God often speaks to people through simple pictures and thoughts in their minds. Learning to recognise these visual messages helps individuals understand God's voice and encourage others.
God is always speaking, and one of the Holy Spirit's favourite ways to speak is through pictures. Every believer can learn to see what God shows, ask Him about it, and lovingly pass it on.
Key points
God's justice seeks the heart of Jesus. Man's justice is not God's justice. When God brings justice, He also calls us to account for hurt that has turned spiteful.
The message carries the nature of its author. An accusing, heavy thought is not the Spirit, who is helper, truth, holiness and joy.
God uses the furnishings of your mind. His whispers arrive like ordinary thoughts, drawing on your memories and experiences. Greg's family's "hair pull" is one such picture.
The Holy Spirit's favourite language is pictures. A picture carries emotion, understanding and detail in a second.
The seers show us how. Position yourself expectantly, look at the picture, register first impressions, ask questions, and allow understanding to come progressively.
Deliver it like a courier. Don't make it about you. Simply share what you felt the Lord whispered.
Key scriptures
Acts 2:15–17: the Spirit poured out brings visions and dreams
1 Samuel 3:1: few visions when God's word was rare
Habakkuk 2:1: stationing yourself to see what God says
Jeremiah 1:11–14: "What do you see?"
Zechariah 4:1–6: "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit"
Acts 10: Peter's vision of the sheet
Takeaways
Ask God for a word for someone you love, expecting a picture.
Look around in it, test it, and ask Him what it means.
Deliver it humbly and lovingly, then step back.
The big idea
God is always speaking, and one of the Holy Spirit's favourite ways to speak is through pictures. Visions and dreams are the fruit of the Spirit poured out, and every believer can learn to hear God this way. When a picture drops into your mind, don't dismiss it as unspiritual. Look at it, notice what stands out, ask the Lord about it, and then lovingly pass on what He says.
The aim of the message is to equip, not to impress: to send people out ready to hear God for someone they love and deliver it well.
Key scriptures
Habakkuk 3:2: "Repeat them in our day… in wrath remember mercy", a prayer for God's justice
Ephesians 4:11–12: ministry gifts given to equip God's people
1 Corinthians 2:10–12: the Spirit searches all things and helps us understand what God has given us
Acts 2:15–17: the Spirit poured out brings prophecy, visions and dreams
1 Samuel 3:1: when the word of the Lord was rare, there were not many visions
Habakkuk 2:1: standing on the ramparts to see what God will say
Daniel 4:13 and Daniel 7: "I looked… I kept looking"
Jeremiah 1:11–14: the almond branch and the boiling pot
Zechariah 4:1–6: the lampstand and olive trees, "not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit"
Acts 10: Peter's vision of the sheet and the house of Cornelius
God's justice seeks the heart of Jesus
Before the teaching, there was prayer for those facing injustice. Righteousness and justice are the foundations of God's throne, so justice only thrives in His presence. God's justice is not about getting our own way or getting even.
"Man's justice is not God's justice."
When God brings justice, He also calls us to account. Hurt can make us feel justified in being hateful or spiteful, and God's justice won't allow that to remain. God's justice seeks something deeper: not just to make you whole, but to make Jesus beautiful.
"Do you want him crushed or do you want a great marriage? God will only answer one of those."
The message carries the nature of its author
Hearing God isn't as confusing as we think. A simple test helps:
"The message will carry the nature of its author."
The enemy is the accuser; the Holy Spirit is the helper, comforter and advocate.
The father of lies versus the Spirit of truth.
The tempter towards sin versus the Spirit of holiness.
The spirit of heaviness versus the spirit of joy.
If a thought is accusing and putting you down, it is not the Spirit of the living God.
God uses the furnishings of your mind
"God will use the furnishings of your mind to speak to you."
Your spirit drops thoughts into your mind thousands of times a day. When the Holy Spirit, now one with your spirit, whispers something, it arrives like the rest of your thoughts. Many people miss it because they're waiting for something dramatic.
God draws on your experiences, education, memories, scriptures and family history. Greg shared how his mother saved his sister from a truck by grabbing her ponytail. In his family, a "hair pull" now means an act of love that felt unpleasant at the time, and God can use that very picture to speak to him.
The Holy Spirit's favourite language is pictures
"If you don't speak picture, you're missing out."
A picture can carry emotion, understanding and detail all at once: a picture paints a thousand words. God drops it into your heart in a second, then unpacks it with you. When the word of the Lord is common, there are many visions.
What the seers teach us
Habakkuk: position yourself with expectation
Habakkuk asked God a hard question and then stationed himself to "look to see what he will say". Greg asked the Lord about a weary surgeon and saw a crane being loaded with counterweights. The word, "I'm loading you up so you can carry more", came as the surgeon was weighing a major new leadership role.
Daniel: look at the picture
Daniel repeatedly says, "I looked." When a picture comes, look around in it and notice where the focus is. At a small home group, Greg saw a bale of hay with its straps being cut, and it set a visitor free from a vow she had made ten years earlier.
Jeremiah: register your first impressions
God asked, "What do you see?" The almond, the "hasty tree", meant God would act quickly. That meaning came from Jeremiah's world, not ours.
"What does it mean to you? He didn't give it to me."
Zechariah: ask questions
Zechariah asked, "What are these?" and the picture became God's word to Zerubbabel: an ever-flowing supply of the Spirit, always available.
Peter: understanding may come progressively
God shifted the early church's theology about the Gentiles through a picture. Peter only fully understood a day later.
"There's no problem with Peter's hearing. There's just an issue of the Holy Spirit's preference of language."
Deliver it like a courier
Don't announce "Thus says the Lord" or make yourself the big picture. Simply say, "I was praying for you, and I felt like this is what the Lord whispered to me."
"If you're the delivery person, don't make it about you."
Hearing God and passing it on also leads to disproportionate fruitfulness, because God's word never returns to Him empty.
Takeaways
Choose someone you love and ask, "Lord, give me a word for them," expecting a picture.
When a picture comes, look around in it, notice where the energy is, and ask the Lord what it means.
Test what you hear: does it carry the nature of the Holy Spirit or of the accuser?
Deliver it humbly and lovingly, then step back.
Bring your hurts to God and let His justice change your heart too.
Reflect and discuss
Have you dismissed thoughts or pictures as "just you" that may have been God speaking?
What "furnishings of your mind" might God use to speak to you?
Which of the seers' lessons (positioning, looking, first impressions, asking questions) do you most need to practise?
Where are you longing for justice, and what might God want to deal with in you along the way?
Who could you pray for this week, asking God for a picture for them?
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Thank you. What an honour to be here with you guys. You... I came undone again in worship. Yeah.
We're here with some friends, the deacons with us in the church, Greg and Monica Richmond and Bill and Jen Dutton. They wanted to visit South Africa a couple of years ago, and they said, "We want to go. Will you take us?" And we said yeah. So we went a little bit to Cape Town, and after this we're going to a game reserve a bit. But I said, "We have to go visit a South African church," and this was the one we wanted to come to. So yeah, thank you for your hospitality.
I was sitting here, and this always happens to me for some reason in this church, but I was sitting there and the Lord gave me his heart for some people here and I came undone. I was really wanting to worship, and I could just sit there and weep, because the Lord began to show me there's people here who are suffering under significant injustice, and the Spirit of God has come this morning with justice. And so I felt like the Lord called me. He said, "I'm giving you a commission to do a governmental thing this morning," which I need to qualify, because I'm going to pray that God brings justice to situations that need justice. But we have to understand the justice of God.
So let me just explain this a little. Righteousness and justice are the foundations of God's throne, the scripture says. So justice only thrives in his presence. Justice seeks the heart of Jesus. So sometimes people want justice because they think that justice is me getting my way, me getting victory over the people who've done me wrong. That's not the justice of God. That's man's justice.
And so justice flourishes around Jesus. It finds its strength in his presence. And justice not secured in the presence of Jesus becomes unjust, because somebody does something, you balance the scales, but that scale doesn't stay. Do you understand? Man's justice is not God's justice.
So we can't mistake justice for change. Change is focused on outward appearance. Justice is focused on the foundations of what God wants to do. Justice seeks... think about that. God's justice is seeking something, not just to make you whole, but to make Jesus beautiful.
So I'm going to pray a prayer. The Lord spoke to... there's a man here called Jerome, and you're facing a real challenge, and there's a court case coming up, and the Lord's going to give you victory. And nobody thinks it's possible, and I'm telling you, God's going to turn it around.
But there are many people, and you've been crying out to God against injustice. I heard the cries of many people in this church saying, "God, where's the justice?" And the compassion of God hit me. God's come this morning to give justice. I'm going to pray a prayer. God's going to give you justice.
But I want you to understand, God's justice is going to call you to account. God bringing justice on your behalf is going to call you to hear his voice, to obey. There are some things that you ought to be doing in the process, because when you feel like you're the one who's been hurt, many of us feel justified in walking in unbiblical ways. We feel justified in being hateful and spiteful and racist. And God's justice will not allow for those things to remain. Are you hearing me?
So I just want to... I want to pray for justice, but I want you to understand this. There's a scripture that says those who seek God understand justice fully. You seek his face, he's going to go, "Yeah, I hear your prayer. Let's just sort that out in you."
If you're facing an unjust situation, there are some court cases coming up, if you're facing injustice, if you've been crying out, "God, where is your justice?" I want you to stand, please, and I want to pray for you. Habakkuk 3 says, "Lord, I've heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds. Now repeat them in our day." Well, you can stand where you are. Just stand up if you need justice. "In our time, make them known. And in your wrath, remember mercy."
I saw a woman being beaten by a husband, crying out, "God, where's your justice?" God's going to deal with him. Do you want him crushed or do you want a great marriage? God will only answer one of those.
If you're sitting near somebody like this, I want you to reach out your hand gently and just touch them, because we're going to come into agreement as a church.
Father, in the name of Jesus, I release your justice. You come this morning, Lord. The Spirit of God has come to bring justice, and I release it, Lord, into these situations. I say, Lord, in the name of Jesus, let your justice begin to work in the circumstances. I break off everything of injustice. I break off every pain, every hurt, every wounding, every unforgiveness. I break it off your people and release, Lord, into the circumstances now order and justice. Bring glory to the name of Jesus and turn the tide, Lord, in a remarkably quick space of time. Shift it, Lord, within a week or two, in Jesus' name, on behalf of these people, and all God's people said amen. Thank you so much.
It has been my real burden over the last few years. When I go preach everywhere, the Lord has burdened me to say, what are you equipping these people with? When I first started in ministry, I was a student and I went to this little church, and they had stuck on the pulpit, it says, "What on earth are you saying to these people?" So I thought it was a pretty good idea.
But what's resonating in my spirit in recent times is, when I leave here today, what have I equipped you with? Because if I haven't equipped you, then I haven't done my job. My job as apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher, the Bible says, is to equip God's people. The Greek is very specific, pros. He gave these for this reason, to equip God's people so that they can minister, so that they can grow up. My job is to equip you.
So rather than... you know, when I was younger I wanted to dazzle people with "this in the Greek is a periphrastic phrase". Who cares? What I really want is at the end of this time to have equipped you to do something. And when I was waiting on the Lord, I said, "Lord, what do you want me to do?" I felt like he said, "I want you to talk to my people about how I speak in pictures. And I want you to learn to speak picture."
Someone talked today about hearing God's voice and some of the basic principles. Number one, because we don't have a lot of time, is when God's speaking or when the enemy is speaking or when you're thinking something, the message will carry the nature of its author. Okay? Basic principle. If it's the enemy, he's called the accuser of the brethren. If what you hear, this thought hits your head and it's accusatory and it's denigrating and it's putting you down, that is not the Spirit of the living God, because the Holy Spirit is the helper, the comforter, the advocate. The message will take on the nature of the person who's speaking.
Or the father of lies as against the Spirit of truth. Or the tempter towards sin, or the Holy Spirit who's our guide towards truth. Unclean spirits, or the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of holiness. It's not hard. Where did that thought come from? That was the Holy Spirit. That was an unclean spirit.
The spirit of the children of disobedience, or the Spirit of adoption. The thief versus the Spirit of life. The god of this age makes the world seem shiny and bright. The Spirit of grace makes Jesus the most beautiful person that you can find. The prince of devils, or the Lord God of hosts. The spirit of heaviness, or the spirit of joy. It's not hard.
Keep that principle in mind. People say, "Well, I don't know if I can hear God's voice because it's so confusing." I go, "No, no, no. It's not confusing. An idea will pop into your head. Something will hit your spirit. It'll come up into your mind."
Principle number two: God will use the furnishings of your mind to speak to you. Right? When we first started in ministry, there was a guy who came out of the Air Force. He was a mechanic in the Air Force. And every prophetic word, he used to go, "It's like the wing of an aeroplane," you know, or "like the bolts that you hold," and every prophetic word came out of his background, because the Lord uses the furnishings of your mind.
1 Corinthians 2 says, "The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except that person within them?" Your own spirit. You can throw up the blue there. Hey, see how easy life is. "In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God."
You know what the Bible says? You are a body, you have a soul and you have a spirit. Many of you think of yourselves as unspiritual people. But a spiritual act is happening thousands of times a day, because your spirit generates a thought and it drops it into your mind. This has been happening to you thousands of times a day and you think it's unspiritual. But the Bible says that's a spiritual reality. No one knows their thoughts except their spirit within them.
So when the Holy Spirit, who's become one with your spirit when you came into Christ, whispers something into your spirit, it drops into your mind like the rest of your thoughts. And you're waiting for a 16-part harmony, because you think that when God speaks, something's going to shake. Am I preaching to anyone yet? And the Bible says, for this reason, "so that you can understand what God has freely given you."
So let's go to the next picture. You can throw it up there. God will use the furnishings of your mind: your experiences, your education, entertainment you've watched, memories you've had, scriptures you've read, friends that you've had, family history, all of that.
My sister, when she was about three years old, had more personality than space. She was just running, I was in a pram, and my sister was running ahead, and she looked across the road and there was a puppy. And she ducked for the puppy, except there was a truck coming down the road. She ran in between two cars about to run into the road, and the only thing my mother could do was take two steps and grab her ponytail, and ripped her off her feet by her ponytail. Poof. Here's a little girl. Puppy. Mum's shouting at her. What kind of a mother does that?
Yeah, that's what I want to know. I wasn't there. So in our family, it's time for a hair pull. We understand something by that picture, because that was done out of love, because that saved my sister's life. It wasn't pleasant at the time. She misunderstood who my mum was for a few minutes. Make sense? She didn't see the truck.
Now that's part of our family history. So if the Lord wants to speak to me, I go, "What's going on?" He says, "Hair pull." I go, "I got it. You were being kind to me. I just don't have enough sense to perceive it." Does that make sense? So God will use the furnishings of your mind, your family history, stuff.
Number three. One of the favourite languages... in fact, I would venture to say the favourite language of the Holy Spirit is pictures. And if you don't speak picture, you're missing out.
Acts 2: "These people aren't drunk as you suppose, but it's only nine in the morning. This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: I'll pour out my Spirit on all people, and your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will see visions." You can put the blue up. "And they'll dream dreams." Visions and dreams are the direct impact of the outpoured Spirit of God. All right?
You go, "No, that's just not true." Well, let's take you to 1 Samuel 3. It says, "In those days the word of the Lord was rare," and in the way the Jews used to repeat themselves, the same concept using a different word, "the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions." The implication is, when the word of the Lord is common, there are many visions. We're tracking? Beautiful.
So there's roughly 6,000 languages in the world. I would venture to say there's probably at least 6,000 angelic languages that are not spoken on the earth, because Paul said you can speak the tongues of men and you can speak the tongues of angels. So there's 12,000 languages. One of the favourite languages of the Holy Spirit is pictures.
Now I'm going to show you this from various scriptures quickly. And while we walk this through, I want to show you some aspects of what we can learn from some of the seers. Some of the prophets in the old covenant were typically called seers. They saw things, and that's how they communicated, from what they saw, what they experienced. But it was more than just a mental picture.
Oftentimes when somebody was called to the office of a prophet, they had what they called the pathos of God. God gave them a sense of his heart, and they stepped into a picture and they experienced that whole picture. And sometimes they were aware that it's just a picture in their mind, and sometimes it was so vivid that they weren't sure if they were there or not.
All right. So let's look at what the seers can teach us. Habakkuk teaches us to position ourselves with expectation. He said, "I'll stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts. I will look to see what he will say." Isn't that interesting?
So he said, listen... Habakkuk 1 is Habakkuk's complaint. He's going, "Lord, I know we messed up, but these people that you're using to judge us, they're reprobate. I mean, they're hideous, really. And the judgement that you're putting on us is not fair. I mean, really." And he goes, "Lord, help me understand this." You guys? So, "I went and positioned myself, because now I've asked a question and I'm looking to see."
It's helpful for you to position yourself to look and see. We had a guy in our church, he's a really skilled doctor, specialist surgeon, and I could see he was dragging. And so I went and positioned myself. I said, "Lord, talk to me about him." And the Lord showed me a picture of, you know, one of those cranes where they do construction, and on the one end there's all these weights and the other end there's this, you know... and I saw him loading up this thing with extra weight so he could pick up extra weight there.
So I went to him. I said, "I feel like the Lord says, I'm loading you up so you can pick up extra weight." He said, "That's interesting, because they just asked me to be..." this guy in his area of expertise for the whole of the US. They wanted him to lead that. And he was just praying about, "Lord, should I do this? Shouldn't I do this?" And the Lord said, "I'm going to load you up so you can carry more." Just a picture.
Daniel teaches us to look. I think so many people ask the Lord a question and then he starts dropping pictures in their heads and they don't look at it. "I'm trying to concentrate. I want to hear God's voice." Because they don't understand that very often the Holy Spirit likes to present a picture and then he wants to talk to you about the picture, because a picture paints a thousand words.
He can build in emotion, understanding, detail into a picture that would take a thousand words to say the same thing. So he drops it in a second into your heart. You get the whole picture. Boom. Then he starts to unpack it with you.
So Daniel says, "I looked, and there before me..." Daniel 4:13: "In the visions I saw while lying on my bed, I looked." Daniel 7: "In my vision at night I looked." Daniel 7: "I looked. As I looked, thrones were set in place." Daniel 7: "In my vision at night I kept looking."
One of the things I found out is, when you say, "Lord, could you speak to me?" and this picture pops, look at it. Look around. Not difficult. It's not hard. What's going on? Where do you find the Lord's wanting to focus? You spend some time looking at the picture. That's interesting.
Years ago, when the earth's crust was still cooling, Michelle and I were just beginning in ministry. Hey, remember those days. And so we went to visit one of the home groups, and we were in our mid-twenties and the leaders were in their fifties, and nobody showed up to their home group. So it was just us and them. You know how awkward that was? And then one other couple showed up, and that was their first time.
So worship was a little tentative, was a little awkward. And while we were just singing the song, the Lord shows me a picture of a big bale of hay, two iron straps, you know those where you strap them together, and a big pair of scissors under the iron that just clips them. So I'm looking at this. I said, "Lord, talk to me about this." He goes, "Somebody has bound themselves with an oath, and I've come tonight to free them from the oath." But there's only six of us in the room, and I know it's not us two.
So I say, "I feel like the Lord has come tonight to set somebody free from their oath." And the lady starts crying, the guest. She says, "Ten years ago I left the business because I got a better job." And she said, "I left unwisely." It was like, "Goodbye, suckers. Keep your horrible job. I'm off to greater things." And then she went and joined that company, and three months later the company went under, and that was the only job she could get back.
So she came back: "Can I have my job back, please?" And they said, "Yeah, but listen now, this whole drifting off and going..." So she said, "No, I'm staying here for the rest of my life." Now it's ten years later, and her dream job has come up, and she's perfect for it. But now she's made a vow.
So she said to her husband, "I think we should go to home group tonight." He goes, "I don't want to go." So she said, "I'm going to go and ask the Lord, will you release me from my vow?" She said, "That's why I'm coming." She sat there one song. I think they left early even. She was like, "That's what I came for."
Why I bring the story up is, how easy would it have been? "I'm trying to be spiritual here, Lord, and you're showing me bales of hay." You're tracking? Sometimes you just have to pause, look around. Daniel teaches that.
Jeremiah teaches us to register your first impressions and your emotions. Jeremiah 1: "The word of the Lord came to me: What do you see, Jeremiah? I see the branch of an almond tree." That's all he sees. There's a picture, and there's a branch of an almond tree. And the Lord says, "You've seen correctly, because I'm watching over my word to perform it." Basically, I'm going to get this word done quickly. And the almond tree in Jeremiah's day was called the hasty tree, because it was the first one that blossomed.
So that's all he sees, the branch of the hasty tree. He said, "What do you see?" "I see a hasty tree." He goes, "You're right. I'm going to do this quickly." "What do you see, Jeremiah?" The word of the Lord came to me again: "What do you see?" "I see a pot that's boiling," he said, "and it's tilting towards us from the north." He goes, "You're right. That's what's happening. I'm going to raise up that nation. I'm going to get them into a fever boil and I'm going to send them against you."
Some of you get pictures. "Lord, speak to me. No, I don't want pictures. I want harmony. I want angels." Sometimes the Lord goes, "What are you seeing?" Repeat it to him. "I'm seeing this." Look around in it. What's your first impression?
About the almond tree, can I just say, if the Lord showed me an almond tree, my first impression wouldn't be, "Oh, he's going to do this quickly." Right? Because he's not using the furnishings of my mind. He was using the furnishings of Jeremiah's mind. God's going to use the furnishings of your mind.
What does it mean to you? People come, "What does this dream mean?" I don't know. What does it mean to you? He didn't give it to me. He gave that picture into your context. God is amazing. The Holy Spirit loves this. He knows your whole everything, and he fashions something that is so specific and so accurate to you.
Zechariah teaches us to ask questions. "The angel who talked with me returned and woke me up, like someone waking from sleep. And he asked me, 'What do you see?' And I answered, 'I see a golden lampstand with a bowl on the top and seven lamps on it, with seven channels to the lamps. And also there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and one on the left.' And I asked the angel who talked with me, 'What are these, Lord?'"
He's walking around the vision, and he's going, "Man, I saw these lamps and there's channels and there's bowls and there's trees feeding the bowls and there's fire." And he goes, "What is this?" And he says, "Don't you know what these are?" "No, my lord," I replied. So he said to me, "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel."
This picture, lampstands, channels, bowls, trees: this is my word to Zerubbabel. "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit." There's an ever-flowing flow of the sevenfold Spirit of God into your life, always available. Beautiful.
Let's go to Peter, and then we're finishing and then we're going to practise. Peter comes. You know the story; we're not going to read it all. He goes up on the roof to pray. He's hungry. It's lunchtime. And he falls into a trance, and he sees heaven open and unclean animals in a sheet come down. And the Lord says to him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."
Can I just stop just for a minute here? In all of these stories, there is nothing wrong with these people's ears. He says to Jeremiah, "What do you see?" Jeremiah is hearing the voice of God. But God chose not to speak to Jeremiah in words. He gave him a picture and then talked to him about the picture.
Same way he gives Peter... Understand this moment in church history. Up until then, the Jews were feeling like they were superior to the Gentiles. And God is about to shake the whole revelation, because he wants to take this group of Jews who love Jesus and he wants to show them that anybody, Gentiles who love Jesus, are just as clean and just as accepted and just as brought into the kingdom as you are. This is a fairly important point of theology, and the way God chose to communicate it was in a picture.
And so he says, "Surely not, Lord." And the sheet goes back up, and then it comes back down. He says, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat." He goes, "No, I've never eaten anything unclean." And it goes back up and it comes down a third time. "Hey, get up, Peter. Kill and eat." He goes, "No." And the Lord says, "Do not call anything impure or unclean that God has made clean." That's ten words.
"This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven. And while Peter was pondering the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found where Simon's house was and they stopped at the gate. And they asked if Simon, who was known as Peter, was staying there," because an angel had shown up and sent some people to go to this specific address and ask for Peter. "And while Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, 'Simon, three men are looking for you. Get up. Go downstairs. Don't hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.'"
There's no problem with Peter's hearing. There's just an issue of the Holy Spirit's preference of language. And if you don't understand that, you're going to miss... most prophetic in your life is going to flow from a picture the Lord gives you that you speak out of. Okay.
So Peter goes with them, right? And he's invited into a Gentile's home, which makes him ceremonially unclean for the Jews. And all the Jewish people who've come with him go, because the Holy Spirit told Peter to go. And he goes, "All right, I'm going into a Gentile's home." And there's just this whole group of people, Gentiles.
And Peter, while he's preaching, and this is part of his preach, he says, "I now realise..." But this is like a day later. He didn't realise it tout de suite, for the Frenchmen. He didn't realise it right then. He realised it a day later. He said, "I now realise how true it is that God doesn't show favouritism, but he accepts from every nation the one who fears him and who does what is right."
And then, while he was speaking these words, the Spirit of God interrupts his message and demonstrates emphatically what he just said, because the Spirit is poured out on the Gentiles. And the Jews that came with him are freaked out: "They got the same Spirit we did." Right?
Let's recap. One of the best exercises I could suggest to you is choose somebody, your wife, your husband, your kids, somebody that you love and you care about, and say, "Lord, give me a word for them." And position yourself for a picture. And then when the picture comes, look around in the picture.
See what is highlighted to you in the picture. Where's the energy? Where does it feel like there's bite? Where's the focus the Holy Spirit's trying to point you to? Ask questions. "Why that, Lord? What's going on?" Just listen to what he says.
Now, unlikely that you're going to hear an angel's voice audibly. 99.99% of the time when I hear God's voice, it comes like a whisper from my spirit and it drops into my mind, so quiet you can miss it if you're not actually deliberately waiting for it.
I started to do this with 30 different men. I do a different person every day. It comes up on my phone. I was praying for the one guy. The Lord showed me a picture, told me, tell him, "Don't worry about your financial future. I've got you." I call him up. He goes, "That's really helpful. Thank you." I said, "Why?" He said, "My boss just walked in an hour ago and fired me." He went home with a better story than "I got fired." He went home with "The Lord said, don't worry, I've got you."
Take somebody you love, ask the Lord to speak to you about them. Expect a picture. Look around the picture. See where the focus is. Ask the Lord questions about it. Don't go to them and say, "Thus says the Lord." Don't make yourself the big picture.
You're the... who are the people who deliver here? In the States it's FedEx or Amazon. Who delivers to your door? Yeah. So somebody, the guy who delivers the package that you bought to your door. Somebody buys you a gift and he delivers it. So he delivers it, then he stands here and goes, "So, what did I bring you?" "Hey, thank you. It's time for you to go now. This is my gift. I don't need the delivery guy."
If you're the delivery person, don't make it about you. Be good at your job. Deliver it in the way that's most comfortable for the person and get on your bicycle.
And remember, it might come progressively. How many of you ever read a scripture and then a couple of days later, a couple of weeks, months later, then it hits you and you go, "Oh"? That's what happened to Peter. That's what the Lord's talking about. And that's why Peter gets up in the Jerusalem Council and he defends that. He goes, "Let me tell you the story of how God led me."
Okay, let me close it there. Here's what I'm hoping. The power in this message is not what's just happened. The power of this message is what you do with it in the next two, three minutes. So we're going to practise just for a few minutes, and I want you to take somebody you love and care about, and we're going to just go to the Lord and say, "Lord, could you give me a word for them?"
We're asking the Holy Spirit to give it to you in picture form, right? Because that's the lesson we're learning. And so you're going to get a picture in your head. I dare you to just look around, see where the Lord's focusing you, ask him what he's saying, and then go and deliver it to them in the most loving way you can: "I was praying for you. I felt like this is what the Lord whispered to me." You will be astounded.
Can I just talk for 30 seconds more to the people who are getting older? I'm very interested in disproportionate fruitfulness. The older you get, you realise I have less time, so I want to be disproportionately fruitful. And I have discovered that if you can be somebody who hears God's word and communicates it to other people, you can reach a stage of disproportionate fruitfulness, because the word of God never returns to him empty but always accomplishes the purpose for which he sends it. God's word is powerful and effective.
In fact, it doesn't need two minutes. I'm going to take one minute. You ready? Let's pray for somebody.
We give you honour, Lord, for your kindness, for your willingness to speak, for how much you speak. We pray that you make us great at it, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.
I want to say thank you to Rory and Mel just for the friendship for many years. We really appreciate you guys. Love you. And I just want to congratulate you and the leadership of this church on what God's doing here. There's a revival going on here. That is unbelievable, actually.
And sometimes when you're in revival, you don't always know it. You think it's normal. This is not normal. Can I just say, what God's doing here is not normal, and you should cherish it. You should celebrate it. You should bring as many friends to get saved here as you possibly can.
God's stirring the waters in this church. Bring the people. It's remarkable. Thank you for your hospitality, your generosity. We really appreciate you guys. It's been an honour to be with you. Thank you.
