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"The Gift of Prophecy" - A.W. Tozer

8/29/2018

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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"God, Send Us Prophets!" - Leonard Ravenhill

8/28/2018

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"There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist.

Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnant "churchianity."

Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.

Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do."

Let him reject ecclesiastical favors.

Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous, nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting.

Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move men to God.

Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the day.

Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism.

God, send us PROPHETS!"

- Leonard Ravenhill

“In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin Sparks once said, “has almost always been that of recovery”. The prophet is God’s detective seeking for lost spiritual treasures. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by the measure of his unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him. He has no price tags. He is totally “otherworldly”. He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile. He marches to another drummer!” - Leonard Ravenhill

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"Seriously Count the Cost" - George Whitefield

8/23/2018

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"What say you?

Are you resolved to live godly in Christ Jesus, notwithstanding the consequence will be, that you must suffer persecution?

You are beginning to build; but have you taken the Lord's advice, to "sit down first and count the cost?" Have you well weighed with yourselves that weighty declaration, "He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me;" and again, "Unless a man forsake all that he has he cannot be My disciple?" Perhaps some of you have great possessions; will not you go away sorrowful, if Christ should require you to sell all that you have! Others of you again may be kinsmen, or some way related, or under obligations, to the high priests, or other great personages, who may be persecuting the Church of Christ: What say you? Will you, with Moses, "rather choose to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season?"

Perhaps you may say, "my friends will not oppose me." That is more than you know: in all probability your chief enemies will be those of your own household. If therefore they should oppose you, are you willing naked to follow the naked Christ? And to wander about in sheep-skins and goats-skins, in dens and caves of the earth; being afflicted, destitute, tormented, rather than not be Christ's disciples? You are now all following with zeal, as Ruth and Orpah did Naomi, and may weep under the word; but are not your tears, crocodile tears?

And, when difficulties come, will you not go back from following the Lord, as Orpah departed from following Naomi? Have you really the root of grace in your hearts? Or, are you only stony-ground hearers? You receive the word with joy; but, when persecution arises because of the Word, will you not be immediately offended?

Be not angry with me for putting these questions to you. I am jealous over you, but it is with a godly jealousy: for, alas! how many have put their hands to the plough, and afterwards have shamefully looked back? I only deal with you, as our Lord did with persons that said, "Lord, I will follow you wherever you will. The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man, (says he) has not where to lay His head." What say you? Are you willing to endure hardness, and thereby approve yourselves good soldiers of Jesus Christ? You now come on foot out of towns and villages to hear the word, and receive me as a messenger of God: but will you not by and by cry out, Away with him, away with him; it is not fit such a fellow should live upon the earth?

Perhaps some of you, like Hazael, may say, "Are we dogs, that we should do this?" But, alas! I have met with many unhappy souls, who have drawn back unto perdition, and have afterwards accounted me their enemy, for dealing faithfully with them, though once, if it were possible, they would have plucked out their own eyes, and have given them unto me.

Sit down, therefore, I beseech you, and seriously count the cost, and ask yourselves again and again, whether you count all things but dung and dross, and are willing to suffer the loss of all things, so that you may win Christ, and be found in Him."

- Whitefield's Sermons: "Persecution, Every Christians's Lot."

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"Slanders & Reproaches" - John Bunyan

8/23/2018

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“But when Satan perceived that his thus tempting and assaulting me, would not answer his design, to wit, to overthrow the ministry, and make it ineffectual, as to the ends thereof, then he tried another way, which was, to stir-up the minds of the ignorant and malicious to load me with slanders and reproaches: now therefore, I may say, that what the devil could devise, and his instruments invent, was whirled up and down the country against me, thinking, as I said, that by that means they should make my ministry to be abandoned.

It began therefore to be rumored up and down among the people, that I was a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman, and the like. – To all which I shall only say, God knows that I am innocent. But as for mine accusers, let them provide themselves to meet me before the tribunal of the Son of God, there to answer for all these things, with all the rest of their iniquities, unless God shall give them repentance for them, for the which I pray with all my heart.

But that which was reported with the boldest confidence, was, that I had my misses, my whores, my bastards, yea, two wives at once, and the like. Now these slanders, with the other, I glory in, because but slanders, foolish or knavish lies, and falsehoods cast upon me by the Devil and his seed. And should I not be dealt with thus wickedly by the world, I should want one sign of a saint, and a child of God. “Blessed are ye,” said the Lord Jesus, “when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

These things, therefore, upon mine own account, troubled me not; no, though they were twenty times more than they are. I have a good conscience, and whereas they speak evil of me, as an evil-doer, they shall be ashamed that falsely accuse my good conversation in Christ.

So then, what shall I say to those that have thus bespattered me? Shall I threaten them? Shall I chide them? Shall I flatter them? Shall I entreat them to hold their tongues? No, not I. Were it not for that these things make them ripe for damnation that are the authors and abettors, I would say unto them “Report it,” because it will increase my glory.

Therefore I bind these lies and slanders to me as an ornament; it belongs to my Christian profession to be vilified, slandered, reproached, and reviled; and since all this is nothing else, as my God and my conscience do bear me witness, I rejoice in reproaches for Christ’s sake.

Now, as Satan endeavored, by reproaches and slanders to make me vile among my countrymen, that, if possible, my preaching might be made of none effect; so there was added hereto, a long and tedious imprisonment, that thereby I might be frightened from the service of Christ, and the world terrified and made afraid to hear me preach. Of which I shall in the next place give you a brief account.” - John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

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"The Most Fearful Slander" - C.H. Spurgeon

8/21/2018

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“There has been no single Church of God existing in England for these fifty years which has had to pass through more trial than we have done…scarce a day rolls over my head in which the most villainous abuse, the most fearful slander is not uttered against me both privately and by the public press; every engine is employed to put down God’s minister – every lie that man can invent is hurled at me… They have not checked our usefulness as a Church; they have not thinned our congregation; that which was to be but a spasm – an enthusiasm which it was hoped would only last an hour – God has daily increased; not because of me, but because of that gospel which I preach…” - Charles Spurgeon

My reader, can you relate? Think of C.H. Spurgeon when he was lonely and maligned during the downgrade controversy. The man was not only persecuted in the early parts of his ministry but much more in the latter! Reflecting on these things, think of what he wrote while commenting on Psalm 7:1-2 in the Treasury of David, saying: “the wounds of a sword will heal, but the wounds of the tongue cut deeper than the flesh, and are not soon cured. Slander leaves a slur, even if it be wholly disproved. Common fame, although notoriously a common liar, has very many believers. Once let an ill word get into men's mouths, and it is not easy to get it fully out again. The Italians say that good repute is like the cypress, once cut, it never puts forth leaf again; this is not true if our character be cut by a stranger's hand, but even then it will not soon regain its former verdure. Oh, 'tis a meanness most detestable to stab a good man in his reputation, but diabolical hatred observes no nobility in its mode of warfare. We must be ready for this trial, for it will surely come upon us. If God was slandered in Eden, we shall surely be maligned in this land of sinners. Gird up your loins, ye children of the resurrection, for this fiery trial awaits you all.” And again at another time, Spurgeon said, “When we are slandered it is a joy that the Lord knows us, and cannot be made to doubt our uprightness he will not hear the lie against us, but he will hear our prayer against the lie.”

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"The Gift of Prophecy" - A.W. Tozer

"God, Send Us Prophets!" - Leonard Ravenhill

"Seriously Count the Cost" - George Whitefield

"Slanders & Reproaches" - John Bunyan

"The Most Fearful Slander" - C.H. Spurgeon

Persecution

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