August 26
TREKKING WITH ABRAHAM
“He is a prophet.”
Genesis 20:7
We are camping for a while on the statement spoken by Yahweh about Abraham being a prophet. And while we are looking at Abraham’s credentials as a prophet, we are also making comments re present day prophets in an attempt to clarify how and why Abraham could be defined as one. So I am explaining one or two of the biblical ramifications of what a prophet is, highlighting some relevancies to the work of God in the twenty first century re prophets, and then zooming in on the relevance of my statements to Abraham. Today I just want to meditate out loud (with my lap top that is) about a prophet’s authority. What authority does, or should a prophet have?
Gifting is not authority. Gifting of itself does not give maturity. Authority needs maturity. The gift to Jeremiah was given while he was still a sperm. God says so in Jeremiah chapter one. Maturity gained is always a matter of consistently choosing God’s way and God’s attitude. Jeremiah was not widely considered mature in his early days after his call in Jeremiah chapter 1, for when the books of Moses were found in the temple in the days of Jeremiah, they called on Huldah the prophetess, not Jeremiah. That is because at that time his gift was either not charactered in authority enough, nor accepted amongst the people as heavily authoratative. That was their mistake. God gave Jeremiah his prophetic authority from day one.
Authority is given by God, yet because of the nature of the gift that needs to be manifested with different audiences, that authority needs to be acknowledged by Christians, and/or an even wider audience in order to gain credibility. When a prophet gains that credibility, and has not only heavenly credentials, but widespread authority and reputation that has been grounded in people’s experiences, that authority matures with usage and ever increasing reputation. This is the general principle of all gifts, not just the prophetic. God gives the authority, man needs to acknowledge that authority to ensure the message is received.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in his “Lectures to my Students,” in the late 1800’s, said about preachers that many feel called to preach and anointed to share, yet cannot be understood by the masses, and neither can they coherently put three thoughts together. So his advice was that once a man feels call to preach, he needed to seek platforms from which to preach, and then see what his audiences think. Heavenly anointing needs to be approved from somewhere in the body of Christ in New Testament times, simply because of the principle of the group, the church, the fellowship – the ecclesia. The church is the congregation, the gathering of called out ones. If a prophet is a gift to the body of Christ, and given to edify others, and feed them with spiritual words, if they are not fed after the ministry of the suggested, “prophet,” it must suggest that perhaps one is mistaken about one’s gift. Quoting things like Noah not being heard, or Jeremiah being rejected, does not really sound relevant in the New Testament scenario. The five fold ministries are to build the body, not to be rejected by the body.
Abraham was a prophet in his time and generation. After the flood, and the human fiasco of the tower of Babel, God was set on starting again in a plan to save humanity. He chose a man. That man was Abraham (Abram at the start) who lived in Ur of the Chaldees. He became, by virtue of what God wanted to start in him, a prophetic voice to future generations, whether or not he ever verbally delivered a “prophecy” as we would call it. He was God’s spokesman, and to a great degree, though dead, he still is. Because of his faith and relationship with God something was set in place in the cosmos that was to shake the earth. We assume the same faith as Abraham when we receive Christ as Saviour. Abraham is the father of the faithful, and his faith commenced a line that was to bring Christ. He saw Christ’s day and was glad.
For a man to be a prophet, it suggests that he is, by the simple fact of being alive, a spokesman for God, a spokesman of God. Nowhere in the Bible does a prophet fall and not recover. The saying, repeated as a warning in several parts of the Old Testament was, “Touch not the Lord’s anointed.” The context of the saying was concerning King Saul. King Saul was anointed into his kingship by God’s order. The fact that God had approved of him as king, even though he was not God’s choice, is clearly stated. Saul turned maniacal in his obsession about David. He was generally acknowledged as a good man gone bad. So when opportunities to kill Saul, or get rid of him came, it was at that point that David uttered the words,“Touch not the Lord’s anointed,” and a later writer added to the phrase, “and do my prophets no harm.”
Although New Testament prophets of God have considerable differences from Old Testament prophets, one thing that has not changed and has no difference is the fact that they are “God’s spokesmen, or spokeswomen”. That principle of not “touching” them has a huge significance. When a prophet falls into sin, or makes an error, or says or does something that is scandalised, correctly or wrongly, Christian grace demands that we NOT speak critically ill of them, despise them, pray against them, or shun them. All the prophets that I have known, and one or two that I have talked to in depth, are particularly gifted in issues of repentance. For that reason alone I think it wise for any Christian onlooker to take care of his remarks towards prophets as people, and the prophetically inclined ministries as a whole. Let us beware of such behaviour. Prophets know how to seriously repent. It comes with the gift. The first item in the prophet’s kit bag, is a concentrated serving of repentance.
In the case of so called, “fallen ministries,” no matter what facts, or rumours are spoken about Christian ministers, let us be gracious and allow the apostolic and pastoral characters of higher profiles and authority to deal with such issues, while we as a people pray transparently for the will of God to be done.
No matter how deep, rich and wonderful any gift of God is on a human life, there is always the possibility of sin, error, and lack of judgement. It is because of what happened in Abraham’s life here that I am highlighting such an issue as this.
God announced to Abimelech that Abraham was His prophet, whilst he was actually in the midst of a sinful confusion of a predicament. How strange! And again, as a result of his sin, he became even richer still. How remarkable the ways of God. Abraham prayed for Abimelech and his family and nation. It is also the first mention of Divine healing in the Bible, and Abraham, the prophet, was the minister. We must learn to leave God’s prophets alone, and let God deal with them.
WHAT’S THE POINT? Touch not the Lord’s anointed, and do His prophet’s no harm.
Trekking with Abraham 