As we have covered, prophecy is never given to establish doctrine. The Bible is the only source of doctrine. Prophecy may be given to reveal the strategic or tactical will of the Lord but never for establishing doctrine. Therefore, our basic understanding of things such as God’s judgments must come from the Scriptures, not prophecies, and certainly not from our own opinions, desires, or prejudices. 

     Some also think that if they accurately predict an event, then the doubters will believe. This seems to rarely be the case. When Jesus performed some of His greatest miracles, it only enraged the legalists more, so that they wanted to kill Him. It is good to not speculate about how people will respond to the prophetic, but rather keep our devotion to simple obedience, and let the Lord use them as He will. Usually for everyone who receives us as a prophet there will be many who reject us, so selfish ambition has no place in the prophetic and will only distort our ministry to the degree that it gets in.

     We also rarely see people coming to the Lord because of prophecies being fulfilled. There are cases, and we have some great biblical examples with the way Nathanael and the woman at the well were persuaded concerning Jesus by words of knowledge. Even so, convincing people through prophecy or intellectual persuasion is not what usually brings people to Jesus. To come to Jesus requires the Holy Spirit to move on us to convict us of our sins, and then to reveal Jesus and the cross, the only remedy for our sins. Miracles, fulfilled prophecies, or the most persuasive arguments have their place, but to come to Jesus, one must be drawn by the Father through the Holy Spirit. 

     We also see in the Book of Revelation that when the judgments of God come upon the earth, most will curse God instead of turn to Him. In these times, when evil is coming to its full maturity so that “darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples,” (see Isaiah 60:2), there is such a hardness growing that we cannot expect reason or reasonable people. The Lord and the New Testament apostles and prophets predicted such lawlessness and hardness of heart. Therefore, we can expect increasing rage rather than repentance. I am not trying to be discouraging, but rather to remove our expectations from being a factor in our obedience with the prophetic.