Bill Johnson - Prophecy 101, How to Discern and Steward the Word of God in Your Life
They prospered according to the prophecy. Is it possible that the prosperity you have longed for was already made available through a word you didn’t value? I’m not talking about palaces and things; I’m talking about the abundance of God in my life that makes me capable of being effective in any environment He puts me in, whether it’s the giving of money, the giving of a prophetic word, or laying hands on the sick. It’s just that prosperity of soul. In Second Chronicles 20, we have this military conflict, and the Lord gives strategy, direction, and plans to the people of God. In verse 20—which is easy to remember, 2020, Clear Vision—so they arose early in the morning and went out to the wilderness of Toccoa. As they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, «Hear me, O Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: believe in the Lord your God and you shall be established; believe His prophets and you shall prosper.»
Okay, now listen carefully; I want you to hear this over and over again in your heart: believe in the Lord your God and you shall be established; believe His prophets and you shall prosper. There’s this crazy idea that has entered much of the Church that because I am a child of God, all I need is Him. I love people; I care for people; I spend my life with people. However, my life essentially depends directly on God speaking to me and caring for me. There’s enough truth to that to keep people in deception. My need to hear from God for myself does not nullify my need for the prophets, and my need for the prophets does not cancel out my need to hear from God for myself. They work in tandem.
The way most of us function, if He only spoke to us directly, we would become independent, using what He said to prove we’re superior. We would argue, proving we’re right and someone else is wrong. When the word comes through community, it affects community, blesses community, and emphasizes our need for one another. The Bible says we are members of one another and uses the physical body to illustrate what it looks like to be joined together. In Acts chapter 2, we won’t go there, but in Acts chapter 2, King David is called a prophet. A prophet is someone who hears directly from the Lord, but when he wanted to build a temple for God, God wouldn’t talk to him. If God is silent, it’s never punishment; it’s either because He has already spoken and you need to review what you’ve heard, or He’s trying to connect you with the right people who will add to your life the missing piece.
It emphasizes connection; it emphasizes the fact that we don’t have it all. The Bible does not say I have the mind of Christ; it says we have the mind of Christ. It says, «Our Father who art in Heaven.» There is something that is gained in the corporate expression that you cannot gain any other way. This excites me. Now, the Healing Revival—how many of you have read or heard anything about the Healing Revival from 1948 into the '50s? Some of the most extraordinary things that the world has ever seen happened in that era, but it was all through the generals of the army. The season was the generals of the army. What God is doing in this hour is the generals are equipping the saints.
Picture it this way: there’s this high level of anointing that nobody can reach, so this general of the army equips all the saints around him until they come into a place of anointing that was once only occupied by the generals of the army. That releases them to explore even greater dimensions and realms in the Spirit of God so that we can manifest Jesus much more clearly in glory, power, presence, and purity. I remember Chris—do you mind if I share your story? William Branham—you were asking the Lord for… is that all right? Yeah, I ask him in public so that he’s ashamed if he says no. No, no, I wouldn’t do that. Sorry, bad joke, bad timing, no class at all.
I was really inspired by this—this happened, I don’t know, maybe 15 years ago. Chris was asked—one of the great heroes we’ve had in the realms of anointing is a man named William Branham. Tragic things happened at the end, but that doesn’t mess up how God used him. Solomon still made it into the book. Value what God values. If you want to live smart, favor who He favors. All right, he asked the Lord, «I want to operate in his anointing,» or something to that effect, and the Lord spoke very clearly: «You couldn’t handle it.» Am I right? «You couldn’t handle it.» Chris then came back and said, «Well then, don’t give it to me; only give it to the entire Church.» The moment he had in the Lord, if I remember correctly, was that he felt the Lord was pleased with his response. It wasn’t about him having an anointing that draws everybody’s attention; it was about the Church coming into a place in God that represents Jesus more clearly. I love that; I love that example so much; I’ve used it many times.
So here is this powerful moment in Israel’s history, and it says they believed God and they believed His prophets. Interesting in Scripture: it says, «And Israel believed God and they believed Moses.» They weren’t contradictory; it was necessary to see a co-laboring expression of what it looked like to trust God. It’s easy to say, «I trust God» and not trust any people because it can’t be measured. John put it another way: it’s easy to say you love God, whom you can’t see, and hate your brother, whom you can see. It’s illegal to claim a spiritual reality that cannot be measured in the natural. So, I love God with all my heart; you have to be able to examine and measure it in how I treat people. It’s what validates that unseen reality that I am supposed to walk in. It’s the same in faith; it requires faith in the giftings of God—not always in people 100 percent, but the Spirit of God is within us to help us weed through the times when there’s error or their opinion has been added to a word.
In the Old Testament, the prophets were judged; in the New Testament, prophecy is judged. Get Chris’s teaching on this—it’s good. Sometimes, if there were royalties from the message tonight, Chris, I’d give them all to you. Yes. So, here it says they believed God and they believed His prophets. It says they believed God and they believed Moses. Gideon at one point says to give this shout—it’s a shout of declaration, a shout of praise. They are to break these vases with candles. It’s a weird story: break these candles and then shout «For the Lord!» and «For Gideon!» Sometimes we can live impressed by our own faith, which cannot be measured, when in fact it is measured by our confidence in the sovereignty of God to use the people around us to fill in where we lack. It’s called trust.
So it says, «Believe the Lord your God; you will be established; believe His prophets and you will prosper.» Does anyone here want to prosper? Now, I know that some are too holy for it, and I get it, but the rest of us really want to prosper. I’ve told people every once in a while, I say, «Listen, if you’re not hungry for more, then you’re just being selfish. Yes, the most acceptable form of selfishness because it proves to me you’re untouched by the needs of the people around you.» That’s not you; that’s them—other folks; it’s not even you on TV. It’s not you either; it’s everybody else.
All right, go to Ezra chapter 6. We’ll read another verse and then we’ll just camp on it for a few minutes and try to find a place to land. All right? It’s just another verse that talks about the prophets in Ezra 6, on page 665 in the anointed version. Yeah, verse 14 says, «So the elders of the Jews built and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and of Zechariah the son of Edo.» Isn’t that interesting? They prospered through the prophesying of these prophets. This is not a new subject for us; I bring this up every few months in some measure. Tonight, it’ll be a little different measure, but the value of what you dwell on shows me what you value; it’s what you treasure.
If it’s incorrect, if it’s inferior, if you’re dwelling on something inferior, then it becomes misplaced worship. If it is part of what exists in the realm of God’s kingdom, His rule, think on these things—things that are lovely, have a good report, etc. When I am locked into who He is, just think of this process: entrance gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise. All right? What is thanksgiving? A response to the works of God—the actions of God. What is praise? A response to His nature—His character.
So, thanksgiving is my response to a work of God. Now, the Lord spoke and He said to Israel, «I have revealed My works, but to Moses, I have revealed My ways.» The currency that we use in this interaction is our response to what we’ve discovered of Him. The cancer that was healed, the vertebrae missing in the back, and the lady running and dancing, jumping around the room—I hear this news. I don’t understand how He does that stuff; I don’t ever try to understand it. I don’t try to wrap my head around it; I try to wrap my heart around it. My heart will always take me places my head can’t fit. So I embrace that which He’s done and then give an appropriate response.
But then what happens is, you start seeing He heals, He restores; you become more deeply impressed with His nature as a father who cares for His own. So now, it’s gone from the works. We never move from the works in the sense that they aren’t valuable because they’re always valuable. Jesus never scolded anyone who pursued Him for a miracle; He never said to someone, «You should be seeking a relationship with Me, not your eyesight.» He would always perform the miracle to give them access to the relationship. The miracle creates the faith for ongoing encounter; it’s valuable. So, we become enraptured with this heart of God; we become sensitive to and aware of His nature. We start functioning differently; we handle problems that come our way.
If I am only familiar with the works of God, I may know a miracle is possible, but when I see the heart of God, I begin to see a miracle as probable. There’s an exchange with a person. I perhaps talked a little confusingly at the beginning about the emotional response to the anointing, making a distinction between our emotional response and the actual anointing because if we don’t know how to separate the two and acknowledge both, we won’t know how to cooperate with what He’s doing.
We will actually think the joy we feel releases the miracle, and that’s just not always the case. Sometimes we want to dance around somebody because we’re so happy, and He’s saying, «Put your hand on their forehead and cast the affliction out.» If we don’t know how to respond to the person who is functioning in operation, then when we lay hands on them, nothing is given. Most of the time, when hands are laid, nothing is released because it’s not an act of faith; it’s an act of symbolism. Faith needs a seed, a confession, and an action.
So here they prospered through the prophesying of the prophet Haggai, the prophet Zechariah. This was for the rebuilding of the temple and the city that had been destroyed. The previous story was concerning a battle conflict with surrounding nations. The point was, whether you’re building something in your life—and all of us should be building something—we’re not just sitting here waiting for Jesus to come and rescue us once again. We had a profound word this morning; if you were not here, please get it on our podcast. Profound word; we are called as reformers to build. Whether you’re building something or you’re in the middle of an intense conflict that you don’t understand, it doesn’t matter what place you find yourself in: you’re in the positive place of increase, or you’re in the negative place of conflict. Both are times you survive and become victorious through the prophetic.
You attract what you value. In Mark, it says, «Guard your hearing, and whatever standard you set, more will be given to you besides.» In other words, if I—in fact, this will happen in any business in town: you take a brand-new employee and put them in that business. If they value gossip, within two weeks they will attract every gossip in the business to their desk. It’s not because they put up a sign; it’s not even necessarily because they started gossiping. There’s an unseen reality of attraction; the standard that is set attracts. When we value the voice of the Lord, whether it’s from the pages of Scripture as we read or the prophet calls you out in a meeting, we value what God is saying. Many people become discouraged with the word because they didn’t realize when they joined this army that a word attracts conflict.
Just trying to encourage you; I’m just here to help. Just here to help. Matthew 13 talks about the seed planted in the thorny ground. He said, «When tribulation and persecution arise because of the word,» the word actually attracts conflict. Why? Because you have to be given a choice. If you’re not given a choice to believe this or to deny it, then you will not receive a reward. Rewards require options; you’re not rewarded for anything you had no option in. God is a father who looks for opportunities to reward, so He will allow a contradictory word to rise up in your environment to the word He has declared. Why? Because He’s anxiously awaiting the opportunity to give your reward. It is not punishment; that’s why the Scripture says He does not tempt you. He cannot tempt you because He Himself cannot be tempted with evil, so none of these situations are our failure. They are there for our strengthening and to help reinforce the focus of worship so that fear does not become misplaced worship in me. Instead, that which God has said has the affection in my heart, and so I dwell on it.
See, what you ponder reveals what you value. What you ponder on shows what you will worship. It’s an interesting story in Judges where the Lord spoke to Israel and said, «I told you not to fear the gods of the Amorites, but you did not obey.» How was it manifested? They worshiped the gods of the Amorites. He told them, «I told you not to fear the gods of the Amorites, but you didn’t obey.» How was their disobedience manifested? They worshiped the gods of the Amorites. What’s the point? What you fear determines what you worship. You may say, «I don’t worship money,» but you’re afraid of going broke. While you may not bow or sing songs toward the almighty dollar, the effect on the heart is that it has defiled its misplaced worship.
He said in Matthew, «Either you will love one and hate the other; you will hold to one and despise the other.» It’s defining two relationships: devoted to God or devoted to mammon, a spirit behind a false financial standard. So He says, «You will love the one.» That’s the relationship with God. «I love the one; I just hate the other,» or «I hold.» That’s how you can tell: people who hold to what they have, their worship is being infected. They hold, and they despise. Whenever money is talked about in church, it’s hold to the one, despise the other. That was free; I just threw that in. Absolutely free.
So here He says they prospered through the prophesying. Is it possible—and let’s just take prosperity of soul, prosperity in relationship, prosperity in family life, prosperity financially, prosperity in employment, in your workplace, the favor of all these things fit into the area of prosperity. So let’s just broaden our definition of prosperity here. They prospered according to the prophesying. Is it possible that the prosperity you have longed for was already made available through a word you didn’t value? Is it possible that the prosperity you know you were born for—and I’m not talking about palaces and stuff; I’m talking about the abundance of God in my life to make me capable of being effective in service in any environment He puts me into, whether it’s the giving of money, the giving of a prophetic word, laying hands on the sick, or living an example of victory in family life, etc.—is just that prosperity of soul?
So is it possible that the prosperity we know we were born for—what we ate for—was actually made available to us through a word we didn’t have value for? Oh, those are mine; this one is for all of you; it’s for nothing. When we make a decision as a team, one of the things I would do while talking together—we have a decision to make—we look at pros and cons, we’re trying to hear the voice of the Lord. The one thing I try to ensure we always do is ask the question, «Have we ever had a prophetic word about this decision?» So we’ll talk together and say, «Cindy Jacobs was here 10 years ago; do you remember that word she gave?» We’ll do a little research; we’ll try to find the word. Did she talk about this at all? Why? Because we want to prosper, and we want to be successful, and both of those outcomes are contingent upon our response to those in the body He has equipped to bring us exactly what we need.
I trust Him, and I trust Him big enough that He will work through the people that are connected to me to bring me exactly what I need. It’s a trust in God; it’s a trust in the sovereignty of God that He knew the situation I’m in well enough. Last year, when Chris, Eric, and I were all in England when—oh no, Chris was in Washington, DC, when Eric and I were in England—when the fires broke out here in Redding, we all got the news of the disastrous firestorm that was sweeping our city. We all began to make efforts to hurry home, and I remember sitting on the plane by myself, flying across the Atlantic, and opening my iPad to look at the volumes of prophetic words that are not yet in the notebook but are in here, and just began to look through page after page after page of prophetic words to see if maybe there might be something here that God spoke five years ago that would give me insight into what we are supposed to do now.
I would read, and most of the words had nothing to do with any kind of disaster; they all had to do with outcomes. So when you see light at the end of the tunnel—even though it’s a smoky tunnel—you have this sense of anticipation, this sense of hope that regardless of what’s going on, regardless of whether or not I understand what’s happening, He is big enough to assure us that there is a positive outcome for whatever we face. I literally sat on the plane and reviewed prophetic word after prophetic word. I have several different programs where I store these words, and I review them. I read over them; I have on my personal prayer list one sentence that is a synopsis for an entire prophetic word that was given to my wife and me.
So I will, on a regular basis, go through this particular list because they are all connected to my destiny, to my life, to my family—my household; sometimes I’ll turn to the word David Wagner gave me in August of 2015. Sometimes, I’ll go to the other place to find the whole extent of a long prophetic word and read word by word over that which God has spoken. You see, we were born to succeed; we were born to prosper; we were born to be fully effective in all that God designed us for. But it is connected to how we value what He has spoken to us. Sometimes, it’s just underlining a verse and writing a date down.
I remember I woke up once in August of 2009 after having a very strong prophetic dream that showed me a specific thing about what to do that wouldn’t have made sense otherwise. It showed me exactly what I was to do. I went into the restroom; it was three in the morning, and I was getting up to catch a plane to fly to Argentina. I opened a book that was in the bathroom—one that Kim Clement had signed for me. I didn’t know he gave me a book, and he signed it, and I opened it for the first time. I had it for maybe a year or two, and I opened the cover of the book and saw he wrote to me; he signed this thing, and then I looked at the scripture, and it confirmed the very thing that I just dreamed.
So I went to that verse and wrote down August 2009. Why? Because whenever I’m reading through that part of the Bible and I come to the book of Nahum and I come to that verse, it triggers in my memory a prophetic journey, a prophetic experience. I don’t have to write the whole dream down because I remember the dream. John Stone, I’m saying, you’ve got to set yourself up with triggers, reminders of what God has deposited, what He has said over you. In 1986, Mario Murillo prophesied to me; he was a favorite of mine—a very powerful evangelist of the Lord with signs that follow. He was the instrument God used to completely turn my life around when I was about 19 years old; he was the one who caused me to go off the cliff and say, «Absolutely yes to anything Jesus says. I could care less about anything else in my life; I am saying yes to this one thing; I’m embracing the one thing.»
We were driving from Weaverville to Redding, and we were right about Whiskeytown Lake. He turned to me while I was driving him to his next assignment and began to prophesy to me. I wrote it all out, and I’ve got it on a three-by-five card that sits by my bed. I’ve got the abbreviated version on this list because I’ve seen it happen, but only in measure. I want the fullness of what he described. Joyce prophesied over me in the car in Weaverville, going down 299. I pulled in front of a—remember those? I had a hard time remembering what it was because a friend of mine called it Allison Wong’s, so I always think of it that’s Allison Wong’s.
I pulled in front of Allison Wong’s as he began to prophesy, and what he said was, «There’s a specific gift; listen to this phrase: it is in you embryonically.» In other words, it is not manifested; it can’t be seen visibly by anybody, but it is there by God’s design, and in the days to come, it will develop. The point is that you have a place here that says, «I will ponder.» Even if it makes no sense, obviously if there’s a word given to you, you feel a check about it, stick it on the shelf. If you have a warning that’s not the Lord, then you flush it. I’ve got a lot of words; I have flushed—my flusher works really well. I have flushed a lot of words through the years.
People would come to us; Benny and I were raising our kids. We decided early on that we would flush every word that came to us that was inconsistent with what we felt about our children. If someone would say, «Oh, wait until they’re teenagers,» we’d look at each other and go, «Flush.» Because we had determined every season of life would be greater than the previous; it was the will of God; it’s His nature. So it has to be the nature of our home. So, we just flushed many words. Some words come, and I go, «Man, I don’t get that one, but I don’t know—it may be God; it may not be.» So I’ll put it on the shelf. I’ve got a lot in there, and I ponder them; I look over them; I read over this, and I’m praying. I pray over my list, and sometimes one of them will be highlighted, and I’ll say, «Today’s the day; this is the season; now is when I push into this.»
What you think about is what you value. What you value affects what you worship, and it determines the outcome of whether we truly taste of what the Bible calls a kingdom success or merely success from human effort and human talent. We’ve said yes to Jesus; we’ve picked up our cross daily to follow after Him. My job is the cross; His job is the resurrection, and He will bring life to everything I offer to Him, whether it’s a boy’s lunch or I give my heart to anchor myself in that which God has said. He is the Father who has designed us for the privilege of co-laboring.
Why don’t you stand? I think some of you may say, «I don’t have any prophecies in my life.» I get that; I probably have more than most simply because of my position. I learned early on that in my «yes» to God, I would read until He spoke. I remember sitting there, reading the entire Gospel; I will read until He talks. I live by His voice; I study the printed word. This is Jesus in print; I believe all of it—even the maps, the table of contents, all of it. I am a «yes» to the Bible. I even like my elephant hide leather cover. But I didn’t kill it, it was already dead. Better not go there.
You read, and you sense Him breathing on a verse—stop, because you just found where life is for you. Mark it; do something. Don’t just underline the whole verse; underline what stands out about the verse. First Peter 2:9: «You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people for God’s own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.» You can underline the whole verse, but you could also underline, «You are that you may.» I made you this for this reason.
And then when you look at it again, you remember what He was showing you. Develop your own cross-references; they won’t have cross-references here that are fitting to what He’s teaching you. Write it down; I’m serious. Have your history on the page. When you go to a place where you see tears staining the page and remember, «I remember being in the woods crying out to God because I needed a breakthrough, a specific breakthrough,» and the Lord spoke to me out of Ephesians 4, and I will never be the same because of what He said. Have a history so that you know what He said, and when you may forget about the word, and ten years later He reminds you, and you go, «This is alive today as it was ten years ago.» There’s nothing about Him that has a shelf life; there’s nothing about Him that has shelf life; it’s all eternal.
So, I want to pray that you become a prophetic magnet. But listen to me; it’s dangerous. One of the best ways to attract the word of the Lord is to obey what you already know. All right, that’s enough; I’ve kicked that dead horse from every side. I remember—oh goodness, 40 years ago, Chris and I were, I think, in a meeting up in Oregon, and the worship leader was teaching. People ask me how long a worship service should last, and he says, «My response is, how long does it take to burn a whole cow?» You may not like that, but I love that answer so much. How long does it take to burn a whole cow? All right, didn’t know that’s what we were doing, but I like that answer. Amen.
All right, I want to pray over you. We are so thankful that You talk; You engage with us. Your voice makes us alive inside; Your presence becomes so clear, so manifest. We’re so thrilled with who You are and what You’ve given us. But I’m asking that in this next season, everybody in this room would literally attract the prophetic; that there would be the word of the Lord given in the most unusual circumstances, maybe even like you do on TV, or through a friend or a conversation or a song on the radio—whatever You do, highlight things for us so that we know what You’re breathing on and what You have favor on in a particular season.
I’m asking for that kind of prophetic clarity over our hearts. I pray that in this next season, in Jesus' name, You would help us to truly value what Mary did; she pondered over what You said. Help us to treasure and to ponder and to not have misplaced worship, but instead to ponder on the things that accelerate our affection for You—accelerate our burning heart for You. I pray this for every person, deposit in us as we sleep, deposit in us in our friendships, equip us with the word we need to both build and to win a war. I ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Amen.