[b]WHAT is a PROPHET?[/b] -by Art Katz.
What rises in your own thought and in your own heart when the word 'prophet' is evoked? What image, what sense of things comes to your own understanding? We need to remember that the false prophets were those who wore rough garments to deceive, and that the only reason they could succeed was because the people whom they deceived had an anticipation or a stereotyped view of prophet that their false depiction represented. Does a prophet have to be some long-haired wilderness guy in a rough garment, who acts strange and peculiar, and who looks with great intensity in his eyes? How would you define what a prophet is? How is he different from an apostle, or a teacher, or an evangelist? Are prophets still existent or are they strictly an Old Testament phenomenon? Is there such a thing as a New Testament prophet, as being something very different from the Old?
There is a tremendous amount of difference and controversy that broods over this subject. The church has really suffered from a kind of dichotomy between the Old and the New, as if the New has displaced or rendered the Old null and void. That is not the way that God sees it. That is the terminology that men have employed, but not the terminology that God Himself has given, and we have suffered for that. Jews have also suffered for that because it leaves them secure within the framework of their own Judaistic understanding: "You have your Book; we have our Book." It is implying that: "You have your God, and we have our God". It is an impression that God never intended, but that we have allowed Judaism to luxuriate in and find safety in. We need, therefore, to fight for the one faith, the one unbroken, continuous faith, given from the beginning, and that is climaxed, concluded and consummated at the end by the same God who gave it in the beginning. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
If that is the way we see the faith, then can we expect and will we need prophetic men of the Old Testament kind in our own generation, and especially at the end? Is there a conjunction between beginnings and endings? As it was in the beginning, so also at the end? The issues of the beginning do not change, but are even brought into more intensive focus and significance at the end, but it is not different or other than what was at the beginning.
I am astonished at the novelty and fascination with prophetic things for our charismatic generation. What trails we break in order to pursue after the 'prophet of the hour' without a comparable fascination or interest in the prophets of the Book! I cannot understand this kind of schizophrenia. We are fascinated by the contemporary 'prophets', who are so infinitely shallow and who themselves have bypassed completely any interest in the great Hebrew prophets of old through whom God spoke, not only in addressing the Israel of their own generation, but the Israel that is yet future. We need to be constantly reminded that the prophets are the prophets of Israel. They are the spokesmen of God to that nation. It is not unfair to say that nothing more reveals God as God as is seen in His dealings and judgments with Israel. To put ourselves, therefore, in a dysjuncture from Israel and the prophets of Israel, is to put us away from the hearing of God's prophets, and thereby affect our whole consideration of what we mean by prophetic. This will condemn us to a kind of shallowness about the very things of which we are already victim.
We need to ask what the essential differences are in, for example, Ezekiel or Jeremiah's message? If we can come to some understanding there, then we are cutting right into the truth of what the prophetic call is. Is it the soothing and benign comforting of a false kind, which is generally what people want? Their souls cry out for it, particularly in time of distress and consternation. The true prophet, however, is rubbing salt into their wounds. He deepens the dilemma and makes more clear the painful contradictions of the age, and he says, "There is no peace." He is bringing the dilemma into yet a deeper focus and saying, "You are not going to find peace until there is a judgment for this." He brings an unwelcome message that the flesh wants to shrink from, and the most common way to nullify the message is to kill or render null and void the man who brings it.
That is why we are probing what the classic, timeless elements are that have constituted prophets in every generation, whether or not it is Elijah, Isaiah, or Jeremiah. What in fact, is the difference between Isaiah and Jeremiah, or Samuel, or any of the minor prophets? However diverse these men are, is there anything central that runs through them all, that is intrinsic to being prophetic? Whatever the differences, what are the things that are the same? What is the heart, the quintessence of that which is prophetic? The quality of the man rarely comes through in his speaking or writing, but they all share the same label 'prophet'. We are trying to get at the heart of what that prophetic definition is, because if we have not as yet seen it in New Testament times, do we have a reasonable right to anticipate that we will? I cannot imagine that the age is going to close, with all of the great tumult and controversy of last day's collision between kingdoms of darkness and light, in that final warfare that eventuates in the victory of one and defeat of the other, without again men of this kind speaking. What does restoration mean, at least in part, if it is not the restoration of these offices that we have not seen in modern times. We even sense the need for the restoration, but we are so quick to grasp at anything that appears to be it, without critically examining what is being offered as 'prophet,' and in that might lie one of our deepest mistakes.
This is an hour of restoration, but one that requires our jealousy and watch-care. I know of one late pastor in New Zealand who saw as his prime function to instruct the church on how to identify, recognize, and honor the prophetic office when it comes. He was preparing his fellowship to be able to perceive, to recognize and to give honor to the true thing when it comes. I really appreciated that man. I think that I can say with a certain confidence that when I am speaking before a congregation, the blessing is the greater when a pastor or a leader in the congregation acknowledges the man in his prophetic call. When they are unwilling to make that acknowledgment, they still get something, but they do not get as much. There is, therefore, a blessing in the receiving of the man whom the Lord sends.
If we were to examine the callings of all of the prophets and their responses, we would see how often these men cry out, "But I am a child and cannot speak." After all of our examining we would have a portrait, and it would be a composite portrait of the prophetic genius. However much these men differ in their calling and personalities, there is some central thing that runs through them all that is designated 'prophetic', and that is what we are wanting to identify, because certainly the cry for that particular thing is with us in our final generation and in these last days. We cannot even conceive of the church independent of the restoration of prophets. Somehow and all of the sudden, this subject has broken upon the consciousness of the church, and now there is a sudden flush of excitement and men seem to be running everywhere to hear prophets. These prophets seem to have come to an instantaneous popularity. They were not on the scene before and all the sudden they are here. They are also being heralded in very lavish ways, not just as prophets, but as 'the oracles of the hour'. This is, therefore, a phenomenon that we need to examine to see how legitimate it is, and whether indeed it is the Lord or some kind of counterfeit. We should be well along enough in the Lord to know that whenever the authentic thing is about to come, it is often preceded by something fictitious or counterfeit. I want to say that I am watching this present prophetic phenomenon very carefully and have an extreme sense of caution in my own spirit if for nothing more than the suddenness and the popularityboth of which have not been my experience. There is nothing sudden, but rather there is a growth, and there is nothing popular, but quite the contrary, there is reproach.....
_________________ SI Moderator - Greg Gordon
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