God never allows the church to take over the individual's responsibility of receiving guidance from God. Agabus was a prophet and a very earnest one, but he was young, inexperienced, and very anxious to display his guidance for Paul. On the one hand, we find in God's Word that one needs clear guidance from God. On the other hand, we need the backing of the church. But there may be a group of Christians who say, "We are the church, you must obey us." The prophetic voice, however, should never come before the voice of the Spirit to an individual. Otherwise, we will have a Romish church. The so-called church often uses its authority like this.
The Holy Spirit may not speak to us directly; He may speak to another and then to us through him. But He cannot ignore us; He cannot fail to inform us at the same time by giving us the witness in our spirit. He will let us know that we are to receive guidance through the church. Furthermore, this guidance cannot be contrary to any light He has already given us or any partial guidance we received in the past. If it is from Him, He will give us clarity in our spirits, and our spirits will respond to what the church says. In other words there will be the confirmation in our spirits. The Holy Spirit will always let us know if we are going to receive guidance through the church. Having a prophet come to us first and tell us what God wants us to do is part of the Old Testament dispensation, not the New Testament dispensation. If the Lord had meant to give Paul guidance through the disciples He would have intimated this fact to Paul first, preparing his heart for their word. Then Paul would have responded and acquiesced. Agabus's act was contrary to God's way of guidance in the New Testament. As a result, Paul did not go along with his suggestion. Subsequently, we hear nothing more concerning this prophet, but God uses eight out of twenty-eight chapters in Acts to tell us of Paul's doings after he made this so-called false step! It was not God's will for him to go to Jerusalem, but because a dangerous precedent would have been set, He allowed Paul to go and blessed him in it because his heart was perfect toward God. The prophet precipitated this by rushing in instead of waiting for God to show the same thing to Paul first.
