I left a little early out of Wheaton
yesterday to get back home in a decent
hour, so I skipped one of the services
yesterday in order to get home by 7
o'clock last night.
So, had a really refreshing time, beginning with
my daughter and granddaughter in Chicago for a
couple of days, and eating at all the
great taco joints there, right?
If you're ever there, Antique Taco, okay?
You will not be disappointed.
And then I went over for Thursday night,
and all day Friday, and half day Saturday
to what's called Revive.
It's an annual gathering of our diocese, and
priests, and deacons, and whatnot.
And a lot of people who are checking
out Anglicanism were there this time, and it
was just a really great time.
There was a contingency from Kenya, out of
the cathedral in Kenya, as well as Singapore.
Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, our cathedral
where our bishop resides, they sent out some
missionaries who have an Anglican church in Cambodia,
and that's why the Singaporeans were there, because
they're overseeing Cambodia for the Anglican church.
So, it was just a beautiful time.
An African-American church was there, helping lead
worship that's coming alongside Greenhouse, which is one
of our deaneries.
And so, it's just a beautiful display of
the throne of God, you know, every tribe,
kindred, and tongue gathered around, just worshipping the
Lord.
And we celebrate the fact that Anglicanism, 70
% of Anglicanism, is in the global South.
And so, it's just not a bunch of
British people, right?
It's not.
And so, they're teaching us how to dance,
and worship, and rejoice, even with the name
Anglican.
So, yeah, amen.
Last week, I did a really brief introduction
on prophecy, the gift of prophecy and the
function of prophecy, just sort of opening that
up a bit as an introduction out of
1 Corinthians 14.
I shared a little bit of experience in
my own life, what I've experienced in prophecy,
just a tad, and how I have come
to receive prophecy and perceive the word of
the Lord in my own life, which is
a real important thing.
I treasure it.
Jesus said, my sheep know my voice, and
they will not follow the voice of the
stranger.
God wants to continue to speak to his
people, right?
We firmly believe that.
And so, what I've done today is I've
asked three people to prepare just brief, like,
five-minute testimonies of how they receive the
word of the Lord, and prophetic words, and
what they've experienced throughout their history in God.
I thought that might be practical and helpful
for all of us just to hear how
other people do that.
I want to set us up this morning
and just draw our attention back to the
bulletin where the scriptures are written and turn
to page four with me just to provide
some context out of the scripture.
Of course, on the day of Pentecost, the
Feast of Harvest, right, the church received that
breath of God and the Holy Spirit was
poured out not only on just prophets and
kings and those who were anointed out of
the Old Testament with the spirit, but now
through the fulfillment of the prophet Joel, Peter
is explaining what has happened.
And it says, in the last days, which
we're living in the last days, right?
But the last days began on the day
of Pentecost.
So the church has been living in the
last days since Pentecost, right?
In the last days, God says, I will
pour out my spirit on all everybody say
that with me, all all people and your
sons and your daughters will prophesy.
There's no discrimination now with age, right?
It's not just for grownups, it's your sons
and your daughters, right, will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions and your
old men will dream dreams.
And so you've got prophecy, vision, dreams.
Those are clusters of the prophetic spirit, right?
Those are different ways that God speaks to
us in visions and dreams and through receiving
prophetic information.
And we saw that throughout the book of
Acts and some of the readings today, just
where it said the Holy Spirit said that's
prophecy.
He's seeking a body to live in, to
be embodied, right?
We're full of the spirit with the temple
of the Holy Spirit.
And so we speak prophetically and the Holy
Spirit says.
And so in verse 18, it says, even
on my servants, you know, class distinctions are
being broken down, even on my servants, both
men and women, gender distinctions are being broken.
Both men and women are being they're going
to pour out my spirit in those days
and they will prophesy, right?
They will prophesy.
And so he's putting this in the context
of the new covenant.
One of the marks of the new covenant
is that the fulfillment of Moses that we
heard today, would that all God's people were
prophets.
Now, in a sense, we don't all carry
the office of a prophet, but we all
can prophesy.
We can all hear the Lord now.
All will know the Lord right in the
new covenant.
And so that's what's happening throughout the book
of Acts.
You just see these little vignettes.
Then, you know, world mission happened through a
prophetic word, the beginning of world mission.
Look at the third cluster there in Acts
13, one through three.
Now, in the church at Antioch, there were
prophets and teachers, OK, a diversity like in
Ephesians four, we looked at which our bishop
actually taught that was his last message on
the apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral and teaching gifts
throughout the body.
And then they had everyone separate over in
different corners of the room where they felt
like they were more apostolic or prophetic or
evangelistic.
And they got ministry and they got prayed
for.
And that was on Friday night.
It was just beautiful.
And so this is the stream of our
whole diocese is that the whole the whole
meetings in Wheaton were about the release of
the gifts of the spirit.
So this is a beautiful time.
And so, yeah, look at that.
They were worshiping the Lord and fasting, verse
two, and the Holy Spirit said, that's a
prophetic word.
The Holy Spirit said, set apart for me,
Barnabas and Saul, for the work which I've
called them to.
Wow.
When Paul went through Macedonia and he got
into Philippi, all of Europe opened up.
And that's why we're standing here today is
because of a prophetic word given at the
Church of Antioch.
So we need this.
And what we read last week, he said,
eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may
prophesy.
So we're just exploring that.
And I just want you to feel like,
wow, we're going to explore this in a
safe context.
It's going to edify, it's going to console,
you know, it's going to encourage.
Those are the three aspects of what prophecy
does.
Encouragement, edification and consolation.
And so that's what we're looking for when
we're listening to someone prophesy.
Is this encouraging?
Is this building up?
Is it consoling?
Is it bringing consolation?
OK, it doesn't have to be predictive at
all.
We did see an example where Agabus actually
prophesied that a famine was coming.
And the church was able to prepare in
order to serve the needs of that famine.
So that is a good thing.
But it doesn't have to be predictive at
all.
It can be encouraging and strengthening all of
those three areas that Paul is talking about
in First Corinthians 14.
So without further ado, I'm going to ask
Father Les to come first and then Bonnie
and then Pat.
And if you guys could just come over
here and utilize this, even though you have
a mic on, we'll get a better audio
quality on the recording as well.
Thank you, Father Les.
Well, I'm a lifelong Anglican.
I was actually born to a couple who
had independently gone to be teachers at an
Anglican residential school for Native Indians in northern
Ontario.
It is a long way from everywhere.
And it was Anglican.
I was born there and I was first
in church when I was three weeks old.
So I've been there a long time.
And even so, but but you grow as
you go along with the spirit.
And for me, how do I receive revelation?
Well, it's in a variety of different ways.
Often it's a thought and maybe it's a
thought I is kind of not the type
of thought I would normally get, or it's
like a hunch or a sense or a
feeling in a in a particularly if it's
in a in a ministry setting, that would
be true.
Sometimes it's like a picture in my brain,
my head.
I just get this picture or or it
could be a scripture that I sense really
applies to someone.
Very rarely do I ever heard like a
word, a sentence, a voice from God in
my head, although I would say that my
call to priesthood was in that category.
I was in church on a Christmas morning
by myself.
Well, literally at that point, nobody else arrived
yet.
It's, you know, like church Christmas morning would
expect and the early service.
And as I was waiting and praying, I
really had this visionary sense, real or unreal,
I don't really know, of the of the
altar actually becoming enlightened.
It sort of became light.
There was a glow around it.
And I heard the phrase in my head,
serve me here.
And that was my my direction for ministry.
And ever since then, I've been trying to
work that I'm trying to figure out what
is my ministry.
And I really do find that I'm more
alive when I'm serving at the altar than
when I'm doing many other things.
On one occasion, Vaughn and I were involved
in ministry prayer at a conference after the
speaker, you have ministry prayer.
And there's a woman that came up and
wanted prayer for her asthma condition.
And as we prayed for her, I there
was a strange sense of smoke that came
into my nostrils or exhaust or something like
it was very strange.
I didn't really understand.
I certainly didn't understand it.
And I wasn't sure what it was, but
I I took the step of faith to
say to the woman, you know, I just
I I sensed this.
And and then this phrase sort of came
up out of me, shall we say.
And I felt compelled to say to her,
it really wasn't your fault.
And those two things don't in my brain
go together.
But to her, it made a lot of
sense.
And it really helped her because when she
was a teenager, she came home from school
and after a while she went looking for
somebody else and found her father in the
garage, in the car full of exhaust.
And he had taken his life.
I cry a lot, too.
Well, it made no sense to me, but
it made an incredible sense to her.
And with the words, it wasn't your fault,
it just broke off years of condemnation and
her asthma disappeared.
We're just amazing.
There was a time when we were we
lived in Akron, Ohio, and Bon had been
trained as a chaplain in Ontario, served in
the children's hospital there.
And there was a time when we were
just wrestling with, well, what should we do?
And and Bon really yearned to really get
back into chaplaincy.
And for some reason, there was there was
this we knew of this hospital south of
Akron by half an hour.
And there was something that stirred up within
me to say, we really need to take
you there with your resume.
And of course, against all the opposition and
whatever, we did that.
And it just so happened that the chief
chaplain, head chaplain was the director of chaplaincy,
was looking for a chaplain to substitute for
a chaplain who was going away for six
weeks.
So Bon got the position, which then led
to part time position, which led to full
time position, which led to a period where
she actually was director of the department during
the director's absence.
It all came from something that stirred up
within me and an encouragement to do it.
And and sometimes that's what happens to me
with just at the right time.
But.
I usually hear from God by receiving scriptures,
hearing phrases and sentences, I really see pictures
a lot of the time and I get
a lot of I get dreams.
I experience a lot of feelings and sensations
in my body.
Sometimes just all my heart will just start
pounding when I get a phrase or a
word or scripture.
And it's kind of a sense that I'm
on the right track.
I visited a church in Ohio one time
and they had a guest preacher.
And while the man was preaching, I sensed
the Lord told me something about his calling.
And afterwards I went to him and I
said the sentence to the man and he
smiled and said that I was the third
person that year that had said that exact
sentence to him.
And similarly, in the church where we were
serving the Episcopal Church at the time when
we first immigrated, there was newcomers that came
and I was praying over them and I
gave each of them words and they said
that the exact same word had just been
given to them by John Paul Jackson that
year.
So a lot of the time it's just
a confirmation.
When Les and I were leading a healing
mission in Guadalupe, which is an island in
the Caribbean, we began with prayer with a
pastor and his wife and we each had
words as a result of the prayers.
And the pastor confirmed that the Lord had
been showing them and the leaders of the
church the same callings and purposes for the
church and for themselves.
And they were encouraged and it unified us
during the week-long mission that we led.
I had a dream one time about Jesus
encouraging me to share a particular scripture with
everybody, with people.
I sensed I should share the contents of
the dream with a friend the next day
in an email and she responded that she
had just returned from a week-long guided
retreat and the scripture that Jesus told me
was the theme of the last two days
of the retreat.
And so she had felt very hopeless and
was very encouraged.
When I was a chaplain, I was in
training as a chaplain and I was visiting
in the intensive care unit and came upon
this room, a closed room, which was unusual
for intensive care.
It's usually stalls or whatever you call them,
and went in there and there was a
sense of many family members and a patient
who was asleep.
And I went over to her and put
a cross on her forehead and anointed her
with oil and prayed and sensed very strongly
to break a spirit of death off of
her.
Just how did that come?
It was a sense of doom.
I just knew it.
And then I greeted the family and just
left the room, didn't talk to anybody.
The next day I went back and the
room was empty and I asked the nurse,
where is the patient?
And she said she's been transferred to the
oncology floor.
She was actually in here yesterday when you
came in.
We had just removed all the life supports
and the family was around her waiting for
her to die.
And something happened and she didn't die.
And I went down to oncology and met
this beautiful young woman.
She's 26 and she was sitting there eating
and just rejoicing in the Lord.
And we shared together that the angels will
come for her someday, but not the spirit
of death.
I was just completely, I was a new
chaplain, you know, I was, God was my
trainer.
Another time when I was a director of
pastoral care in a children's hospital in Toronto,
a patient was transferred from the kids hospital.
She had not walked for nine months and
now she was in our hospital.
She was 16.
They couldn't find neurology, every modality, everybody had
looked at her.
She'd spent hours with psychology, social work.
There was nothing that they could find wrong
with her and she wouldn't talk, but she
couldn't walk, she couldn't move, lower waist.
And I went in, I just have to
be short here.
But I did, I did sense some things
about her and prayed one time with her
and she began to sort of vibrate.
And I thought, so I went in anyway,
I went into the hospital on a Saturday
and she was in her wheelchair and I
prayed with her.
She told me that she would like to
walk.
I prayed with her, I said, well, let's
pray that you can walk.
And we, again, I sensed this as I
began, I didn't know what I was going
to pray, just that she would walk.
And, but I sensed the same thing of
the spirit of death over her and I
broke it and she got up out of
the chair.
I did, I did get the physical therapist
to agree to take the, the, the securing
strap off of her, which took a lot
of work, but she did take it off
of her.
It was kind of against her profession and,
but she took it off and I broke
the spirit of death and immediately this young
16 year old bounced up out of the
chair and walked 10 feet across the floor
until the physical therapist said, no, we've got
to get her back in the chair.
There's not enough staff in the room.
And so they got her back into the
chair and I went and charted Miracle and
went home.
And over the next several months, the story
of some of the emotional abuse came out
of what was going on, but the enemy
power was broken as a result of the
Lord and the love of the Lord speaking
a word to me, his humble servant, to
set this woman free.
And as Father Michael has said, love is
at the base of prophetic words.
Amen.
Thank you so much.
I know there that was, we have multiple
gifts functioning there that is prophetic, discerning of
spirits and healing.
You know, it's just, they all go together.
Right.
So it's beautiful.
Amen, Patrick, I just want you to know
you can be a goofball and still prophesy.
Yeah.
Priest to Hallelujah.
And I also want, you know, I got
born again on an acid trip.
True story explains a lot of things, doesn't
it, Rod?
Oh, praise the Lord.
So sometimes it's I want to demystify the
prophetic.
Yeah, because Michael said a couple of weeks
ago, I'm special.
Do you guys remember that?
And and if you've been around the prophetic
or charismatic church and prophetic, if there's a
lot of I'm special going on, you know
what I'm saying?
And the prophetic is for everybody.
It is for everybody.
The prophetic spirit can come on you at
any time.
If you have the Holy Spirit, the prophetic
spirit can come on anybody at any time.
And so to demystify it and make it
safe so that you're not afraid, because there's
always risk with the prophetic.
There's always a little dying to self.
If the prophetic spirit comes on you, there'll
always be a little dying to self before
you go give that word.
And so sometimes I get prophetic words quietly.
Most of the time I get it quietly.
It's just impressions upon my heart.
The scripture, a deep knowing about something, about
somebody that I just can't know in the
natural, or I've never met that person before.
I don't even know their name.
And so it's a deep knowing.
Sometimes it comes strong.
I notice sometimes prophetic words in church or
at a conference or something.
You'll get all that palpitations and, you know,
the, you know, whatever.
And because I think part of that's just
the fear of man, because, you know, you
have to speak out loud.
And but you also know that it's in
the moment.
So God's pushing you.
This isn't the kind of thing you can
go home and really process or run through
your pastors or whatever.
It's just like, oh, boy, here we go.
You know, and and then the church and
everybody else judges.
And sometimes that's good.
And a lot of times not so much.
It always comes with risk.
And then it should come with 10 tons
of humility.
And this is where the tears come and
they're not your tears, but a lot of
times people will receive your word just because
of the spirit of the prophet.
You can be completely wrong, and if you're
really doing it in love and humility, people
pick that up.
You know what I mean?
And they'll forgive you if you're completely wrong.
They'll come to you later and say, you
know, wow, you were so wrong.
And if you're walking in the spirit, you'll
go, wow, you're so right.
You won't defend yourself.
You won't go, man, but, you know, dude,
this is what I heard, you know, it'll
be like you'll just well, if it's the
Holy Spirit, you'll you might just cry and
say you're sorry.
I prophesied over a woman once has gone
to L.A. and you shouldn't do this
anyway, but I knew her pretty good.
And it was about a guy.
So don't go there.
All right.
Just don't go there.
There's risk and then there's just stupid.
OK, and so she was going to L
.A. and I gave her this word and
I knew her pretty good.
And she I saw about a week later.
So how's your trip?
She goes, oh, everything is good.
Business is good.
And then she said, but your word was
completely off.
I went down there and this guy actually
like was a complete jerk, broke her heart,
blah, blah, blah.
And at first I was like, because, you
know, I was young and I felt a
strong urge and I want to say, well,
but I heard and the Holy Spirit came
on me and I just broke.
I just broke and I just got I'm
so sorry, I was so wrong.
And you know what?
To this day, at least Facebook friends, it's
been 20 years.
I hear from her all the time.
Get more likes from her than anybody on
the planet.
OK, and so so it was that humility
that brought that to pass.
In 1994, Joey and the family and I
had real jobs one time.
Yeah, I had a real job.
I'm not kidding.
And it was it was before in the
early 90s and all the rest of my
life until I got this word.
And the Lord told me, take my wife
and my two small children.
We were doing worship for the church in
San Francisco at the time.
And he said, I want you to take
this now and just go give it away.
And I said, well, what am I going
to do for a living?
And the Lord said, I'll take care of
you as you go.
And so it was a strong prophetic word.
If you're a father of two small children
and you've got a real job in San
Francisco and the Lord tells you to go
and I'll take care of you as you
go, it better be a strong word.
And so that word came strong and powerful.
And I let him confirm it in me
a dozen different ways.
And then I ran it for Michael B.
and Paul and and our pastors at the
time in San Francisco.
And I gave him the five year, the
four year, the three year, the six month,
the six week, the six minute.
You know, I mean, I ran that thing
through them for months and they all felt
it was God right from the beginning.
And then at the end, it all came
to pass.
We started itinerate in the Bay Area.
I took my family for almost 10 years.
We travel.
We've been on four different continents.
We've been through all through Asia.
We've been through Europe.
We've been here.
We've been there.
We've been everywhere.
It all came to pass.
It was that same prophetic word that brought
us here almost eight years ago.
Michael and I were sitting in the we
came here and visit Michael and we were
having coffee in the crossroads and the Holy
Spirit fell on us in the car that
day.
I tell people if you stand across the
sea, you probably could have seen the car
shake.
I mean, if we'd open the doors, we
would both fall out drunk onto the concrete.
Right.
And the Lord said, I want you to
come to Kansas City and I want you
to work in the arts.
I was just starting to do professional art
at that time.
And and so we went back and it
took two years to get here.
That's it's OK to process this stuff.
All right.
It took two years to get here after
that word.
And that was one of the strongest words
I've ever got in my life.
We ended up here.
I sold almost all my art on that
block where the Holy Spirit landed on us
for the next four years.
My very best artist friends own the lot
of the parking lot.
If we had crossed the sidewalk, we'd have
been in his parking lot.
But I actually got my art space at
18th and Oak and we were a block
away.
Within two weeks of coming here, I had
art space.
Personal words are awesome.
Hey, let's encourage each other.
We should be encouraging each other daily.
Right.
And so bring it on.
If you guys got something for me, good,
bad or otherwise, let me know.
And likewise, give me permission to love on
you.
This is how we love people.
This is how I love people.
I'd love to just go up to people
and give them this stuff.
It's how I love people.
And but real quick, the story in Ireland,
as we were traveling, a lot of times
we would just travel prophetically.
We would go out with like half a
mission and then let God fill in the
blanks because that's how the spirit in which
we started out anyway.
And we were always sent out by churches
and supported by churches and on and on
that goes.
You know, we are always in a local
church and covered well.
And the prophetic just doesn't work well if
it's not covered.
Well, it needs to be covered very well.
Highly advised if you're prophetic at all, get
a church and a pastor to cover you.
So we were in Ireland and I felt
like going to the West Coast.
Never been to Galway before.
Didn't know anybody there, but we really felt
led of the Holy Spirit to go there.
So we went there, got a hotel and
I just got out the phone book and
I picked a church.
And the next morning we went there to
this church and I was sitting in the
back.
And as the pastor was speaking, I felt
the Lord impressing upon my heart about a
pastor's conference.
And I started getting all this stuff about
a pastor's conference.
And once again, to demystify it, it's I
knew it just wasn't my thoughts.
These weren't just like mind wanderings.
I just really felt impressed upon my heart.
And so after the service, I walked up
and very humbly introduced myself to the pastor
with my wife and my kids.
Nothing safer than that.
Right.
And, you know, I I went up and
he I started to share what I asked
if it's OK if I could share what
I had for him.
And I shared that.
And he said, wow, he just lit up.
I could tell immediately lit up and he
called his wife over because he wanted his
wife to hear the rest of it.
I shared all about this pastor's conference.
He's gone.
Oh, my God.
We were just at a pastor's conference a
few days ago.
This stuff all happened, the stuff I was
telling him, and they invited us to their
house.
We went over to their house that day.
They said, you guys have to come over
and share a meal with us.
And we went over, had a meal with
them, and it opened up the ministry to
to Galway.
And when I was saying the three things,
it consoled him, it comforted him because it
helped him with some of the things he
was wrestling with.
It exhorted him towards the pastor's group, which
had just newly been formed.
And then I really felt like it edified
because it released Joey and I and our
ministry into their church.
And so we got to release what was
in us and what we had brought to
Ireland, which was worship and prayer and prophetic
word and all the rest of it.
It definitely had all those three items in
it.
I highly recommend for us, you know, this
is just personal, but try it on one
another.
Yeah, just the people you love, man, when
you get those impressions.
All right.
Thanks, you guys.
Blessings.
Is that fun?
It's awesome.
Before we close this part of the sharing,
I just want to recommend a book and
this is funny because as I got into
this topic of prophecy, I, you know, I
have a big library in my office and
and Liz actually lets me keep some books
at home.
She does.
And so I happen to look and I've
got this section over there, over by the
fireplace where I have all of these old
books from charismatic days, you know, I mean,
just prophecy, the gifts of the spirit.
And and I went over to look to
see what I had on prophecy because I
usually pull the stuff out that I thought
was like really, really good.
I already had that in my office and
I overlooked this book.
It's a book that I read when I
was 19 years old.
OK, and it's written by a Roman Catholic.
He's got a philosophy degree.
Bruce Yoakum is his name.
The book is called Prophecy.
And I got on Amazon just to try
to find see if there are other copies.
You can buy this for like a penny
on Amazon now.
And so I started reading it again and
I realized this is a goldmine.
This is not dated material at all.
This is amazing.
He his first chapter goes through the first
three centuries of Christian history, quoting the patristic
fathers about words of prophecy and healing and
the gifts of the spirit.
He's speaking to the church and he is
a prophetic guy in the midst of the
word of God community, which was a Catholic
charismatic community that I was influenced by as
a teenager.
The cool thing about the charismatic renewal in
the 70s, you guys, is that I never
was trained to to dislike Catholics.
You know what I'm saying?
I mean, that's the way some people view
Catholics.
Like, well, maybe, you know, there's just this
plethora.
But man, the Holy Spirit hit the Catholic
Church and the charismatic renewal in the Catholic
Church is one of the largest movements still
going.
And Pope Francis is all about it.
You know, Pope Francis moves in that and
he moves in the charismatic renewal in the
Catholic Church and he blesses it.
So, I mean, this is happening not just
in Pentecostal churches.
This is happening everywhere.
And so but I just recommend this book
to you, Prophecy, and get it for a
penny, four dollars for shipping, three ninety nine.
So it just gives such practical advice on
how to operate in prophecy and how to
just think about prophecy.
It's really biblical as well.
So let's stand together.