WHY Do PROPHETS Seem "UNLOVING"??
Posted by: prophetic <prophetic@...>
of Art Katz's brilliant and insightful book "The Prophetic Call".
(-Please read it! - The URL is at the end).
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WHY Can PROPHETS Seem "UNLOVING"??
-Extracts by Art Katz
When the prophet, whom God has raised up early and sent often, is not
heard and the word is rejected, then the next and last thing is judgment.
It is, therefore no wonder that there is an urgency in the speaking and
that his words are designed to shock rather than edify. The prophet is,
therefore, often seen as being horrid, slashing and shocking. The most
common accusation is 'unloving', which he just has to bear. That is the
way it sounds and appears, but how many of us can see that the harsh
word is uttermost love? For a prophet not to have spoken it would have
been unloving-if that is what the urgency of the moment required. That
is not a justification to be in that mode continually. In the moment that
God calls for it, then it must not be withheld. I would say that other
than the Lord's prophetic use, such a man at other times would just be
in neutral. He is not required to perform and to be in that mode, and that is
what is surprising. He looks so unimpressive except for the time of use.
The prophet's mood is often in violent opposition to the mood that has
already been established in the congregation, especially by the 'worship
team'. I have had more conflict with worship teams and worship leaders
than I can tell you. They seem to have an independent purpose for their
own being, no matter what, and establish some kind of mood, however
contrary to God it is. Instead of working in conjunction with the word that is
to come, or sensing the mood and heart of God, they have already got their
choruses numbered and what they are going to sing and do. They have their
musical virtuoso, talent and amplifiers and they are going to 'do their thing',
and leave you to make the best of it afterwards as well as you can. I have had
many messages dulled and the power of it lost, because of that unspoken
opposition and tension where worship ministry is celebrated as a thing in
itself. If I could, I would pull the plug out of every overhead projector and
every amplifier. Let us rather just splutter and choke along, and miss a word
here and there, and come into the spirit of God's worship, than that we should
be led with choruses and more choruses. What they are really often trying to do
is to effect an atmosphere for a service, rather than touch the heart of God,
let alone prepare for the receiving of a holy word for those assembled.
There is a struggle going on right within the church and no man feels
it more acutely than the 'freak' who is bearing a strange word with a
strange mood and that is contrary to and other than that which prevails,
where everybody wants to go home feeling good, and nobody wants to
go home in tension.
A prophet will often send people home jarred and unhappy with many
unanswered questions. He has not that mentality that wants everything
to be wrapped up in one package with a ribbon on it, in one service,
and send people home happy. He will let the people go home jarred,
pained, and even agonizing. He will raise questions that he himself has
not adequately answered, and they themselves have got to wrestle and
fight their way through to a place in God. There are very few pastors,
maybe one in a hundred, who would be willing to allow his congregation
to suffer that kind of stress and tension. "Send them home happy" is
the unspoken premise of contemporary religion to which we as prophets
do not subscribe. We are not in the mood of sending people home
happy. We are of a kind to send them home agitated with questions
that they are compelled to consider and that cannot be answered in one
service. If we were given three days, we might be able to bring the
listeners all the way through. How many churches, however, are willing
to submit to such a man for that length of time? One service at best
and, "Get him away!"
My suspicions are alerted if there is any bombast or 'hype', any
exaggeration or sensationalism that conjures up a manner or a mode
of excitement that the ear loves to hear, that would draw out those who
are bored and want some kind of alternative to their boredom. Those
who speak of coming judgment should not invest it with anything more
than the word itself. He does not have to bring to it an additional
quality so as to make it compelling to the hearer. The word itself
speaks for itself. Anyone who would seek to bring an extraneous
element through his own personality or manner of speaking is likely
false. The prophet, therefore, does not have great latitude in how he
deports himself. If we are highly individualistic and want to cut a swath
for ourselves or do our own thing in our own way, then we are
disqualified. "I will put My word in your mouth and that is what you
will speak and you will speak it in the manner that I want it spoken."
For as much as the prophet's life is wholly given over to God, there
is not a surrender of identity, but in fact it establishes it. He loses his
life but he has found it.
Prophets are distinct, flesh and blood men with formidable
personalities. They are not automatons that bear the word of God as a
mechanical contrivance. They are formed in the womb, and that forming is Gods.
I will enter a congregation and they are having a ball and worshipping
up a storm-and everything seems to be right-yet I am grieving. I am
almost doubled over and knotted in the inner man. I am anguishing in
my soul, while everybody else is having a good time. How many people
have been in such functions where they are the only freak? Everyone
else seems to be 'moved by God', and there is all kinds of talk about
'the presence of God', yet you feel no presence at all. You are not
conscious of any anointing. You do not see any blessing. All you see
is a sea of carnality and self-deluded people priming and pumping
themselves up, and your one presence in that room is a disjuncture
with and a contradiction to all that is going on. To top it all, you are not
there as an observer, but now you are going to speak. What will you speak? Will
you speak so as to confirm what people think is the spiritual reality that they
are celebrating, or do you take your whistle out of your pocket and blow it,
and cry out, "Phony! Pretense! False! Self-effected! Hyped up production!
Emotional! Sensual!"?
The prophet is required to speak on the basis of one of two things:
either what his natural eye sees as being impressively spiritual, or
what his inner man is groaning about that is contrary. When you speak
on that basis, you are challenging everything to which men have given
their endorsement. Either your word is God's, or you are some wild
freak who is "doing damage to the Body of Christ." That tension is
with you always.
There is a weight of responsibility on God's people to correctly identify
whom God has set before them, and there is a choosing. In making
that decision and choice, something is struck that will profoundly affect
that believing life for the rest of its days. Just the presence of the man, let
alone the radicalness of his word, puts a premium of requirement upon the
hearer like no other requirement that perhaps the church has got to face.
What do you do with this man and this word? In fact, I almost
invariably tell churches, "You
have a responsibility in my coming and the hearing of this word more than you
know. You will either go on in a qualitatively new way from this point forth,
but one thing I will assure you, you will not go on as you were before.
Something has come in a moment of time that requires something from you, and if
you will not recognize it and give it, then you are not just going to go on,
you are going to fall back. Something incisive has come and your response to
that will affect your whole continuance and future in God."
The prophet's function is so absolutely life and death, more than can
be said for other callings. If it is a false word, then it could be death. If
it does not bring a warning, then it could also be death-literal, physical
death.
If it does not indicate the issues that are eternal, then it could be robbing
the hearer. It is not an exaggeration to say that the rejection of the prophets
was the death of Israel. How can one say more for something that is life or
death for a people, and yet God invests that in flesh and blood, in mere man,
who is subject to every frailty and weakness of humanity! It is an enormous
weight of responsibility that he can say, "Thus says the Lord", or even if he
does not intone that inscription, it is implied, and that the weight of that
has to be borne on the faintness and weakness of his mere humanity.
~From 'The Prophetic Call' by Art Katz -
http://www.benisrael.org/OnlineBooks/prophetic_call/the_prophetic_call.htm