Whence Cometh Prophets?

Any organization big enough has accountants and auditors. But it is worth noting that auditors are actually accountants, only that their work involves evaluating the work of accountants. But do you realize that even with those auditors a company or organization must open those accounts to external auditors?

Why have three groups with the same training going through the same documents? Why get an external auditor to repeat a job the internal one has done?

The simple reason is that it is impossible for one to see his error sufficiently. Like Africans say a monkey does not see his exposed bottom. You will also realize that a child calls any other person younger than his parents ‘toto’ (child) though he may be twice his age.

What am I driving at? Traditions grow so slowly as to be imperceptible. The change may be impossible to notice before a generation is past, sometimes even longer. Someone who is part of the system will therefore have been accommodating the change without noticing. That is why an external eye is needed as it was not around the change and will notice any slight diversion to the rules.

Let me give you an example. Suppose you choose a spot in your compound and decide to pour a tablespoon of soil at an exact same spot every week. The change will be so small that even the grass will be able to cover it. Do it consistently for a few months and it will be noticeable to anybody else except the people who are pouring that spoonful. It will be a mound that has been growing too slowly to be noticed.

Let’s become mathematical. Assuming a spoonful is 50 grams. In one year we will have 50x52 grams of soil. That is 2.6 kilos. In twenty years there will be 52 kg of soil. Now that is quite some soil. But none of the ones who have been faithfully pouring that small bit of soil may have even noticed how big the mound is because they have never been able to look at it ‘differently’. You see it has been growing at an almost 0% weekly growth.

Many people ask me why I am negative concerning many church and ministry operations. They ask me why I am always opposing their most popular preachers through my books and posts. They think I may have been sent to spoil their fun. Interestingly enough I have never even attended some of those churches. There are some I do not even know exist.

I ask them these questions. Is what I write true? Does it agree with the plain teaching of scripture? Are my messages personal? Do they address real issues in the church?

You see a message from God is very accurate. I have preached for quite some time and remember sometimes being confronted because the message I preached struck too close to home that the person felt that I had had ‘leakage’ about what I was preaching about, especially when it touched on personal issues. Yet God had given me a message to preach, many times having been invited to that church by proxy because they had only heard about me. But God who gave me the message has more details of the recipients than the recipients themselves. That is why you preach or write an inspired message and some wonder whether you had been eavesdropping on their breakfast discussions, even thoughts.

The other day God gave me an analogy to help us understand this.

A watchman has to be outside the building to be of any use. Employing a watchman to stay with you in the house would be the height of folly. Having a watchman who sleeps with you defeats the purpose for which he is employed.

Incidentally that is the reason a company or organization must employ external auditors for their accounts to meet the threshold of integrity.

Ezekiel was called a watchman in chapters 3 and 33.

A watchman is a herald who ensures that the city is safe and warns them in advance should danger be approaching. His duty as watchman was prophetic, purely prophetic. An army in the city, however good it is, can never match an invading one if they have no prior knowledge of the enemy’s arrival. And that is the reason they station the watchmen on watchtowers. And that is where I want us to focus.

A ‘domestic’ (for lack of a better term) prophet is the prophet within the gates and therefore gives messages that encourage good relations within the city. In other terms he exists to maintain harmony in the city. He will therefore be concerned with the well being of the city and its inhabitants. An enemy does not feature in his ministry as he has no capacity to see outside the city walls. He is unable to know an enemy who was not seen by the watchman when he broke or jumped through the fence. Any person in the city is a friend who needs to be developed to contribute to the well being of his city.

What am I talking about?

A pastor has very little chance of being prophetic to his congregation, however convinced he may be of his prophetic ability. This is amplified many times if he has pastored that congregation for long. He knows everyone and everyone knows him. His sermons have been dissected, discussed, analyzed and approved over and over. He speaks a word and they prepare to laugh because they know a joke is in the offing. An inflection in his voice and they pick their notebooks because they know he is about to give some memorable truth or ‘hidden’ verse.

A rebuke from such a pastor from the pulpit can never be taken seriously. Many times each will deflect to another person, thinking that the pastor would not surely pick on him with a rebuke. But it is also very difficult for him to speak a rebuke as he knows too many details about the membership and will fear that it could be misconstrued as a breach of trust and confidentiality. Even a message from God will be viewed with those lenses. He therefore has no capacity to give a message radical enough to demand change. The pastor and his flock have become too familiar to be of any spiritual good.

It becomes very difficult, if not impossible for him to speak against sin or rebellion because those relationships built over time are threatened by such exposé. He fears breaking relationships through such messages. The only person who must be dealt with very harshly is the one appearing to injure the good relationships in the fellowship, however spiritual or scriptural he may be. Like the internal auditor he has slowly accepted and assimilated the state of affairs in his church. And it is no wonder that you have to really search to find that one pastor whose sermons will make the devil tremble because he unflinchingly confronts sin.

That is where the external spiritual auditor comes in. And any study of the scriptures will bring that fact out very clearly. No revival or move of God started with home grown prophets or ministers.

Moses was raised in Egypt and discipled in the desert. Aaron could not handle the pressure of Israel because he was more or less like them and therefore unable to resist their demands.

Samuel did not come from the priesthood. David was not from the army. Elijah and Elisha came from nowhere near the palace. The disciples were not from the spiritual leadership. John the Baptist was revealed in the wilderness. These are a few examples to show us that a domestic prophet has a very hard task, maybe an impossible one to effect change in the location he dwells. In fact I think the reason a prophet is without honor at home is because nothing he does would be inexplicable. There would be enough reasons for anything he does. And that is because his story can be explained from his birth or even earlier. They know his ancestors and can explain the whys and what’s of whatever he does.

An external prophet can use guesswork and achieve more than the domestic prophet using facts. The reason is simple. The external prophet is handled with care. What if God …? guides the response. They will not trash his message because it may just be from God as who knows whether he has been with God anyway? They therefore receive him before questioning him which is the exact opposite of what they do to a domestic prophet.

An external prophet who has heard from God is therefore infinitely more effective than the domestic one. That is why many were killed as their messages struck home with the most excruciating impact that there had to be a decision one way or the other. You see a leakage from heaven gores into the innermost parts of the person, from the soul to the spirit.

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

What is said of the word of God is true also of any message originating from the throne room in heaven through a prophet thus connected. But such a message from a domestic prophet can have little or no impact because it will be interpreted as originating from the bearer of the same. That is why you will see someone who has been in an evangelical or charismatic church for twenty years until he gets into the leadership getting saved when a foreign minister is invited to preach and explains the Gospel he had been hearing all those years. Incidentally, everybody in the church, himself included, thought he was saved all the time.

I suspect a false prophet is one who changed from a messenger sent from above to a domestic prophet. They were too accepted until they thought it was an offense to be faithful to one they could not see. Or maybe they thought they were not getting the message accurately as it was driving a wedge between them and their friends and supporters. It is human nature to value friends who stick with you especially during tough times.

But Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near, and smote Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak unto thee? (1Kings 22:24)

It is most probable that Zedekiah started prophesying aright. But he did not see his slight shift into being a domestic prophet. He is therefore offended by another person pretending to hear from the ‘spirit’ he knew spoke to him. What he didn’t know was that the spirit had left him for a more obedient vessel. It is interesting to also note that there was an abundance of such prophets, four hundred of them. And their message from ‘heaven’ was unanimous.

Incidentally you will notice that every prophet sent from God had to deal with domestic prophets, also called false prophets. This is because most courts had prophets who may have slowly become domesticated because of all the goodies they enjoyed from the kings. Remember Isaiah was able to see the Lord after such a king died?

Who is your favorite prophet? Why do you love him? Is it because his messages draw you closer to God or does he make you feel very nice with yourself? Does he threaten your status quo or does he affirm it?

Does his approach inspire fear like Samuel’s to the Bethlehemites or do you run looking for his word for the fun in it? Does his message bring about riots as happened to Paul and the apostles or everybody is always crying for it? Would you rather replace the messenger like was attempted on Moses many times or would you kill to keep him around?

These are a few distinctions between a domestic prophet and an external one. And I need to repeat that the domestic prophet was as much a prophet like the other one. The only difference is that he was domesticated or tamed by the city (you can say church or denomination). Those who refused to be domesticated were rejected by the city and only come when they had a very important message from God. And even then they come at the risk of their lives.

What kind of prophet is your favorite pastor or preacher? What kind of prophet are you on social media? What kinds of prophets are you drawn to when you want to hear from God? Will you run to your favorite ones when you are in a real spiritual crisis or does he exist for the purposes of pampering your ego when things are doing well?

How domesticated is your prophet? How connected to heaven is he? Does he dwell inside the city or is he in the watchtower to spot the approach of the enemy of your soul? Is he more informed about the current affairs and trending topics than about releases from heaven? Does he depend on his earlier releases from heaven to spice his messages or are his messages having the fresh aroma of the heavens? Can you predict his next message or series of messages or are you only sure of his relevance in the courts of God? Is he a superstar here or does he have the kind of glow Moses had from too close proximity to heaven?

I just wanted to explain how it is that I appear so opposed to your favorite spiritual leaders. I am a watchman. You can also call me an external spiritual auditor and so will continue doing my best to connect the city to an accurate assessment of their spiritual status. I will point out the enemies I see even if they happen to have taken over the leadership of some churches as the prophets responsible for the gates were enjoying all that status and support.

I need to add that over the years I have been invited to be a pastor by many churches and God has always refused me that ‘privilege’. Probably God wants me to speak His messages from outside the pastorate and congregational context though He has never given me the reason why He would not allow me to be a pastor. And I am not writing this as a complaint. I am content to be where God has placed me and would not choose anywhere else.

Use the scriptures to judge me. I have nothing against your superstars except that they should not be superstars in the first place. In fact that is the point at which they probably became domesticated.