 Okay, good morning and a very warm welcome to Everyone here in class as well as students online We pray and we will begin. So let me just begin with the word of prayer Heavenly Father, we thank you once again Lord for giving us this opportunity to spend time in your word We pray that Lord your word will build us up that Father your word will prepare our hearts Lord to serve you and Father God to live as mighty witnesses father for the glory of your name We commit Lord this entire course of the prophetic and apostolic ministry. We pray that Lord, it'll it'll be more than just theoretical knowledge that We will move oh God in the prophetic and father that we will demonstrate the apostolic father We pray for your blessing upon every single student Lord Was part of this learning process on all the platforms Lord. We pray that Lord you would oh God Lord just fill them with your spirit. Oh God and father cost them to flow In the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We thank you once again in Jesus name. We pray Okay, hope all of you have had a Good year or a good break. They're just starting the new year now So a very happy new year to all the students I think there's a comment here stating that the audio is somewhat low Just checking if online students. Can you hear me properly? Would you want the audio increased? It's fine Okay, it's it's fine. Okay, great. Yeah students are saying it's fine Sure So let's begin with the prophetic this course course 207 It has to do with the prophetic ministry as well as the apostolic ministry But we will take it up in two sections. So first we are going to look at the prophetic ministry and understand How to really flow in the prophetic and be a blessing to the people And then once we complete the learning about the prophetic We will go into studying what the apostolic stands for and for this course. We will use Initially understanding the prophetic one of the APC publications. So you can just download it from APCWO.org forward slash books and Follow through we are going to go through that book Sequentially and For the apostolic study, we will have notes which I will share with you once we complete the prophetic ministry And in this course, we will have two Assignments both of which will be 50 marks and 50 marks each Which I will put out periodically and you can actually, you know, go ahead and Answer the questions and as we've been saying want to encourage all students to maintain your score In the assignments out of hundred it should be a minimum of 35% or more and Attendance wise 85% or more. So please be mindful of that, especially the online students So coming now to the prophetic So one beautiful thing that we see today is that the Lord is restoring The prophetic ministry in the church. We have seen the Many seasons that the church has gone through and we've also learned about the dark ages and how The renewal of the church took place step-by-step and we saw how you know that there was this Concept of the baptism restored Healing was restored and then baptism in the Holy Spirit That's a revelation that was restored to the church and the time that we live in right now It is a time when God is restoring the five-fold ministry offices So that means that we will see believers as well as people who are positioned in leadership the five-fold ministry offices also Function in their gifts. So our attempt is to understand What this prophetic ministry is all about now? This is nothing new As far as the Bible is concerned. We know that in the Old Testament the prophetic was very much Functional and we will discuss about the Old Testament and the prophetic ministry shortly even in the New Testament Starting with Jesus himself. There were prophecies there was You know words foretold and in the churches the prophetic gift was encouraged by Paul So it has been there. It's nothing new just because we are discussing about it. It doesn't make it new however, the Understanding of what this prophetic gift is all about and how this prophetic gift really Flows through us is something that we need to get a grasp of because then we will be able to use it or Function in it in an appropriate way. Similarly. We said prophetic offices So the five-fold ministry offices apostle prophet evangelist pastor teacher So we will see many such people emerge Among us in the office of a prophet, but at that time we need some understanding of what this whole Position is all about and the function of that role of a prophet is all about and that is why we are trying to learn about this ministry and another thing that we could easily say is that because God has been restoring The prophetic and the five-fold ministry gifts We are getting a deeper knowledge now So maybe the previous generations from us they may have Moved in these things but not Discussed it as such so even terminology that we use today, right? These are all things that have emerged over the last Couple of years as we are observing more and more of the prophetic Manifesting, okay, so this is what is going on and which is why we need to understand What the prophetic ministry is all about? It will help us to function in this ministry now another thing that we want us to Recognize is we have a God who speaks so If our God we're not a communicating God like imagine, you know, he just gives us a book of rules and He wants us to function by those rules and that's it Okay, he doesn't ever talk Once again to us Then we don't really need the prophetic The prophetic is God speaking in the now He has already spoken in his word now all of us will agree that the Bible is already God speaking to us Okay, so if God were never to speak another new word to us, we still have We an understanding of God's heart because the Bible has already been given to us But what God does is he also speaks in the now So we'll see how he does that he inspires a word into our hearts in the current season of our lives and all of us would agree that words are so powerful we can very very sort of Animously say that whenever somebody has spoken a Discouraging word, maybe when we were children and we didn't have much understanding when somebody Tried to bully us or put us down. It hurt us so much. How did they do it? The words that they spoke so words carry so much power now Imagine a positive word that may have been spoken to us Maybe by our parents or our teachers when we were picked for a competition and we couldn't really Believe that we could do it No, that I can paint or I can speak or I can be a part of sports our teachers may have said something like You can do it You know, just practice you can win the prize and that gave us the confidence. So we all understand that words are powerful they either motivate us or they discourage us and that is the reason we need to Understand that even when we talk about the prophetic, you know, imagine if a word of a loved one Was so meaningful in a difficult time a word from God What a difference that can be Isn't it? Just maybe, you know, sometimes we want God to speak Volumes we want God to say everything about our lives. We want God to You know reveal the future What career we are going to take and you know, what Ministry we are going to have how is our church going to look? So we we desire to know so much from God's heart Now I'm not saying that God does not reveal all this. He does. In fact, he has given us the Holy Spirit We have the written word of God in which he has already revealed many things to us We have the Holy Spirit and Jesus said when I go I will send you the Holy Spirit He will lead you into all truth, which means that through the word through the Holy Spirit God is already speaking to us, but even when we have these things Whenever there is something that needs to be spoken even just one word from God Makes a world of a difference You know, we are stepping into a new year and we want a word from the Lord and we have this You know in our church the word of the Lord for 2024. What is God going to do this year? So the now word of God It could be so many things that God speaks the way he spoke to Abraham You know, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that. You're gonna be like this. Oh, maybe just a word Right. We can testify that it makes a world of a difference Maybe a word like arise Okay, think about it if we receive just one word from God arise We get that confidence fear not Okay, be strong Be courageous. I Have my presence shall go with you one sentence That's all we can literally like feel in our spirit in our, you know, every part of our being that There is that strength and confidence that comes into us So that's the desire that we have because we have a speaking God because we have a God who communicates So it's a beautiful thing for us to trust God to speak to us and as I mentioned earlier the church has been through different seasons and from 400 to 480 after which that dark ages that we speak about God started restoring the church with various moves of God We had the Protestant movement in the 1500s. We had Aware, you know the Puritan movement in the 1600s We had the baptism and set baptism of water Separation of church this understanding came to us during the Puritan movement 1700s where the holiness movement and sanctification of the church was spoken about 1800s is the divine healing movement and the 1900s is the Pentecostal movement and that right now The you know 2000s and the 20th century. We are having the restoration of the prophetic offices and The under deeper understanding regarding the gifts of the Holy Spirit So before we delve deeper, we are going to touch on many aspects and understand Especially the prophetic gift and How to move in it? How to activate it? What are some? practical Guidelines which will help us function in that prophetic gift, but before I get into that This is just an introductory class, but are there any thoughts or questions? About whatever we have spoken so far For anything regarding the prophetic ministry that you just want to put forward Please feel free. You can you know talk about it and then I'll I'll get into some other details of the prophetic Yes, yes, Francis Not I have not one dog, but I have a question like yeah So even like you said my life one word will encourage But how we will understand it from God or like from our thought. Yeah, so one day what happens I'm praying for a person I sense on what of God, but I am literally a lot of confusions from my side or Gods will God want to talk. So how to understand like Yeah, like he's from really from God or from our thought. Okay. See one thing that we must be clear about is that God Gives us this gift as believers. We can all flow in the prophetic gift So there is something like the prophetic gift which flows through us Okay, so that is something we have to understand that means that from time to time When we desire God does release these words to us So some words are from God now the challenge that you're talking about is Identifying which is from God and which is from maybe, you know ourselves But for that, we're gonna talk about it that there is some level of Preparing yourself Okay, so when we do things like that, we will get a better understanding of what is from God and what is from us So if you may if you want to use another simpler term practice The gift is from God that we cannot change right the origin Origin or the source of the gift is God But when the gift is released to us the way we Work with the gift is in our hands. So one a person or a believer can train themselves Practice train prepare ourselves to recognize What is from God? So the more you flow in these gifts the quicker you would be able to identify that hey, this is from God Okay, so it's a matter of Training yourself is what I would say Francis initially Or in the beginning when we are just starting to flow It may be a struggle But when you recognize, you know, you you need to step out and then you recognize Hey, I was actually correct. So the next time you have more confidence the following time. You're even more confidence So that way you kind of pick it up Any other initial thoughts so we can proceed forward. Let me just see the online students Online students, please feel free to post your questions. It's a very Crucial subject and it's good to clarify your doubts if you have any Okay, so let me Go forward We will follow the notes just so you know, we we are in sync So right now I'm going to talk about prophetic progression We've been saying that in today's time and age God is releasing the prophetic gift and more and more people will function in it but in the Bible we have certain Levels if you want to call it off the operation of the prophetic We would term it as you know, these levels or these Sort of gradations we can we can classify them on the basis of the the gift that is given and You know the kind of ministry that God calls different people to so we see in scripture There's a mention of the gift of prophecy in a first Corinthians chapter 12 There are all the nine gifts are listed and one of the gifts which is listed is The gift of prophecy. Okay, similarly when we go to first Corinthians chapter 14 Even then Paul talks about the gift of prophecy and he makes an a very Interesting comment in the beginning of that passage of first Corinthians chapter one. He says, you know first you love and That you may prophesy, you know, honestly desire to prophesy You pursue love and you desire to prophesy he says and then he goes on to set many different Rules for the operation of the gifts of the spirit in the congregational setting and then he closes again, you know Where he says things like if you want to prophesy all of you prophesy one by one Okay, so the idea that we get in the Passages that Paul writes is that in the Corinthian Church, it seems like Everyone was operating in the prophetic Okay, people that prophesying which is why he was writing to everyone like if you look at first Corinthians chapter 13 That's a passage that we are all very familiar with where Paul talks about love that We need to carry God kind of love now everyone will agree that Paul was talking to Everyone so when he says you need to have love. No lovers patient lovers kind he's talking to all the believers in Continuation to what he's saying see we are the ones who put chapter and verse but when Paul wrote it He wrote it in continuation. He continued from the passage about love and he says Desire earnestly, you know the best gifts prophesy and then again he goes on to say when you prophesy prophesy one by one Okay, so the point is that he was talking to all believers and Instructing all believers on the operation of the gift of prophecy So one of the things that we can recognize is that there is something known as the simple gift of prophecy Simple gift of prophecy that all believers can operate in and this is mentioned for us in first Corinthians chapter 14 and verse 3 Where Paul talks about? Prophecy which is meant for edification exhortation and comfort we will talk more about The simple gift of prophecy and you know other things later on this is just an introduction so he Speaks to us about the operation of the simple gift of prophecy to encourage build up and comfort other believers through ordinary believers So that would be your first level where all believers can prophesy Okay, so is it correct to say all believers can prophesy? Yeah, to some extent we can the gift of prophecy operates through every believer So that would be your simple gift of prophecy which functions through all believers now if you look at the progression what we see is that believers some believers are called Into a certain ministry function Okay, and one of the ministry functions is the prophetic ministry and we read about this in Romans chapter 12 from most versus four to eight If someone is able to read this passage you can quickly turn to it and Read it Romans chapter 12 versus four to eight, please Romans 12 4 to 8 For as we have many members in one body But all the members do not have the same function So we being many are one body in Christ and Individually members of one another Having then gift differing according to the grace that is given to us Let us use them if prophecy that is prophesy in the proposition to our faith or ministry Let us use it for our ministry the he who teaches in Teaching he who exhorts in exhort exhortation he who gives with liberty he who leads with diligence He who saw mercy with cheerfulness Sure, so in this List we also have prophecy, right? So when it is mentioned he who prophesies But this is referring more to a Grace gift of God So the spiritual gift of prophecy all believers can move in it to some extent But there is something known as a grace gift. It is also termed as a ministry gift So what happens is that God sometimes calls Believers or if I may put it this way he gives the grace to operate in the prophetic ministry So to a greater extent there are certain believers who can Who can you know function In the prophetic more than what is expected of a simple believer Okay, so that would be your Grace gift of prophecy or there are people who call it ministry gift of prophecy So that now is the next level Of the operation of the prophetic Now coming to the You know sort of a major level of the prophetic is the prophetic office that we read about in Ephesians chapter 4 Verses 11 through 12 where God has spoken to us and said that Christ gave gifts to the church The Apostle prophet, you know pastor teacher evangelist So there a term such as a prophet is used That would be The office of a prophet. So we got to make distinction of these three levels simple prophesying believer somebody who has a prophetic ministry and Somebody who is a prophet Okay, now, what is the difference when we especially talk about a prophet There is a reference to this term prophet as I mentioned earlier In Ephesians chapter 4 versus 11 and 12 Again in first Corinthian chapter 12 and verse 28. There is a mention of this term prophet Referring to the office of a prophet. It simply means That somebody who is in the office of a prophet Is assigned by God Because Christ gave gifts to the church meaning they have been Called by God Specifically to operate in those ministry offices That also suggests That everyone is not a prophet Now I being a believer Operating in the gift of prophecy. I may prophesy a lot, but it doesn't make me a prophet Are you understanding what I'm trying to say? So the progression Would go like prophesying believer Somebody who's operating in the grace gift or the ministry gift of prophecy and then the office of a prophet So somebody in the office of a prophet Is specifically called by God. So again comes the question. I want to be a prophet. Can I be a prophet? It doesn't work like that If God has called you to be a prophet You will be a prophet But if God has not chosen us to be a prophet We cannot be a prophet But as a believer Can I operate to the best capacity possible in the prophetic? That is possible But even if I'm a very prophetic believer I am not a prophet Okay, are you understanding what I'm trying to say? So this is the progression Now what is so different about the office of a prophet? You know, we we recognize that the office of a prophet Comes with something known as governmental responsibility And governmental authority By which we understand that God holds the prophet accountable at a greater level For the for the gift that has been given To the prophet Now because they carry governmental authority And responsibility They would also be people who would release powerful prophetic words Okay, so what are these powerful prophetic words? They could be words that have to do regarding the The coming movements within the church or the body of Christ Now a simple believer A simple prophesying believer may have an idea that God wants to do something like this But it would be somebody who's a governmental authority Who with authority and clarity can call forth You know these words and say, you know, there is a move of God coming This is what the Lord is doing or uh, they may speak to the nations They may um You know, there is an aspect of warring in the supernatural with the prophetic So powerful things that a prophet can do With the grace that God has given uh to his life A simple prophesying believer will never be able to do that. So these are the differences Okay, so, uh, somebody who's in the office of a prophet carries governmental responsibility and governmental authority And the bible clearly teaches us that God has always wanted, you know Uh People in these positions. So when you look at the book of Acts, okay, we find there that God called people as apostles. They were apostles Right the 12 apostles of the lamb and we see in Ephesians 220 the bible also says that The church it has been built on the foundations of the apostles and the prophets Right but somebody uh quickly go to that scripture. It's also a key scripture for us Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 20 Ephesians chapter 2 verse 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets Jesus Christ himself Being the chief cornerstone. Yeah, so you see that Having been built on the foundation Of the apostles and the prophets So even in the early church You had the apostles and the prophets who were like the pillars of the church They were strengthening the church guiding the church Releasing more of the supernatural Right, uh, so all that was happening when you look at people like, uh, you know, uh, uh, agibus There's a mention of this man called agibus is called as a prophet of God, right? So there were people who were operational in these ministry offices And uh, even as we go forward, we will see people in the prophetic office Now one more thing that we must be clear about is that We may not have, uh, we'll discuss this later when we say apostles There are classifications So the apostles of the early church were very different. They were the foundational apostles They were the ones who gave us the doctrines. So today when we have apostles, we don't expect them to, you know, rewrite Parts of the scripture for us because it's already done So the apostles of the lamb, okay, they were some of our foundational Apostles their role was different But today We can still have the apostolic. We can still have the apostles. Their role will be very different Similarly, when we consider the prophetic, we can't really compare. Yes, there will be a lot of, uh, Common aspects as far as the operation of the gift is concerned But there will be differences. You know, how God really uses the prophetic In different times and seasons, but we have to recognize that Apostles and prophets are very important part of the church Uh, and in fact, as what Anand read the church has been built on the foundation of apostles and prophets. Yeah, yes, Anna Question is, uh, grace gift of God. We, we, sorry. Yes. So the people who have the grace gift of God are not called to be as a prophet um so See being a prophet is, uh, is a very distinct and clear thing Now somebody who's operational in the grace gift of prophecy may Be a prophet That only time will tell Okay, but not all the people with the grace gift of prophecy are prophets I hope you understood And when we see this Efficient 220, yes, there will be apostles and prophets. Yeah, it was talking about the past what happened So is is it is there anything in bible that we will have Apostles and prophets now also Yes, and it's so As a normal people how we can how we have to recognize them as an apostles and prophets And many people are just naming themselves as prophets and prophets. How we can recognize them? Yeah, so that that's exactly what we're trying to answer through this course um, see Ephesians 4 11 and 12 Paul wrote to the Ephesian church Right that Christ himself has given us apostles prophets and as we study um the Episodes of Paul and the New Testament books nothing really says that It has stopped Isn't it so And Paul so clearly talks about how to function in the prophetic gift all of this only goes to say that Yes, God is raising up Apostles prophets He has been raising up. He is raising up And we are going to see more and more of this happening But again a very important question that Anand asked how to recognize Right, so that is something that as we look at scriptures, we will get a better idea of how to recognize um now People are calling themselves prophets and calling themselves apostles um Ideally that should happen the other way Okay, meaning for example, let's say I'm operating in the prophetic. Okay and people are blessed by my ministry over time People may recognize. Oh, this is a prophet of God and then people start saying a prophet so and so That is more honorable than doing it the other way because uh, we May I mean we run the risk of making an error if we start off by saying, you know, I might be um I might have the grace gift of prophecy, but again that doesn't make me a prophet. No So it's actually risky to do it that way Yeah But as people we will be able to recognize because uh, we'll we'll notice that someone is functioning so powerfully so accurately In every season of their lives in the prophetic and God is doing amazing things through their lives You know through the prophetic then We we can't help but say hey, here's a prophet of God right so Uh, that that's how we will recognize So I'll give you some pointers that should help you so here in our notes Uh on page eight on the pdf notes that I have. I don't know which one it could be in your books Basta Ashish has shared a testimony of his life where he writes about a very difficult time as a student in the united states um when uh for the sake of ministry he he spent All the money that he had I had a wonderful Ministry trip and came back to the u.s. But he recognized that his back account was down to zero and he had no You know money to sustain himself So it was a very dark period of his life and how God orchestrated a visit to Uh, a particular camp Where they were teaching about all these things, you know the gifts of the spirit how to operate the prophetic So he went for that and he was also ministering in that Camp he ministered but he writes about meeting a particular prophet of God in that camp and uh He writes about how he was so amazed that this prophet just came up to past ashes and started prophesying You know and said so many things which were already in his heart things like uh, you are here only for a season God is going to take you back to your own people India where you will establish a strong work of God. I mean these are all like When pastor went for the camp nobody really knows what is in his heart, right? um So when this prophet started saying all these things he was so amazed like wow How can someone who does not know me at all Know what i'm thinking and what God has been speaking in my life. And so I would just encourage you To read through that prophecy with all the details. It's amazing how You know, someone can speak through the heart of God and pastor actually shares a scripture In that testimony Isaiah 44 verse 26 Where he says who confirms the word of his servant and performs the counsel of his Messengers, that's the God we serve. You know God When we speak a word from God, right? It's not in vain and uh Pastor says that there are many things that he spoke That have already happened and there are many things that he is looking forward to So when there's a true prophetic word Uh, you know, we we will see God's God move in line with what he actually speaks Upon our lives Okay, but of course there's another point there which is about personal obedience. We'll come to that later No, we can't just say oh god you said and you and live in complete disobedience and you know Say why is it not happening? You said I will be a pastor and then you know God is like But you're not cooperating how how do I cause you to be that pastor that I want you to be When you're just not willing to to Walk in my ways, you know, so there's that aspect of personal obedience also but um When we obey God and when we walk in line with what he speaks Surely we can see the word of God confirmed in our lives Okay, so uh, this is a little bit about the prophetic today today's classes, but an introductory class Um, so just feel free if you have any other thoughts Uh, clarifications. It's nice to discuss Okay, so my my assumption is that you probably start having questions as we discuss more Okay, so let me touch on one A small theme before we close for today In the bible the earliest person Who is called as a prophet or the first person who's called as a prophet is any guesses? No minus marks the wrong answer So you don't have to be scared to ask That person is called prophet that Who's that first time first time in the book Moses, okay. You you feel it's Moses. Okay. Actually, it's Abraham Yeah, so in Genesis chapter 20 and verse 7 when God spoke to king abimelech uh to Ask Abraham to pray for him God said He is a prophet And he will pray for you and you shall live So now How how was Abraham a prophet? You know, you don't see from his life dust as the lord, you know, or Not like when Elijah or an Elisha personality How is God calling Abraham a prophet? So that word prophet in the Hebrew there is the word nabi And nabi means inspired Inspired man Inspired by God. So what is the name that we give to Abraham usually? father of faith one more We sing a song also I am a Friend of God Right, so I'm a friend of God. So the beauty about Abraham is his communion with God What do we call communion with God? Relationship but communication with God two way communication Fellowship can we call prayer? prayer yeah, so The beauty about Abraham is That he communicated with God so many things we see he's discussing with God When Sodom and Gomorrah has to be destroyed He's actually going there and interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah. So he was a man of prayer He was a man who understood the divine purposes of God because of his close relationship with God and a prayer life We can easily say a man of prayer. So what we recognize here is that For for a prophet from the life of Abraham what we learn is One can be very prophetic When they have a prayer life Because what is a prophetic nothing but what does God want? What does God say in the now? Understanding God's heart, right? So when we are prayerful people We can be prophetic It's easier to be prophetic But the other way around Right, uh, is is when we are not prayerful. It's very hard to be prophetic Okay, so that's the testimony from the life of Abraham He heard from God and God himself called him a prophet and said hey Abimelech you have Abraham pray for you and you will be healed So we learn about prayer and intercession and the connection of prayer and intercession to the To the strong manifestation of the prophetic through anyone's life now, of course Abraham was a prophet But we can all learn a lesson, you know, we don't know which one of us is a prophet But for us even as prophesying believers when we have a strong prayer life a life of intercession We will be strongly prophetic Okay, so with that thought i'm just going to wrap For today and then we will pick up from where we stopped later on Um, so let's pray and close then and I want to request one of us to um lead First prayer who wants to grab that opportunity? Father god we thank you. We bless you for this time lord We submit each one of us until loving and lord father You're great and you're awesome father We we all worship you and father help us to walk in your prophetic lord Help us to hear from you and we are blessing to others lord. Jesus precious, may we pray Amen, amen Thank you nina. Thank you everyone and all the best for all your courses