A sermon distinguishing real biblical prophecy from educated guessing. Old Testament prophets foretold specific details of Jesus' life centuries ahead, not market trends or political outcomes. True prophecy reveals what no one could have anticipated and carries a message meant to edify believers.
Sometimes the people you call prophets are really just people who pay attention to weather, politics, and all of the socioeconomic conditions, and they're able to make educated guesses. Think of the prophets of the Old Testament who were able to look into the mysteries of the gospel and see types and shadows of what was to come, prophesying the coming Messiah, prophesying things about Jesus, details about the life of Christ hundreds of years in advance. That is prophecy. That is looking to the future. And it's not Educated guesses. Like if I wanted to, I could say, you know, in 6 months, the stock market will be up from the point at which it fell a month ago or so. That's an educated guess. And that's gonna happen because historically the stock market goes up always, like the real estate market. Yeah, there's dips, but overall it's up. We have to be grounded in discernment. That's not prophecy. That's educated guess. That's predicting based upon conditions. I'm talking about Things that they can call out that nobody could have called out just by guessing. And that is the mark of a true prophet, not educated guessing, but prophetic words. Now, sometimes the Lord will reveal things that maybe, maybe someone else could have predicted, but there's going to be a purpose behind that. Those types of predictions aren't going to be the demonstration just for the demonstration's sake. There's going to be a message behind those that's relevant and actually helpful and edifying to the body, which, by the way, is the purpose of prophecy.
