5. If It Predicts a Future Event, Does It Come to Pass?
See Deuteronomy 18:20-22. Any revelation that contains a prediction concerning the future should come to pass. If it does not, then, with a few exceptions, the revelation is not from God. Exceptions may include the following issues:
- Will of person involved
- National repentance—Nineveh repented, so the word did not occur
- Messianic predictions (they took hundreds of years to fulfill)
- There is a different standard for New Testament prophets than for Old Testament prophets whose predictions played into God’s Messianic plan of deliverance
6. Does the Prophetic Prediction Turn People Toward God or Away From Him?
See Deuteronomy 13:1-5. The fact that a person makes a prediction concerning the future that is fulfilled does not necessarily prove that person is moving by Holy Spirit-inspired revelation. If such a person, by his own ministry, turns others away from obedience to the one true God, then that person’s ministry is false—even if he makes correct predictions concerning the future.
7. Does It Produce Liberty or Bondage?
“For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!'” (Rom. 8:15). True revelation given by the Holy Spirit produces liberty, not bondage (1 Cor. 14:33; 2 Tim. 1:7). The Holy Spirit never causes God’s children to act like slaves, nor does He ever motivate us by fear or legalistic compulsion.
8. Does It Produce Life or Death?
“Who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). True revelation from the Holy Spirit always produces life, not death.
