Jim Bakker, not a guy I normally follow, but he does have a large following and he’s getting harder to miss. I’ve seen a lot of good speakers on their youtube channel recently so I stop and watch from time to time (I don’t know anything about the scandals in his life other than they happened). The guests are usually hurried because of the format, but there are some good people getting in some good things every now and then. The Jim Bakker… “corporation” is having their 2015 Prophetic conference right now which has some interesting people in attendance.
While reading about their speakers I was directed to their conference front page and started reading the comments (isn’t the always how these things start) and came across this:
“I wonder why God talks to them? Why doesn’t he talk to people with more authority, like Presidents and rulers of other nations. The message is channeled wrongly. If God wants something done he will have to talk to the right folks. Don’t you agree?”
I’m not going to speak to the telling The Father what to do part…
The question is in reference to the speakers of the conference “talking to God” being mentioned in the description which I think is a… glib way of putting things.
Here was my response:
I don’t think God talks to them specifically. At least not in the manner you might be thinking. You have the same abilities these guys do if you are in Christ. You technically have the same abilities Jesus drew upon during his ministry here on Earth because Christ did all through the Holy Spirit. He didn’t exercise any miracles through his powers as the creator.
These men, hopefully, are dedicated men and start with a solid pursuit of His word. They study foremost, they identify the prophetic patterns throughout the Bible after years of dedicated work, they research eschatological events, and then they can draw parallels between the former times outlined in the Bible and our times today. They use prayer, the most important aspect, to ask God for guidance and deliver those conclusions the best they can.
Everything we need to know is already outlined in the Bible, we just struggle to understand how its going to shape up and we need dedicated pursuit of God to help illuminate it for us. People think that cracking open “the book” isn’t a supernatural affair, but it is. You have to seek Him first before you can be guided. The men above, their involvement in study, research, and preaching is already a Holy Spirit effort, hopefully they are relying on Him to guide their work.
I’m familiar with some of these guys and they seem genuinely motivated by God. However, that doesn’t mean that all of them are going to be 100% right in all things. Obviously, Missler is Pre-Trib, and Wiles and Richardson are Mid or Post-Trib. Does that mean that God isn’t guiding all? Perhaps not. The Harpazo or rapture is purposefully obscured to us by God. So, they will never figure out the right time no matter what. The timing doesn’t matter, the message does.
However, do they all say the same thing about the events in Jesus’ life: is the shed blood the key to salvation? Are their foundational principles the same? Do they all know the nations of the world are going to be judged and can they recognize the methods God uses to pass judgment on a nation? Do they know the warning signs that lead to judgment? I can recognize these things from my own study. Does that qualify me as a prophet? I would think not, but hopefully I would use that knowledge from my study to turn people to the Lord before the great and terrible day of the Lord, which I think is the primary mission of a prophet, and ultimately God with all of these things.
God rarely does this work through national leaders because most of them never make time for him. Pursuit of Him is the key to all things. God can manipulate events so those leaders will shape His plan, but in the end most leaders are selfish and motivated by worldly things and therefore are of little direct use as true instruments of God. They become larger pieces to spur important changes in those seeking God or those not seeking God that should be.
We can get into tin foil hat territory and ask ourselves are national leaders really leading anything? This in turn, depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, leads to asking the question: who is really in charge here? If you study your Bible I think you’ll discover that only the Deceiver controls those men in their day to day actions.
But, we need to remember that no matter how dark things seem to be, no matter how out of control the situation looks, God is directing the entire show, perhaps at more of a distance than we would enjoy (but look how well that served the Jews out of Egypt), but He will turn all the tragedy, all the heartache, all the burdens, and all the sorrows into triumph for His glory.
In modern Christianity there is a such a desire to have The Father talk directly to us. They think He needs to stop the crazy going around on the planet, that He needs to ease the suffering. They feel starved by His seeming inaction in our day to day lives.
But that’s the purpose of life, really.
The Father wants us to seek Him right now. We go on a journey in our lives, swimming up river through a terrible, sinful existence. Hopefully on our journey we learn of Him and accept His son, Yeshua, His earthly incarnation slain and resurrected according to his word, as our savior. We learn of His mercy and His kindness. We learn of his justice too. But we learn to love Him because through that justice we find his greatness and his glory. Hopefully through the trials and tribulations of our journey we’ll see His influence in our lives as we draw closer. His Holiness will become manifest to us and we will come to desire Him, we will come to rely on Him because he is our Lord, our Judge, our Creator, our Father, and our Savior. Eventually, because of the journey, we will be filled with a desire that is as strong for Him as His is for us.
The part that will melt your brain is that he already knew you would do this.
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