Episode 017 – Personal Prophecy

19 June 2021

Find this episode on your usual podcast player,  on YouTube, or listen here.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

 

T: Well hey B, welcome to I was a Teenage Fundamentalist – a podcast.

B: A podcast.

T: A podcast, yes. Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, that’s actually what’s on the stuff that we’re selling on RedBubble to try and recoup the costs of the podcast. But really look, let’s face it, it’s not really about that. It’s about having a bit of fun and getting some t-shirts, stickers, mugs and stuff.

B: I like our logo. It’s very simple and it stands out. I would wear it – you can see that through our Facebook page. Get on there, click the link, or just Google it.

T: We came up with that together, that was a genuine joint effort, wasn’t it.

B: It was, it was Creative Design Studio 101.

T: Of which I am none of that, by the way.

B: I love mucking round with graphics and stuff, but I’m not very good at it. But anyway, we enjoyed it. Again, lots of stuff happening on the Facebook page. Lots of conversations over the past week, lots of people talking about tongues, people talking about their experience of tongues. We encourage you to get on and keep talking about any of the topics that are coming up. Get on our Twitter, retweet us, have a conversation with us on there. Talk talk talk, talk to each other – as we’ve said before, just because we don’t engage in conversation on particular topics doesn’t mean we agree or don’t agree with it, it just means we’re not engaging on that because we’re both pretty busy too, we’ve both got fulltime jobs and families, lots happening, and it’s not all about us, even though it’s us talking here. It’s about you guys all talking to each other, having a look back at the past, contextualising it in the now, and what you’ve learned, I guess.

T: And there’s a bit of a community – that’s what I like as well, people are starting to get to know one another, and it’s nice. It’s nice.

B: We did have Anthony Venn-Brown, who was our guest in Episodes 11, 12 and 13 – Anthony messaged us and said you guys have now got a ministry. Um, no we don’t Anthony!

T:  That didn’t trigger me at all Anthony, thank you very much!

B: But no, that’s certainly not what he meant – there’s a bunch of people who are talking and a bunch of people who are part of an online community, which is a great thing.

T: Yes, it’s very good. So hey, Episode 17.

B: Yes.

T: Last week we did tongues, this is the flip side of that – prophecy.

B: As I said in my conversion story, I looked at secular prophets a lot growing up, and I was always fascinated by the ability for someone to see into the other world and be able to predict things, and be able to create that mystery. That was always something I found really interesting, so coming into the Christian world and being told you too can do this, I was like wow – I can do this? This is actually part of the Christian journey? Pretty cool!

T: Yeah, I thought so too. I remember Pastor H, the senior pastor of Great Big AOG, he was part of the state executive, he was part of the national executive, he was a big deal, so anything he said we paid attention to. He was talking once about how the prophets spoke in two ways. He said the prophets spoke with foretelling, that is telling the future and what was going to happen, but he said they also spoke with forth telling. I have no idea what that means, even to this day.

B: I think it’s just before fifth telling.

T: Oh I think so, and just after third telling as well. And if I have to tell you again, that’ll be last time. 

B: Okay!

T: I think it meant that it was speaking on behalf of God, speaking from God rather than just telling the future. Let’s face it, that’s what happens a lot in prophecy in the bible anyway. It’s not always talking about end times or talking about the destruction of the Jewish temple, or the nation state, or anything like that. Sometimes it’s just this is what God wants from you. This is what God wants you to do. So prophecy was like that as well, it wasn’t just telling us what was going to happen in the future, but the future was a big part of it.

B: It was a big part, and I’m sure you have examples – as do I – of people who would seek out prophecy because they wanted to be guided, they wanted to know they were heading in the right direction. One that comes to mind for me, somebody that got a prophecy not long after they became a Christian that said essentially all the things they really wanted. At this time they were maybe early 20s, and it was very much you’re going to have a wife, you’re going to have a big house by the beach – this person was a surfer – you’re going to have a beautiful family, blah blah blah. They hung their hat on it, but this prophecy also seemed to grow. They started to interpret it, that essentially they would have lots of money, they would have this and that, and they used it, I think, as an excuse to seek something greater, something better, and they’re now maybe 40 years on and haven’t landed any of that, and are quite lonely. They’re heading towards the latter part of their life, completely alone, because they hung their hat on this, created a new story for their life that wasn’t necessarily true, and missed out on all the good things around them.

T: A couple of things stand out to me about that. First of all, it sounds very Word of Faith, blab it and grab it kind of thing, it was all very material possessions, but the second thing is it sounds like this person didn’t do anything to try and achieve any of those things, they just expected God was going to deliver because it was a prophecy.

B: 100%, that’s exactly what happened. The interesting thing is this person is of very low motivation, so I think it suited them to just sit back and expect it to come, but others I spoke to over the years who were there that day that apparently this prophecy was passed said apparently that’s not what was said at all. How it was interpreted that way people couldn’t quite understand. I don’t remember exactly what they said, but it was very much just a word of encouragement such as good things are going to come to you and they interpreted it as good things that they actually wanted to come to them. It’s quite sad, when I look back on it.

T: So you think it was maybe one of those more general prophecies, those ones that are a bit like a star sign in the newspaper – God’s going to do this, God’s going to do that, then this person actually gave it legs or fleshed it out, made it more specific than it actually was?

B: I think so, and over the years they kept seeking out – they would go to different evangelists or meetings that would happen where somebody had this gift of prophecy and they would go up the front for prayer at the end of the service to try and get further guidance on it. Some of that was, I think, to try and cement the fact that they were on the right path, regardless of the fact that anybody could see they were on the wrong path, and they were doing nothing to contribute to this vision or prophecy.

T: That’s interesting. I can totally relate on a lot of levels to that story though, in my own experience. I used to love getting prophecies, whether it was a word of wisdom, word of knowledge, word of whatever-the-other-words-are, I used to love them. It was one thing to get a word from your mate or from your peer in your church, but it was another to get it from the visiting minister or pastor whenever they would start to prophesy over you. It was like God is speaking directly to you.

B: Yeah, that’s right, I remember many times when people would bring a word to me, whether it was a prophecy or not, and it was God is going to do great things in your life, God is going to use you in X Y & Z way. If somebody sitting next to me just said mate, I think you’re doing a cracking job at life, things are going well for you, I’d go oh thanks that’s lovely. But when you frame it and say hey this is a message from God – it’s exactly the same thing, but it’s from God, of course it holds that greater importance.

T: That speaks to the culture of the AOG and Pentecostalism – not just in Australia, but globally at the time, it was all about God’s going to use you. God’s going to make you into this, and God’s going to use you, and you’re going to do big things for God. Remember that? That was the thing that was said all the time. In the Revival Centre we didn’t have personal prophecy, they didn’t believe in it. It was all tongues, interpretation and then prophecy which was just in the service, someone could shout out. It was always in Elizabethan English – verily, verily I say unto you this day the Lord doth – it was like that. We had a bit of that in Great Big AOG as well, but not as much. There was a bit of it, but it was more this personal prophecy where people would come up to you either in the prayer line or maybe they’d be praying for you at home and come and see you in the service and say hey, God gave me a word for you.

B: How often was that used? God gave me a word for you. All the time.

T: Every fucking week.

B: Yep. Do you think sometimes it was used as a mechanism of control when you would get it from others? 

T: No!! What? No!! How dare you, how very dare you!?

B: Yeah.

T: Totally. And I’m going to confess that I used it for evil, not always for good. There was a couple who were friends of mine, the guy was more my friend than the girl, and I wasn’t a big fan of her. She didn’t do anything, it was just we were young and you sometimes don’t like people. She was a wonderful person – I want to stress that, because I know that she may be listening to this. She was a wonderful person, but I wasn’t keen on my mate marrying her, and I really thought he was making a bad call, marrying this girl. It was all too quick, he was just running right into it, so I started – I don’t think it was quite as clear as saying I made a conscious decision to give them a word, I was believing that the marriage was wrong, and then one day I went up to him and said hey, I believe I’ve got a word for you. And he’s like ok, and I said I think that you’re – I didn’t say I think. I said I’ve got a word for you. Let’s make that clear. And I said to him you’re making a mistake marrying this girl, that if you do, God will bless you, it’ll be ok, but you’ll miss out on the real call of God in your life if you marry this girl. They were at bible college with me at the time. He went back and told her, as you can imagine, she wasn’t happy.

B: Dunno why.

T: Yeah, and I think they literally got in the car, left bible college early, went back to Great Big AOG and reported me for having given this word, because if you think about it, from their perspective, what if it was God? It’s going to throw all their marriage plans and their love for each other – they were beside themselves, especially her.

B: So were you charged with spiritual misconduct? 

T: Well yes and no. So there was one pastor in particular, let’s call him Pastor J, he was happy as a pig in shit when he found out this is what had happened, because he was – I don’t know if you remember, Pastor J used to give words all the time.

B: All the time.

T: ALL the time. I remember him looking at me with this smarmy smile and said what have you done now. I was like huh what? The other pastor, Pastor B, he called me in and said do you really believe it was God? And I was like well, I think so. And he said well let’s face it, if you throw a stone into a herd of pigs, the one that squeals is the one you hit. So privately, he said to me maybe you’re right, and maybe that’s why they’re so upset, and I kind of got away with it. But years later, looking back, shameful. Really wrong. I don’t think it was God, but more than that it wasn’t my place to be giving people prophecies about their marriage. 

B: Well, 30 years on, round about, they’re still married.

T: Exactly right, and my Christian marriage didn’t last. But to be fair I had a lot of people giving me words about that one. I should have listened.  But that’s a prime example of using it to manipulate – I had a desire, I had what I wanted, I had convinced myself it was God and made a mess of someone’s day.

B: I don’t think I ever used it to purposefully manipulate, but I certainly remember this one time we were on a camp – the old Christian camp again – where we were talking about using the gifts of the Spirit. One night we had this person speak on prophecy, and it was told to us at the end, now go practice it. Just go up, deliver a prophecy to someone. How incredibly irresponsible that was – a bunch of 18-20 year olds being told hey go and speak into someone’s life and tell them it’s God. It put a lot of pressure. I was a leader at this time, I think it was just before I was going to bible college, I definitely had aspirations, and I remember going up to this one guy and giving him a prophecy. It was incredibly general, but it was also based on stuff I knew about him. It was also based on the fact that it was some basic psychology – this person had some social awkwardness, some difficulty relating to people so I used that in ways of going hey, you know God sees sometimes it’s really difficult for you to engage with people because of X Y & Z, he wants to tell you to be bold, go out, rest in him – all this sort of stuff. I can’t remember the exact words.

T: I know the guy you’re talking about because he was so socially awkward he was basically inside out. So giving him that word was like saying the Lord would say the sky is blue. 

B: You’re right, it was that generalised, but I felt such pressure to do it. It was never a gift I thought I had or wanted, but there was a lot of pressure to just go and do it, give it a crack. What could go wrong? You could just speak into someone’s life and completely fuck it up if they hung their hat on it, like this person I spoke about before. It was just incredibly irresponsible.

T: But you know, it happens outside of Christianity, right? The Baptists and Church of Christ people would say no it’s not something we do, but outside of Pentecostalism there is a similar kind of thing, there’s fortune tellers, people doing cold readings, hearing from the dead, and there’s been a lot written on it of it being a skill of cold reading – reading people, watching their responses, continuing to speak, you start to go down a wrong track and see it in their face, so you turn back and change the story, and on you go. Very much like the astrology stuff you see in the newspaper.

B: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people have made careers out of it. Jonathan Edwards Crossing Over – a lot of people swear by the fact that he can actually speak to your dead relatives or friends, or pass on messages. Maybe he can, I really don’t know, but I think it is that generalised stuff and definitely a little bit dodgy in some ways. It’s not something I believe is real, personally, but I think a lot of people do hang their hat on it and wait for his words. 

T: That’s what I meant about being really hungry for it as a young Christian, God was actually speaking to you. But you’re right, it was always very general – God’s going to use you for big things and God’s going to do this – it was never on Thursday the 15th of April 1994 you’re going to stub your toe. It was never that.

B: No, I remember several of my siblings – I’ve spoken before that we used to have the family seances, but they used to quite often visit local fortune tellers or witches or whatever you want to call them to go hear about their future. I remember once one of them coming home saying oh my God they’ve told me that mum and dad are going to get divorced. At the time I was only 8 or 9 or 10, I was quite young, and I remember being incredibly distressed by it because I saw that stuff as quite real back then. Spoiler alert, mum and dad were married 57 years before dad passed so they didn’t break up, it didn’t come true, but we definitely hung our hat on the authority that these people had in being able to tell the future.

T: I can remember there was a youth meeting once and there was a girl who was sort of sliding a little bit away from church. She’d stopped attending, was coming sometimes, and Pastor J, one of the youth pastors got up and actually spoke into her life, and said you’re drifting, and really laid it out. She was in tears. Later I went to her and said you know I told him all that right, I’d gone and seen him earlier in the week and said I was worried about you. She got so upset and incensed, she walked out and never came back. 

B: Wow. It’s pretty full on, and I think stuff like that happened quite often. It was a bit frightening, but one lighter-hearted thing happened – and you reminded me of this because I’d completely forgotten, as I’m sure I’ve forgotten many, many different things. But there was one person in a prayer meeting where they were getting words spoken to them. There was this one person who was prophesying over them saying God’s given you a trumpet, sound your trumpet, sound your trumpet, and it got a bit awkward in this meeting when all of a sudden this person literally put their hands up to their mouth and went toot-toot toot-toot.  They literally sounded their little fake trumpet.

T: Sounded their trumpet. They didn’t realise it was a metaphor.

B: They did not. And good on them – lucky it wasn’t a kazoo, because they can be a little bit annoying. 

T: Yeah. Hey I’ll tell you another story like I did with the tongues story – this is another one I can’t explain. So there was this young guy in the youth group who was sort of on the fringe. You were talking about practising prophecy right, so I was trying to practice prophecy one day, so I sat there with him, we were praying, there was a group of us and I laid hands on him and just started prophesying.  I just wanted to say stuff that was really positive, and I was basically imitating stuff I’d heard other people say. So I was saying things like you’re going to lead many to the Lord, and God’s going to use you for big things, and I went on for quite a long time. And as I was going, I kid you not, all of a sudden I stopped, and it was as if something took over, and out of my mouth came these words: This shall not come to pass. And I just froze. Everybody looked at me, I didn’t know what to say. It was as if I was bullshitting, and then something stepped in and said actually none of that is real. Boom. Again, I can’t explain that to this day.

B: You called yourself out.

T: Well, part of my subconscious said actually, no. I dunno. But there you go. True story.

B: Do you remember at Great Big AOG there was a bit of a fringe group, certainly a group that you related to and you started a bit of a prayer group. Do you remember that with that fringe group?

T: There was a lot of fringe groups and prayer groups, so go on and I’ll see if it stands out to me.

B: I remember you – I wasn’t there, you were relaying this story to me at the time – this person was in the corner and you opened your eyes, and they were dancing and moving. Not saying anything, but a lot of movement. You went over to them after a few minutes and said are you ok? What are you doing? And they said hey, I’m experimenting with prayer. 

T: Yes, yes. That wasn’t fringe, that was mainstream. His “I was experimenting with prayer” wasn’t mainstream, but that’s the kind of shit that happened all the time.

B: It did, but that was a bit weird. It was like, experimenting with prayer is like experimenting with prophecy, but slightly less dangerous. It is a bit of weird time, the whole prophesying thing. To this day I’m not convinced of many things I’d seen or heard, and I don’t recall any that I remember hanging my hat on for my own life, and certainly none that have come to pass to date.  So that generalised stuff – all of that can come to pass.

T: I had one once that said God’s going to make you a man after God’s own heart. 

B: Oh yep.

T: That one stuck with me for a long time, because it sounded like a nice thing to happen, you know? I used to often revisit it – it wasn’t about God’s going to do great things, or he’s going to use you, or you’re going to save millions – none of that, it’s just you’re going to be a better person. And I kind of liked that one. Sometimes they would be encouraging. Sometimes they were kind of nice – we called them words of encouragement, brother – which is not one of the biblical words, but yeah I actually like those. I look at it now and I can remember one of the other podcasts I was listening to – again, it was The Liturgists when they did one on prophecy, it’s worth investigating that podcast series. But they were talking about is it possible that some people do tap into something? Is there something we can’t explain, it doesn’t have to be spiritual. You know how when the phone rings and you know who it is? You pick up the phone, and it’s them? How do you know that stuff? You know that I’ve had a mystical experience in my life that put an end to my atheism – I’m not going to go into details but I had a mystical experience where I knew stuff I couldn’t possibly know, and can’t explain it to this day. It doesn’t mean Christianity is true, it doesn’t mean there’s ghosts and goblins, but it doesn’t mean it’s not either. There’s something sometimes I feel I can tap into and know stuff. You can mock me – and I don’t think it’s necessarily just the domain of Christians. Other people get this as well.

B: You know I’m not going to mock you, I’ve had similar mystical experiences and things that are quite unexplainable happen in my life, so I’m very comfortable with that in not knowing and never knowing what they were, quite potentially. But I think you’re right, some of those words of encouragement were good, and they were a safer place. If they built people up without being damaging, then that’s not a bad thing. I mean, I think we should do that as fellow humans – build each other up anyway – but when you start badging it as God is telling me this and this is how I can control you, it’s where it becomes dangerous and not a helpful space to move in.

T: The Chinese have this thing about Chairman Mao, they say he was 70% right, 30% wrong. I think in this domain, both in church and out of church, I think it’s like 3% true and 97% shit, but that’s just how I feel. I think there is something – we’re probably going to alienate half the audience by saying this, but I do. That’s where I live. 

B: A lot of people will chase that 3%. A lot of people will chase it if it’s a fraction of a percent, just on the off chance that they might hit some gold. I think it’s part of human nature as well.

T: Yeah that’s right, we’re meaning makers, aren’t we. It could all be subconscious, it could all be unconscious, it could all be bullshit – I get that, so please don’t listen to this and go oh, I’m not listening to I was a Teenage Fundamentalist anymore because they’re super spiros – as we used to say back in the day. Remember that – super spiros?

B: I do!

T: I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying there’s things that sometimes happened that you just can’t explain. And I don’t know what to do with them.

B: Yeah, and you don’t have to. I’ve got friends that are hard core science heads and everything has to be explained away by science, otherwise it’s not true. I think it’s just as dangerous to be on that side because not everything is explainable, there’s too many things we don’t know and I think it can be a bit of arrogance on our behalf to think we can explain everything. I don’t think life works that way.

T: Yeah, I agree. There’s a place for science and it’s extremely important, and if it wasn’t for that we wouldn’t have podcasts and iphones, medicine, all that kind of stuff. This is coming back to that small percentage of experiences and things that happen that you just go I can’t explain that, and yet it happened. And you can’t measure it, because it’s experience. But it still really happened.

B: And your truth might not be my truth and that’s ok. Let’s be ok with that.

T: That sounds like a song. (sings) Your truth may not be my truth, his truth is not her truth…

B: It’s like a postmodern anthem. I mean, it’s a little bit naff, but I like it.  I think also we’ve got two more episodes before our last episode, so it’s probably good to give people a heads up that what we want to do in Episode 20 is have a bit of a Q&A. We’ve had a few people contact us and ask questions. We also had someone put on the Facebook group would we like to do a livestream and have questions – what we’re going to do is get you to start putting questions up. We might put like a noticeboard up on the Facebook group that people can populate with some of the questions they want us to speak to. We’re going to have a bit of a retrospective time as well, and look back on the season as it was. But any of those things you want to ask us, we’re going to be more than happy to answer, I’m sure.

T: Yeah, we’ll start a thread in the group and you can pop your questions in or send them to us, and let us know whether you want us to say your name. You know, Fred from Drysdale or whatever, and then we’ll read the question out. I think it’s interesting too – I don’t know if you’ve gone back and listened to our first few episodes where we’ve got dogs running round and shit quality microphones and stuff – I think we’ve come a long way in these almost 20 episodes.

B: Yeah, it’s certainly been a learning curve. I think as we’ve listened to other podcasts too to get some tips and tricks on how to tighten it up a bit. I think we’ve got a relatively unique flavour which I’m enjoying, I’m comfortable with where we’re heading with it. We’ll see what happens in Season 2, but we’ve still got three more episodes before that happens.

T: Yeah cool. Well mate, that was brilliant. I’ll see you next week ok?

B: Sounds good, see you then.