You have heard from God — cool. What do you do with it now? How do we actually turn that into a changed and transformed life? How do you take a word off your fridge door and see it come to pass in your life? I call this prophetic processing: processing for the Brits, the prophetic. Once revelation has come, the question becomes how we interpret it and how we apply it.
Something Supernatural Happened
As written in Acts 2:2, “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting” (NKJV). In Acts chapter 2 — or as I like to call it, the Acts of the Holy Spirit — we see illustrated what I am teaching. Jesus ascends in Acts chapter 1 and tells the disciples to wait until they have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. They gather in the upper room until Pentecost has fully come, and they receive an experience that I have had, that I hope you have had, that about two-thirds of the body of Christ worldwide have had: the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
One of the signs of that — not the only one — is speaking in tongues. About seventy to eighty percent of Christians on earth have this experience. Frankly, it is really in America that holdouts remain, often for money and respectability, wanting nothing too supernatural. That is abhorrent to me. I believe sincerely it is abhorrent to the Lord. Many are sincere in that error, but they are sincerely wrong.
When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were gathered together in one place. There came a sound from heaven like a mighty rushing wind. Supernatural things begin to happen. I remember hearing audio from an outpouring among northern tribes in Canada where a mighty rushing wind blew through a little church gathering — deafening even on a recording. I think that is what it sounded like here.
Fire came down. If you went to children’s church in the UK in the 1970s, you probably saw disciples with a flick of a cigarette-lighter flame on their heads. That is not what the Bible says. I think fire came and sat on them and filled them. The fire of God filled the building. They began speaking in tongues — tongues of men and of angels; known and unknown languages if you believe the Bible. In this instance, people heard the languages spoken. The disciples appeared drunk. “These are not drunk, as you suppose,” Peter says. When God’s Spirit is poured out, people know about it. There is a drawing of the Lord.
Something supernatural happened. For the purpose of this teaching, let us call that revelation.
What Does This Mean?
As written in Acts 2:12, “So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘Whatever could this mean?'” (NKJV). Step number one: revelation, or the supernatural. Step number two: people looked at the supernatural and said, “What does this mean? What does this signify? How do we interpret what we have just experienced?”
Then, as written in Acts 2:37, “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?'” (NKJV). Peter’s words pierced their hearts. They said, “Brothers, what should we now do?” I want you to see three things. God does something supernatural — number one. Number two, they said, “What does this mean? What does it signify? How do we interpret what has just happened?” Number three, they said, “Okay, God has done something supernatural. We have hopefully correctly interpreted what has happened. But what does action look like? What do we actually do?”
I want to suggest to you that in every part of your life — individually or in the corporate life of the church — whenever we are talking about hearing from God, those same three principles operate. God speaks. We need to rightly understand and interpret what He said. We cannot just put our spin on what He said. If we interpret it incorrectly, our action, our follow-through, our understanding will either stall or go amiss, because we have not correctly interpreted what God has said.
You will see that principle again and again throughout the Scriptures — both in people getting it right and in people getting it wrong. The Lord comes to Joseph in a dream — revelation — and speaks to him: take Mary to be your wife; do not be afraid to marry this lass even though she is pregnant; take care of her. Joseph correctly understands it and then acts upon it: marries Mary, takes her to Egypt when the Lord warns him, cares for and nurtures the Christ-child born into his household. Revelation, interpretation, application.
When We Get It Right — and When We Get It Wrong
As written in Acts 10:15, “And a voice spoke to him again the second time, ‘What God has cleansed you must not call common'” (NKJV). The Lord comes to Peter in Acts chapter 10, when at the time there were only Jewish Christians. The Lord reveals something to Peter — a sheet, animals coming down, what God has cleansed. Peter is not totally understanding this, or he is probably putting his own understanding on it. He goes to Cornelius’s house. The Spirit is poured out. What happens? He gathers with the other apostles and they open the Scriptures. They say, “Okay, this supernatural revelation, this experience happened — what does it mean?”
Together they wrestle. I do not mean they fight, but they listen, they talk, they pray, they go back to the Scriptures, and they actually look at the Scriptures through the lens of the experience they have just had. They come to a conclusion that startled them: when He said He would be a light to the Gentiles, He really meant the Gentiles. When Jesus said go into all the world, He actually meant go into all the world — not just all the Jewish world. When He said, “I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh,” He was not just talking about Jewish flesh.
Revelation, interpretation, and then application: how did they apply that truth? They sent out a letter to the surrounding regions and to all the believers and said, in effect, we were not wrong, but we were limited in our understanding. We now realize God has extended grace to the whole world, to the Gentiles. As things progressed they sent out missionaries. Paul and the others were sent out. Then they had to wrestle: do these guys have to become Jewish? No — but they still need to obey the moral law, flee from sexual immorality, and not eat blood. They applied what they had experienced.
There are examples in the Bible — and I have had them in my life — where I got good revelation and wrongly interpreted it. About twenty years ago I was staying with the pastor of a church. I had a dream that this pastor got investigated by the FBI. I woke up and told him all about it: “You are going to be investigated by the FBI.” Three days later my church in France was investigated by the French Bureau de Renseignement — let us call it the French investigation board. I got a dream, but I thought it was for him when it was for me. Instead of just telling him and blabbing about it, I should have gone back to the Lord and said, “Lord, what does this mean?” Then, “What should I now do?”
I always have in my mind this alternate movie: imagine I had prayed about that dream all day, and the Lord said, “Graham, it is for you.” What if the French investigators had arrived to find us ready — lawyers present, cameras rolling, a sign that said we knew they were coming? My bad. I did not do that. Good revelation, bad interpretation, poor application.
Good Revelation, Poor Application
As written in Acts 21:11, “When he had come to us, he took Paul’s belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, ‘Thus says the Holy Spirit, “So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles”‘” (NKJV). On his journey toward Jerusalem, in every church the Spirit testifies that chains await Paul. Then Agabus — a respected prophet who had prophesied the famine in Jerusalem and it came to pass — takes Paul’s belt, ties it around him, and says bonds await him in Jerusalem.
The people urge Paul not to go: stay, be our pastor, we will look after you. Good revelation; interpretation good to some degree, but poor in some of the people, and poor application if Paul had followed their advice. I do not think Satan was leading them astray. I think they loved Paul too much. They heard a warning in the flesh: “You should not go.” Paul knows chains await him — but he also knows God wants him to go. Those people tried to change the will of God, not because they were bad, but because love made them jump in.
Hearing from God: revelation. What does this signify: interpretation. What should we now do: application.
Conclusion
Whenever God speaks — whether in an upper room, a dream, a sheet let down from heaven, or a belt tied around an apostle — the same three movements remain. Revelation without interpretation becomes confusion. Interpretation without application becomes theory on a fridge door. Application without right interpretation becomes zeal that misses the will of God.
Let me challenge you: the next time you hear from God, do not stop at the thrill of the supernatural. Ask, “What does this mean?” Then ask, “What should I now do?” Grow in all three — revelation, interpretation, and application — until the word off the fridge door becomes a changed and transformed life.
Scriptures for Study
Acts 2:1-4, Acts 2:12, Acts 2:37, Acts 1:4-5, Acts 1:8, Acts 10:9-16, Acts 10:44-48, Acts 11:15-18, Acts 15:28-29, Acts 20:22-23, Acts 21:10-14, Matthew 1:20-21, Matthew 2:13, Joel 2:28-29, 1 Corinthians 14:1, 1 Corinthians 14:29, 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 30:21, John 16:13, Romans 8:14, Habakkuk 2:2-3, Genesis 41:25-36, James 1:22, Hebrews 5:14
10 Questions for Reflection
- Where in your life have you received revelation but stopped short of asking what it means?
- How do you currently move from “What does this signify?” to “What should we now do?”
- What would change if you treated every prophetic word as needing interpretation before application?
- Have you ever, like Graham with the FBI dream, assigned a word to the wrong person?
- How does Peter’s sheet vision illustrate corporate wrestling over revelation?
- Where might love for someone cause you to misapply a true warning, as with Paul and Agabus?
- What fridge-door words are waiting for you to bring into prayer for interpretation?
- How does Acts 2 model all three steps in a single narrative?
- In what decisions do you need godly people to help you interpret, not just celebrate, a word?
- What one practice will you adopt to strengthen application after revelation?
