Heart of the Prophet

by Chad Taylor

A PROPHET TO A GENERATION

”My eyes fail because of tears, My spirit is greatly troubled; My heart is poured out on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, when little ones and infants faint in the streets of the city…” (Lamentations 2:11)
In a time of national calamity and moral collapse there was a heart that burned with this fire of repentance and righteousness. In the midst of riot and rampage through Israel’s streets, stood one lone prophet with the message of the hour mixed with tears. Like Ramah, he refused to be comforted. Like his Lord, he could not ignore the plight of his people. He witnessed and pleaded on the corner of every street and hedge of Jerusalem for their lives and their liberties, to truly return to the Lord. Echoing through the alleys and lanes of the city it could be heard, "Arise! Cry aloud in the night! At the beginning of the night watches; Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift up your hands to Him, for the life of your young children who faint because of hunger at the top of every street!" Lamentations 2:19)
See, Jeremiah was no stranger to his nation’s sin and pain. He did not observe from a terraced temple treasury at the passing of the publican and prostitute that paraded through the streets of Jerusalem. He did not stand as high priest and judge to the agony and cry of Zion’s children, but to the contrary, he walked with them, he pleaded with them, he wept with them! Like his Messiah, he was no stranger to their desperation; he stood with them at the threshold of their judgment and cried. “…Call upon Me and come pray to Me! And I will listen to you! And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart…” (Jer. 29:12&13.) Judgment never falls without the tears of the prophet falling first.
‘And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it…’ (Jesus over Jerusalem) (Luke 19:41)
Yet today in modern day clergy, hidden behind insulated church walls, one can easily stand afar off and preach of their plight, but never fight the good fight. Sleep unaware through the night, never shining His glorious light. It is easier to preach of their demise, than to look them in the eyes. It is less toil to walk by on the other side, than to bind up their wounds with oil and wine. God is looking for prophets that will weep with those that weep, leave the ninety-nine for even one lost sheep. That will open the prison doors and set the captives free. The Lord is imploring in this dark hour, “Who will follow Me?”


PROPHETS ARE BORN NOT MADE
From the womb the stirring was heard, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you, I have appointed you a prophet to the nations…” (Jer. 1:4). In the bowels of the earth before the foundations of the world an election and a calling was birthed. It was not by mere whim or human standard that Jeremiah was ordained a prophet to the nations. Hear his reply! “But, ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, because I am a youth…” In his spiritual infancy Jeremiah fled the holy calling. In his natural age he deemed himself unfit. But in God’s sovereignty he was “prophet to the nations.”

But with no small cost did Jeremiah don this mantle! No! But with life and honor and tears and blood did he bear it! In peril and in prison did it accompany him! He was called by God to stand in the streets and weep as a nation faltered. To bear their wounds and weep their tears. In his own words he confesses, “I am a man who has seen affliction…” (Lam. 3:1). Not unlike his Master and Lord, “…smitten of God and afflicted…” (Is. 53:4)

If we desire to speak as these prophets spoke, if we aspire to live as these prophets and Prophet lived, then we must then, enter into the melee of human despair and give them the river of life freely! To step into the masses and declare with Peter, “Repent and be saved!” We cannot stand afar off in some upper-room writing and wrangling, we must step out of the boat of human effort and enter into the supernatural realm of His glory. You see, His power FOLLOWED them as they went, “Confirming the Word with signs following…” (Mk. 16:20) The Lord is still looking for those that He can follow.

NO POWER WITHOUT PASSION
“To whom also he showed Himself alive after HIS PASSION by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” (Acts 1:3)
The word passion comes from the Greek word: pascho (pas'-kho); which means, to experience a sensation or impression (usually painful): KJV—to feel, passion, or to suffer, vex. Jesus did not walk in divine power without passion. Without suffering. Without paying the price of pain as He held an orphaned child, or healed a dying leper, or defended and forgave the prostitute. He suffered with them! He walked with them every day! He felt their pain! He stood in their midst. He was found with the unlovely and deemed misfit. My friends! This divine power does not come without passion! Nor will it ever without His compassion! If we are to see His miracles we must first feel His heart! We must first be broken with the weight of His love before we can be equipped with the power of His glory! O Lord give us your passion!

We must leap from the safe shores of church, into the deep waters of the world, and take in a great catch! He is calling to us from the storm, “Don’t be afraid, it is I!” He is calling us from the hi-ways and hedges, “Compel them to come in!” He is calling us from the nations and poverty stricken places, “The heathen is for your inheritance!” The Lord of the Harvest is crying to the church and those that stand idle, “Will you work in My fields?” Jeremiah knew their pain first hand. He sat with them everyday. He pleaded and begged for their repentance. He comprehended that there was no power without passion. He knew the secret of His Father’s heart, “The Lord’s loving kindnesses indeed never cease. His compassions never fail…” (Lam. 3:22)

Jesus was moved with compassion when He saw the multitudes. And from it He “healed every kind of disease and every kind of sickness” (Mtt.9: 35&36) It is His compassion that will release miracles, signs, and wonders. And it is apathy and indifference that will obstruct and hinder the river of His love through earthen vessels. We expect power without passion! Miracles without compassion! God forbid we live our lives without the infallible proofs of His resurrection bearing witness upon our ministry. Having the power to effect and impact a world all around us desperate and lost in darkness. God forbid we are silent as the world is screaming for His love captured in human hearts refusing to be released…

THE HEART OF THE PROPHET
“My soul, My soul! I am in anguish! Oh, my heart! My heart is pounding in me; I can not be silent, because you have heard O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.” (Jeremiah 4:19)

Certainly from this generation is springing up an army of prophets and prophetesses. A vanguard of youth that hear the beat of His heart and march to Its rhythm. That has heard in the closets of prayer the sound of the trumpet rousing the warriors, and the alarm of war. A troop of youth that have counted the cost of discipleship and have plunged into the deep and cast their nets on the other side of religion, LIBERTY! Certainly a chosen generation is taking center stage as the curtain of destiny is parting. A royal priesthood, that wears the garments of praise and humility. A peculiar people indeed that march into the land! For such will carry His glory into the nations. And such will declare His heart to the masses.

Like Job they will exclaim, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ears, BUT NOW MY EYE SEES YOU…” (Job 42:5). This is a generation that not only has heard of Him and His power and majesty, but one that will experience His power and majesty. They will see with their eyes the demonstration if His love and glory poured out on a dry and thirsty land. The Lord would say, ‘MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY FOR MY YOUNG ONES! THEY WILL LEAD YOU INTO THE PROMISE LAND! THEY WILL LEAD YOU INTO THE FRUITFUL STAND! FOR THIS IS A GENERATION THAT FINALLY UNDERSTANDS, THE DIVINE STRATEGY OF MY UNFOLDING PLAN! TO POSSESS THE LAND! TO POSSESS THE LAND!

This will be a people that touch not just talk. Like their predecessors Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they will stand in the city gates and prophesy, “Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord; I will not cause My anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, says the Lord. Only acknowledge your iniquity that you have transgressed against the Lord…” (Jer.3: 12&13). They will not be a foreigner but a friend to their nation, their city, and their land. They will ‘stand in the gap,’ that God would not destroy it.

God give us prophets that are not afraid to walk in the streets with a ‘Thus say the Lord.’ Those that are not afraid to touch and hold and heal the wounds of a generation. Make them like their Master who sat and ate with the publican and the tax collector despite the ridicule of His peers. Give them a courage that transcends religious tradition that creates a chasm between the world instead of a bridge. Distance instead of desire for a lost and degenerate world. God give us Heaven breathed, passion born, and love inspired prophets that invade every modern day Samaria with Your power and eternal weight of glory! Illuminating the poverty of sin with the power of Christ’s Liberty! Breaking the chains of humanity with the promise of salvation’s immortality!

GOD GIVE US PROPHETS!

Chad Taylor

Consuming Fire Ministries

E-mail: info@consumingfire.com
This is also a Chapter in "Why Revival Still Tarries" by Chad Taylor

Picture of a Prophet

by Leonard Ravenhill

The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men.

Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, "No man can be fully accepted until he is totally rejected." The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences. They are his "brand name."

The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him "Man of the year" when he refers to them as habituates of the synagogue of Satan!

The prophet comes to set up that which is upset. His work is to call into line those who are out of line! He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality. In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin-Sparks once said, "has almost always been that of recovery."

The prophet is God's detective seeking for a lost treasure. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him.
He has no price tags. He is totally "otherworldly."
He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile.
He marches to another drummer!

He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration. He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind. He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a "thus saith the Lord."

He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of
impending judgment. He lives in "splendid isolation."

He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright.
His message is "repent, be reconciled to God or else...!"
His prophecies are parried.

His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void.
He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead!
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with
epitaphs when dead.

He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class. He is friendless while living and famous when dead.
He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint by posterity.

He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of Life to those who listen.

He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years.
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation.
He announces, pronounces, and denounces!

He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire.
He talks to men about God.

He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men. He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing.

He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in
the marketplace.

He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual.
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity.
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.

Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recover its strength, or that we save face over the Watergate affair, or that we find the answer to the ecology problem. We need a God-sent prophet!

I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the "seven years of plenty" are over for us. The "seven years of famine" are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11).

Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. "Come-outers" have "come out" and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival. Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?

GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history.

There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist.

Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnant "churchianity."

Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.
Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do."

Let him reject ecclesiastical favors.
Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous, nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting.

Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move men to God.
Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the day. Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism.

Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.

God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!

Leonard Ravenhill

DOWNLOADS:
SPIRIT OF A TRUE PROPHET Pt 1 (mp3 audio)

SPIRIT OF A TRUE PROPHET Pt. 2 (mp3 audio)