Dead Prophets Talking
Dead Prophets Talking
Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives." (Deuteronomy 5.24)
It is difficult to imagine anything more important in the Christian life than hearing God speak to us. Upon this our faith and obedience hinge completely.
"So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." (Romans 10.17)
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life..." (John 5.24)
" ‘Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.’ For who provoked Him when they had heard? And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient?"
But is our listening and our hearing really comprehensive enough and thus sufficiently acute? It is my belief that our hearing must at the very least be "quadrophonic"! Which is to say we ought at all times to be listening to the Lord speaking to us by,
- The Bible. (2 Timothy 3.16-17)
- The Holy Spirit's "inner witness". (Romans 9.1)
- Those God has appointed to oversee our lives. (Hebrews 13.7 and 17)
- His prophets. (Amos 3.7)
It is my view that the Western Church at this time is weakest on point four. (Although it has to be said with great sadness that point three runs a very close second!) First of all, we are quite immature, fickle and feeble at recognising "His prophets" ... as opposed to the latest prophetic "rockstars" momentarily elevated to papal status along with their new-fangled and faddish oracles.
But where we are weakest (to the point of paralysis) is in our failure to listen to God speaking to us through those who prophesied a long time ago. Although they are now physically dead, their words are still alive because they contain the Word of God, and still carry the unction He was pleased to charge them with all those centuries ago.
"For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword ..." (Hebrews 4.12)
"And through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks." (Hebrews 11.4)
All too often and swiftly we can unthinkingly allow the phrase "church history" to turn us off and away from usually dusty pages where nevertheless these long-forgotten prophets wait patiently for us to listen to their words which are as alive today as they were at the time of their earthly ministries. They are like Elisha's corpse; in the eyes of the world, dead and buried...but so far as God is concerned, powerfully anointed and so "alive". "And when the (dead) man touched the bones of Elisha he revived and stood up on his feet." (2 Kings 13.21)
I go so far as to say, that someone claiming to be prophetic who is uninterested in and unstimulated by church history disqualifies himself automatically from this ministry. If you are devoid of passion and curiosity concerning God's word already declared, why do you for even one split-second believe I will ever be convinced that you have reverence for His yet to be uttered words?
Some of God's heroes and heroines of the past have spoken to me in His name so piercingly and so poignantly that I do consider them my friends. Allow me to introduce you to a few of them.
When confronted by Christians today who talk as if they alone discovered or "invented" prayer, the Apostle Patrick (Ireland, 5th C) reminds me that "in a single day I have prayed as often as 100 times, and in the night almost as often. I used to rise at dawn for prayer in snow, frost and rain because of the glow of the Spirit." And I hear the Abbot Benedict (Italy, 6th C) exhorting his monks across Europe that if they wished to pray more, to do so secretly by themselves. Let them "in all simplicity go in and pray. Not with a loud voice, but with tears and an attentive heart."
When disturbed today by "born again" folk who boast about their financial wealth and material prosperity as if that was the length and breadth of the Gospel, I overhear my old friend Francis of Assisi (Italy, 13th C) praying, "Jesus, you were very poor, and I want to call nothing under heaven mine, but only to live on what others may give me." And then I watch him tearing the roof of the house some of his followers built in rude disobedience to his vision of living like God's creatures of the fields and meadows. And my older brother John Wesley (remarkable revivalist, England, 18th C) thunders his "Amen" by declaring, "If I leave behind me ten pounds, you and all mankind bear witness against me that I lived and died a thief and a robber. Any Christian who takes for himself more than the plain necessaries of life lives in an open, habitual denial of the Lord. He has gained riches and hellfire."
 John Wesley |
When pulpiteers deliberately intimidate and suppress God's flock with their theological degrees and "higher" learning, the formidable Jerome (Rome, 4th C) who translated the whole Bible into the then common tongue of Latin declared, "I have revered always not crude verbosity, but holy simplicity". And the mighty reformer of the Church, Martin Luther (16th C) who translated the Old and New Testaments into his native tongue German, bluntly asserts, "A poor serving girl, if she has the Holy Ghost, is as well able to understand the Scriptures as the pope himself". And he is unequivocally supported by his Scottish confrere, John Knox (16th C) who taught his porridge-loving parishioners, "Believe God, that speaketh plainly in His Word. And further than the Word teacheth you, you shall neither believe the one nor the other. The Word of God is plain in itself, and if there appear any obscurity in one place, the Holy Ghost, which is never contrarious to Himself explains the same more clearly in other places." All of this is brilliantly summed up by the irrepressible Smith Wigglesworth (England, 20th C), "Some people read their Bibles in Hebrew. Some in Greek. I like to read mine in the Holy Ghost."
And for those who want to put God in a box and who shudder at His sovereignty, hear Thomas Aquinas (Italy, 13th C). He spent his whole life formulating one of Christianity's most comprehensive systems of theology. At the end of his life he was granted a mystical (direct) glimpse of the glory of the Lord. He then said, "Everything I have written seems like straw by comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me." He never taught or wrote again! And in a similar vein of radical open-ness to our great God, John Robinson (17th C) a pastor to the Pilgrim Fathers wrote, "The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word. The Lutherans refuse to advance beyond what Luther saw, while the Calvinists stick fast where they were left by the great man of God, who saw not all things." In this regard I give the last word to the incomparable George Whitefield (England, 18th C), "If I see a man who loves the Lord Jesus in sincerity, I am not very solicitous as to what Communion he belongs. The Kingdom of God, I think, does not consist of any such thing."
And finally a fragment of black humour for those who too readily confuse niceness with holiness. During the often violent tumult of the Protestant Reformation in Europe (16th C) the Roman Church turned its big-guns on to Martin Luther, describing him as "that pestilential fart of satan whose stench reaches to heaven." Unshaken and not to be outdone in the employment of colourful language, Martin fired back, "Let us wash our hands in the blood of the Roman sodom." And for those with no sense of humour at all, listen to the mystical Teresa of Avila (Spain, 16th C) yelling as she floats down a river after falling off her mule, "If this is how you treat your friends Lord, it's little wonder You have so few!"
I hope that these few lines may provoke you to seek out and listen to some of our fascinating and fantastic older, prophetic brothers and sisters. You will not be disappointed.
"This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!" (Matthew 17.5)
