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.