Is Prophetic Revelation Ongoing?

Tom: Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. 

Last week in this segment of our program, we just about concluded our discussion of Dave Hunt’s out-of-print book Beyond Seduction, which he wrote as a follow-up to The Seduction of Christianity. However, there were a few items - that is, additional un-biblical trends in the church - that we didn’t quite get to, Dave. So what I would like to do is to bring them to the attention of our listeners, explaining what they are, and give some examples of how they’re being manifest today. 

Dave, again, 18 years ago for Beyond Seduction, 20 years ago for The Seduction of Christianity. Back then, something that was very popular was “revelation knowledge.” I seem to remember that the proponents of this made a distinction between the rhema and logos. Dave, what about that?

Dave: Well, they would say that rhema is a personal word to you from the Bible, and logos is just a general one for everybody. In other words, when it really hits you personally, that’s rhema. And you have Kenneth Hagen’s Rhema Bible College, you know, Bible school. 

I think it was in ’45, way back there, the Assemblies of God issued a white paper denying this, and pointing out that it’s the same word that’s used, and you can’t make such a distinction. “The Word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword: It pierces to the dividing asunder soul, spirit, joints and marrow: It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,” Hebrews:4:12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
See All.... So God’s Word is going to speak to me continually. 

Now, there are special instances - you know, I could name a number of them in my own life when something that the Scripture is talking about is specifically happening in my life, or will specifically happen in my life, but I wouldn’t call that a rhema. It’s amazing, but God can arrange these things. 

On the other hand, I would never say, “Well, that was written just for me.” We have to be very careful of that. Of course, nothing in the Bible was written just for me, but it may have a very powerful application in my life.

Tom: Right. Dave, that’s the difference, it seems to me, between the objective Word of God - that’s what we have. We can reason together, we can wrestle over certain issues, but it’s God’s Word; it’s not your word, it’s not my word. And our understanding, however - we can come to truth on the basis of the objective revelation of God through his Word. 

On the other hand, as you’re saying, there are some subjective aspects to it. Something, as you read the Word of God, may apply to your life, but in a sense it’s for you. God is speaking to your heart through His Word, but you don’t develop a doctrine out of that; you don’t come up with a specific teaching; it’s just how God is leading you personally. And we do believe that we are to be led of the Holy Spirit through His Word, but it’s got to be referenced, it seems to me.

Dave: I can give you an example, Tom, if we have two or three minutes for it: as a young CPA management consultant, I was given the management of a number of corporations that were hopelessly bankrupt. And, you know, without going into those details, but the bank accounts were overdrawn - way overdrawn. I mean, they owed money to the IRS and the state for payroll taxes. It was a hopeless situation, and I was scrambling from one place to another trying to pacify the creditors, you know, and keep this thing afloat, and trusting the Lord. One morning early I was reading a Psalm. It said, “Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads, and thou broughtest us into a net.” 

Well, it wasn’t written just for me, it was the experience of the psalmist, but wow! That was my experience, and I was in a net. There was no way I could get out. In fact, I was even threatened with San Quentin! I sat across the table from a man of Beverly Hills that we owed $800,000 to, and he said, “You will be in here tomorrow morning with every dime you owe me or I’ll see that you go to San Quentin.” And it was because of things that had been done before I got there. Nevertheless, it would be pretty hard to prove. And I saw the Lord…I went back the next morning without a dime, and I saw God change him completely! And he ended up loaning me more money, which was amazing in itself. 

But anyway, I’m reading this Psalm, and then it says…not only in a net, and men are riding over our heads, everywhere I went I am being blamed for what somebody else did. They are really tough on me! These are loggers up from the mountains and lumbermen and so forth, and then creditors. And then it said, “We went through fire and through water, but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.” And I just knew in my heart that was going to happen. I was getting up very early in the morning to head for Reno, Nevada. Our headquarters was in Merced, California. I was going to collect from a guy over there that owed the companies $8,000. But before I could get up at about two in the morning - I think it was 1:00 the phone rang. A voice on the other end of the line said, “Mr. Hunt, you had better get out of here fast” - we were on a night shift at that time - “You had better get out here fast; the place is on fire!” And as I drove outside the town, I could hear the sirens, I could see the sky aglow with fire, and it was the fire in our planing mill. A planing mill is…you have to plane lumber to a very fine tolerance, and you get a little fire, it’ll warp this thing, and so forth. 

Well, anyway, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It burned up a lot of stuff that I didn’t need, for which I got a nice insurance settlement. The planer itself came through it unscathed, and water - it rained and rained and rained. You could go back and look at the records - broke all the records in Merced for a hundred years, I think! There was water in my office, the yard was flooded, even the kiln where we were drying lumber was flooded, the drying yard was flooded, the warehouse was flooded, everything was flooded! 

So, these things literally came true. That doesn’t mean it was written for me, but somehow, there was an application for me, and then the Lord brought us out, and by God’s grace we paid off everything. 

So there are such instances. I could tell another instance like that in my own life, but I wouldn’t call that a rhema. In other words, it wasn’t something that was just written specifically for me, but sometimes the Lord reveals things to us from His Word. But we have to be very, very careful, because there are people who are trying to use the Bible to get some special message for their lives continually.

Tom: Dave, you remember, a number of weeks ago I shared in church how when I was trying to decide whether to come to Bend from Southern California… Now, Bend, for you folks that don’t know, we’re about 3,500 feet, right at the foot of the Cascades, and as I came through the church, I was late, and somebody at the pulpit I heard was reading from the Scripture, and they read, “Get thee to the mountain.” You know, you would say, “Well, what does that have to do with anything?” I was trying to decide whether to move my family to the mountain or not.

Dave: Now, Tom, it’s not exactly a mountain here, but it’s close. This is called high desert.

Tom: Yeah. Now, but see, that was a very subjective thing, and either I missed what God was saying, or He was saying it from my heart, but I took it to heart and followed up on it. You know, it wasn’t the only thing - there were a lot of other aspects that contributed to our moving here. 

But, Dave, as you said, you know, we don’t go around trying to hear from God, or every aspect of our lives is now directed by waiting and hearing from God. And that’s how, you know, I saw then, and even today to some degree, many people - they want a word from God. They’re not going to move, and they won’t read it from the Scriptures. I mean, some of them even put aside the Scriptures and say, “No, it’s got to be a personal hearing. He’s got to speak to my heart.” Can’t that get us into trouble?

Dave: I would say so. Lying in bed, and, “Lord, I’m not going to get up until you tell me what I’m going to do today.”

Tom: Dave, we’ve gotten a letter from a guy I remember who, every time he drove to work, you know, he’d park in front of a stop sign and wait for the Lord to tell him which way to go. I mean, I doubt whether he ever got there on time, but that’s pushing the envelope. Well, it’s against what the Scriptures teach, let’s say it that way.

Dave: And it’s against common sense, and the Lord expects us to use common sense. 

Then we’ve got people today who claim to be getting new revelations. You know, I can remember people on more than one occasion - in certain circles this would happen - walking up to me and saying, “Dave, let me tell you what the Lord just told me for you today.” 

And I just say, “Sorry, the Lord didn’t tell me that. I’m not even interested in hearing what you think God told you for me today.” Now, if this was a proven prophet, you know, with a track record and so forth…

Tom: Of about 100 percent.

Dave: Right, exactly - 100 percent. They think they can add to the Scriptures. That’s one of the problems, because the revelations they get disagree with the Bible sometimes. This is how every cult starts, and they think they need to build upon the Bible - they need additional revelations. And that is not biblical at all! 

Tom: Well, what about judging, Dave? Somebody does come to you - everything is to be judged, isn’t it?

Dave: Yes, and, Tom, we are very sensitive about that. On the one hand, I’m not going to pay attention to every criticism that we get. We don’t get as many as people think we do; generally people just avoid us, they don’t bother us. But I want to be sensitive if the criticism is valid, based upon the Word of God. On the other hand, I can’t just - somebody says he got a word from God, I’m not going to follow that. I want to see it backed up by the Word of God. 

Now, another way that this enters in is, people will tell you - and this is what Mary Baker Eddy did when she wrote Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. She claimed to have the revelation, the interpretation, and there are those who will say, “You must have a revelation from God in order to have an interpretation in order to understand the Word of God.” No, run as fast as you can from a pastor who teaches that. The Word of God is itself the revelation. And now it is up to us to understand what God has said. It takes some common sense; it takes study. I’ve got to know the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It takes time. You’re not going to be a mature Christian, you will not be a mature exegete of Scripture just by haphazard reading now and then of the Bible; it takes time. You need to know the Old Testament as well as the New, because the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old. But it doesn’t take some special revelation. If it did, that puts you at the mercy of someone, you see? In other words, I can’t study the Bible for myself, I’ve got to look to someone who gets a special revelation of what it really means. I can’t apply my understanding of the Bible, my ability to comprehend the English language, or whatever it is, the common sense God has given me, my knowledge of the Word, what it says in other places - I can’t rely on that, because I need a divine revelation from someone to tell me exactly what it means. That’s how every cult starts.

Tom: Right, and it’s a contradiction. God’s Word is His divine revelation, and He’s given us, if we know Christ, if we receive Christ as our Savior, paid the full penalty for our sins, and we put our faith and trust in Him, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. The Scripture first came by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and then our understanding comes through the enlightenment that the Holy Spirit gives us.

Dave: Jesus said, “When he the Spirit of truth is come, he will lead you into all truth.” Now, He does that through the Word, and He gave the Word of God through holy men of God. 

And now, we take the Word of God - much of it is so straightforward. When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, the life, no man comes to the Father but by Me,” you don’t need a special revelation to tell you what that means. 

When the Scripture says, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” you don’t need a special revelation to tell you - or fornication, or covetousness, or bearing false witness, or whatever it may be. 

So most of it is quite plain; some of it we need a deeper insight. Peter said - in 2 Peter 3 he referred to Paul’s writings as Scripture, and he said, “In which there are some things hard to be understood. And those that are unlearned and unstable, they twist them, like they do the other Scriptures. But if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of the Lord; he will give it to you.” Now, it doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t take counsel from an older brother in the Lord, someone who knows the Word. But in the final analysis, I have to judge what that man says, whether that really is of God. He may be able to give me a jump start in understanding some passage in Scripture, but I must finally determine this. 

And so Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14, “Let the prophets speak, two or three by course, and let the other judge. If something is revealed to another, let the first one keep quiet while the other one gives his understanding and explanation of it.” So we don’t just blindly follow someone. 

Now, the problem is that most Christians - I think I can say most; probably the very vast majority - do not want to take the responsibility for following God. They don’t want to yield to him. They don’t want to study. They don’t want to know God’s Word well enough. They want to be able to look up to someone else. It’s like a crutch. Say, “Well, you know, what did the pastor say?” Well, listen to the pastor with some understanding and with respect.

Tom: Mm-hmm. God has gifted people to be teachers.

Dave: That’s right, but then you must decide for yourself, because one day when you stand before the Lord, and he says, “Why did you do this?” you can’t say, “Well, that’s what the pastor taught.”

Tom: Mm-hmm. Or, “That’s what Dave Hunt taught.”

Dave: Right. God forbid that anyone should say that. But we each have been given the moral accountability, the moral responsibility - here again, this is a problem for the Calvinists, because they deny that we have the power of choice. To have the power of choice you must have the understanding and the ability to make a rational choice, a biblical choice, and that is the responsibility of every person, never - I’ll be dogmatic now - never does God say, “You just blindly follow your pastor,” or, “You just blindly follow your Sunday school teacher, or your Bible teacher, or…”

Tom: TV evangelist.

Dave: Yes, especially! “Or what some author has said in a book.” God holds us accountable to measure it all against the Word of God as the Bereans did, and they weren’t even Christians yet. But they knew the Old Testament; they had the Old Testament Scriptures.

Tom: And they were wonderfully commended by Luke.

Dave: Yes. It says, Acts:17:11These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
See All..., “They received the Word of God with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” They checked Paul out. So if they checked Paul out and were commended for it, you had better check us out - especially Tom - check him out! [laughs]

Tom: Right, definitely!

Dave: Follow the Word of God, not someone’s interpretation. Although when someone who has studied the Bible for many years says, “Yeah, I think this is what it means.” 

It may really hit you - “Of course that’s what it means! I don’t know why I read that so often, and I didn’t see that.” 

But otherwise, don’t say, “Well, it doesn’t make any sense to me. I think that’s the opposite of what it says. It really couldn’t possibly mean that, but since you say so, then I’ll accept it.”

Tom: Right. Dave, today we see some of this revelation knowledge, some of this very experiential thrusts within Christianity, and I’m thinking in particular about the whole contemplative approach to Christianity, which is very experiential, and particular within this, the use of icons as a device that opens up revelation knowledge beyond the image itself. In effect, it’s kind of like a crystal ball, or some kind of device that leads you into hearing from God, that you couldn’t beforehand without this device.

Dave: Speaking of crystal ball, Tom, let me just go back just for a moment or two on what we were talking about, and then we’ll get into these icons, and they’re very similar to this: I won’t name this man, but he was very popular in charismatic circles in the ‘60s, ‘70s, maybe into the ‘80s. And it was like…he was giving readings. It was like going to a medium or a palm reader, and people would line up, and he would give them, “This is God’s Word for you.” And he was so popular. Tom, that is absolutely contrary to the Word of God. But he was like an icon, you know, and he’s going to speak forth the Word of God for you. You didn’t get it; God didn’t reveal it to you; it has nothing to do with God’s Word, but here it comes. Now, I…

Tom: Dave - excuse me - I’m trying to figure out if this is the same guy that you’re referring to. I don’t know, because we haven’t talked about this beforehand. But let me set this up for you: were you at a radio station where one time he was at this radio station, and he went around to all the staff and he had a word from God for all of them, and so on? And he picked out one guy, a young black guy there, and he had these things that he had heard from God about this guy, supposedly, because he had something for everybody, so he had to have something for him, and it was so far removed from anything this young man was into, it was almost a bad joke.

Dave: Yeah, I was not there on that occasion, Tom, but it could have very well been the same man, because he was famous among the charismatics. 

Well, icon, you know - we got where that began in The Passion of the Christ. And you had Saint Veronica there handing Jesus her veil, and he wipes his face from it…

Tom: Now, this is the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, this is legend and so on.

Dave: Right, right, and then, what do you know? His face was imprinted on her veil, and that’s where the first icons came from. 

I think I mentioned a few weeks ago being at the headquarters of the Russian Orthodox church outside of Moscow, and they’ve got a picture of God there. This is what God really looks like, and Jesus - they know exactly what Jesus looked like. It’s the orthodox church, really, more than the Catholic Church. 

Now, the Catholic church goes for image - idols, I would call them. Well, there’s a lot of paintings, a lot of pictures and so forth, but I can remember visiting a number of orthodox churches and talking to the head priest there. They have various names - Metropolitans, and so forth, I don’t remember all of their names - but those orthodox churches are filled with icons. I’ve asked them about these things, you know, and, “This is how Jesus speaks to us today.” Not through His Word; they don’t know the Word of God. You meditate upon these. I can tell you that they kiss them and bow before them and revere these icons, and they think they have some special power. That’s idolatry, contrary to the Word of God, and you can tell us how it’s coming into the evangelical church, Tom.

Tom: Well, in effect, it’s trying to reach God experientially rather than through His Word. These devices now become something that you meditate upon, and this opens, in effect, a state of consciousness that you’re now hearing and seeing beyond these images. They call it a window to heaven. Now, Dave, that is so subjective and experiential, how would you know? How could you judge something like that?

Dave: You couldn’t. It’s not biblical, it’s not rational, and it opens you to the possibility, at least, of demonic delusion, because you’re opening yourself up to some kind of a message. You are getting into an emotional state. Really, you could get into an altered state of consciousness, where all the barriers are down and now you want God to speak to you. It’s like visualizing Jesus.

Tom: Or divination, Dave, isn’t it? The Bible condemns divination, and I don’t know how you could describe it in any other way.

Dave: Yeah, divination is looking to some physical object to make contact with the spirit world. But you are seeking a message, you’re seeking a feeling, you’re seeking some kind of an understanding by this means, and God does not operate that way, and he will not honor this. Satan would be only too happy to speak to you on this occasion in your mind which has been opened up now; you’re looking for a message from God, and God will not do it that way, and you are in a delusion if you think that He has. But Satan will be only too happy to oblige and lead you astray, and this has happened to millions.