A new article on Charisma News posits the notion that our words become prophetic proclamations. Problem? The Bible does not say that.

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Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. - Proverbs 19: 21 (ESV)

http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/45691-praying-with-prophetic-power

How can a declaration of the will of God for a specific situation command a spiritual breakthrough? This is the opening gambit from the article linked above, which appears today on Charisma News' website. Written by Barbara Wentroble, whose biography reads like a thesaurus of false Christian catch phrases. She fancies herself a strong visionary with a powerful anointing and a pioneering spirit. Maybe she is all of this and a bag of chips. To be honest this is the first time I had seen her name but the article above is simply false. It paints a picture of powers man has that God never gave him. It is the end result of this false signs and wonders paradigm, the word faith heresy and the charismaniacal side of our faith. Let us break down this premise to see where it goes so horribly awry. There are essentially two parts. The first is regarding a declaration of the will of God and the second is the commanding of a spiritual breakthrough.

So the first portion deals with a subject many Christians remain confused about; the will of God. There are three basic types of God's will. The first is His permissive will. This is what God allows to happen. Often we struggle with this during times of uncertainty. People ask, "why did my loved one get sick or pass away"; for example. The reality is that the sickness or death are a result of man's fallen state and the sin that followed in the earth.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned-- - Romans 5: 12 (ESV)

God however is always sovereign over everything that happens in His creation so even though He may not have decreed something, He certainly allowed it. That is His permissive will. This type of will can obviously not be declared by man. The second type of will is the decretive will of God. These are the things God decrees. He decides this or that will happen. He decided that Saul would become the first king of Israel. He decided to allow the sacrifice of His Son to save humanity. God is not some deity of random occurrence:

The Lord of hosts has sworn: "As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand, - Isaiah 14: 24 (ESV)

The third form of the will of God is known as His preceptive will; or His revealed will. Beloved, God has already revealed to us His perfect will for our lives. We know it as the Bible. It is the final revelation of the will of God. Nothing needs to be added to it and nothing needs to be altered in it. The Bible transcends all generations and cultures. It applies evenly to the 4th century monk as much as to the 17th century explorer and the 21st century businessman. It applies to the hidden church in China and the persecuted church in Iraq. Here is our general problem however in the church today concerning the will of God. We spend most of our time trying to figure out the decretive will of God and not enough time learning and applying His preceptive will. The problem is that God has no intention of revealing to us His decretive will. He desires us to get to know Him better through understanding and living out what He has already revealed to us. We can so easily become like the Pharisees of old demanding a miraculous sign when Jesus had already performed miracles in front of them for which they decided to kill Him. If we find ourselves in His revealed will more and more then by default we will get closer and closer to His decretive will.

Yet we do not do that nearly enough. Instead we try and turn something this simple into a grand mystery. We try and parse out His decretive will through what we refer to as "confirmations." We are contemplating a move to Pennsylvania for example and then suddenly every PA license plate we see on the highway becomes a sign from God. This is simply not how God operates. I have seen Christians looking for confirmation about whether they should marry someone who does not even share their faith. Of course if you look hard enough for confirmations you will see what your heart wants to see but that does not make it "God's will." In this scenario however you should not even be looking for confirmation because His revealed will has already told us that we are not to be unequally yoked. The problem Ms. Wentroble creates here in her article is she is in the business of declaring the wrong will of God. There is nothing wrong with declaring His revealed will because we know it is fact already. It is not open for debate or discussion. It is settled. Those that pretend it is not are merely looking for a way to have God's approval for their sin or poor choices. When we are feeling alone we should declare that His revealed will says that He will never leave us or forsake us. When we have sinned and are repenting we should declare that He has said He will forgive us from all unrighteousness. We do not however declare these things to remind God but rather to remind us.

Ms. Wentroble however is writing about declaring the decretive will of God into specific situations. The first example was her praying for the salvation of a friend's wayward daughter. In this example, Wentroble bypasses God and goes straight to the child:

"Jane," I called. "Open your eyes and look. You are in a pigpen. Get up and get out of the pigpen. Come back to your father's house. Come home in Jesus' name!"

What a touching story and of course it was later confirmed that at the exact hour, Jane realized she was in a pigpen and came home. Hallelujah - paint me skeptical. Prayer is our conversations with God. Our petitions to God. Our intercession with God on someone's behalf. We do not get to skip God in this process and speak directly to the person or thing we are praying about. This is however evidence of the word faith heresy that believes we have the power of creation through our spoken words. That we have the power to call things that are not as though they were even though the Bible makes it clear only God has that power. The second example Ms. Wentroble provides is just as disturbing. She apparently needed to sell her house for a move to Dallas was impending. After eight months of prayer, the house remained unsold. But apparently Ms. Wentroble had a spiritual ace up her sleeve to help God:

Wanda, a spiritual daughter of ours, was living with us at the time. Knowing the power of proclamation, Wanda started walking the boundaries of our yard each day, praying, "In the name of Jesus, I release the favor of God on this house. I command all blinders to come off the eyes of those people needing this house. Eyes, see this house. House, you are sold in Jesus' name."

I release favor? I command all the blinders to come off? House you are sold? Who is God in this prayer? The spiritual daughter is. The story concludes of course with the house being sold because Wanda had uttered a "prophetic proclamation." This is utter nonsense of course biblically and borders on witchcraft. What is going on in these two examples is an error found quite often in word faith and charismaniacal circles. It is the presumption that we have the decretive power of God. Think about it for a minute. That is exactly what is going on. We truly do not know the decretive will of God yet in these two examples, we assume not merely to know His decretive will but we claim the actual power of it! How utterly blasphemous! Do not believe me? Here are her exact words from this article:

Through the study of God's Word, I've found that He has given us the authority to speak for Him. We are His voice in the earth.

She offers no biblical texts to support her assertions but let me start here by saying this statement is completely true for His revealed will. We are the voice of God in this world but our declaration is the Gospel. It is the Word of God that we are to declare - His revealed, preceptive will. That however is not what Barbara Wentroble is advocating and teaching here. She is saying God has given us authority to speak for His decretive will and that is simply untrue.

For the second part of the problem let us return to her premise question; " How can a declaration of the will of God for a specific situation command a spiritual breakthrough? The second problem is just as arrogant as the first. The notion that we can command anything of God. Even if she were correctly declaring His revealed Word it would be the Word, not the declaration, that holds the power for Spiritual breakthrough. Our words do not contain the power - only His Words do! Yet even in that case, God remains sovereign. Let us now see how this article misuses what little Scripture references it contained:

"Paul indicates that God is going to make known His wisdom through the church. According to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, the word known comes from the Greek verb gnoridzo. It means "to certify, to declare, make known, give to understand, to come to know, discover." To "make known" means that God is going to use the church to make declarations to the demonic rulers and authorities."

It is a logical fallacy to list all the possible definitions for a word and then cherry pick the one you think best represents your case. The issue is what Paul meant when he used the word. It is quite clear that he did not mean the definition of "declare." How can we be sure? Every translation offered either is known or made known as the translation. None of them indicate the word declare. Additionally, there is no corresponding Scriptures confirming the practice of declaring as Wentroble presents it here. Yet look at what she tries to do here. She drops the name of her concordance to give the appearance she has done her homework on this, plucks the one definition that is clearly not applicable and then somehow uses it to state affirmatively that this means God is going to use the church to make declarations to the demonic rulers and authorities? Seriously? This is not only bad hermeneutics, it appears to be blatantly deceptive. Here is the full context of this Ephesians verse:

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power.To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages inGod who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord,in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. - Ephesians 3: 6-13

What is the great mystery beloved? That through the Gospel even the Gentiles can be saved. His eternal purpose is realized through Christ Jesus our Lord. This is what is supposed to be "made known." Even if you allow the usage of declare, this is what is supposed to be declared. Not that now we can declare to evil authorities that our wayward daughter is coming home. Not that we can declare to the real estate demons that our house will now be sold in Jesus name. The absurdity however is not over yet. Wentroble then takes us down a rabbit hole of loosely connected things she has strung together to make her point that we can declare as God can. Here are those points in order:

Making declarations is the same as making prophetic proclamations.

The Hebrew word for proclaim, qara, means "to call out to, call forth, cry unto, invite or preach.

Another Greek word for proclaim that Zodhiates defines is kerusso, a much stronger word. It means "to be a herald."

A herald was a public crier who was a speaker of divine truth.

In Greek literature, the public crier was the attendant of a prince--but not just an ordinary attendant. Raised above the status of other servants, the crier was given respect and status similar to a friend.

As believers, we serve the Prince of Peace. Yet Jesus said, "'No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My father I have made known to you'" (John 15:15). In this, Prince Jesus has raised us to a status like that of the town crier--we are His friends.

What? This strain of illogic begins with a fallacious statement. Nowhere in the Bible does it say or suggest that when we declare something we are making a prophetic proclamation. Yet from this place of fallacy Wentroble makes these equally ridiculous connections. That because there is a stronger definition of proclaim, kerusso, we are now actually heralds. The next leap is that heralds are actually public criers so therefore we are public criers. Then she has to delve into Greek literature to connect heralds to not just being servants but rather friends of a prince. Dashing quickly back to the Bible, Wentroble now reminds us that Jesus is the Prince of Peace and because He said I have called you friends we are now raised to the status of a town crier? How many mistakes were made in this string of illogic? The opening presumption is wrong. Declarations are not prophetic proclamations. Once again word faith heresy. The usage of the word proclaim did not originate in any text and is therefore irrelevant to this discussion. Despite that, she chooses a different definition of proclaim so she can reach the word she wanted, herald. She then interchanges herald with public crier. Leaving the Bible, she wanders into Greek literature to bring the word "Prince" into the conversation and voila! Through untold degrees of separation and lunacy she thinks she has made the point that we are supposed to be town criers. Wow.

Here is the truly sad news for Ms. Wentroble. Even if we allowed this morass of logic leaps and unbiblical sourcing, she is still left with the unavoidable fact that we are still talking about the revealed will of God. Even if we are to consider ourselves "town criers", Strong's Concordance says that kerusso is the preaching of the Gospel as "the authoritative binding word of God." It in no way validates this notion that we can prophetically declare things that are not as if they were. It does not validate speaking to a house and declaring it will be sold. It does not mean that we can speak through the spirit world and reach someone who is wayward and convince them to come home. We do not get to skip God nor pretend He is still not sovereign. The key verse from Proverbs today reminds us of His sovereignty. We can have all of the plans and poor logic we want. We can think that simply declaring something makes it a prophetic proclamation. All that reveals is a poor understanding or prayer and a poorer understanding of prophecy. The purpose of the Lord is all that will stand.

Reverend Anthony Wade - October 12, 2014

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.