Chapter 10: “God Said” Must Be Proven

Few statements carry greater weight in ministry than:

“God said.”

When a minister tells another person, “God told me to tell you,” that minister is no longer merely expressing an opinion. He is claiming to speak on behalf of God. That claim must never be treated casually.

Example:

Someone claimed to have received a message from God concerning the leadership and direction of the ministry.

The purported message accused the leadership of preventing God from using certain people and suggested that God’s work was being hindered because particular individuals were not being elevated.

The response was direct: “I cannot receive that. God did not tell you that.”

Why?

Because the proposed “word from the Lord” not only contradicted Scripture, but it also contradicted what the leader knew concerning her own intentions before God.

Psalm 75:6–7 — “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.

Now who is it that can keep God from exalting whom he will? This is just one of many scriptures that make the word given to come from a source other than God.

The issue was not an unwillingness to allow other people to minister. Quite the opposite. The stated position was that if God had genuinely anointed someone and that person possessed the necessary character, there was a willingness to