There is a prophetic 'offense' that God allows, or even builds in, either something in the man that men can reject or find offense in, or in the message itself. Why would that be, that there is some defect, some weakness or some imperfection in the man or in the message that seems to be invariably part of the prophetic manner? The Scriptures speak of 'the holy prophets of old', that though they were holy and need now also to be, it would seem that they carry some kind of defect, some kind of flaw, either in their own person, their own history or even in their own speaking. If that is so, and that constitutes the prophetic offense, then why does God allow that and even require that?
I can think that everything about John the Baptist was an offense, namely, the way he dressed, the way he was outside of Jerusalem, his diet, his celibacy. If you heard him, you had to leave Jerusalem and come to some waste place, to some slimy bank of a river, where this untoward looking character was carrying on. I mean, if you ever want to find offense, you can go down a whole list of things that would rub people the wrong way. It is interesting that I should seize him as an example of a man laden with offense by the very nature of what he is in himself. Elijah is in the spirit of John the Baptist, and John the Baptist in Elijah, and the prophet 'Elijah' is yet to come as the forerunner of the Lord in the last days also.
We need, therefore, of all the prophetic models, to examine more the Elijah model and the wilderness prophet than any other as being the clear form that God will employ that precedes His coming. The very fact of being in the wilderness means outside the establishment. To the Scribes and Pharisees, who were being sent from Jerusalem to see what was taking place at the banks of the Jordan, the offense would be that how could anything of significance be happening outside of Jerusalem, outside of their establishment and outside of their priestly class. I cannot say that I can find a verse where it says that there is an inherent flaw or a structured offense that God installs in His prophets, but it seems that they have almost invariably been offensive to men. It is interesting that Jesus was accused of being a wine bibber and a glutton, so here would be an assault on His character. Whether imagined or real, the opponents of the prophetic man will find it, and God allows it to be found.
The prophetic word is different from the words that are spoken by other ministers of God. There is also a greater propensity for the hearer to be resistant to the prophetic word, where he might be more readily yielded to a word of teaching. A prophet's speaking will bring him into a disjuncture with things as they are, especially religious things, because the prophet is vehemently anti-religious and because he knows better than anyone that it was the religious world that crucified the Lord of glory. There is something in his make-up and his jealously for God and God's glory, that allows him to perceive things as they really are, even something which seems ostensibly to be from God, and is called God, and is employed in the realm of things about God, but it is yet inimical and opposed to God. It is the religious thing that is always the greatest obstruction and the greatest obstacle to the prophetic witness.
He speaks a radical word that always calls you to a disjuncture and to a degree of obedience that will be sacrificial and painful, and that will bring the prophet into some degree of reproach and misunderstanding, even by those who are ostensibly good Christians. It is a word that is painful both to hear, to consider and to receive. Men absolve themselves from such a word and avoid its implications by finding a way to discredit the word through finding a defect in the man. I would suspect that there is not a prophet that has ever been sent of God who does not provide that opportunity to his hearers.
Why would God allow an offense? Why should the prophet not be impeccable and above any criticism so that people would of necessity have to receive his word? Why would God allow either the manner of the man, his mode of being, his life, his character, imagined or real, to be something that people could seize upon, if they want to find offense and a point of rejection? I believe that it is in order to recognize the word of God as the word of God, despite the vehicle. I see it in my own experience. Sometimes I am embarrassed when something comes out of me that slips into the message that I myself would not have chosen, and if I could have edited it out, then I would have. I say to myself, "How did that happen?" I then find later that people fasten onto that thing so as to reject not only that error, but the entire word that went with it. I pondered that because it is painful to embarrassingly bring a defect, but what I am sensing is, that God gives men opportunity, if they want to seize upon it, to reject both the man and the message, and they can justify it by saying, "Look, he said this," or "He did this," or "He is this." It is part of the humiliation of being prophetic and that the flaw or defect has got to issue through you. At the same time, however, I want to say that it is not to be used to absolve the prophetic man from responsibility; that he must strive for impeccability, purity, holiness and not justify himself in places where he is responsible and say, "Well, that's the prophetic flaw." It works to give people a way to avoid the implications, but it does not absolve the prophet from his own responsibility before God for it. The prophet cannot throw it off, and yet he is responsible for it. It might even be in a certain sense sinful, or humiliating or embarrassing, and you are crying out for the deliverance from it, and yet you have got to bear it because it serves that function. Both things are true at the same time. We are still responsible and yet at the same time it is something that God can and will employ to give men an escape if they want to seize it-and they will.
Even within the fivefold ministries, there is built-in antagonism and offense. A prophet operates often from an intuitive place, rather than the kind of emphasis a teacher would give to the Word. That is not to say that he is indifferent to the Word, because he is eminently the bearer of the Word of God, but in his calling more than any other there is a place for intuition and apprehension of something by the Spirit that does not necessarily first come to him by Scripture. That one thing is very offensive to teachers. We have to understand that, and not condemn, as if somehow the intuitive man is Word-rejecting, and is a freelancer, and will just take anything off-the-wall. He needs to be under the observation of men who are careful in the Word, but the men who are careful in the Word need to make some latitude for the intuitive faculty that God Himself has given.
We need not think that because there is an intrinsic offense to prophetic obedience and faithfulness that we are under obligation to be offensive. There are a lot of amateurs who are acting like prophets; that is to say, creating offense and who are loudmouthed, insensitive and acting like 'bulls in a china shop'. That is an insult to the true thing. We are not to think that we have to create offense and that that authenticates our prophetic credentials. The offense will come in and of itself without even our consciousness, but if we think that this is a form, "I am a prophetic person and I am going to shake these people up", then we are amateurs and doing God a disfavor. We would do well to keep our mouth shut, and be silent, and come under the disciplines of God before there will ever be a release. We may well have a legitimate calling, but we are going out into it prematurely. We have not been in the wilderness of God. We have not been dealt with in the deepest entrails of our heart and life, and we are just prematurely ejaculating a lot of nonsense and a lot of unnecessary controversy, that does not serve the redemptive purposes of God.
Jesus Himself said, "Blessed is he who is not offended in Me." There is something intrinsic in His being offensive, something built in by being what He is. God is something 'other', and the world is offended by that 'otherness'. They cannot define it, but they resist it and are irritated by it. But "Blessed is he who is not offended in Me" implies that there will be offense, and necessary offense, but if you can rise above the offense or see through the offense, then you are blessed.
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article400.shtml
No comments:
Post a Comment