Reviving the Prophets: Reawakening the Church to the Neglected Office

By Marco Ramos

From 2020 until January 2023, more than a few prophets have misrepresented the voice of God and have given false hope to millions of Americans. Marco Ramos has written a brilliant book describing the restoration of the prophet's office, the meaning of prophecy, and the power of the prophet when he is under Apostolic authority. This book is a

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887388557

Marco Ramos

MARCO RAMOS is a revivalist, author, preacher, and business owner. With a focus on prophecy, worship, prayer, and teaching on the office of the prophet, he travels throughout the United States and the world, bringing the presence of the Holy Spirit wherever he goes. He is mentored by Brother Rod Aguillard and Pastor Randy Cilluffo and is married to Brittany, his partner in both business and ministry. He has two children and is based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my kids, Sophiana and Ruby, and to my wife, Brittany. I love you with all my heart.

It is also dedicated to all the prophets out there waiting for someone to acknowledge them. I acknowledge you—let’s get to work.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank my mentor, Apostle Rod Aguillard. You’ve shown me over the years what it means to be a father and how to have integrity in and out of the pulpit. You also showed my family love and grace when we needed it most. You’ve changed countless lives, including mine, and only God knows the full impact you’ve made on the earth. We’ve traveled together for years, and yet I’m still learning so much from you on how to lead, how to teach, and how to put others first. My family owes you an unpayable debt. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you also to my pastors, Randy and Cathy Cilluffo, for believing in me and giving me so many opportunities in ministry. Your faith and courage inspire me. Pastor Randy, there aren’t many men like you who are so willing to give and bless others. Thank you so much for trusting Brittany and me and always being there for us. Thank for you encouraging me and seeing the gold in me when all I saw was tin and dross.

Thank you to Pastor Frank Bailey for introducing me to the world of the Holy Spirit. You helped guide me from a lonely, depressed musician into an unafraid and unashamed minister of the Gospel.

I would also like to thank my parents, Gilbert and Becky Ramos. You put up with me as a kid, and for that I’m sure there’s an award waiting for you in heaven. Thank you for always telling me I can do anything I put my mind to—this book is proof! You’ve been a stable, constant, and true source of wisdom and love throughout my life, and I’m sure I could never thank you enough.

Thank you to Will Riddle. You helped me make sense of this jumbled mess of a manuscript and turn it into a book. You helped me realize that I am a prophet. Your notes were invaluable, and I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to help me arrange and finish this book. Kansas City really is the land of the prophets, and it’s my second home.

Endorsements

Marco Ramos is exactly the kind of man we need to come forward in our generation—humble, highly committed to Jesus, and well-seasoned. It is an honor to call him a friend. Although I have more than a dozen books on the prophetic, and a lifetime of experiences, I have to say this is truly a fresh word. A great deal has been written about how to prophesy, but not nearly enough has been written about the development and proper functioning of the prophetic office. Drawing on his own life experience, Marco gives a blueprint for how we can build in a healthy way for the coming generation. I hope you will enjoy this book as much as I did. Highly Recommended.

—Will Riddle, VP Church Programs, Prison Fellowship

From 2020 until January 2023, more than a few prophets have misrepresented the voice of God and have given false hope to millions of Americans. Marco Ramos has written a brilliant book describing the restoration of the prophet’s office, the meaning of prophecy, and the power of the prophet when he is under Apostolic authority. This book is anointed to restore your confidence in the office of a true prophet. As you read Reviving the Prophets, you will gain a renewed faith and excitement in a God-called prophet!

—Roderick Aguillard, ThD, Founder, Network of Related Pastors (NRP)

Foreword

Dear Reader,

With great joy and excitement, I have the honor to write this foreword. It has been a privilege to watch my spiritual son, Marco Ramos, grow in his calling and develop this deep understanding of the powerful role that prophets and prophecy play in our lives and in the Church today.

In his book, Marco offers fresh and insightful perspective on the biblical foundations of prophecy and the practical implications for how we can cultivate and exercise this gift to build up the Church. Whether you are a seasoned believer or just starting your spiritual journey, you will be challenged and encouraged to deepen your relationship with God and explore the fullness of His power and love.

I believe this book will be a valuable resource for anyone seeking to understand the prophetic and its role in the Church. I am confident you will be blessed by the wisdom and guidance contained within its pages. Take a step of faith, immerse yourself in the riches of the prophetic gift, and be empowered to walk more fully in the Spirit.

With heartfelt enthusiasm,

Pastor Randy Cilluffo

Senior Pastor, Believer’s Life Family Church

Introduction

While you still have breath, it’s never too late to act on your Dream!

—Bruce Wilkinson, The Dream Giver

This book is ten years in the making. I started writing it in 2012, but I gave up a hundred times along the way out of frustration, depression, fear, and whatever else was stopping me. It’s only because of Jesus that I decided I would finally finish it. Ever since I can remember, I was curious about the role of a prophet in the Church. I grew up thinking there must be more available for someone who feels called to the prophetic calling. Even a cursory reading of 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 reveals that prophecy is important to the apostle Paul, but have you ever asked the question: Who are the prophets in my church? Have you ever wondered what the prophet is supposed to be doing? What is the role of a prophet in the local church? Is there a place for them? Should they be running churches, speaking at churches, or out on a street corner holding a handwritten cardboard sign that says, The End Is Near?

One fateful day, I went to a pastor of a church I was visiting at and asked him a question. I asked him in humility, Who are the prophets that you recognize as prophets or that you have in this church as a prophetic voice? He looked at me quizzically, like I had just asked him a question he’d never been asked before. Then he said, I’m not sure. Let me think. Then, after a beat, he said a name of someone I had never heard of. I pondered that thought for a moment, considering I had been on staff at that point for a few years and had never met this person he’d named before. Is he coming in soon to speak? The pastor looked at me again, like a child looking into the cage of an interesting zoo animal, and muttered, Oh, no, he went to be with the Lord a few years ago. I scrunched my face up and thanked him for his time, and as he walked off, I remember thinking to myself, So, in a pretty big church for the area, there’s only one prophet this pastor knows and recognizes, and he’s dead . . .

This wasn’t very encouraging to me.

I started to wonder if this was a systemic problem churchwide, or perhaps this was limited to denominational boundaries. I saw in Scripture that the prophet was vital in the Old Testament, but I didn’t see as much prophetic activity in the New Testament. I knew John the Baptist was a prophet along with Jesus and John the Revelator, but were there others? Ephesians lists the prophet as part of the fivefold ministry, but I didn’t know much about this post in the New Testament. Why was I so blind on this subject?

I knew of the gift of prophecy as spoken about in 1 Corinthians, but what was the difference between a prophet and someone who speaks a word of prophecy? First Corinthians 14:3 says, But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men, but where was Paul’s comfort when Agabus told him he would be bound in Jerusalem? And wasn’t this a prediction of future events? This seems much more in line with the words of John the Baptist and Jesus. Furthermore, my overabundance of knowledge on the pastorate and seemingly nonexistent knowledge of the prophet spoke volumes to me.

Another day, I had a conversation with a different pastor at a different church and told him I had read something in Ezekiel that I really thought applied to today. I don’t remember the verses anymore, but at the time I felt a burning fire on them and just knew in my belly there was something more to these words. When I read the verses to the pastor and asked what he thought in light of the feeling that I was experiencing concerning them, he stared at me blankly for a long moment. His response left me without any breath in my lungs: God doesn’t speak to people like that. I don’t know whether you’re even hearing from God. He spoke these words, and sort of shook his head briefly, as if to make sure he eliminated any lingering trace of the verse, and with that, he took his leave, leaving me in shattered ruins.

I felt like I was hearing from God. The verses were jumping off the page. This was the first time God had delivered a message to me through Scripture, and yet this pastor, in whom I was confiding, had burst my bubble, just like that. It was a hard but necessary lesson to learn. Sometimes God speaks to you and only you. When He speaks, you must listen. It doesn’t matter if everyone else thinks you’re crazy. The word of the Lord I received that day was not for anyone else but me, and God wasn’t asking me to tell anyone else, but in my pride, like Joseph, I told everyone. I wasn’t aware of just how bright my multicolored cloak was.

I was young and naïve and hoping there would be a future for me in the prophetic world, but when I heard from the first pastor that he didn’t recognize or have any living prophet in the church to minister, it felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Being told by a different pastor that I wasn’t hearing from God, even though a verse from Ezekiel was burning in my heart, was even harder to take in. My favorite books of the Bible were Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and many of the minor prophets. I loved the stories of Elijah calling down fire, Ezekiel seeing the whirlwind chariot throne, and Isaiah seeing the train of the robe of the Most High.

What I learned that day was this: Cherish the prophetic words you receive. They are a gift to you from heaven. It doesn’t matter if no one else ever knows about it or hears it. Your word is for you. Write it down, record it, and keep it safe. God is always speaking to His children. He is always speaking to you. Be like Mary when you receive a word from the Lord: But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19). God is good, and He has this to say over you today while you read this book: "‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the

Lord

, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’" (Jeremiah 29:11

niv

).

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"The difference between the ordinary and the

miraculous is believing God when He speaks."

Part One

The Office

of the

Prophet

Childlike Faith

We desperately need seers who can see through the mist—Christian leaders with prophetic vision. Unless they come soon it will be too late for this generation.

—A.W. Tozer

Early Years

I should not be alive, but here I am. My mother is from New Orleans, and my father is from New York City. They ended up meeting in Miami in the 1970s and fell in love. My father ended up going into the military, and soon after, they were married. My mother and father moved every few years, as most military couples do, and soon they were in South Korea, Hawaii, Oklahoma, and other places, until they eventually ended up back home (for my mother at least) in New Orleans. They tried for ten years to have children but were not able to. They went to the top hospitals in the country and were told categorically that they would never have children. At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, they had a test run by an admiral who told them they had a zero percent chance of having children. This was from one of the leading fertility specialists in the country at the time. This was obviously devastating for the young couple. After multitudes of visits to various doctors around the country, they started to lose hope.

My father was not a religious man, although his father had been the pastor of an inner-city church in Queens during his childhood. Anger, bitterness, and drugs consumed his early years, along with an obsession with music and the godlike status he could hold as the lead guitar player of a rock band. The military took a lot of that out of him, and after a few years of marriage, he found God, but he had still not fully given himself over to Jesus.

One night, my father had a prophetic dream. In this dream my father saw a hospital room, and in the room, he saw my mother giving birth to not one, but two children. He was shown that he and my mother would have a girl and a boy, and that the boy would be born first and have curly hair and the girl would have straight hair and would be born with her eyes open. He woke up in a panic in the middle of the night and told my mother about the dream. It was hard to believe, but they were going to trust the Lord and believe it would come to pass. Soon after that dream, my mother became pregnant with me.

My father told all his friends and family members about the dream and the miracle of my mother actually getting pregnant. The faith of many was stirred, and some started to believe in God and miracles again. However, one day she started to hemorrhage, and they weren’t sure if she would be able to carry the baby all the way to term. It got so bad that my father called his father and told him he thought they were going to lose me. He told my grandfather that he was questioning his faith, and that he was afraid. My grandfather started to pray in tongues on the phone, and after a few minutes he told my father, The boy is not going to die.

Because of all the bleeding, my parents went to the doctor, hoping to get some answers. What they saw on the monitor changed everything. In my father’s dream, he had seen two babies, but according to the doctors, my mother was only pregnant with me. On the screen, my father saw my heartbeat—but then he saw something else beeping. The second beep was my sister’s heartbeat! As it turns out, my mother was pregnant with twins! The nurses and staff had missed the second child this whole time. The bleeding was being caused because I was sitting in an area that was causing problems, but the doctor told my parents that everything would be fine, that she just needed to rest. A few months later, my twin sister and I were born, and my mother would go on to have five children, of which the oldest is me.

It seemed fitting to me that this book on prophecy would begin with my story, because my father experienced what I would find out later to be a prophetic dream.

Stopping the Rain

I grew up in a Spanish-speaking home in a lower-income part of Kenner, a city outside of New Orleans. I don’t remember that much about my childhood, which is something I’ve always tried to take the time to explore, but without much success. What I can remember, in that small house on Ole Miss Drive, was that I constantly felt a dark cloud over me. As the oldest, I felt a sense of responsibility that I carry with me to this day, and I remember being as young as four or five and feeling a sense of pressure on my shoulders. This is something I’ve never been able to shake.

Our home was certainly a religious one, with all of us attending a traditional Spanish Baptist church in the city every week. I always connected with the idea that things were bigger than just me. My parents have recordings of me reciting Bible verses in Spanish at a young age. I remember loving the Bible and feeling a sense of awe and reverence for it. There was just something about it that drew me in.

The first time I was introduced to the supernatural was on my third birthday. As my grandmother tells the story, it was raining hard that day, harder than a normal storm for that time of year. My parents had planned an outdoor party with a piñata, picnic tables, and games, none of which could now be set up because of the storm. My grandmother told me we would have to cancel the party and either do it another time or just do a bigger party next year. I remember this moment clearly to this day. There was something inside me that I didn’t fully understand swelling up toward the surface. I felt a faith rising and