lot of the Arab leaders in the Middle East and they spoke to them and they prayed with them.

Three months after that he had a surprise trip to Russia; he went to Russia. And I don't know all of what happened there, but they went to Moscow and different cities and ministered. I was starting to get excited. That's fifty percent; that's not bad. And then he got invited to England; he and his wife went to England. They went to Buckingham palace. They met the queen. I'm thinking, "Three down; one to go." The prophecy said that he would go to Russia, he would go to the Middle East, he would go to the English - to the House of Windsor - and he would go to the White House. I guess I'm all right, you know? Guess what? He didn't go to the White House... and I went, "Oh, no." Then his wife came and told me, "Don, we got invited to the White House, but we turned down the invitation!" I said, "That's good enough; that's good enough!"

When you go through times like that, it's nerve racking. I'm a very cowardly prophet. I'm very careful. I don't think that I am infallible. I don't feel as though I could never make a mistake. I pray that other people will be more careful with the prophetic. And I think that as long as we have an attitude that we are not perfect, and that we could make mistakes if we're not careful, that we can do a good job with the prophetic.

So, that's why I tell you, if I prophesy to you, you take it to your leaders and you pray about it and if you're really not comfortable with it, you don't have to accept it. The Bible says that we can judge prophecy and I think that's wisdom. I have striven in my life to be very responsible and very cautious with the prophetic gifting. And I think as long as we carry that attitude about any of the gifts that we can safely move in them and use them. I've always stayed under church authority. I've always been submissive to my pastors and leadership. I always felt there was safety in submission and I think that is God's ordained method of allowing the gifts to operate properly.

It's when you get somebody that has a know-it-all attitude and will not submit to church authority, and thinks that God has spoken to them and everybody needs to listen to them that we start to get in trouble. But I think that if you stay within the fellowship of the church and you're teachable and you're trainable, I think you'll do fine if you want to learn how to use these gifts.

Let me make something very, very clear. There are no second class Christians. Whether you move in a gift or you don't move in a gift makes no difference at all to the Lord. He loves all of us incredibly. If anything, I think that people who move in the prophetic should be on their hands and knees washing the feet of the saints. Be an example of kindness and humility; you know better than anybody else. Just because a gift operates through you, your main responsibility is to be an example of love, and of kindness and of humility.

I think that is the main key to remaining safe when you're working with the gifts of the Spirit. Keep your Christian character number one. Serve your brothers and sisters; mop the floors; get right in there with everybody else and do what everybody else does; stay in submission to your leadership, and then I believe the gifts of God will flow through you like a river and that you will be safe and everybody around you will be safe. There are no big "I's" in God's kingdom. We are called to serve one another in love. The higher you rise in gifting and in position the more love and kindness and service you should show.

When I was training prophetic people in America - we had a little group and we tried to train them in the prophetic - they were so excited. They would come into the room and the first thing I would do is say, "So, you want to learn to prophesy? You want to learn to move in the gifts right?" And they would go, "Yea!" I would hand them a toilet brush and I would say, "Go clean the restrooms; that's your first lesson. If you want to prophesy, you're going to serve this church; And you're going to get on your hands and knees and you're going to wash floors, you're going to clean restrooms, you're going to hold car washes, and then we're going to talk about moving in the gifts." I said, "Your scepter is a brush - symbolic of humility." Jesus came to wash our feet, and that is where leadership belongs - washing the feet of the saints, serving the church, and then we'll talk about gifting.

(Matthew 24: 1 & 2) This is where Jesus was working with a word of knowledge about the future. He already knew that temple was going to be knocked down, and so he was telling them what he had heard or seen inside. Jesus said, "I do nothing, unless the Father shows me." So, the Father had shown him the temple would be destroyed. This is an example of prophesying a future event, and if Jesus did things like this, and the Father showed him, then the Father will be showing some of us things that are to come.

That is how the gifts of the Spirit are operating. I believe that they are available to everyone of us today and I believe that if you are interested that God will use anyone of you in them. I believe that the hallmark of a real individual in the church in leadership, once again, is to serve. We're called to serve the body and to be an example of humility, kindness and love and service to the saints. And as you're going through the rest of your life and you see people who are being used in the gifts, be sure that you judge very carefully what they are saying.

I'll tell you one of the things that impressed me so much about Suzette Hattingh, she has a worldwide ministry. She travels all over the planet now. She's very big, and yet I don't sense any arrogance about her. I had the privilege of sitting across from her at dinner and chatting with her and I just fell in love with her spirit. I saw kindness in her when she talked to that crippled child; I saw the love of God and tenderness in her. And when somebody was speaking, she leaned over and started interpreting for me. It was so kind of her to lean over and start explaining to me what was going on. She didn't have that haughtiness of a big leader.

In the coming days if you're going to listen to somebody and you're going to learn from them, if I were you, I would find people of that kind of character to listen to. There's a lot of people out there in all of the ministries that even if they're saying the right things at times, I think they're lacking in some of those areas. I believe that gentleness, meekness and humility in the vessels that are ministering are going to insure a higher degree of accuracy. So, try to find those prophetic ministries out there that you feel that those virtues are in and try to learn as much as you can from them.

Take all of the revelation that you get to God; ask him to show you if it's true or not. The Bible says that everyone of us has the Holy Spirit in us. He is the Spirit of truth, and he will witness to you what is right and what is wrong. That's the way I had to learn and that is the way you will have to learn about the things of God, too. Amen.