Spiritual Gifts

CONCLUSION

The question may arise, What need have we of the gift of prophecy; we have the Old Testament, the words of Christ and His apostles, and the Revelation? Did not Christ forbid more prophesying when he said, “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book” (Revelation 22:18)? We reply, Should the Lord bestow the gift of prophecy upon a person for the instruction and guidance of His people, it would not be an addition to the Book of Revelation. SGL 37.2

After the Lord had spoken from Sinai, and given the law to His people, with statutes and judgments, they might have said, We have the Lord’s word now, and do not need prophets. The Lord knew best, and, as we have seen, He multiplied visions and similitudes by His prophets for the instruction of that people. This did not add to, nor take from, that already given them; but it did show them where they were being led astray by circumstances peculiar to their time. These revelations shed also a clearer luster on the truths they had already received, and made bright the light relating to the promised Messiah and His glory. SGL 37.3

Of the time in which we live the Lord has said: “Wo to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” Revelation 12:12. In the “perilous times” of these last days will not the Lord fulfil His promise to keep His people from “the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Revelation 3:10)? Thus the gift of prophecy, when manifested, will be adapted to the peculiarities of this time. It will not be something to take the place of the Bible, but to show how the people now are liable, by Satan’s devices, to be drawn away from the Bible, and from the Lord. SGL 38.1

With the subject of the gifts opened before us in the Scriptures, with the fact so plainly manifest that the gift of prophecy is to be connected with the last work of God’s people in probationary time, and with rules placed in our hands by which to test such gifts, is it not important that the mind be divested of prejudice, not “despising” such a gift, but, on the contrary, looking for a word of this character which is to be developed in these last days? SGL 38.2

In the light of Scripture, a message is to go through the world proclaiming the law of God, in connection with which will be found the gift of prophecy-a message which will gather a people into the unity of the faith from all nations, people, and tongues. How important, then, to be in harmony with such a work, and thus be found blameless in the last great day, prepared to stand at our Lord’s appearing! SGL 38.3