The Prophetic Call pt 4

Morality and its Necessity

            I’m sure that it isn’t a startling thing to hear that morality is a necessity. The reason this is even being mentioned is because I have found that much too often we don’t have a grasp on morality at all. We think that morality is living life in a way that we dodge the “big sins.” Yet, we lack the understanding that morality doesn’t stem from what we do. It stem from who we are.

            The grotesque sins that we can commit aren’t always connected to something obviously vile. I’ll give you an example. I know a family that has two kids. Both of them have grown up to be hellions while still being involved in their church. She is quite sexually active, and he is always doped up on drugs. What caused this? When you take a look at the family as a whole, the parents are very lenient. They have the attitude that you can’t decide for yourself until you try it. So they allow their kids to be demons and hooked on drugs and sexuality with full expectation that they’ll grow out of it. But then it doesn’t stop with the sex and drugs. Now they disrespect their parents. Why?

            The question doesn’t start with the disrespect. That is what the parents are so offended about. It doesn’t start with their lack of obedience. The place to start looking is the parent’s lack of love. It was their lack of being parents that led their children to find some other fill. It was that drive to find another fill that led to the bigger problem: a hatred of their own parents. The hatred isn’t the problem. That is a side effect of the problem.

            I’ll give another example. I know someone who is divorced. They had a child out of wedlock. Their relationship to their ex-spouse is rocky. What came first: the rocky relationship or the divorce? Well, common sense would say the rocky relationship. That isn’t the case though. They had both divorced one another before even having trouble in the relationship. I don’t mean that they left one another. I mean that they were still allowing their interests in other men or women dictate. They were still flirtatious. They were still willing to show their love to another at their spouse’s expense. This was from both sides. The sin wasn’t the divorce. It wasn’t the child out of wedlock. The child out of wedlock and the wedding were both attempts to try to keep the relationship going. The downfall was that neither one of them were devoted.

            What am I getting at with this? We need to be people who are willing to plumb the depths of our sins. We need to be willing to see it for what it really is. Morality doesn’t start with a question of right and wrong. Morality starts with devotion and determination that nothing will go unchecked and unnoticed. Everything that we do in life will be observed carefully to see if there is anything behind it that is evil in disguise.

            It is a nice thing to pick up the check for someone else at the dinner table. What is the motive? Are you trying to be nice? Are you trying to show off? Are you trying to hold it over their head so that next time you can say they owe you? The righteous does righteous acts and doesn’t even realize they have done it. You can bring it up to them that the way they conduct themselves is very righteous. They wouldn’t have noticed.

            For example: it says in Deuteronomy 15 that we are to take care of the orphans, widows, foreigners, traveler, family, and that we should not knowingly try to oppress anyone. This isn’t hard for the righteous. They just live in that kind of lifestyle. They are generous. When someone is seen without a coat, they give him or her their coat. They don’t even have to think about it. That is just who we’re taught to be by God. You see someone in need, so you supply the need.

            This is where morality starts. It starts with motives and core actions. If you are an introvert, there are certain things that you need to be careful of. You need to be careful of not keeping quiet when it is necessary to speak. If you are an extrovert, you need to be careful not to speak when you need to be quiet. It isn’t about whether it is right or wrong. The issue is over a love of truth.

            There are certain situations where it is more loving to keep quiet and allow someone to suffer and ask, “Why would God allow this?” There are times where if you keep quiet, you are now doing disservice. It takes discernment. It also takes a lot of agony. God will form you. I won’t say that I have arrived because this is the biggest struggle I have. Trying to find the absolute root of things is tough.

            But this is what morality is. Morality is searching to the root. It is digging up everything until you find that first initial problem. This doesn’t always involve your own life (although that is most frequent). Would it have been the moral thing to do if Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have succeeded in killing Hitler? Hitler was a monster, but the Bible says to submit under the governmental authority. It says that vengeance is the Lord’s.

            Probing the depths of morality takes effort. It takes more than effort. It takes a certain kind of moral stamina. It is easy to raise questions of whether it is “right or wrong.” It is much more painstaking to not be content with right or wrong but digging to the root to see where the issue really lies. Is it okay to kiss before marriage? Is it okay to display any kind of physical affection outside of marriage?

            When we have a moral deficiency in any area, that deficiency will expose itself somewhere. This is certain: your sin will find you out. Moral deficiency isn’t about addictions to cigarettes or pornography. Moral deficiency is about a lack in even believing that there is a right or wrong in certain matters. Where were those parent’s morals when they allowed their children to grow up watching sex and drug filled movies? Where were those parent’s morals when they allowed their kids to go out partying all night? Now suddenly when they don’t have respect from their kids they want to play the morality card. You forfeited your morality when you allowed blatant sin and corruption to be displayed before their eyes daily in your own home.

            I see a lot of people who have pictures of their whole family in a certain sport jersey. Then they want to talk about how their lives are devoted only to Jesus. You can’t have them both. If you have that severe of a pride for your favorite football team that your kids are forced to wear the jerseys before they even understand the sport, then you aren’t devoted to God. You can take your pick.

            Morality must issue from God. He is the only fully moral being. Anything that will block us or keep us from seeing Him clearly and expressing Him clearly to others through our actions is not moral. Any kind of deception, whether inward or outward, is amoral. To be amoral is to reject morals. It is to say that morality doesn’t exist. There are no morals; there are only my own desires and lusts.

            The prophet will stand in the place where he can see through the front. He will see through the mask. The prophet is the little boy who speaks up and says the emperor is naked. He displays the truth of our spirituality. He brings up and roots out the inner sins. He is able to cut to the core because he himself has been cut to the core. The prophet must live his message. The reason the prophet’s words are so exacting is because God has been exacting with him.

            When we are talking about morality and probing the depths of where sin comes from, we’re talking about a very characteristic of the prophetic man. This is something that the prophet is ruthless about. A prophet cannot tolerate sin. They see the situation for what it is. Anything less than the glory of God is not sufficient. This is the first and primary call of the prophet: to expose the reality of the spiritual bankruptcy. Before the prophet is one who hears future predictions or knows your past, he is one who discerns the truth of your spirituality.

            The prophet cuts through all the junk that we set up to show how spiritual we are. Sometimes they don’t even realize what they’re doing. Out of their mouths a certain phrase comes, and everybody is now offended. Or the prophet just seems to think that it is the best way to handle a situation like this, and now everyone is angry. A good example of this is in 2 Kings 5. Naaman comes to Elisha to be cured of leprosy. Elisha doesn’t even leave his house, but sends his servant out to tell the man what he must do. The man is outraged. It seems like it was calculated to offend.

            I doubt if Elisha even realized what he did. It just seemed like the right way to handle it at the time. The man expected Elisha to come out and respect his title and to wave his hand over the leprous spot and to call on the name of his God. What is Naaman expecting? He is expecting the same show that many of our modern day so-called prophets perform. They wave their hands and say, “IN THE NAME OF JESUS!” but it is all hype and in the end there is no fire. There is no healing. There isn’t anything.

            Elisha’s response seems to be calculated to offend, and yet it also seems to be the very thing that later brings the man back to admit the Lord is the only one and true God. A prophet will almost always offend. You are a blessed saint indeed if a true prophet comes and says something that should be taken offensively and you are humble. That doesn’t mean that the word spoken will always be rude. It means that it will be truth.

            There is a natural response to truth that many people have. Our first reaction is to be appalled. This is because of our lack of morals. Somewhere we have let a breach in and have desperately not paid any attention. When Jesus spoke to those around Him, He didn’t sugar coat. To some He had good things to say. To others He had only hurtful things to say. In both cases He spoke the reality and the truth. Our lack of love for the truth has driven us to be less than true and less than wholehearted.

            It is for this reason that we lack prophets in our land. The prophet will only speak the truth that he sees. He won’t continue on with many words. He is exacting. When we go to prophetic conferences and the speaker can just go on and on, it is a sure thing that they are not truly prophets. A prophet doesn’t speak unless told to speak. What does that mean for community? In my own life, I have experienced that there is a vast difference between the prophet within the context of community and a prophet within the context of apostasy. When in the midst of other prophets or a community of saints where God is pleased, a prophet can only flourish.

            It isn’t so much that a prophet will not say a word, but more like what Proverbs says over and over again. The wise are prudent. Prudence is not the act of not speaking; it is the act of knowing when to and when not to speak. The prophet doesn’t speak unless he is told to speak, but that doesn’t mean they have to always be silent. I’m speaking now outside of the Bible. This isn’t entirely necessary to probe. What is more important is to understand the depth of prudence and know that the prophet will only speak truth. They are truth. Truth is the substance of reality lived out. A statement of truth can only be true when it is lived by the individual who says it.

            And so we’re back to morality. I have only scratched the surface. When we read the prophetic texts, we see that many times what the prophet says (or what God says to the prophet) gets at the heart of the matter. They can see the sin of Israel and know exactly what it stems from. The words of judgment and redemption don’t come until we are able to see this. If we cannot see past the outward sin and into the heart, we cannot speak to that heart. Thus, we cannot be to Israel in the last days Tribulation what we ought to be unless we have this prophetic distinctive.