We NEED PROPHETS! by A.W. Tozer
A prophet is one who knows his times and what God is trying to say to the people of his times.
Today
we need prophetic preachers; not preachers of prophecy merely, but preachers
with a gift of prophecy. The word of wisdom is missing. We need the gift of
discernment again in our pulpits. It is not ability to predict that we need,
but the anointed eye, the power of spiritual penetration and interpretation,
the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God’s position, and to
tell us what is actually going on.
Where
is the man who can see through the ticker tape and confetti to discover which
way the parade is headed, why it started in the first place and, particularly,
who is riding up front in the seat of honor?
What
is needed desperately today is prophetic insight. Scholars can interpret the
past; it takes prophets to interpret the present. Learning will enable a man to
pass judgment on our yesterdays, but it requires a gift of clear seeing to pass
sentence on our own day. One hundred years from now historians will know what was
taking place religiously in this year of our Lord; but that will be too late
for us. We should know right now.
If
Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any
now being used. If the church in the second half of this century is to recover
from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type
of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the- synagogue type will never do. Neither
will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and
asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make
the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and
found wanting.
Another
kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet
type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne.
When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many) he will stand in
flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear.
He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the
hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely
to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will
love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the
glory of the one and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that
breathes with mortal breath.
We
need to have the gifts of the Spirit restored again to the church, and it is my
belief that the one gift we need most now is the gift of prophecy.
-A.W.
Tozer – from ‘Of God and Men’.
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