It's remarkable to go back to the beginnings
in Genesis as a counterbalance to the character
of our present age.
Our reality is to be found in the
book and not in the contemporary trends of
our time.
And how salutary, healthy, life-giving the Word
of God is from its origins to speak
to the most pressing contemporary issue of our
life.
So, may we be encouraged in just the
amount that is being revealed to us in
the exploration of this text of what a
resource we have in the Word of God
timeless and valid for all generations and especially
the last.
To find another expression in keeping the chosen
people are chosen though they are not presently
fulfilling that call to what degree is it
appropriate to us to honor them for the
call, for the office, even when it is
presently in abeyance because of sin.
What's the issue of authority in the things
that are called, the offices that are given
that require our respect even when there's a
seeming contradiction between the office and the office
holder when his character seems to betray the
very office that was given is there still
a respect due to the office itself as
an authority given of God.
So, we read the remarkable episode with David
and Saul in the cave Saul being his
persecutor, David having great opportunity once and for
all to remove this threat to his life
and being encouraged by his soldiers to do
so it even hurts his conscience so much
as to cut the cloak of Saul's garment
and when Saul awakens to find that David
could have killed him but did not, he
said, you're more righteous than I and David
bows before Saul on his face and he
cries out and calls him, my father and
I know that I know that this is
not a man employing artifice or courtesy in
order to win some respect or esteem or
maybe to even discourage Saul from his murderous
quest it's a man who knows that the
anointing is off of the king but it
was once given and still the authority of
God and he's honoring him as father that
has got to be such a statement and
such a ultimate highlight in the career of
David that I think I can confidently say
and have said it was the whole issue
of the Davidic kingdom to come the whole
issue of what the kingdom of David would
be which is to say the kingdom of
God is caught up in that capsule moment
when David goes on his face and says
to Saul his enemy and persecutor, my father
not as a device employed for his ends
but as a heartfelt, as Reggie said a
genuine respect for the office of the man
even though the man himself is in the
lowliest so lowly a condition as to be
the persecutor unto death of the future king
of the kingdom are you getting that?
isn't that remarkable?
do we respect the office?
do we respect the call?
and if Israel is presently out of a
call and Paul says in Romans but God
has not cast them away it's not his
enduring disposition it's a momentary parenthesis what our
attitude toward them to be and later on
before this week is out I'm going to
share with you from a book by a
Jewish theologian on the mystery of Romans what's
the fellow's name?
Mark Nanos do you know him, Hans?
and his interpretation of Romans chapter 13 Paul's
exhortation to the church to honor and to
submit to the authorities that are over it
has been historically construed as Paul calling the
church to honor the society or the state
in which the Roman church existed which was
an emperor worshipping state and it has baffled
Christians for generations how Paul could commend that
to Christians that they should honor a state
that celebrates as God, man the Caesar, the
emperor but in his own interpretation he says
no, Paul's not calling for that he's calling
for the Gentile believers of the Roman church
to submit to the authority not of the
state but of the synagogue the air went
out of me like I was hit in
the solar plexus what?
believers should submit to unbelieving Jewish authorities in
the synagogue?
because at that time the Christians were looked
upon as a Jewish sect and it was
quite customary for them to take their place
in the synagogue as being righteous Gentiles submitting
to recognizing the salvational faith of God through
Israel and that's why he says to them
don't get hung up on questions of what
you shall eat and don't fight over issues
of diet we'll go on to some of
this now it makes a new sense but
that Paul could require that if it's true
if that's a valid interpretation it's remarkably radical
what is the implication for us today?
do we have some kind of a deference
that we owe to Jewish authority?
to some respect to the synagogue to present
day Judaism that would be becoming in God's
sight and even temper us I think that
those Gentile Christians in that generation in Rome
in submitting to unbelieving synagogue authorities broke something
and then had to break because they were
in the superior spiritual position and yet acknowledging
the honor of those who had not yet
had the light of Christ that calls for
something, that's a humbling when you see yourself
as spiritually superior and having to bend and
acknowledge the authority that comes from one who
does not share your light and with whom
you can argue and dismiss that factor, that
dynamic has been lost to the present church
and I think it constituted for the church
of that generation in Paul's time the very
thing that made the church the church that
gave it the spirit of the lamb and
the disposition of humility and the practicality and
the requirement of having to relate to authority
that was Jewish and not yet believing so
we'll explore that further on but on what
basis should that respect be given?
on the basis that even though they are
presently out of the place of God even
so to say apostate, fallen but God has
not cast them away and they will be
restored the office that was given needs to
be respected why?
because of the giver not to respect the
office given though it can hardly be fulfilled
in that condition is not to respect him
who has given it the thou shalt of
God thou shalt honor is so deep, so
pervasive and because we have not taken it
up in our consideration there's a dimension of
the deepest kind missing from what we ought
to be as the church that Shem-like
character that he himself exhibited in the crisis
of Noah's drunkenness can we suggest that God
has tested the church and is testing the
church by Israel in the same way that
the sons were tested by the glory departing
from Noah it's the issue of the glory
departing that is the issue it's easy to
give deference and respect to whom it's due
when they're acting appropriately according to the office
and title that they've been given but when
they fail in that and the glory departs
what is your response then?
so there's a remarkable parallel between the testing
of the sons through the fallenness of Noah
and the testing of the church by the
fallenness of Israel if we can give Israel
the honor do it not because she's in
her glory but all the more because she's
out of her glory then are we really
showing the Shem-like character for which God
is wanting and waiting you understand?
it's not only because even though they are
outside their glory but especially because they are
outside their glory are we tested think of
that in every application whether it's an elder
in the church whether it's a father in
the household we're tested all the more by
the seeming failure and contradiction of the one
who has been given the office tests the
depth of our heart whether we respect the
office itself the title itself the givenness itself
even in the apparent contradiction of that person
or nation at that moment all the more
especially are we tested when we could easily
get off the hook and say well that's
the way that Israel is going to deport
herself if that's the way she has blasphemed
her name in every nation she's no longer
worthy of the acknowledgement or honor that ought
to be initially due her no, all the
more reason that she needs to be honored
and what does that mean then how does
that honoring find its expression is it just
some private thought that we have or is
there a practical way in which it can
be expressed to the nation that is being
ravaged at every side and being demeaned in
the press it needs to hear something from
us that is heartfelt and sincere that is
not sentimental not slobbery not looking the other
way as if you're doing all things well
but even in all your failing yet we
express to you the honor that is your
due you are the chosen people of God
he has given you that call and because
he has we respect him who has given
it if David could respect the murderer that
Saul had become and say my father out
of a deepest heart of respect what ought
we to say to those who have been
the fathers of our faith all the more
especially in their fallenness especially because their glory
has departed are we tested everything of Jesus'
acts has this foundation to honor his father
he's the supreme servant son whose whole purpose
for being is to honor the father though
in that honoring of the father there's a
dishonoring that comes to him have you thought
ever that if had Shem had gone along
with Cain and Ham he would have been
the next successor he's the firstborn so what
a wonderful opportunity to get Noah out of
the way he's had his fling and he's
had his time and now he's shown in
his failure that maybe that time has come
to an end and it's time for me
now as the firstborn and the eldest son
to take over the spiritual reigns don't think
that that temptation was not put before him
and that the enemy of our souls was
not there saying take advantage of your discredited
father and come into the place that you
really deserve and you'll show much more than
he ever did what it means to be
God's supreme servant spiritual temptation is the most
powerful of every kind but you can see
from the instant obedience of Shem to cover
his father that he would not for a
moment consider any benefit that he might obtain
out of his father's fallenness so we see
there again the character of God the character
of Jesus and how about the fallenness of
Jesus before his own disciples who had thought
it had been he who would have restored
the glory to Israel but alack and alas
there's that poor pathetic cadaver hanging on the
cross hardly human and totally discredited he had
to bear that sense of failure of their
expectancy their disappointment and the high illusion that
they held about him as being a necessary
part of the whole servant suffering walk required
to honor the father and of course he's
still in many ways suffering disrespect worldwide and
even in the church so if it was
becoming to the Lord himself in his earthly
tenure to be an object of fallenness whose
glory had departed and to leave his admirers
deflated and alack and alas and their countenances
fallen to what degree can we walk out
this life as servant sons and not be
that kind of an object to those around
us are you understanding me?
how willing are we to be misunderstood or
to fail and God doesn't explain to us
that we're going to get drunk he doesn't
explain to us that this is going to
happen in order to do this it merely
happens and you have to bear it without
explanation and trust that it will redound to
the glory of God the father but that
there must come a dishonoring of yourself as
the price necessary to reveal the secret hearts
of those about you in order that they
might themselves become sons out of repentance the
Lord suffered that Noah suffered that God the
father suffered that suffers that continually and we
who have any call to authority and place
in the government of God I think in
some measure have to expect and to experience
that are we willing to glorify God the
father at the expense of our humiliation and
that Israel herself has suffered a dishonoring for
the church's sake she has no consciousness of
it but even in her apostasy she's fulfilling
a servant son function that was necessary for
the church's sake to test us over the
issue of the respect for the calling and
the chosenness of God for that people and
how long has she borne that reproach and
the failure to acknowledge us to the acknowledgement
that should have come from us and that
is the issue of the church itself there's
a there's a brave statement the issue of
our attitude toward present Jewry, toward present Judaism
toward present Israel and whether we will give
them a respect due their call even in
their present apostasy and departure of their glory
is the issue of the church itself as
church wow how far will God go at
the expense of an entire nation people Israel
and the Jew to bring us to the
place of Shem character for which he waits
and which is the conclusion of the whole
age for if we do not obtain it
into what tent will Japheth come Japheth then
will be the enlarged terror of the world
in his capability for turning his enlargement into
death unless he comes into our tent into
that tent of Shem and receive there the
modifying mediating influences that reside in Shem alone
he will be a threat to the whole
of the world and to himself it's a
race for time so to speak so how
far will God go to obtain the fulfillment
of this mystery whose first expression is given
as it has every right to be in
the book of beginnings a great deal of
the resistance against me and against the message
of Israel comes from Christian Zionists and those
who celebrate the nation presently and the people
in a kind of romantic highly idealized way
that does not reckon on the realities that
are everyday being exhibited in Israel that God
insists must be exhibited that we would finally
acknowledge the truth of God's word there is
no man good nor not one we Jews
do not have any intrinsic virtue above man
so instead of acknowledging and seeing what God
is after they look away and they justify
and explain every kind of thing that the
present state of Israel is required to employ
in its preservation the use of torture, violence,
all those kinds of things this is contrary
to God's intention for the church toward Israel
not to idealize and romanticize an image that
we have created and forced and put upon
them as completely contrary to what is the
truth of their condition, their reality but to
esteem them and to respect and to honor
them in the revelation of what their present
character is see what I mean so I
want to get at the issue of being
romantic and idealizing and having mental concepts and
the way in which we celebrate certain present
day evangelical leaders and ministers and they have
whole followings that is based on this thing
of illusion and maybe what we respond to
as disappointment angry disappointment and disrespect is not
because the man has failed but our ideal
of him has failed our anger is the
collapse of a humanly contrived elevated notion that
that man had no obligation to fulfill but
it disappoints us and our anger indicates our
disappointment that something is amiss with us more
than the man himself instead of the benign
patience and forbearance of correcting a brother how
does that scripture go?
you would just spiritually restore the brother instead
of that spiritual attitude of identification that brings
the restoration we walk away in a huff
of disappointment and justify ourselves at the expense
of the fallen one because what we're really
responding to is not so much his fall
but the collapse of the ideal that he
represented to us that has to do with
our own self aggrandizement why do we idealize?
why do we impute to others a loftier
thing than God's intention?
it has something to do with something that
we want someday perhaps to enjoy but it's
false it's an illusion it's unreality so on
July 30th in Watchmen in Oswald Chambers my
utmost for his highest he takes up something
he calls the discipline of disillusionment that disillusionment
is not a bad thing it's actually a
grace from God for illusion is lie and
we know that the father of lies is
an illusionist and that the whole world lives
in a fantasy land of romanticism and that's
why marriages collapse families are destroyed because of
the things that are in our culture that
are cultivated that we think the marriage is
going to be and totally fits us for
the reality to which we're called to experience
and the moment that we're disappointed in it
we're ready to throw it over and try
try again so he writes the refusal to
be disillusioned is the cause of much of
the suffering in human life it works in
this way we love a human being and
do not love God we demand of him
every perfection and every rectitude and when we
do not get it we become cruel and
vindictive you see that in the disappointed spouse
cruel and vindictive this lofty love that was
so romantic suddenly turns and becomes its very
opposite we are demanding of a human being
that which he or she cannot give we
have an unrealistic perception of man if of
our spouses what of ourselves because we have
not recognized the truth of our own condition
that there's no man good, no not one
so there's only one being who can satisfy
the last aching abyss of the human heart
and that is the Lord Jesus Christ why
our Lord is apparently so severe regarding every
human relationship is because he knows that every
relationship not based on loyalty to himself will
end in disaster you cannot directly relate a
human being to another human being if Jesus
is not the the prism the mediator between
husband and wife there's going to be an
inordinate demand of the one of the other
that cannot be fulfilled and must necessarily end
in disappointment every relationship has got to be
seen in and through Christ and has got
to be affected and realized in and through
Christ not just invoked as a kind of
a catch word but a very reality the
relation directly one to another is idolatrous it
must pass through Christ to come to the
other in the redemptive way that it can
only come if he himself is the third
fold cord of that union of a three
fold cord that cannot be broken if he
is out of the picture you can count
on disaster and however happy they might be
for a season on the happy accident of
compatibility or they are saved from tensions and
so on inevitably it has to end not
only sadly but tragically and cruelly and vindictively
because a human ideal has been disappointed the
last refuge of humanism is idealism and don't
think that we have been saved from it
because we are Christians and we are opposed
to humanism it will find a last opportunity
to find lodging in our souls in idealism
because idealism is human celebration human imagining human
conception human desire of something unrelated to the
reality of something as God has given it
and so the first requisite is to recognize
that the relationship is God given and that
the disappointment is a very benevolence of God
to save us from a marriage based on
faulty idealism that cannot be fulfilled so I
wrote here Shem was not disillusioned about his
father Noah why?
because he did not have a lofty notion
of his father that was conceived and conjured
up out of his own soul which one
day he would hope to share in that
elevation that is false he saw his father
realistically as a man in his mortality in
his frailty, in his weakness but it did
not in any way lessen the respect, reverence
and honor for the father, but I would
say all the more would augment it because
any respect that is predicated on a false
supposition that issues out of our imagination or
idealism or humanism is not a respect at
all, it's a respect for our ideal, but
not for the man himself, so a true
son makes no demands there's not a standard
to which Noah must conform or to which
an elder must conform, though of course we
know there are biblical guidelines that constitute a
condition for eldership, but we ourselves do not
impose anything beyond that and even with those
requirements we have a disposition disposition to be
understanding what's the word magnanimous if it is
not met to the letter or it's not
met in a way that we think it
ought to be met, after all ought not
an elder to have his house in control
how does the word go in order well
what if his wife this, what if his
children this, is that an automatic statement that
he's in this order, or are there perplexities
and details and conditions that God is requiring
for him that have not been required of
you, for which you need a tolerant respect
while it's being out worked, and not be
quick to jump on what seems to be
a breach of the conditions that God has
stipulated that's a Shem-like attitude that's a
precious grace because we know that we ourselves
are dust so Shem was not disillusioned he
made no demand and he cultivated no ideals
I said Jews might be willing to forgive
Germans the concentration camps and the systematic annihilation
of 6 million of us but we cannot
forgive them the collapse of our ideal that
German civilization represented for us, we'll forgive them
our death, but we'll not forgive them the
collapse of our ideal, because German civilization had
been for us our messianic hope we had
become so alienated from the scriptures and from
the divine fulfillment that we saw in German
civilization it's high ethical and philosophical and literary
quality of that fulfillment and when that failed
and they became our monsters of execution, we
can more quickly forgive them the execution than
we can forgive them the collapse of the
ideal that sustained us can you follow that?
Idealism is the last refuge of humanism and
that means God's solution to that is to
be disillusioned disillusionment is a grace, but it's
not a pleasant grace, we want to cling
to our illusions because they serve very clear
purposes in establishing a whole mode of understanding
and life in which we want to find
our part and want ourselves to be recognized
by others but it's false so the whole
world lives in the lie in illusion and
God's mercy to us is to allow us
the privilege of disillusionment but how does he
give it to us?
he gives it to us through men in
whom we have attached ourselves and looked with
great expectancy only to see them crash or
the people Israel themselves and in that his
intention is that whatever is false in the
way in which we beheld, either that servant
or that nation, it needs to come into
death, that we might behold them realistically and
rightly and still give them the respect due
even in their apparent failure, follow me?
this needs to sink so deeply into our
spirits it's really ironic that this whole message
of the Tent of Shem had its birth
last year, last summer coming back with wide
-eyed naivety thinking that though I had received
severe reaction where it was first spoken that
here at Ben Israel I would find accommodation
and a home but instead I got something
of the same backlash of reaction against that
word as I found elsewhere well, okay, I
can bear that but the reaction and the
backlash was expressed openly so that the messenger
was openly exhibited as an object of failure
and a man dangerously flirting with heresy publicly
by members within our own body before those
that were called like you to the school
and to the convocation isn't it remarkable that
that humiliation had to be born that we
now receive some measure of the benefit of
the blessing of it, that suffering preceded whatever
measure this glory is but it had to
be born this is servanthood, this is sonship
to be an object that your I often
say the greatest use that God has made
of me at Ben Israel is to be
the object of disillusionment for those who come
that's my principle ministry and I have handled
it wonderfully I've never failed to disillusion and
I've not been that great a failure under
my own roof and with my own children
and my own wife but it's a painful
transition to forsake and forego that because so
much is attached to that false and illusory
thing our own image we want to see
the false thing continued in the other so
that our hope one day to share in
that kind of elevation and exaltation admiration from
others will be given to us, if it
collapses for him then it collapses for us
and we don't want to consider that so
can you imagine a church in which an
elder and a leader is respected, honored even
in his frailty and in his mortality and
in his failure and that that affects the
whole atmosphere in which the church has its
life and passes not only to the elder
but to every member that's the church that's
the tent of Shem into which our Jewish
community must first come that we establish for
it that they in turn might fulfill that
tent for the Jafeth nations of the world
we ought to exhibit to them their call,
but this is what the tent of Shem
is it's not just a drapery, it's an
environment it's a reality, it's a truth it's
a mode of being and at its heart
is the issue of honor and respect and
that was exhibited by the first son of
Shem in the covering of his father though
he had every advantage to gain in leaving
his father uncovered and enjoying Ham and Canaan
in mocking the father and becoming therefore the
new heir and take over Guy he forsook
that because he respected the God of Shem
and no one knew that and the prophetic
blessing that comes out of his mouth is
not for Shem personally but blessed be the
God of Shem because what you have done
for me is so clearly the expression of
that God, what you expressed in that moment
is a God who honors a God who
says thou shalt, it's foundational for life and
for reality and when that is lost, everything
is lost, and we see it in our
schools, I praise God I'm delivered from having
to be a teacher today in this generation,
I had enough struggle 30 or 40 more
years ago of the disrespect for students in
the classroom for their teachers, disrespect for authorities,
disrespect for the police disrespect for courts because
there's no respect for God who gave these
authorities to which we should be submitted, calling
teachers by their first name as if it's
Buddy Buddy, in my time that was unthought
of that you would call a teacher by
his first name, it's Mr. Cass so we
need to know there's been a tremendous loss
of what is foundational not only to the
church, but to civilization itself and how shall
it be restored but by the church to
civilization by our own modeling to the world
the reality to which God calls all men
everywhere, all nations that we ourselves will exhibit
to them in the respect and honor that
they see that prevails in the church the
kind of thing that ought to guide and
govern them in their relationship in society following
me?
Thank you Lord, that when we get the
flashing red light behind us for speeding, and
we say yes officer it's not because we
want to beguile him and maybe get off
the hook it's because we respect the fact
that he's an officer, he's got the badge,
we respect his authority we're not condescending to
honor him by his title in order to
find that it will relieve us of the
penalty of our speeding we're rendering honor where
honor is due.
Thank you Lord it
is on other grounds entirely, it's the way
in which the church should have beheld and
respected the Jew, whose view of God was
as wrathful father this is how this is
the respect that we should have given to
fallen Israel what would the history of the
church and Israel have been, had the church
from it's very beginnings rendered unto Israel the
respect and honoring that was it's due, even
in it's fallenness but when you read the
early friction of the church and the synagogue
it's a diatribe of accusation of superior triumphalist
attitude over the fallen church and the Jews
were baiting the church you guys don't even
read Hebrew and you're telling us what those
scriptures mean and you think that this Greek
magical figure, Jesus is the Messiah, no way
and you guys are in error and so
the church stunned and stung by these accusations
with the kind of authority that the Jew
has that the synagogue has even in it's
fallenness, reacted instead of with a respect they
reacted in kind and railed against them that's
been the whole history from the beginning of
the relationship of the church to the Jew
to this day how then shall we be
a witness to that people by what means
shall we move them to jealousy how do
we even get them to consider a word
that will come from us when we have
such a track record but the thing is
it will not only benefit and bless them
it will bless us we will find ourselves
changed in our own deportment, in our own
character when we can find ourselves respectful to
the Jew and to Judaism though we know
that it's in a blindness and it falls
short of the precious glory that we have
come to enjoy it will change us it
softens it tenderizes I don't have a word
for it it mellows but without that we
are a jangling cymbal we're a noise, we're
a clang our voices are metallic even when
we say the right thing and the nice
thing, there's a metallic clang that turns off
the one to whom that spoken word is
addressed something comes with deference and respect that
affects the character and the inner life of
the person who can give it in all
sincerity in an unfeigned way.
Well, how did it come for Shem?
It came I believe, though the scriptures are
silent, out of the kind of union and
relationship with his God, because what he expressed
was God's own character.
So in other words, we can't become this
by principle or by method or by technique
we can only become it to the degree
that we reflect and express the life that
is our life which is God's, for this
is his nature anything else would be a
performance it would be a put on and
most Jews would see right through it so
the quest for us is to come into
that union with the God of Shem that
Shem himself enjoyed and that we would have
every even greater right to enjoy through Christ
and yet fall short of that reality and
we'll come to it through repentance in our
failure when we see that we are metallic
and brittle and that our respect is only
superficial and what's the word perfunctory look that
one up and we'll know that we're playing
at this it's an act, it's not heartfelt,
it's not genuine we need the reality of
this that comes from God himself and to
forsake the one in repentance is to open
us to the receiving of the other in
truth a portion of an answer to your
question in my own experience is speaking to
Christians who have a romantic view of present
Israel and the Jew and so in my
ministry of disillusionment I raise questions for them
that would bring them to consider that there's
something unreal in the way in which they
are connected with present Israel there's a word
in psychology where you receive a certain benefit
by a relationship symbiotic, I accuse them of
a symbiotic relationship there's something in it for
them in the way in which they are
celebrating the Jew in Israel and that that
is not priestly and the only ministry that
will bless Israel is what is mediated in
a priestly way which means that there's no
benefit that redounds to the servant toward the
nation and so they've got to get off
this romantic kick and relate in another way
in reality, realistically without any return to themselves
and that would be a priestly benediction for
the Jew though many of them appreciate what
they're now receiving because they want the support
of the evangelical church while entire nations are
increasingly turned against Israel and anti-Semitism is
becoming a worldwide phenomenon so they appreciate any
expression of support, but the deepest thing that
will bless them is that which comes from
the life of God and not something out
of our own humanity romantically mediated do you
understand?
so yes, in that way we're correcting them
but we correct them not only with word
we ought to correct them also with example
now let me really lower the boom if
the church is capable of this philo-semitism
which is an idealization out of its own
humanity toward Israel and unreal to what degree
are we guilty of that not only toward
Israel but toward Jesus himself to what degree
is Jesus being celebrated romantically rather than realistically
rather than authentically spiritually we ourselves have formed
an image and have even produced a worship
which in fact is a false god it's
not the man himself, Christ Jesus who in
his humanity suffered this humiliation and covered us
by his uncovering nakedly on the cross as
I often say when I preach this, don't
think that that nice little flowery garment was
around his loins that the Renaissance and Gothic
artists employ in depicting Jesus crucified, he was
stark naked he could not cover his nakedness,
the greatest shame before orthodox Jews is to
be naked at the cross that's what made
the cross the suffering that it was, Jesus
bore that nakedness that we ourselves shall be
covered but if we are romanticizing another Jesus
who is our errand boy and gets us
a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a marriage
or a job or a health or whatever
it is an ideal or something that facilitates
our worship atmosphere with wonderful music and all
that goes with it this is unreality to
the uttermost this is disrespectful to God this
is dishonoring to the God who is God
and so to what depth and extent must
this illusion come to the church to bring
it to the reality that it must obtain
and who is it who is going to
blow the whistle who is going to sound
the trump who is going to say that
what you are about is false and pretentious
and self coined and self imagined and it's
not the celebration of the Jesus who is
Jesus who sees through that barrage, who sees
through that hype and who will have the
courage if ever he is invited to the
platform to address it it must come from
a prophet it's not from a teacher that's
the prophetic function is to blow the whistle
to bring down the thing that's false to
shred it mercilessly without in the same way
that Elijah slew the false prophets of Baal,
it wasn't enough to defeat them by the
invoking of the fire upon the sacrifice, they
had to be destroyed spare not where is
that ruthless man who can be set before
the church in it's best forms, in it's
charismatic celebrations and blow the whistle and say
this whole thing is a hyped up falsity
that constitutes a basic disrespect and dishonoring of
God and not be stoned and be willing
to be stoned because so much is at
stake that it's worth even your own death
that's why this is a prophetical school because
the word prophet itself has fallen into disuse
and has become romanticized and anyone is picking
up the label and says I'm now it
and recites a few fanciful prophecies even there
if the reality is lost in what is
prophetic what shall we hope can come to
the church to bring it to reality how
much then must we nurture and patiently uphold
and invest in prayer those whose callings are
authentic and will perform the will of God
in the last days and be his trump
men like myself and what if that something
should happen that your illusion about me collapses
and you can no longer sustain and pray
because at last we had thought it had
been he who would have restored the glory
to the church but now we see he's
done into heresy, he's back into Judaism he's
bringing the church into bondage of law blah
blah blah blah blah you see what's at
stake here you dear saints great issues are
at stake but the issue of propheticness and
calling the church back to it's reality and
the knowledge of it's own God is the
first requirement before it can find the reality
of Israel and we're at the losing end
of this whole remarkable thing and Satan's had
a field day because he's the God of
illusion, of fantasy of imaginings, of romanticizing of
fantasizing of the lie and people prefer the
lie so may we take the last few
minutes we have to pray pray for the
church pray for the prophetic calling in the
church, there may be men who have come
to us at this time for one reason
or another even to themselves who have such
a call and that call will come to
them perhaps even in these very days and
perhaps even in this very moment, the realization
of it, they'll tremble at the magnitude of
that call and the reproaches that they'll have
to bear in it's fulfillment so we need
to pray for those that are called, we
need to be a prophetic church the school
of the prophets that honor the calling that
are supportive even when there are moments of
failure as must necessarily come, no prophet comes
to full maturity without passing through the collapse
and failure here and there in the course
of his history how the church will respond
in those moments is the issue of his
furtherance or his dismissal so Lord, we ask
your blessing my God, you're talking over our
heads I'm hearing things coming out of my
mouth now that are beyond my own ability
to comprehend we're touching something Lord, that is
not only true but in the very deeps
of your own so great heart save the
church my God from illusion that beckons and
woos and seduces it everywhere and now with
modern geophetic technology we have the loudspeakers and
everything to create the false moods of so
called worship that are false celebration of a
false ideal false image and you've warned us
not to submit to false images that this
is idolatry so Lord, help us with a
little help because you're the God of truth
thank you Lord we want to know you
as you are and the greatest demonstration and
revelation of the God of Shem was how
you deported yourself on this earth in your
suffering humiliation your death that's God what you
did in providing a covering for us for
your nakedness is God showing the respect for
honoring that requires so great sacrifice as your
death and your humiliation at the cross may
that be at the very heart my God
of the reality of our faith and we
ask you to bring to death anything less
or other, anything fanciful in our own contemplation
that we think prophetic, that we think spiritual
any idealizing of any kind for a spouse,
for an elder for a leading figure in
the church today or public figure for all
of these public figures that have become the
icons of our age and their paid fortunes
and salary that are unbelievable barren fortunes in
millions for a game so many tens of
thousands of dollars for a game pitched so
much for a single ball pitched they have
become the idols of our age so precious
God bring it down we pray and bring
it down by the church that is the
church that is prophetic in its very foundation
that can speak the truth in love unsparingly
because it is the truth in love and
so bring us to that reality by disillusioning
us from any illusion that we have cultivated
and nurtured to this hour thank you for
those men that you have set in our
midst who have been your provision to bring
that disillusionment even by their own collapse thank
you for that Lord we honor them today
and that is servanthood itself that is sonship
itself Noah served that purpose and we thank
you Lord we bless you for this mystery
oh Lord work it deep into our deeps
we pray even now in Jesus name