Acceptable Rudeness

Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation. (Daniel 5:17)

I have written about kings and the authority they wield.

Remember in Matthew 22 when people were slaughtered for refusing to attend a royal wedding?

Yet what we are seeing here appears way worse than just refusing to attend the wedding of a king’s son.

I want you to also contrast this to the same Daniel dealing with a similar situation in the previous chapter.

How does someone throw such words to a king? How does someone trash gifts from a king?

The context is the determinant.

Nebuchadnezzar was proud when God confronted him with that dream, just as Belshazzar is here.

But the father did not enjoy the revelation his son had. The elder did not have the history the younger had.

It is the difference between sin and rebellion as I wrote extensively some time ago.

Belshazzar had seen God in action against pride yet went ahead and poured scorn to the same God.

The prophet does not therefore come to a king bewildered by something he had no idea from whence it came as he had done to his father.

He therefore had no polite and respectful words for him.

And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; (Daniel 5:22)

It therefore means that Belshazzar’s pride was a clear affront to God, meaning that God had no nice words for him.

It might appear as if Daniel was the one suffering from pride from his first sentence.

But Daniel was God’s servant and so had the fury the Divine had. He therefore spoke with the ire God had vested in him.

The fact of the matter is that the king had overshot his relevance in his blatant affront to God.

Whether he killed Daniel for insubordination or not was irrelevant for that moment since God had to speak as clearly as He could, not only to the rebellious king, but also to his audience.

That is why Daniel appears this rude.

And you remember Samuel doing the same with Saul when he rebelled.

That is also what we see when David is responding to Goliath’s blasphemy. That is what we see when Nathan is confronting David. That is what we see when Elijah is dealing with Ahab. That is what we see when John the Baptist is responding to the religious bigots of his time and even Herod the king. That is what we see when Jesus is speaking to the religious right. In fact that is why He whipped people out of the temple for turning His command into commerce.

There can be no nice words for pride and the resulting rebellion.

Yet it is important to know that God’s spokesmen are not always rude.

And I say this because some ‘prophets’ assume that they must offend to be relevant.

Nothing can be farther from the truth.

God pleads when need be. God soothes when that is what is required.

But God is firmly rude when the boundaries are blatantly breached.

God will thunder when goats find comfort in His tabernacle as we saw with Jesus. And this because they really have no business in the house called by His name.

It is therefore important to establish a context before talking about the prophet and his word.

Speaking politely to rebellion is sin. Comforting someone going through judgment is offensive to God who is seeking to restore the sinner through that pain.

I am among the ministers called wet blankets because we do not entertain the comfort of goats in a sheep enclosure. We are all the times castigated for bursting the many balloons and bubbles motivational preachers are unceasingly blowing.

We also love sharing nice and comforting messages. We are not allergic to motivation.

But it pains to realise that we could by that motivation be leading throngs to perdition because we are not confronting their sin.

That is why our message many times has to be like Daniel’s here.

It is the context that determines a minister’s response to whatever situation he encounters.

But it is important to realise that the said minister must be attuned to the heavenly frequency to be able to accurately and in a God-glorifying manner respond as the situation demands.

You see, five identical situations may present themselves to him that will require five different responses.

 A seeker will be experiencing discomfort or pain to draw him to seek God’s response and reception to reward their search.

A child will be undergoing the same for the purposes of God drawing him to seek a deeper relationship.

A sinner will be experiencing the same to open him to rebuke and correction.

A rebel will be undergoing the same as a punishment for his rebellion.

And the saint will be undergoing the same to remind him of the transient nature of the present and prompt him to desire heaven and live accordingly.

What is presented as a single circumstance will therefore demand a completely different set of responses from a minister.

What do you think will happen when a minister responds with a rebuke to the saint? Or worse, consolation to the rebellious?

I know it appears as if I am complicating issues. But it is because nothing in ministry is cut and dried for each and every situation just as God will never respond to His servants or even creation in a wholesale manner.

We will be judged by copying and pasting earlier successful methods of ministry because each and every situation is unique, requiring its own unique ministration.

Imitating success in ministry is as absurd as expecting a horse to thrive where an ass does or a racing car succeed where a military vehicle does.

That is why we read of God many times rebuking prophets for borrowing prophecies from each other.

By the way, even demonic manifestations are as unique as the demons manifesting.

We MUST be in a close relationship with God and through His word to be able to accurately know when and how we should minister and speak.