The Journey II

 Are you saying true men of God are rare because the level of commitment and sacrifice required to walk in that authority is lacking? You’ve got to get with the times, my guy. That may have been the way back before the interwebs and pink-haired ladies telling you there were pet dinosaurs a plenty in heaven, but now we’ve entered a new era where sacrifice, faithfulness, and obedience are as anathema a word as holiness. It’s a free-for-all. You fake it until you make it, you say more and more insane things to get an audience, and whether it’s true or not doesn’t really matter as long as it’s entertaining and doesn’t stray into the land of the Biblical too often.

If the current crop of most popular evangelists, pastors, teachers, or, dare I say, self-proclaimed prophets are anything to go by, the only thing you should steer clear of if you want to make it in the God biz is Biblical accuracy. There just isn’t a big enough audience for that. Who’s going to make the mortgage payments on your McMansion or the car payments on your Bentley?  

All you have to do is declare that you are a prophet of the Lord or the oracle of the almighty. You simply speak into existence that which is not. Remember the adage: if you repeat something often enough with enough intensity, eventually, people come to believe it.

You sound like a wet blanket, there, buckaroo. Why not let people experiment with the prophetic? Because this isn’t Asian fusion night at the junior college, where you try to blend flavors and come up with an edible dish. Either you’re called, or you’re not. You may desire to prophesy, but it doesn’t mean God will grant you that desire. If He doesn’t, trying to manufacture it all on your own is a recipe for the greatest disaster of your life.

If you want to get a snapshot of what happens to those who go without being sent and those who speak without being spoken to, riffle through Jeremiah and Ezekiel a spell, maybe even Lamentations and Isaiah. Just as a refresher. Perhaps even as a reminder of who the God we serve is, not who this modern era presents Him as.

What about your sons and daughters prophesying and your old men dreaming dreams? You’re just trying to quench the spirit! It doesn’t say all your daughters, sons, old men, and maidservants will dream dreams, have visions, or prophesy. Compared to the age of prophets, where there would be one or two per generation, yes, the number has increased, and the percentages have grown somewhat, but that particular prophecy in Joel was fulfilled in the Book of Acts, and even Peter pointed to it identifying it as such.

Contrary to the cessationist wing of Christendom, I don’t believe that prophecy, the prophetic, or the gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased with the passing of that generation. The devil would not be counterfeiting them with abandon if they were no longer available in their authentic form.  Biblically speaking, you’d have to make a lot of inferences and twist more than a handful of Scriptures to conclude that God decided to snatch away what He gifted the church for no other reason than some individual or another decided it was so.

It’s not a new thing, either. Since the days of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, there were people trying to paint God into a corner by saying something He didn’t say, expecting Him to bend to their will. Someone speaking something in His name without Him saying it does not minimize or weaken God if He does not bring it to pass. It just exposes the individual as a false prophet. The problem is that what the false prophets are saying is so attractive that we overlook their falsehoods time and again because they’re telling us what we want to hear.

Acts 2:38-39, “Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

If you have to leave out chunks of a particular scripture to buoy your argument, you’re not rightly dividing the word. If the gift of the Holy Spirit was reserved for just one generation, why did Peter mention their children, and who are all who are afar off that he was referring to if it was supposed to be a flash in the pan that dissipated as soon as it materialized?

God did not lower His standards to allow for sons and daughters to prophesy and the old men to dream dreams. He foresaw the advent of the Holy Spirit, the pouring out thereof, the gifts being distributed among a healthy body of believers, and the fact there would be a few billion more people roaming about during the last days. God was not operating with limited understanding or limited knowledge of what the world would be like today, a hundred years ago, or two thousand years ago.

He knew precisely what would be, how it would be, why it would be, and when it would be. You can’t catch God off guard. You can’t surprise Him or find Him on the back foot. This is why when He tells us how things will be before the return of Jesus, we should take it to heart and understand that the world will only get worse from here. The hearts of evil men will wax more evil, the rage of the godless will become more unhinged, and those who are sitting on the fence will have to choose to either belong to God or be of the world. You can’t have both; you can’t be both, and if you choose to belong to Him, you will possess the sort of faith that will bring about and generate good works.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.