God has thoughts that are above and beyond the thoughts that we have in our limited minds (Isaiah 55:8). The thoughts that God has that we do not yet know are called a mystery. Nothing is a secret or mystery to God; He already knows everything.
When one of God’s secret thoughts gets transferred into our minds, into our realm of understanding, we call that a revelation. A revelation is a God thought that we did not know before, but we do now. God has no revelations – again, because He already knows everything. We pray that God would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation (Ephesians 1:17), so that we can understand His way of thinking.
When we pray in tongues, we are uttering God’s mysteries (I Corinthians 14:2), which means that we do not understand what we are praying. The interpretation of the tongues provides an understanding of what was prayed. That understanding is a kind of revelation. Tongues and interpretation lead to various other kinds of revelations as well (1 Corinthians 14:6).
True believers in Yeshua have the potential to hear God’s voice. Yeshua said that His sheep hear His voice (John 10:3, 4, 5, 16, 27). This ability is not only for prophets and apostles, but for all believers. It is the sheep who hear His voice. People of the world do not have access to this special information, yet it is communicated to us from within by the Spirit of God (I Corinthians 2:6-10).
A prophecy is hearing words from God in our inner man. Since an interpretation of a tongue allows a person to understand what was said, tongues plus interpretation are equal or equivalent to a prophecy (I Corinthians 14:5).
A vision is seeing a picture from God’s heart in our inner man. Everyone has the ability to see a picture in his heart. Most heart pictures are not from God. When an inner picture does come from God, it is called a vision (on the simplest level). To summarize:
Mystery: a God-thought not yet known
Revelation: understanding a God-thought not known beforehand
Wisdom: God’s way of thinking
Prophecy: hearing words from God in the inner man
Vision: seeing a picture from God in the inner man
All prophecy must be according to Scriptures and not our own personal will (II Peter 1:20). We must discern between what is from God and what is from our own soulish desires (Matthew 26:39, I Corinthians 14:14, Hebrews 4:12).
Asher serves as president of Tikkun Global family of ministries and congregations, dedicated to the dual restoration of Israel and the Church. He is founder of the Revive Israel five-fold ministry team, and oversees both Ahavat Yeshua and Tiferet Yeshua congregations in Israel.
He and his wife Betty share a passion for personal prayer and devotion, local evangelism and discipleship in Hebrew, and unity of the Body of believers worldwide.
Asher was raised in a conservative Jewish home and holds degrees from Harvard University, Baltimore Hebrew College and Messiah Biblical Institute. He has authored numerous books, tracts and articles.