John 4:18, the woman with the marriage failure, and she's just there talking to him; and he said: go and get your husband. She said: oh, I haven't got a husband. He said: yes, you've been married five times, and you're living with a man right now. That is a word of knowledge.
Words of knowledge can really - they actually scare people. I remember the first time I was in a meeting where words... I had no idea what words of knowledge were. All I knew was that man there was calling out secrets of people in the congregation - and I was overcome with a horrendous fear.
I remember - now this is how smart I was in those days - I remember hiding behind someone bigger than me, just going down in the seat so that he couldn't look at me; because I thought if he looked at me, he would be able to see what was going on in my life, or where I was at. It didn't occur to me actually God was telling him; and he could say: there's a guy over there hiding behind that guy there... Ha!
I remember one of the most outstanding words of knowledge I heard of, was with Frank Houston; and they'd been having trouble in their church, with someone breaking into their church and stealing sound equipment, and quite a bit of sound equipment had gone.
Frank's a Holy-Ghost-man, and he was overseas, and he rang back the church - he's ringing in the middle of a service, and he's talking to his son Brian. He said: Brian, God's been speaking to me. I've just been to a place of prayer, and he said if you look down the back there, you'll see right down to the back on the right side - you looking right the back side? He said: now go three rows forward, on the right side there. Now he says: a guy, two in, who's got long white hair - is he there? He said: yes. He said: that's the man who's been taking stuff from the church.
The guy leapt and ran - he literally ran away, but he had been the thief. He was the one seen. He'd come into the church meeting to case out what was there, then later on come and steal stuff; and so eventually he was caught, and returned the things. Isn't that extraordinary? Scary, isn't it aye?
So the supernatural realm, when it operates well, is scary. It scares, because everyone has this illusion that you're secret, and you can cover everything from everyone else. When you suddenly realise, from God's perspective - it's all open, so He can see it all - and He can tell someone; that's a little scary isn't it aye?
I remember we were in Nigeria, and I had another one of the most accurate prophetic words of knowledge. There was a whole row of people lined up there, and the prophet had this first lady there, and she was pregnant. He stood in front of her for a little while looking at her, didn't say a word, but he was listening to God.
He said to her: the child you're carrying is not your husbands. She was shocked of course; then he said: actually, when you got married, you didn't realise that your husband had a low sperm count; and so when you couldn't conceive, you went to the witch doctor to get a potion for your husband; but he deceived you, and gave you a potion that would turn your heart from your husband, and bring you to him.
This child is the witch doctor's child - and she just broke down, and wept and wept and wept, because it was true. It was all true; so she repented, she was forgiven, and God touched her. Then she had the baby quite soon afterwards, because the baby was well overdue, there was a problem.
So these are the sorts of things that words of knowledge can do. Words of knowledge are stunning, because they actually open up people's lives, in a way nothing else can. When you know something about someone, and no one but God would have known - they just actually know God is really opening up their life.
It's dramatic - I love it. Words of knowledge are great; so words of knowledge are great in areas of counselling, when you can't sort out the root of a problem, and then you just get a word of knowledge. I had someone come up to me, and they were describing a certain problem, and I just had the word 'occult' come to mind.
I said: have you been involved in the occult? We talked and interacted; yes, there was heavy involvement with the occult, and there was heavy involvement in the background with it as well. I said: well this is the root cause of your problem, why you're having this particular struggle; so that was able to be ministered to.
Ananias received words of knowledge about Paul. Remember, we read that in Acts 9:10-16; and God told Ananias go there, and go to that place, this street, that house, this man; and he's blind, and he's been praying.