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MaryJane
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Joined: 2006/7/31
Posts: 3057


 Picture of a Prophet

Picture of a Prophet
By Leonard Ravenhill




The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men.
Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, "No man can be fully accepted until he is totally rejected." The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences. They are (in a real sense) his "brand name."
The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him "Man of the year" when he refers to them as habituates of the synagogue of satan!
The prophet comes to upset that which is the status quo. His work is to call into line those who are out of line! He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality. In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin-Sparks once said, "has almost always been that of recovery." [to RESTORE the work of
holiness and the very purposes of GOD] !


The prophet is God's detective seeking for a lost treasure.
The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him.

He has no price tags.
He is totally "otherworldly."
He is unquestionably controversial and (often appears to be) unpardonably hostile.
He marches to another drummer!
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration.
He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind.
He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley
with a "thus saith the Lord."
He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of impending judgment.
He lives in "splendid isolation."
He is forthright and outright, but he claims no special birthright.
His message is "repent, be reconciled to God... or else...!"
His truth brings torment to the fleshly mind, but his voice
is never void.
He is often the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead!
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with epitaphs when dead.
He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class.
He is often friendless while living and famous when dead.
He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint by posterity.
He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of Life to those who listen.
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years.
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation.
He announces, pronounces, and denounces!
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire.
He talks to men about God.

He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men.
He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing.
He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in the marketplace.
He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual.
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity.
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.


Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recover its strength, or that we save face over the Watergate affair...or some other scandal, or that we find the answer to the ecology problem. But what we REALLY NEED IS a God-sent prophet!
I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the "seven years of plenty" are over for us. The "seven years of famine" are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11).


Hundreds of millions have been spent on evangelism in the last 40-50 and more. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. "Come-outers" have "come out" and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival. Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?

GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history and by GOD.

There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too "negative" and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist.
Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnant "churchianity."
Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.
Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do."
Let him reject ecclesiastical favors.
Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous, nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting.
Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move men to God.
Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the day.

Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism and merchandising of the Gospel.

Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses or an Elijah to lead us from the wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust and coveteousness bite us and where supposed enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.


God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!



thought this was worth sharing here.
God Bless
MJ

 2007/7/24 14:33Profile
hmmhmm
Member



Joined: 2006/1/31
Posts: 4994
Sweden

 Re: Picture of a Prophet

Hundreds of millions have been spent on evangelism in the last 40-50 and more. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. "Come-outers" have "come out" and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival. Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?


_________________
CHRISTIAN

 2007/7/24 16:13Profile









 Re: Question Answered in Article.


GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history and by GOD.

{Actually, read this when he first wrote this, over 20 yr.s ago I believe....

So ~ "They're herrrrrrrre."(o: }

The prophet is God's detective seeking for a lost treasure.
The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him.

He has no price tags.
He is totally "otherworldly."
He is unquestionably controversial and (often appears to be) unpardonably hostile.
He marches to another drummer!
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration.
He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind.
He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley
with a "thus saith the Lord."
He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of impending judgment.
He lives in "splendid isolation."
He is forthright and outright, but he claims no special birthright.
His message is "repent, be reconciled to God... or else...!"
His truth brings torment to the fleshly mind, but his voice
is never void.
He is often the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead!
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with epitaphs when dead.
He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class.
He is often friendless while living and famous when dead.
He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint by posterity.
He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of Life to those who listen.
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years.
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation.
He announces, pronounces, and denounces!
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire.
He talks to men about God.

He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men.
He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing.
He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in the marketplace.
He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual.
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity.
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.

 2007/7/24 16:26









 Re: Picture of a Prophet

There was only one thing that "hit me between the eyes in that article.

"GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH."

I suppose the writer was thinking of John Baptist, and of Elijah.

Someone said we shouldn't be asking these days, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" but [i][b]"Where are the Elijahs of God?"[/b][/i]

Regardless of any issues people may have with the article as a whole, this is the thing.

Elijah "appeared" sudedenly on the scene, nothing known about him except where he came from. He appeared "full-fledged" as it were, unlike Elisha who apparently had a long "apprenticeship" as Elijah's "gentleman's personal gentleman" (servant who poured water for him to wash his hands before eating, etc), as well as a disciple.

John Baptist, who came "in the Spirit and power of Elijah" was "in the deserts until the time of his showing forth" - again after a long period of not being heard of at all.

Isaiah 49:2 speaks of Christ, but does it also speak of those who are His in these days, those "hidden away in His quiver" being polished and prepared?

[i][color=000066] 2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away[/color][/i]

Elijah and John were individuals, but the call is surely now for [i][b]all[/b][/i] of us - [b]Where are the Elijahs of God?"[/b]

Jeannette

 2007/8/4 17:28









 Re: Picture of a Prophet

Quote:



God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!






Amen.

 2007/8/4 18:28









 Re:

Quote:

ce4 wrote:
Quote:

God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!


Amen.

No, rather let US be those who can read the signs of the times and hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church, and speak forth the counsels of God to our brethren.


Jeannette

 2007/8/4 18:40









 Re:

Quote:

LittleGift wrote:
Quote:


No, rather let US be those who can read the signs of the times and hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church, and speak forth the counsels of God to our brethren.




Amen again.

But better yet, may the true Church walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit and also walk in the fullness of all the Spiritual gifts in which Christ Jesus intended. Or the none of these will be possible.

 2007/8/4 22:13





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