Continuing Education

Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. – 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21

It is a fact of life that the kernel of truth most often comes with quite a bit of chaff.  A lot of us seem to be distracted by the chaff to the point that we miss the essentials.  I have learned much from flawed and even depraved people.  Is there some good in everyone?  I don’t know.  I’ve met a few who made me wonder, but there must be some truth in everyone, whether it’s worth sorting and winnowing to find it is another question. 

Prophecy here, as most places in the New Testament, has little to do with predicting future events.  It is what we generally call preaching, telling the truth and giving insight into applying the truth in everyday life.  This, too, is a spiritual gift and is much more a function of the Spirit’s presence and influence than the speaker’s intellect, eloquence, or oratorical skills.  Hearers may be entertained by eloquence.  We are convicted and convinced by prophecy.  Sometimes the two coincide.  That’s good, but it doesn’t have to be that way. 

Paul’s point to the church at Thessalonica was to emphasize the importance of this, often less showy, gift of the Holy Ghost.   There is a tendency that I note in myself, not so much to deride the familiar as to be indifferent toward it.  It is unwise of me to think, though, that I have no need of further or continual instruction.  It may be true that Christians have been washed and made clean forever by the Blood, but we still walk in this world, and, as Jesus told the disciples in John 13, we get our feet dirty.  Even if I were vain enough and conceited enough to think that I know everything there is to know, I hope that I would still be willing to be reminded. 

For myself, I am yet a long way off from perfection, and I do wonder sometimes if I am still on the right road.  It is reassuring to run across a signpost now and then.  If I have heard it all before, it is still true, and I can say, Amen.

The warning is that the world has its charlatans, pretenders, false prophets and false teachers.  There are wolves dressed as sheep or, worse perhaps, as shepherds.  We can test “the spirits” against Scripture and the doctrines of the Church.  If we are well acquainted with the Truth and following the Good Shepherd, the wolves will have trouble deceiving us.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)

Seals and Reveals

Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals.  And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?  And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it – Revelation 5:1-3

The scroll, as Matthew Henry says, represents the secret purposes of God about to be revealed.  Even when the scroll is opened, everything is not disclosed at the same time.  I was, like a lot of American Protestants, taught a Dispensational view of Scripture.  The seven seals of this scroll would seem to align with such an interpretation.  God’s revelation of Himself has progressed, building -- to take Isaiah out of context, line upon line and precept upon precept.   

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that Dispensationalism is probably misguided, but I don’t worry about it much anymore either way.  I’ve adopted a sort of Pan-Tribulation approach.  We’re going to have some trouble, but it will all pan out in the end.

It seems to me that the important thing is that God wants to reveal Himself and His purposes, but His creatures tend to be intimidated or to misunderstand.  We are neither worthy nor willing to break the seals.  True prophets tend to be not volunteers but draftees.  It was only after he had confessed his “unclean lips” and been purged with fire that Isaiah had the nerve to say, “Here I am!  Send me.”  (Isaiah 6:8)  Moses tried to his best to avoid the job.  Jeremiah claimed he was too young.  Ezekiel just freaked out.  Amos would have happily gone back to picking figs and herding sheep.  Jonah ran, determined to get as far in the opposite direction as possible. 

It falls to the Anointed One (Hebrews 10:5-7):

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,

but a body have you prepared for me;

 in burnt offerings and sin offerings

you have taken no pleasure.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,

as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”

In Christ, all those things in God’s revelation, in the Law and the Prophets which were sealed and hidden are unveiled.  It would be nice, I suppose, to know what the future holds.  It’s enough of a draw to most people that some Christian writers and speakers are able to make a fair living off “prophecy” books and conferences.  Like John, we may be distraught that we cannot grasp these mysteries until we realize that all we have to do is look to the Cross and to the Crucified and Risen Lamb.

Our future and our destiny is in the Lord for …we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2).  We struggle along in this world with all its deception and guile, but the Incarnation, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the guarantee that truth exists and that it will be revealed to us as we are able to comprehend it, as we … grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ (Ephesians 4:15).  He is the Omega as well as the Alpha; the Word Incarnate, He has our future right here. 

Dreaming of Dreams

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. - Joel 2:28

Many years ago in a little town in Texas, an older gentleman with whom we attended church told of a dream he had about the then nearly desolate church being filled with people.  It happened some years later that the church grew significantly, though I tend to think his dream spoke of a greater fulfillment.  I'm always struck when reading through the first couple of chapters of Matthew how critical dreams are.  First Joseph, traditionally viewed as much older than Mary, dreams that he should go ahead with his marriage.  Next the Magi, also doubtless older men, are warned in a dream against returning to Herod.  Then Joseph is told in a dream to go to Egypt.  After Herod's death, he dreams that they may return home.  Finally, he settles in Nazareth because of a dream.

I would be reluctant to change the course of my life based on a dream, no matter how vivid and convincing. Nevertheless, I can attest to the damage that not dreaming does to a person.  Lack of sleep means a lack of dreams.  I am always a better, more balanced person - and that's not saying much - when I get a chance to process everything in dreams, when my sleep is less disturbed.  It is almost as if dreams denied from lack of sleep invade my waking hours.  It makes me wonder about people who do senseless things, the perverts, the suicides, and the serial killers.  Are they simply overwhelmed by undreamt dreams? 

In Proverbs 29:18 we read:  Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.  The KJV says the people perish without vision, but the throwing off of restraint is simply the prelude to death. As a nation, we seem to have stopped dreaming.  We are blind.  We have no respect for any prophetic voice.  I am not talking about the people who call themselves "prophets" or, perhaps worse, "prophecy teachers".  The prophet's job is to proclaim God's truth and call His people to repentance with power, not give somebody a "word" about his backache.  Prophecy, dreams and visions pull back the curtain on the machinery behind the play.  It reveals what is normally hidden, unearths the buried truth, exposes the lies that support the daily delusions. 

As Christ could not have come into the world or survived to reach Golgotha without the dreams of men, so we will see no restoration or revival until our vision of the kingdom is quickened.  We need old men to dream Reality again.

Another Listening Post

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. -- John 1:1

God spoke all into existence, and His Voice is speaking still.  Everything He says is true, and the true is – that is, the true and the real correspond perfectly.  Living as we do in a derivative material world, we have lost the connection between speaking and truth and existence.  In Genesis 2:19, God brought all the animals to the man, not yet fallen, that he might name them, and whatever Adam spoke was what they were called.  Adam was not merely labeling but affirming and “recreating” in cooperation with God.   This is not affirmation in the silly sense that people sometimes use it.  We can’t affirm something that is contrary to the truth – that’s bearing false witness.  We can, however, like Adam, be active participants in God’s creative process as agents, speakers and witnesses, affirming in our lives – thought, word, and deed, the truth He reveals in and to us.     

Once God was silent, and there was a void.  Even His silence is creative.  Into that void, He began to speak and energy boiled through the nothing, laying out and forming the matrix of time and space that will be charged with holding what is to be birthed.  And what He speaks coalesces into matter, dust swirling in the emptiness to form individual bodies, clusters, some ignited with molecular fires that will burn on for billions of years, sparks of life spreading light.  We wonder that there is life in the universe when God’s voice is life?  God spoke ultimately in Christ who is the Word – the Way, the Truth and the Life – the Word wrapped in flesh, walking around in the dust and mire and confusion of human existence. 

It's like what GB was talking about yesterday with regard to the birds and life, ongoing vibrations of the Word.  I started to say that’s all it is, but the too common human view is the restrictive and limited one.  It’s seeing the relationship between life and God’s voice that is the expansive one.  Instead of that’s all it is, we should say, it’s all that -- more than we can comprehend.  At least we are on the right track.  That which will someday be born stirs within the cosmic egg, developing into something more like Christ.

I think God still has His prophets.  I hear people who claim to be prophets talking about “what I saw.”   I don’t pay much attention to them.  I listen for the ones who sound more like poets.  Their words may not be pleasant; they may drop like great hailstones, cold and hard.  They may burn white-hot as lightning and flatten me like thunder’s hammer.  But they are real and alive.  As a hungry traveler may catch the fragrance of quickened bread baking and know he is nearing home, we catch the aroma of life and know we are near the truth.  To the careful hearer and seeker, the voice of the prophet may be separated out from the cacophony of everyday chaos and turmoil.  

So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. (Genesis 2:19)

The Fire Next Time

They will say, Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. -- 2 Peter 3:4

Even if I had the gift of prophecy, I would be tempted to keep it to myself.  Prophecy is just not a paying business.  Nobody likes a prophet when he is right — even if they listen to him or her.  If the prophecy is wrong, or appears to be wrong, everybody mocks the prophet.  Prophecy is more about truth-telling than predicting.  If we know enough of the truth about our state and condition, most of us can foresee the possible ends.  Predicting is a secondary function of the prophetic word while its primary purpose is to reveal God to the limited comprehension of man.  If people respond correctly to the revelation, the prediction often becomes irrelevant or obsolete.  A case in point might be Jonah prediction of the imminent destruction of Ninevah.  Because the Ninevites heard Jonah and accepted the truth of his prophecy, repenting of their wickedness in sackcloth and ashes, the city was not destroyed.  I doubt not that there may have been some among the citizenry who eventually questioned the reliability and track-record of whale-borne Israelite preachers.

We sometimes call it feedback, and we tend to ignore it in our projections.  Thus our projections rarely hold up for very long.  My father used to say that the debt America was incurring was unsustainable.  I have heard him many times declare that eventually the exponential growth of debt would necessitate "striking new money", to use his phrase.  He said this in the mid-1960s.  He probably said it before that, but I don't remember it.  For the last forty-five years or more, he has been wrong, not because his basic calculations were faulty, but because increasing productivity and feedback between the various elements of a civilized society slowed and at times even checked the momentum of what now appears inevitable (though it may not be inevitable for several reasons). 

Perhaps the same is true in the spiritual realm.  A little further on in this Epistle, Peter explains that Christians are "waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God". 

We have seen many advancements in society over the last couple of thousand years, attributable largely to the Judeo-Christian worldview and ethos.  Technological improvements have often been derived from those social and structural advancements.  In many ways we have moved toward the kingdom, but the feedback provided by greater ease and luxury in life has paradoxically added to the friction and turbulence of that movement.  We have decelerated, perhaps even changed course to some degree.  Our greater wealth, better health, longer lives, increased mobility, and multiplied opportunities have made us less sensitive to community than were our grandparents and great-grandparents.   We may also be, for the most part, less sensitive to the Spirit and less focused on real purpose. 

Whether history repeats, rhymes, or raps is of far less interest when we realize that it is in fact spiraling up toward an Omega Point and that we, insignificant creatures with insignificant lives, have a part in determining the slope of the spiral, its tightness, and the speed with which we approach it.  In one sense the scoffers are right:  all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.  All things have always been rumbling, running, slouching, sliding toward a choke-point that once seemed lost in eternity future but now looms a little larger, a little nearer.  Is it a black gate leading down into oblivion?  Or is it a birth canal opening to a new and endless world? 

But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13).

Word

Again the word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, what is this proverb you people have about the land of Israel, which goes: The days keep passing by, and every vision fails?

"Therefore say to them: This is what the LORD God says: I will put a stop to this proverb, and they will not use it again in Israel. But say to them:

"The days draw near,
as well as the fulfillment of every vision. …

"But I, the LORD, will speak whatever message I will speak, and it will be done. …” – Ezekiel 12:22-25

It used to be a big thing among certain flavors of Spirit-filled Christians to prophesy over people. I’ve had it happen to me. I was sitting in the back of a church in Keller, Texas one Sunday night when the preacher came all the way from the front to me, slapped me in the chest with his big, red Bible and began to prophesy over me. I don’t remember what was said. I was in another church in – well, let’s just say somewhere close to Dallas – where the speaker for the evening was a cute little blonde woman. It was a decent crowd of probably four or five hundred people. My wife and I were off to the side, several rows back from the stage. After the service, the blonde rushed off the platform and up to my wife to ask her for permission to give me a hug, which my slightly bemused wife graciously granted. She apparently did not make the all too common error of mistaking me for George Clooney. Instead, she thought I was sad and discouraged, which I was, and she wanted to encourage me – spiritually, of course. Another time, I was in church in Oklahoma where prophesying was going on. I learned afterward that the lady playing the keyboard (not a blonde) had a word for me, but I looked so mean, she, lacking the courage of the woman in Dallas, was afraid to approach me. Once up in Columbia, Missouri, a minister called for me to come up so he could prophesy over me. When I shook my head, he just nodded and said, “That’s wisdom” – whether he meant on my part or his, I’m not sure. I don’t think he was blonde, either.

There were some other occasions, but I never paid too much attention. Even a charismatic dancing on the back of the pew will admit that a “word” is never something wholly new but rather a confirmation of what we have already heard or sensed at some level. I’m not denying or questioning the validity or value of words of knowledge, words of wisdom, or personal prophecy. I’m just a little uncomfortable being singled out and prefer to pick up my insights wholesale from the pulpit or the Bible, as has happened many times, including an instance or two where I thought the entire church service was orchestrated solely for my benefit.

It may be that the closest I have ever gotten to an honest-to-goodness personal prophetic utterance came from my sixth-grade teacher who said, “You should be an engineer.” Wherever you are Mrs. Mickelson, I owe these eighty-hour weeks and 3:00AM hotline calls all to you. Of course, she was probably thinking of a reasonably sane kind of engineering, like civil or mechanical. No one had heard of software, let alone software engineers, back in those days. The only thing I knew about engineering was that you got to wear cool boots. Nevertheless, despite my best efforts to go in a completely different direction, this is where I wound up. It could be worse; she could have said, “You should be a mime,” which is what the music teacher said, but it came too late to alter destiny.

Most of the time, God speaks to most of us through our circumstances. I’m not sure if that’s His preferred method or simply the most expedient means of getting our attention. Nothing says you’re walking on thin ice like falling into the creek. And, like ice water in your jock, a prophetic word is not only a wake-up call but an often disturbing revelation. It only seems that it is about the future and predictive because everything needs time to happen. By revealing Jesus, prophecy shows us who we are. As He is revealed in us and through us – that’s really the only way He can be revealed to us, we begin to understand who and what we are, why we’re here and where we are going.

I like the way God put it to the people of Ezekiel’s day – whatever I say, that’s what’s going to happen. We can believe and live it out, or we can reject it and find life getting out of our control. What we can’t do is claim the word of the Lord has failed or will fail. The enemy was at the gates of Jerusalem. The prophets had foretold the destruction of the city and the temple and the death or captivity of the inhabitants. Ezekiel’s listeners did not want to believe that the day of reckoning was upon them. They were like the man who fell off the skyscraper saying as he passed each floor, “So far, so good.” It hasn’t happened yet; therefore, it is never going to happen, though reality looms, ever larger. That’s the negative side.

Through the Cross, there is a positive side. The Lord says that He has chosen us to be holy and blameless in His sight (Ephesians 1:4). There are plenty of people around to tell us He didn’t really mean us or that it will never happen, and they might even have some evidence to back it up. Whose report will you believe? You and I are holy and blameless -- not in the far-off future, in heaven or the sweet bye-and-bye. Now. It is the fulfillment of every vision, with nothing missing, nothing lacking. Every prophecy about Christ and about His Body – about all of us holy and blameless believers is accomplished. What God says it is, it is.

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.