Unshared Revelations

I want us to look at something we all know with a different lens.

Have you ever asked why Isaac favored Esau and Rebecca favored Jacob?

They were twins, born the same day.

Yet their father loved the firstborn and the mother was so ‘smitten’ by the younger that she could risk a curse to cheat the system that was her husband to ensure that her choice was blessed.

I want to take us back to her pregnancy.

Remember she waited for twenty years to conceive? That Isaac had to pray for a breakthrough?

Then the pregnancy became complicated, so complicated that she sought God concerning what she was carrying.

God answered her before the twins were born.

The elder will serve the younger was God’s revelation.

I doubt that she ever shared that with her husband, making him behave as his culture required, prepare the first born to take over leadership.

But Rebecca did not completely forget the word she was given. Meaning that she moved with the revelation.

Suppose Rebecca had shared God’s revelation with her husband, do you think he could have called Esau for the blessing?

Isaac was a man of faith. Incidentally he came from a background where he overtook his father’s firstborn because of revelation.

He simply could not have trashed revelation since he was the product of one in more ways than one.

For one, Abraham had waited for him for an even longer time. Then he was born when his brother was fourteen years old.

But the promise that Abraham walked with required him to gift Ishmael and send him away so that Isaac could be the heir of Abraham’s call and revelation.

It is inconceivable that he could trash a revelation so easily. And Rebecca could have quickly reminded him.

The easiest conclusion is that Rebecca received the revelation and harbored it in her heart as she may have forgotten it since she did not share it with the other concerned party.

It is when she heard Isaac asking to bless Esau that the revelation boiled over since she then realised she had to do something. Yet it was also instinctive since she had probably forgotten the revelation. Only her system resonated with the revelation since it was over forty years since she had heard it.

That is why she resorted to create situations and look for other solutions when the situation boiled over.

And even then, she did not share the revelation with Isaac.

Are you getting something?

All that animosity between Edom and Israel could have been avoided had Rebecca shared God’s revelation with Isaac as soon as she had received it.

I guess she thought it was not very serious or urgent. What of the pressures of a first pregnancy full of complications? Then the joys of motherhood, especially after that much delay and prayer? Then raising two completely different children.

Then she forgot, first the revelation becoming an increasingly vague message before becoming completely irrelevant to the way life was taking her.

But that revelation had affected her. That is why she loved Jacob despite all his ‘laziness’ and character flaws. Incidentally, that was the only positive thing she got from the revelation.

What am I aiming at?

Revelation must be shared as soon as is practically possible. Unless of course God specifically orders otherwise which is very rare even in scripture. And even then, God will ask you to write it down.

Why is that so?

We are very forgetful.

Research has shown that at the end of Sunday someone will have forgotten over 90% of the sermon though I do not remember who did it.

Yet a simple way to confirm that is ask someone immediately after the sermon the specifics of the sermon. I guarantee you that you will be shocked, especially if the sermon was very exciting.

There simply is no hope for remembering a revelation a year down the line unless there is a way of recording it properly since our memory is hopelessly inadequate.

As someone who writes messages, I can confirm to you that no message, however powerful, lasts beyond a few days.

In fact, I read some of my posts of yore and wonder whether I am the one who wrote them. I suspect I could have had really appreciated the same if someone had just copy pasted the message on their blog.

If I can forget a message that impacted me so much before I posted it, what makes you think that I will remember one that was given in my distress?

Yet that was Rebecca’s reality.

Is this a message for today?

I am convinced so. And I think it is even more urgent.

What with all the flashy avalanche of information wherever we look? What of our even lower attention span due to that?

One day might therefore be too long to remember something.

In fact, I know from experience that if I decided, or was forced by circumstances, to wait for an opportune time to write, or complete writing a revelation, I most likely will have forgotten the main parts of the same.

In fact, I have in the computer innumerable messages that I had started writing but delayed after writing some bit. But now I have no way to complete the message since I have no way of knowing how to continue writing it.

Revelation is timely. That is why we talk of rhema moments.

It therefore means that if its time passes, there is very little chance of it being resurrected, however much we tried.

And that is why I always battle preachers who strive to live on their past glories by preaching their past powerful sermons.

They are giving their flock stale food when God always has the freshest of food for them if the shepherd is listening.

Revelation outside its time could be poison.

I simply want us to appreciate the fact that a revelation MUST be timely for it to serve its purpose.

Hoarding a message for whatever reason is not only sin but can eventually cause more damage than it was intended to avert.

And it is sin because it could abort God’s purpose or season.

Suppose Joseph had refused to share his dreams?

Do you think God’s process could have started?

But I need to say something else that many will call a threat.

God will overlook you and look for somebody else, somebody who is obedient since it really is impossible to abort God’s purposes.

Saul the king was God’s person for the season Israel wanted a king. But his disobedience created the room for somebody else to be chosen and him completely bypassed and overlooked.

Now imagine seeing and hearing somebody saying and doing something God had asked you to do and you delayed because of many becauses! Imagine hearing somebody sharing a message God gave you, word for word because you thought the time was not right for it!

Yet God always does that

Even being made a replacement for a rebellious servant is not enough guarantee because God’s obedience quotient doesn’t change.

Jeroboam was annihilated, yet he had replaced the rebellion in Solomon. And the one sent to annihilate him was also annihilated because he followed his own ways.

But we are talking about a message in its time whose dangers of delay go farther than individual disobedience because they affect more than the disobedient siren.

Why siren?

Imagine a house catches fire and you are the one next to the siren switch. And you delay activating it.

Like Ezekiel was told, you will be liable for all the lives that get lost due to that delay.

That is the simple message in this post.

But ensure that you hear the message clearly.

A false prophet is not false because he gives a false message. An inaccurate message, a vague message, an out of time message all fall under the title false prophecy.

And the judgment for the false prophet is dire as we see in Jeremiah.

Will we clearly hear, and clearly and on time share the messages God gives to us to share?