As I walked to the end of our street, I noticed that a stop sign had lost one screw that attached it to a post. When the screw loosened, the sign swung down, inverting the warning to stop.

The upside-down stop sign is an image of what has happened to some in the prophetic movement who have abandoned prophetic words of warning, thinking they are unloving. We will reject a God-breathed warning if we have been taught to only accept and deliver positive-sounding words. Warnings are part of a healthy expression of the prophetic gift.

After Paul instructed the Corinthians on the gifts of the Spirit, he said, “Let love be your highest goal” (I Corinthians 14:1). That love applies to prophetic words. Paul said those prophesying will be speaking by the power of the Spirit, and the one prophesying, “will speak to people for their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort” (vs. 3). As a result of delivering a prophetic word it would strengthen the entire Church.

Some have taken Paul’s instruction to mean that a word of prophecy will express a one-sided interpretation of what it means to strengthen, encourage, and comfort. Anything that sounds negative, like a warning, must be rejected. 

When the Spirit had opened the door of ministry to the Gentiles in the home of Cornelius, something happened that gives us greater clarity on our understanding of the content of a word prophecy.

In the days that followed the release of the Spirit in the home of Cornelius, a prophet spoke a word of warning: “During this time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and, through the Spirit, predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world” (Acts 11:27-28). Agabus delivered a prophetic warning.

The message Agabus delivered appears to violate our contemporary understanding of the content of a word of prophecy. It was a warning that let the believers know what was coming and how to prepare for the arrival of the famine.

Prophetic warnings will occasionally warn people of what is coming that is not yet seen or realized. These warnings are an act of love, like warning a person that a poisonous snake is creeping toward them and strongly announcing a warning for them to move out of the way of its venomous fangs. 

If all we hear is a continuous stream of positive prophetic words that never contain any warning, we will be like someone who approaches a stop sign with a loosed screw that turned the warning sign upside down. Failing to see and properly interpret a word will cause people to miss God’s warning to their peril. If we hear and receive God’s warnings, we will be protected from things we did not know existed until we stopped and looked both ways before proceeding.