See Your Name in Print

OK, I’m back. Did you miss me?

You do not delight in sacrifice and offering; You open my ears to listen. You do not ask for a whole burnt offering or a sin offering. Then I said, “See, I have come; it is written about me in the volume of the scroll. I delight to do Your will, my God; Your instruction resides within me.” -- Psalm 40:6-8

A while back I wrote a bit about the messianic passage Isaiah 50:4 that has a similar sense of hearing God and speaking on His behalf. This passage from the Psalm is quoted by the writer of Hebrews in chapter 10 as also applying to the Messiah, which it obviously does. However, God did not limit His specific prophecies solely to Christ. An example is 1 Kings 13:2 where an anonymous prophet names a descendent of the Davidic line, Josiah, as the individual who would destroy Jeroboam’s idolatrous altar, but generations in the future. Isaiah names Cyrus as the king of an as yet non-existent kingdom who would, hundreds of years later, decree the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Obviously skeptics can argue that these names were added after the fact or that, in Josiah’s case, the both prophecy and fulfillment were falsified, no proof being sufficient for a mind that rejects proof – not even living proof.

I believe that Isaiah prophesied about Cyrus. For my purpose today, though, the more applicable example is Josiah who saw himself named in the chronicles of Judah by this unnamed prophet. He was motivated to fulfill the prophecy. In fact Psalm 40, classified as a Davidic psalm, would have been quite familiar to Josiah. He could have uttered those very words of his ancestor as he realized that he had a job to do.

When I look into the Bible, I see God’s Will. In fact, I see God’s Last Will and Testament. There is no invocation of a will until the testator dies (see Hebrews 9:16-18). Jesus died to put God Last Will and Testament into force. The Holy Spirit is the Executor. You and I are named as heirs of God and "joint heirs with Jesus Christ". Like Josiah, we can find ourselves in the Book.

Some might argue that, even if it is true that some old prophet said there would be a king named Josiah, Josiah was a common enough name. If you are king and your name's not Josiah, you are pretty much off the hook. "Yeah, well, that idol stuff, uh, Josiah's supposed to take care of that." When a Josiah did come along, what choice did he have?

For one, he could have named his son Josiah. That's what we do with Social Security.

When you read God’s Will, and something comes alive to you, you are reading your destiny, just as Josiah did. The Holy Spirit begins to speak and say, “This is your heritage. For this, you were born.” The instruction that resides within you converges with the Will, interlocking like pieces of a puzzle giving you a larger, more coherent picture. That instruction resides as latent potential, I won’t say within everyone, but within every living soul. Yet it is up to us what we do with it. When the Spirit calls my name will I accept it, or will I say, "You must mean the other Josiah"? Will I understand that the call is personal, or will I push it off as being for priests, preachers, ministries, religions, organizations or governments?

As a Christian who struggles with an extremely rebellious nature, I have found it helpful to shelve the word “obedience” part of the time – not the concept, just the word. Instead let’s call it “fulfillment”. No need in stirring up trouble right off the top. The Holy Spirit calls me to see God’s Last Will and Testament, and to fulfill the stipulations of it. I will never walk in my inheritance unless I fulfill God’s Will. I cannot understand my own existence apart from fulfilling what is my prophetic destiny.