The Prophetic Call

The Prophetic Call Introduction

There are two great words that I guard with a fierce jealousy, namely, prophetic and apostolic. The church is "...built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets...(Eph. 2:20b)", and if those two words are ruined, cheapened, made merchandise of, lose their meaning or are made to stand for something that God did not intend, then we have lost our foundation. If there is something flaky about our apostles and prophets, then what will the superstructure be if it is based on that foundation? The superstructure cannot exceed the foundation, and therefore the foundation deserves the most exceeding attention. This has been my long-standing passion and jealousy, and in a certain sense, a kind of a watchdog over these words, that they should not be used indiscriminately nor lightly, which in fact is exactly what is happening today. Even if we cannot articulate or explain them, we need to intuit what they represent and the importance of what they represent, or we will indeed lose them. I would go further to say that the greatest threat of our contemporary, charismatic and evangelical Christianity is the cheap and light allusions to, and use of, these words. We throw them about with great carelessness and there are ministers taking for themselves their title, or allowing themselves to be so described, who are not in that office or may be false expressions of it. There is a present phenomenon taking place worldwide of a sudden attention to the prophetic calling. One of the interesting things to note is the popularity now of that calling, with people gleefully tripping off to pack out churches in order to hear men who are being called 'prophets' and 'oracles'. It is a phenomenon that we need to attend with great care. We are told that in the last days that there will be false prophets, false apostles and false anointings. In the book of Revelation, the church in Ephesus is congratulated by the Lord for discerning the false apostles, "those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false (Rev 2:2b)." I am continually amazed at the naiveté and the ignorance with which these great words are being used. It has become so bad that people cannot even distinguish between the gift of prophecy and the office of prophet. I cannot think of a more fundamental confusion that would destroy the foundation of the church than this one thing alone. It is like a brush that is painting everything in the same color. The office of prophet is so holy, "the holy prophets of old." The gift of prophecy is something else and can be

exercised through any believer as the Spirit wills. That does not make them a prophet and we need to make that distinction. The most formidable character of deception in the last days is not going to be something so bizarre that it can be instantly identified as being out of the bowels of Hell, but rather it is going to be couched in the most conventional, orthodox and biblical language. The persecution of the remnant church of the last days is not so much the threat that comes to us from the world, but from a religious dimension that think that they are doing God a service. It will be more difficult to discern the good than the evil. Evil is apparent, but good is subtle. Good has much going for it and much to commend it, but if the good is not from God and just emanates from a kind of altruistic, humanistic personality, then good will be just as destructive to the interests of God as evil. That which appears as good will keep us from the particular and perfect will of God, and it is, therefore, more deadly than evil as it is not recognized as evil, because it purports to be good. How, therefore, will we discern? We have got to hate that which is good— the false good; that which purports to be good; that which appears to be good; that which will appeal humanistically to us as being nice, pleasant or right. We need to hate good in that sense, to hate sentimentality and to hate that which gives a nice feeling. The false prophet is the one who says, "Peace, peace, where there is no peace." He 'makes nice', and which of us does not like 'nice' and to be 'made nice'. There is something that yearns for it, and therefore they have a ready market, large audiences, great responses and mass mailing lists, because we want that which is nice, good and pleasant to the ear. There are two parallel tracks, the fictitious and assumed, presumptuous nonsense of men and the authentic thing, now in process of restoration from God. One will flatter you and make nice with entreaties to your flesh and the other will call you to the cross, and by that you can know who are the true prophets and the false. The false prophets of Baal with whom Elijah was in contest actually thought that there would be a god to answer. They thought that there was going to be a fire from heaven. They were not cynical men who were religiously posturing because they were connivers, but they really thought that God was going to see them dancing and jumping and cutting themselves in the frenzy. They were deluded and deceived themselves. The false prophets of the last days are well-meaning men with sincere intentions, fully persuaded that they are right and that the other man is the person who is in error. What distinguishes, therefore, the one from the other? This question is not only valid for those who call themselves

prophets but also for each and every individual in the church. This issue of true or false is a critical issue and it is the issue of the cross in authentic appropriation and not just in credal acknowledgment. Merely to credally acknowledge something as true is itself the heart of deception and apostasy. We have been seduced and induced to think that if we just passively acknowledge something as being doctrinally true, then that is the statement of its truth. It falls short, however, of the existential reality that God is after. If we ourselves are satisfied with mere credal affirmations of the truth of the faith, and have not pressed in and wrestled to get the existential power of it, then we will not be able to communicate it to anyone. What we are seeing in the new crop of 'prophets' is a testimony of a failed Christianity that has not pressed in, has not wrestled, but has been satisfied with mere creedal affirmation, sufficient for us to get by, but insufficient for His glory. Everthing rests in the existential appropriation of the faith. There is something about the seductive power of the approval and acceptance of man that works in us as a leaven for disaster. There is something that men covet to be approved by their fellows, to receive their appreciation and to be honored by them. To be indifferent to that honor and approval and to speak the necessary word however much you will bring painful rejection can only be borne by someone who has no life unto himself. It is all the same to him as to whether he is accepted or rejected, misunderstood or approved, all of that is to say, that the issue between the true prophet and the false is the issue of the cross. Flattery is an antichrist mode of winning and influencing men. It is so beguiling, for who does not love to be flattered or to be acknowledged and recognized? We need, therefore, to grow up in the ability to discern and sense the truth in general, and especially truth about this calling. It may well be that certain practitioners are so artful and so appearing to be prophetic that crowds will run after them, and the true man, who does not cut any impression and is a 'wallflower', so to speak, is altogether ignored, and yet he is the bearer of God's word. Thus is there a premium on the church to come of age, and the very coming of age is, in fact, also at the same time, part of the prophetic process. That is to say, we come of age because we hear the word of God, the prophetic word, that requires of us to grow up, and in growing up we are able to discern the realities of the last days.