OT Seers Samuel, Gad, Iddo, Hanani, Asaph, Jehu and Jeduthun were all described in the bible as seers. While they weren’t the only ones, these all had higher positions of access to Kings. In those days the king had these seers in their courts. They occupied a cabinet-like position, which gave them access to the king so he might get godly counsel and have the Lord’s opinion on things revealed to him. David had Gad and Asaph as seers. Asa had Hanani and King Hezekiah had Jeduthun. Like I mentioned earlier, it would be wise if the kings listened and took heed to the revelation of these seers, but unfortunately for some of them, they didn’t. We will not dwell on the reasons kings didn’t listen or heed the insights of these seers/prophets right now. That is an entirely different topic. But I believe the leader who doesn’t heed the counsel of the prophets will not succeed in fulfilling the Lord’s purposes for his life. While leaders may outwardly appear immensely successful with large & influential ministries, what if they end their life and stand before the Lord and discover they never fulfilled God’s specific assignment for them? In one of his books, Kenneth Hagin, Sr. recounts how after leading a successful church for 15 years, the Lord revealed to Him that leading that church was never his calling from the Lord! That is one shock we can all do without. What a terrible thing it would be to finish the course of this life only to find at the judgment of the righteous (Rom 14:10-12,2 Cor 5:10) we failed accomplishing our purpose because we were running the wrong race, though it was the race of our choosing. This is the most compelling reason to pay attention to the words and revelations of prophets.
What Seers Do They hear the audible voice of God; never let one of his words fall to the ground; have visions and dreams; trances; get caught up in the Spirit; see, hear, taste, feel and touch things by the Spirit; see angels, demons and discern spirits as well as interpret numerous signs and wonders in heavens and on earth. Similar and peculiar In the Old Testament we see in several different places where the seer and prophet are referred to as another way of describing the prophetic ministry; 2 Kings 17:13-14 Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah, through all His prophets and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments, My statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through My servants the prophets.”14However, they did not listen, but stiffened their neck like their fathers, who did not believe in the LORD their God. Just as people are all different and unique and have different temperament and gift-mixes, so also are the prophets and seers. In the same way that we know some folks have different blood types, body shapes, personalities and dispositions, we also see that believers operating in the prophetic gifts have differences as well. Some have dreams. Some see pictures, numbers and colors when they pray for people. Others get information like names and addresses. Some have a few of these in operation in their life while others have many. Let me stop a second and mention something about spiritual gifts; I feel we limit God’s operation and manifestation in our life based on our knowledge of the scripture or the level of our faith or a poverty mentality. For example, if we were taught in a cessationist church that 1 Corinthians 12:30, “Do all speak in tongues?” was implying that “tongues aren’t for everybody”, then you might think it isn’t for you. But this is exactly the opposite of the entire context of what the passages in chapters 12,13&14 say in totality. There is another favorite passage that cessationists use that is in 1 Corinthians 13:8 that says, “Tongues will cease”. While it is speaking things concerning love, it basically says love lives on and never fails, that it transcends even our life of faith and exercise of spiritual gifts here on earth, that it excels over all these things. Love is excellent! The bottom line is it wasn’t implying tongues are valueless, but instead it says that we all these gifts here, but love lasts after death. And also in heaven there is no need for healing or power gifts anyway. But as long as we live on the earth, faith for and the exercise of the gifts of the Holy Spirit are absolutely indispensable! JESUS said in Luke 18:8 “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” This is what pleases God-the exercise of faith in Him! (Heb11:6)Ignorance of the truth leads to lack of faith and lack of faith leads to lack of our asking, seeking, knocking. There is really no scripture limiting the number of gifts you can have or how powerfully or often you can operate in all of them. Who said you can’t have ALL the gifts of the Spirit and ALL the fruits of the Spirit? The only thing that would limit us is unbelief. John 3:34 “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.” So you can have what you believe and have faith for. Some seers feel sensations like cold and hot. Others smell demons and sense evil. While all these are different spiritual gifts operating, some people who operate in the prophetic are sometimes just “wired” to be much more sensitive to these things than others. These are not just for ones who have prophetic visions, but some seem to operate in vivid Technicolor as well as black and white! Some have all of the above and more and for that reason we will call them “seers”. Seers are prophetic and if they are actively training and equipping others can be relatively non-flaky, normal folks. Yet seers see, hear, and perceive revelation in unique and varied ways. To be continued… |
AuthorPastor Marc Lawson Archives
July 2018
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