The Prophetic Call part 5

The Gift of Prophecy or The Prophetic Call?

            We have reached in deep enough to now discuss the prophetic. There is a distinction between the prophetic call and the prophetic gift. This is one of the many tragedies in the Church today. We are unable to separate the one from the other. Anyone who is able to exercise that gift in a fluent way is considered to be a prophet.

            What is the main distinction? If you want to discern the difference between the gift and the office, you merely need to look at the role they play. The gift of prophecy isn’t permanent. It’s only role and function is to bring a word from Heaven, whether a revelation of our situation or a future prediction. I want to be very careful with my words.

            The gift of prophecy can come in many different ways. The man or woman who receives this prophecy receives it once. It could be anything. It could be a revelation of an interpretation of Scripture. It could be a prophetic view of things to come. It could be personal prophecy concerning a certain individual. But it is only a prophetic word. It never branches out beyond being a statement. It might be anointed. It might have power when it is spoken. That doesn’t mean that it has validated the person as a prophet.

            The prophetic office is quite different. A prophecy could come to anyone. It might come once in a lifetime; it might come frequently. It is the Spirit that has liberty with choosing how, when, to whom, and how often prophecy is given. When we look to wrestle with what a prophet is, we come to conclusions that it is so much more than that.

            The prophet doesn’t bring a word that gives light to a certain situation or speaks directly to an individual. A prophet challenges an entire framework and system. The prophet’s word doesn’t come as some sort of blessed revelation. It comes and lays bare everything. It devastates. And example of this is Moses before Pharaoh. Moses didn’t go to Pharaoh because the problem of Israel being beaten and suffering. The word of Moses and the miracles that God performed through Moses challenged an entire system that is built upon oppression. We gain wealth by oppressing those people.

            The prophets of Ba’al had the same story. Elijah didn’t come into the picture challenging the system of Ba’al because it was a foreign god. That is only an outward manifestation of the problem. The problem was in Elijah’s words, “How long will you waiver between two opinions?” There was a system set up where it both eliminated God as God and gave way to announcing any other things claiming to be god was also valid. The system that King Ahab had built with Jezebel using the power of Ba’al is one of extreme religious devotion. But a religion of what kind?

            Here lies the prophetic office. The prophet stands in the place that can discern the spiritual reality. But he doesn’t just give a word concerning that spiritual reality. He doesn’t simply point it out. The prophetic word and the prophetic office are intertwined. When the prophet is sent from God, he is sent to Pharaoh that binds and oppresses. He is sent to King Ahab that enforces a religious system bent on ungodly religious fervor. He goes straight to the core and proclaims, “Let my people go!” This is why the prophet has such power. He is a force to be reckoned with.

            The true prophet of God will come and destroy everything that is false. He will expose and utterly cut through all of the garbage theology and all of the junk institutional system that has been set up. I can’t understand how it is when you go to prophetic conferences there are never messages about Israel. Israel is always brought up in a cheap and glib fashion. How is it that Israel could be the very crux of the Bible in that their redemption means the return of Christ, and yet they are barely ever even mentioned? How is it that there are never messages that challenge the very system that the conference is set up upon? You donate to this or that ministry to be blessed and receive the word of the “prophet.” And not one word is ever spoken against it.

            We don’t have prophets being employed. In fact, many of the supposed prophets aren’t even anointed by God. They haven’t heard anything, yet they run onto the platform to give the word. How many of these prophets are real if they are only too eager to share what the Lord has spoken? Does the Lord not have an indictment against anything that we are doing in modern Christendom? Or is it only those other denominations? We are the perfect faultless ones, right?

            We have glib, cheap, knock-off prophets that have no backbone. They are eager to tell you your license number or give you a word that will let you know that God knows you, but they can’t interpret the times. Many so-called prophets today think that Israel will come to know Christ during the Tribulation after we have been raptured out. The view is that it is their sin and their problem.

            Does that sound like humility? Does that sound like God’s character? How is Israel supposed to come to the knowledge of God? They come up with ridiculous theories on how maybe rabbis will learn and teach people. Or maybe they will just come into awareness and that will be sufficient. They have not a prophetic understanding of the Bible. How then, can they be prophets at all?

Prophetic Proclamation

            If we are going to understand prophetic proclamation properly, we need to first understand the formation of such a man. The prophet is not a romantic. I don’t mean this in a sense of relationship. I mean this is his view and perception of the faith. He doesn’t have a romantic view of what it means to be a prophet. There isn’t anything about the prophetic call that would draw him to desire it.

            Such a calling and office lends itself to pain and non-comfort. The man’s word is as much a part of the man who speaks, as his skin is part of his body. God comes upon the man and ruthlessly purges. The prophet is the prophetic office. This isn’t something that comes separately.

            If the prophet is to speak a word of judgment, the prophet must undergo judgment. If the prophet is to then speak a word of redemption, the prophet must undergo redemption out of suffering. The prophet and his word are one. If you reject the word you reject the man, and visa versa. This is why a prophet is not born in a day.

            Maybe one of the biggest evidences of whether someone is truly a prophet or not is their desire to be a prophet. When they are only too excited to be called a prophet and be cherished as a prophet, then it is too much a sign that they have not that office or calling. However, when someone is willing to take on that office and doesn’t have eagerness for or against it, they are the real candidates.

            A prophet must first be uprooted out of the system. They can’t remain within the context of any sort of institution. Camel’s hair and locusts are intrinsic metaphors for any and all prophets. The false prophets ate at Jezebel’s table. Elijah was fed by ravens in the wilderness. So it goes for the true prophet. God must first take you out. That doesn’t mean you get cut off from fellowship. That does mean that any kind of church building or congregation is less than satisfactory.

            This is another sign between the true and the false. The true prophet cannot remain within the walls of church structure, as we know it today. God might call them to remain there. That doesn’t mean they enjoy and delight in it. When the man of the hour is only too excited and eager about the congregation they are a part of, it is most likely a sign that they are not separate from the false religions of this age.

            God takes the prophet out to relearn everything. He reshapes the man. He rebuilds and reforms everything from the doctrines to the great words of the faith to eschatology. Just like Abram was brought out of his father’s house, so the prophet must be brought out of the establishment. They find God in the wilderness. They undergo their metamorphosis on the backside of the desert.

            Ruthlessly and exactingly the prophet is dealt with. Everything in life, speech, conduct, belief, dogma, action, reaction, faith, opinion, character, etc is destroyed. You no longer have a life. You no longer represent an opinion. Your life is God’s life. Your opinion is God’s opinion. Your word is God’s word. Your doctrine and faith and belief and dogma are God’s view. Nothing more and nothing less will suffice.

            But it doesn’t stop there. The prophet isn’t taken out of Jerusalem so that he might stay at the Jordan all the days of his life. He isn’t taken out of Egypt so that he can find a wife and live away from his people. God reshapes the man and sends him right back into the heart of the problem. He must be his message, but beyond that he must be able to bear the reproach of such a message. God tears him down, but then builds him back.

            This is why the prophets have some of the most amazing passages in all of Scripture. They are the message. This is why there is such power and authority in their speaking. This is why there is such conviction. God doesn’t lead the prophet to believe a certain view of the end times because He says it and that is all. God constantly shows in the life of the prophet that this is how God works. The prophet’s message is a Deuteronomic message. Every aspect comes straight from Deuteronomy.

            If you obey the Lord your God, then such and such blessings will come. If you disobey the Lord your God, then such and such curses will come. They have experienced in their own lives this very message. That is why I can say with complete conviction that Israel will soon be uprooted and in exile once more. It is their history as well as mine.

            The prophet isn’t only one who is brought out and in. There is something else that is also developed into their character. They don’t fear men. Now, this is slightly assumed with bring made into the kind of people who can take rebuke. But what this also brings is a connotation that they could care less about the esteem of men as well.

            We all enjoy to be esteemed. We all enjoy when others will pat us on the back and tell us that we did a good job. We all enjoy when others who are prominent will acknowledge our efforts. This is a natural sensation for humanity. But it can also be the most dangerous and poisonous thing to the Spirit. If we find more fulfillments in hearing the praises of men than the praises of God, we have already come to a place of apostasy.

            Maybe this is why Samuel’s first prophetic word was to Eli. It wasn’t “nice.” God was judging to house of Eli, and it took a young boy named Samuel to expound that God was not pleased. Can you imagine what it would feel like to go to the man who raised you and tell him such a message that God is cutting you off from the Earth?

            There needs to be both reverence and sympathy for such men. They are to be reverenced because of their deep sincerity and willingness to bear the message. We ought to sympathize because many times their message of judgment means that they too must suffer that same judgment. Elijah proclaimed that it would not rain except at his word. That doesn’t mean that Elijah is free from the drought. It actually places Elijah right in the midst to suffer with the rest of Israel.

            When we ask what the prophet’s message will be, we need to see it from this perspective. The prophet will only speak what the Lord has spoken. That could be blessing or curse. Either way, the word itself is an event. It is the word that actually brings about the completion of it. When the prophet is obedient to speak the word that has been given, the judgment or blessing has already begun.

            It is for this reason that the prophet’s task isn’t to simply expose. The prophet will set up an alternative that has never been considered. Why has it never been considered? It is the heavenly alternative to a world steeped in the earthly things below. That which is from the earth cannot consider the things of heaven.

            When speaking a prophetic message, or when hearing a supposed prophet, if we don’t hear of some alternative way to live and breath and have our being, then we are being lied to. The primary task of the prophet is not to bring prophecies concerning the future. The primary task is to expose the false reality that we cling to by presenting the authentic and revealing the glory of God in it.

            There might be some sort of prophecy given. There might be an oracle displaying future events to soon take place. But that oracle will not be presented in a way to educate. The purpose is not to say, “Prepare yourself for this!” The point is first and foremost to present the authentic reality and perception of God. From that reality and perception might then come the statement of preparation.