Behold:
America needs a prophet
today. Pastors, teachers, and evangelists abound, but prophets have always been
rare and are now almost extinct.
The prophet does not fit
into any of the neat little categories of the clergy. He defies
regimentation and cannot be catalogued. Barclay says: “The settled ministry
began to resent the intrusion of these wandering prophets who often disturbed
their congregations.” They still do. The prophet is anathema to the
Establishment in any day or generation. An Elijah on Carmel, an Amos
in Bethel, a Savonarola in Florence upsets the status quo. He is not
welcome to the councils of the powers-that-be in state or church. He is not a
guest in Herod’s palace but a prisoner in Herod’s jail. He is not photographed
with dignitaries nor invited to address the Sons and Daughters of I Will Arise.
He is smilingly dismissed as “controversial” by the smooth diplomats of the
ecclesiastical machine who rest at ease in Zion.
The prophet is usually a
gaunt specimen, a man of the wilderness, given to solitude rather than to
sociability. He is not a back-slapping politician, regaling the brethren with
jokes late at night in a restaurant after church. He is too grieved for the
affliction of Joseph to hobnob with the false prophets of Amaziah’s school
of Bethel. He is not at home in this world; he is completely out of
step with progress and somewhat angry at the age in which he lives. He is
called a calamity howler because he discerns the designs of the devil going
about as a mock angel and is not ignorant of the subtle trickery of the advance
agents of Antichrist. He distinguishes the Rider of the White horse in
Revelation 6 from the Rider of the White Horse in Revelation 19. He is the
bitter foe of all who are trying to legislate a counterfeit millennium under
religious auspices by making political projects look like moral issues.
The prophet is a lonely
character in this world, sponsored by no foundation, paid from the coffers
of no main office. He reports to no headquarters but heaven, has no retirement
benefits. “Priests retire but prophets never.” He appears on no
boards or committees, and if he shows up on a “program” he is usually shunted
very cleverly into a minor spot, perhaps a “devotional,” where he has little
chance of creating much disturbance. He is usually smart enough, however, to
decline such invitations because he abhors being a puppet on anybody’s string.
He has no ax to grind and craves no man’s bishopric. He has long since
laid reputation and future on the altar of dedication to a prophetic ministry
and is immune to both praise or blame. He knows that no prophet can ever be
popular in his own day, and that he will be without honor in his own country
and in his own house. The next generation may build a monument to him, and
all medals will be awarded posthumously.
He will be on better
terms with heaven than with earth, like Elijah who stood first before God
and therefore needed not to bow and scrape before Ahab. The prophet pays a
price, but it is worth it to walk into any pulpit beholden to no man. He
owes no political debts to anyone for pulling wires to get him to a top seat in
the synagogue. While other speakers worry about making good and putting it
over, the prophet is concerned only with delivering God’s message regardless of
consequences.
Of course the prophet
has his temptations and perils. He may glory in his uniqueness and take pride
in his peculiarities. His bold manner may be a defense mechanism to hide real
cowardice within, and his austerity may be rationalized into a virtue when
under the juniper with Elijah and fancy himself to be the Surviving Saint when
seven thousand others have not bowed to Baal. The devil may use these
possibilities to keep a conscientious, true prophet silent for fear he will
succumb to these evils, thus committing the greater sin of quenching the Spirit
within him.
The prophet must
needs have the heart of a child and the hide of a rhinoceros. His problem is
how to toughen his hide without hardening his heart. That combination can be
achieved only by the grace of God. He is beset by loneliness and threatened by
self-pity, that distemper that struck even the rugged Elijah. He is hated
by all descendants of Herod, Jezebel, and the Pharisees. The place that
should appreciate him most often criticizes him “for it cannot be that a
prophet perish out of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33).
There are those who
think that there is no place for a prophet in this dispensation. Naturally
Ahab wants no Elijah troubling. Of course Amaziah in his posh chaplaincy at the
royal court does not relish an uncouth Amos in town. Who would expect Herods
living in adultery to appreciate a John the Baptist? What Queen Mary wouldn’t
fear the prayers of a John Knox? The prophet is essentially a soloist, not an
accompanist, and in this day of the Organization Man an individual is resented
if he is unwilling to get lost in the mob. It is quite natural, therefore, that
those who today are trying to level all the mountains into one plain and reduce
humanity into one faceless mass in preparation for Antichrist, should hate
prophets who refuse to lie down before the steam roller. Nothing is so
irritating to the prevailing order as an odd number who cannot be bribed or
bullied into conformity.
The prophet is the
product of no school. The gift is conferred by no presbytery, and no synod of
church dignitaries can unfrock him. His credentials come from a higher court
and bear no stamp or seal of mortal man. To God he stands or falls. If he
disobeys orders, as one of his kind did long ago to eat bread with a lying
prophet after declining the invitation of a king, there awaits him a lion in
the way of the sad epitaph, “Alas, my brother!” He must beware of the peril of
weariness; three prophets of Scripture were at their worst resting in the shade
after a tiresome ordeal. Elijah, that unnamed prophet of Jeroboam’s day, and
poor Jonah have set us a sad example. One under a juniper, another under an
oak, and the third under a gourd vine warn us that Shady Rest is a bad place
for exhausted prophets. Nathanael fared better under his fig tree and Zaccheus
up a sycamore!
There has never been a
dearth of candidates for lush pastorates and “strategic” spots in the
Establishment; but there has never been a rush to wear the prophet’s mantle.
The inducements are few, the hours are long, and the fringe benefits are not in
line with the modern scale in the professions. But the eyes of the Lord still
run to and fro throughout the whole earth looking for some Isaiah who has seen
God in His holiness, himself in his uncleanness, and the land in its
wickedness, and who with lips touched by a live coal from the altar is read to
say, “Here am I; send me.”
There are several ways
of silencing prophets. Some are stilled by persecution. John the Baptist’s head
is not brought in on a platter these days, but the same result is achieved with
more finesse. Promotion will also put a quietus on modern Elijahs. Some have
been exalted to high seats in the synagogue and have never been heard from
since. Some say they have changed their convictions because the “climate”
has changed. Certainly the intellectual, moral, and theological climates have
changed, but convictions should not be governed by climate but by conscience
enlightened by Scripture and the Holy Spirit.
A. C. Dixon was a
great preacher who pastored Moody Church and Spurgeon’s Tabernacle. He said:
“Every preacher is, or
ought to be, a prophet of God who preaches as God bids him without regard to
results. When he becomes conscious of the fact that he is a leader in his
church or denomination, he has reached a crisis in his ministry. Shall he be a
prophet of God or a leader of men? If he decides only to be a prophet insofar
as he can without losing his leadership, he becomes a diplomat and ceases to be
a prophet at all. If he decides to maintain his leadership at all costs he may
easily fall to the level of a politician who pulls the wires to gain or hold a
position.” He who would prophesy or speak forth the message of God is
careful of none of these things but only that he shall speak the message that
God gives him, even though he be in a lonesome minority.
Diplomats and
politicians abound in the world of religion. America needs a prophet today.
The prophet Ezekiel took
a stand in his day against prophets, priests, princes, and people (22:23-31).
The prophets had become profiteers. The priests had secularized their holy
calling and made no distinction between right and wrong. The princes, the
rulers, sought only personal gain. The corruption had sunk down among the
people. God sought for a man to stand in the gap, but there was none. All of
these conditions exist today. False prophets bid Ahab go up to Ramoth-gilead.
The priests, the religious establishment, put no difference between the holy
and the profane. The princes do not lead the people under the guidance of God.
Government is ordained of God and its officials are His ministers, but today
they savor more of politics than piety. The people are corrupt and their voice
is not the voice of God. In a day of moral decadence through all strata of our
society, God looks for a prophet to stand in the gap. Naturally, he will not be
popular with any of these groups. It was so with our Lord. The religious system
of His day was His worst enemy. He called Herod a fox. The people heard Him
gladly at first but finally stood to cry “Crucify Him!” If He Who is Prophet,
Priest, and Prince fared no better than that, what can we expect?
Evidently the prophet,
the true prophet, is a “fifth wheel” in addition to the four wheels of the
modern machine. He certainly is not a priest nor one of the regular clergy. He
is not a politician and fills no office. Nor is he one of the common run of
humanity. He is an Elijah lined up with neither priests nor prophets, with
neither Ahab nor the multitude.
I do not anticipate a
landslide of volunteers for the prophetic ministry. On occasion a pastor,
teacher, or evangelist may give a prophetic message but a full-time prophet is
another matter. He might start as a pastor, but what congregation would
listen to a prophet Sunday by Sunday today? He might begin as a seminary
professor, but he would soon be pressured out by a board that found him too
angular to fit into the smooth design. He cannot call himself a prophet;
that conjures up mental pictures of a long-haired ascetic with robe and sandals
and staff. He may have to take his Bible to a cabin in the woods and venture
forth to preach as God opens doors, and he may have to open the door and preach
outdoors! He may have none of the “musts” required for pulpit success today,
striking personality, formal education, and wide travel, but he will have what
too few preachers do have today, hours upon hours in prayer and solitude with
his Bible and a fresh word from God. He will be a voice in the wilderness. We
have the wilderness; God give us a Voice!
