The Gifts of the Holy Spirit: - Vital Christianity

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12. Sometimes a person in the team may begin to act out something. A team member was once
observed adopting a couching position, crying and hammering on an imaginary door with
two fists, by which the Lord was showing that the person being prayed for suffered trauma
by being shut up in a cupboard as a child. The revelation was absolutely right. However,
such persons should wait for God’s enabling to vocalize the ‘word of knowledge’
properly. Bizarre models cannot become standardized as normal practice.
13. We may be given a spontaneous utterance which comes without our own volition. We may
open out mouths to say something on our minds and find ourselves saying something quite
different.
14. So we ‘see’ it, ‘know’ it, ‘read’ it, ‘feel’ it, ‘say it’, or ‘hear’ it.
15. It is possible that a number of ‘words of knowledge’ all may apply to one and the same
person—perhaps someone absent—but the ‘words’ all clearly describe a person known to
someone present.
16. People frequently fail to respond when ‘words’ are shared out of embarrassment or fear,
lack of faith, the nature of the ‘word’, or genuine wariness lest they cause concern to loved
ones present who have been kept unaware of the condition or affliction. 12
Cautions and Dangers
Whatever God does the enemy will attempt to simulate.
“It is possible to have false impulses—contradictory to the line God is indicating.
Extreme care must be taken in the case of secrets revealed. A person being ministered to
could so easily be destroyed by the improper and insensitive use of knowledge. On
receiving such a ‘word,’ we would then say ‘I think God may be saying . . .’ or ‘Shall we
now pray into your relationship with . . .,’ etc. Jesus ‘knew’ that the woman of Samaria
was an adulteress. The way he dealt with the problem was first to ask her to call her
husband—a word of wisdom.
It is possible to have false impulses—contradictory to the line God is indicating.
We try to be wary about entering into directive counseling of any kind, unless, of course,
it is God clearly telling us to do this. We do not normally tell people what they ought or
should be doing about any revelations from God. We help to clarify issues and leave
people to form their own decisions. 13
Pastor Paul Y. Cho, founder of the world’s largest church, in Seoul, Korea, found he was
receiving strange impulses as he preached from his pulpit. He would ‘see’ twisted ankles, stiff
joints, internal organs of the human body, apparently burning or decaying. He thought these must
be from Satan or he was going mad.