A City of Prophets 1984

For whatever reason, it appears that the Lord would have to go back again into a passage that we've been in many, many times. All of us probably know it by heart. Matthew chapter 5, verse 13 and following.

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a sand, and it gives light to all in the house.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. You're the salt of the earth, but the salt has to be salty. You're the light of the world, but people have to see that light.

People have to taste that salt when they encounter you. People have to see that light when they see you and hear you speak. Now, these words were addressed by Jesus, not to the individual, but to the body.

First, to the assembled disciples there, and now to the assembled disciples here, wherever. No individual believer can say, I am the light of the world. Only Jesus can say that.

I can only say, I'm the light of the world, if I say that meaning that I'm part of this body of Christ, which is the light of the world and the salt of the earth. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Now, what is this city set on a hill? This is a city of prophets.

The light goes forth. People see it because the prophets are going out. Every citizen of this city is a prophet, speaks for God, manifests God.

Now see, instead of having a lonely Jeremiah or a solitary Ezekiel, we have an army of people who are going out with a word from God that is very, very clear. Okay, so then the question we have to get clear in our minds is really, and we've been thinking about this on Wednesday nights quite a bit, and we'll continue to, what is a prophet? You know, and we often think about somebody who tells the future or, you know, we think of them as magicians, but that's not what a prophet is as far as the kingdom of God is concerned. A prophet is simply a man or a woman whose whole life is a word from God.

It's not just what they say. It's what they say and how they live so that there's a flame of God burning in their heart and so that the words that come out of their mouth are consistent with that flame. You are the salt of the earth, meaning that wherever you go, people are going to taste that salt whether they want to or not because your life is a word from God.

You are the light of the world. Wherever you go, people are going to see that light even if they don't want to, especially if they don't want to because your life is a word from God. So how do we measure our effectiveness as prophets? Certainly not by how many people like us.

You know, oh, he's so successful. Everybody thinks so highly of him. That's never evidence of effectiveness as a prophet.

Look at Jeremiah. Poor Jeremiah. He probably had one or two friends in all the world and went on and on and on being a prophet and speaking for God.

There were very few people ever in the history of the world who were more effective as prophets than Jeremiah. But he sure, you couldn't measure it by how many friends he had. Nor can we measure our effectiveness as an army or a city of prophets by how many people enter the kingdom of God through us.

Somebody gets an A because they brought in 50 disciples since the end of the year. Or somebody gets a C because they only brought in two. It's not measured that way.

Look at our Lord hanging on the cross on Good Friday after three and a half years of the most powerful ministry of healing and signs that ever existed up to that point in this world. And yet how many people had entered the kingdom through his ministry up to that point? Very few. Very, very few.

Here these people are crying for his blood, mocking him and watching him die. But you could say, you could not say he was ineffective. I mean, by the time Jesus gets to the cross, there's not a person in Israel who has an excuse.

They will never be able to say, but Lord, we never knew. Father, nobody told us. They knew, they'd seen, they'd heard, and they are without excuse.

They've heard from a prophet. Now granted, Jesus is more than a prophet, but he called himself a prophet many times. And he's our example.

We measure our effectiveness as a city of prophets not by how many people like us, nor by how many people appear to enter the kingdom of God through us. The only question we ask to measure our effectiveness as prophets is, is the light of God going forth? Do people hear God when they listen to us and see us? Do they see the light? Do they taste the salt? Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Now, it may be a while before they give glory to your Father who is in heaven because they saw your good works, but they will.

One way or another, they're going to have to. They'll either do it with worship and praise and great joy, or they will do it by bending the knee, whether they want to or not, and acknowledging that they heard the truth and they saw the light through you. But to be effective as a city of prophets so that the light in fact goes forth, there are four things that have to happen in this city of prophets.

First, the city of prophets has to begin and end by worshiping and seeing God. Worshiping God. You know, there's no way people will see light if we don't see light.

And how in the world are they going to hear a meaningful word from God if we're not hearing one that's alive? Two, the light will go forth when the city of prophets is in harmony, in union, in unity with each other. You know, if there is division, if there are attitudes, if there are walls between these believers, they may think of themselves as red-hot, but they'll accomplish very little. Three, to be effective, for the light to go forth, this city of prophets has to take the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and turn it into living.

And four, to be effective as a city of prophets, we have to get to the place where we're no longer afraid to open our mouths and speak. Even if they get angry, even if they laugh, but we're going to speak. Now, to look at those a little more closely, to be effective as a city of prophets, the first thing that has to happen, absolutely the first thing, we need to see and worship God.

Reading from Ezekiel 1, verse 26, And above the firmament, he's kind of describing this vision he has by the river Kibar, above the firmament, over their heads, there was the likeness of a throne in appearance like sapphire. And seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness, as it were, of a human form. And upward from what had the appearance of his loins, I saw, as it were, gleaming bronze, like the appearance of fire, enclosed round about.

And downward from what had the appearance of his loins, I saw, as it were, the appearance of fire. And there was brightness round about him, like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of the rain. So was the appearance of the brightness around him.

Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. The earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. He sees it already.

And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking. And he said to me, Son of man, stand upon your feet, and I will speak to you. And when he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me upon my feet, and I heard him speaking to me.

Now this is the starting point for every prophet of God. The beginning, always. First we see glory.

Whether it's Ezekiel, or whether it's Jeremiah, or whether it's Isaiah. In every case they describe a similar thing. They see the glory of God.

They worship. And then they hear a word that turns them into a prophet. The first priority, the first priority for the people of God, if we're going to be a city of prophets, so that the light goes forth, is worship.

Number one, worship, worship, worship. We worship God until the clouds begin to part. And we see.

And then we fall on our faces. We have to. And we worship some more.

And then he speaks to us. He says, stand on your feet, and we worship some more. And then we go out and do what he tells us to do, and our doing of what he tells us to do is also worship.

It's worship all the way through. There is no way we can have a message for the world or have any impact on the world without worship. Any fellowship of believers, if it's going to have any impact on the world at all, has to begin, has to see that worship is its number one priority.

And so it becomes number one priority, for instance, in our, first of all, our private life. You know, you get up in the morning, and maybe you have a busy schedule, and you don't think you can get an hour. Well, then start by getting five minutes.

Get something, get something. You know, if it's only five minutes to get off in a corner or down in the basement, and you begin by worshiping him. You know, an example would be Romans, the book of Romans, the first 11 chapters, Paul describes what God has done for us.

In chapter 12, in the rest of the book, he's telling us how to respond to that. And the first thing he tells us to do in responding and taking the mercy of God and incorporating it into our lives and making it flesh and blood is, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And so now you present your body as an act of worship.

This is what you have to offer God. Such as it is, I give this to you today as a living sacrifice, Lord. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Now, how do we get renewed in our minds? By worship. As I see the glory of God, and, you know, that's rare for all of us. We don't all of a sudden turn it on.

There it is. You know, we pursue this, and now it begins to happen, and the cobwebs begin to clear from our minds, and we see the kingdom. And our minds are renewed.

And so you begin the day, first five minutes, first hour, whatever, start with something, something, and worship God. Make yourself do this. You know, it'll make fantastic changes in the lives of those here who are not doing it.

But worship must also be the number one priority of our corporate life. And we have much to learn in that yet. You know, so we begin the week, first day of the week, we gather together like this.

But for this gathering to be worship, we all have to put something into it. You know, it won't happen automatically. This is not entertainment place.

If you want entertainment, find it somewhere else. You know, this is not your hour for Christian entertainment. Christian entertainment meaning that you can sit back and somebody else will do it for you.

In this, we participate. This is not like watching a football game where the guys are beating themselves to death down there, and we're all rooting and tooting for them. You know, but this is, we're all down in the arena here.

We're all involved in this. And it takes, you know, for me and each of us to put ourselves into it. And so we worship God.

And then this hour that we spend together, a little more than an hour every week, becomes absolutely number one. You know, it's not a luxury. It's not an elective.

It's an essential. There is no way we can have any impact on the world around us on our jobs or in our neighborhoods if we aren't worshiping God together. Worship, worship, worship.

Next, for the light of the Lord to go forth from the city of prophets, we have to be in unity. You are the light of the world. He says to us together, you're the salt of the earth.

This is given to us together. We're not a long range of prophets. We're a city of prophets, an army of prophets, and we have to be one.

And so, back in the fruit-bearing chapter of John, John 15, verse 16, Jesus says, and notice this again. He's not talking to each of us as an individual. He's talking to us as the body.

You, plural, did not choose me. I chose you together and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. That's spoken to the body so that whatever you together ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you.

And then he says, this I command you that you love one another. I command you. I command you that you love one another.

Many times we talk in weddings about marriage and how it's essential in a marriage for this man and this woman to practice, discipline themselves to always honor each other. And even if they differ on things, never lose that respect. Never put that person down.

That's what the root and basis of love is. And if these two people are ever going to get anywhere and accomplish anything in this world and even bring up children that have even a semblance of sanity, there has to be unity between them. There has to be a desire for them to be one.

Now, this is even more true in the body. In a body such as this where we have so many different opinions, I mean, there's not one issue if we decided, if we had a vote on what color should we paint the church, the evil one would come in and try to split us over that. We'd have the ones for green here and the ones for pink there.

I mean, this is the way we are. And we have, all of us, we have strong ideas about everything, but now he says, love one another. Love one another.

Do it. And so if I differ with you, I still have no business holding an attitude against you. Or walking around putting you down.

Or belittling you. Or digging at you. I can differ with you and you can differ with me, but we have to honor each other.

We have to love each other. And we have much to learn in this. And that this is something, this is not, again, something that we can choose about.

This is something which is absolutely essential. And God has given us the wonderful opportunity, because we're so different, to practice it and learn it. I mean, if all you want is to be comfortable and not to have your ability to love challenged and stressed, then you can find, again, you want entertainment? Find entertainment.

You can find plenty of places where people think just the way you do. No matter who you are, each of us here, there are all kinds of places around where you can have unity, uniformity of thought. That's not what the Lord is calling for.

We're to be diverse, heterogeneous, but love. Love. Love one another.

Love one another. He commands us this. We have no choice about it.

And we are to treat each other with honor, even if we argue or differ. I mean, in this teacher's meeting, I hope this teacher's meeting today, we deal with some issues and we fight. But that we do it in love.

And that we come out of there in love. You know, maybe we'll do some crying or hollering, but there will be fun. If there isn't, you know, no matter what we do, we'll be wrong.

No matter what we do, we'll be wrong. Third thing about this city of prophets, if the light is to go forth, we have to take the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and translate it into living. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works.

What good works? He tells us exactly what they are in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. And if anybody here is having problems about salvation, salvation, you know, I thought we were saved by grace. Indeed, we're saved by grace. We're saved by the blood of the Lamb.

Nothing else. But, if you get saved by the blood of the Lamb and you don't manifest what He calls for in here, and I don't manifest what He calls for in here, we don't have salvation. You know, you can call it whatever you like.

You may have an experience, you went down to the altar, you shed ten tears, fifty buckets of tears. Doesn't make any difference. If we're not doing this, we're not saved.

So what good works is he talking about? Example, Matthew 5, 20. For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom. He says this after he says, you guys are the light of the world.

But you'll never enter the kingdom if your righteousness doesn't exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. Then he gets down to business. And we need to take this passage and soak it up and study it and learn it and make it part of us.

For instance, you have heard that it was said to the men of old, you shall not kill. And whoever kills shall be liable to judgment. But I say to you, everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment.

Whoever insults his brother, puts him down, puts her down, shall be liable to the council. And whoever says, you fool, putting him down even further, is liable to the hell of fire. So if you're offering your gift at the altar, you come to worship God.

And there remember that your brother has something against you. Stop. Leave your gift there and go.

First be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift because your worship won't get beat up to the ceiling if you don't get that thing right. That's what he's telling us. These are the works he's calling for, specific works.

The next one, you've heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman could be a man, lustfully, has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away.

It's better to lose one of your members than let your whole body be thrown into hell. Specific command to a purity of eye which none of us has. None of us has this.

This is not normal. This is supernatural. But this is what we're called to.

He goes on to demand purity of speech. Let your yes be yes, your no be no. He goes on to command, love your enemies.

Pray for those who misuse you. He goes on to command, practice your piety before the Father, not in front of men. Put your trust not in your money, but in the kingdom.

Seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Trust the Father. He goes on to say, you know, stop judging everybody.

Get that log out of your own eye before you start trying to take the little specks out of everybody's eye. We know this passage well, but we don't know it well enough. What we need to do is soak up Matthew 5, 6, and 7 until we believe, really believe, that this is the life to which Jesus calls us now.

And until we believe that this is the life which He enables us to live now. And when they see these works in us, they will be blinded by the light. And we won't even know it.

And the fourth and final thing that we need to do if the light is to come forth from the city of prophets is to open our mouths and speak without fear. Jumping back to Ezekiel again. Ezekiel chapter 2, verse 1. And he said to me, Son of man, stand upon your feet and I will speak with you.

And when he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me upon my feet. And I heard him speaking to me. And he said to me, Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me.

They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The people also are impudent and stubborn. I send you to them and you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord God.

And whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house, they will know that there has been a prophet among them. And you, Son of man, be not afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words. Though briars and thorns are with you when you sit on scorpions.

Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their faces, at their looks. They'll give you dirty looks. They'll scare you to death with their looks.

For they are a rebellious house. And you shall speak my words to them whether they hear or refuse to hear. It's easy enough to talk about Jesus when you're in the presence of somebody who also believes in Jesus.

We can talk about Jesus and stand up for Jesus here. That's easy enough. But the place we need to do it is out there.

And we have to understand that the issue is not are they going to receive it? The issue is rather are you going to say it? That's it. And the only way we're going to get over our fear is to admit the fear is there, defy the fear, open our mouths, and speak. Granted, we can't speak if we don't have a word, if we aren't taking the trouble to come before God and receive a word that He speaks to us first.

Every word we speak to the world is a word that God first speaks to us. And if I'm not taking that in, I have nothing to say out there. But if I'm taking it in and I don't speak it out there, I'm going to lose it.

If I don't live it and speak it, I'm going to lose it. So I defy the fear. I'm scared to death.

But I hear God saying, do it. Open your mouth. Open your mouth.

Speak. Speak. Speak.

Speak. And as we do it, we learn. Just as surely as the only way you learn to pray is to pray.

You can read 50 books on prayer and never do it. Just pray. So the only way you learn to speak without fear is to speak, defying the fear until the fear begins to diminish, and it will.

We are a city of prophets, along, not just here, but along with the whole body of Christ throughout the world. We're a city of prophets. And we've been saved by the blood of the Lamb, and we've been anointed with the Spirit of God so that we can be a word from God to the place and time where we've been put.

And we will be such a word with power beyond anything we've dreamed. If we will make worship our number one priority, if we will start practicing love in a way we've never done up to now, if we will take the sermon from the mouth and make it our textbook, our worship place, our life, and if we will open our mouths and learn how to speak up. You are the light of the world.

A city set upon a hill cannot be hid, nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stance, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works. And glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Let's just take some silence for now, okay? Just silence.