The First Prophet: Abel - Part 2

Quite naturally we associate prophets with prophecy.
A prophet must therefore prophesy - No!
It is about actions and words - No!

Abel, the first prophet, has not one recorded word in Genesis. Not one speaking is attributed to him. He has no words. There is no prophecy . . . but he 'speaks'. And it is his blood(s) that speak(s): the testimony of his life - not an action bolted on to the spiritual life like a once-in-a-moment spiritual gift. The message is him; without guidance, he has intuited the requirement of God. He sees the state of the three individuals around him (Adam, Eve and Cain) and he instinctively knows the demand of God. The Law of God is written upon his heart. His wordlessness is not by accident, not some freak of a concise and sparse narrative style, but the specific design of God. His life, his action by faith and his murder IS the prophecy. His life is the parchment upon which God writes. The irony escapes neither us nor God Himself; it has always been the blood that seeps and speaks, that trickles - the life given in death, the prophet that speaks without words. And in a sense Abel prophesies the treatment of every prophet that came after him - even Jesus Himself, especially Jesus Himself. A prophet isn't a prophet unless he dies, unless his word is flesh, unless he is mistreated by those closest to him. Abel is the complete prophet and he is unacknowledged as one. Even amongst prophets he is hidden and of 'no account'. Thus the character and disposition of the Prophet is not found in words but in the actions of faith when there is no Law and no guidance.

The First Prophet: Abel - Part 1

This is the very seed and beginning of what it means to be truely prophetic.  No matter what we think of the Prophet or the Prophetic, we must deal with its inception in the bloodline of humanity. Here, it starts with Abel, and the first expression of anything in scripture is the anchor for anything that follows (Matthew 24:34-35). Take heed if you wish to understand the 'Prophetic'. The Prophet comes first before the Prophetic, from which it derives its nature and name. To be sure, the Prophet always comes first before the Prophetic: the noun - then the adjective; the Person - then the People. The whole house, the whole Nave and Ark rest upon such men who are laid in the dirt . . . and here is the deepest of them, the lowliest of them, the first of them. LISTEN! He still speaks. And the prophet can never speak unless it is by "the blood".

Born to an avaricious woman, who kept a superficial faith despite seeing the Lord God face-to-face, Abel was the younger of two bothers who may have been inconsequential to his mother - given his name: breath, vapour, vanity, emptiness, transitory . . . one might even add "pointless". A second labour for Eve could not have been easy, and no doubt the novelty of bearing another man had worn thin. Could Eve's naming of Abel (she named Cain) truely reflect her state of mind, that the burden of life on earth was exhausting? Did this affect how she saw her weaker son? If so, was it that Cain picked up on this? That from Cain's mother Cain absorbed - from young - the entitlement and right to possess and to have. To this point, I doubt Eve experienced pain like this and the words of the Lord God would have echoed sourly in her ears: "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children." (Genesis 3:16) Was her heart barren and empty for her younger son? Indeed, she had the fine, strong Cain; why would she need another? It was not until Abel's untimely and cruel removal would her heart be provoked to mourn for her son, but too late. Abel's evident weakness at birth belied his strength, yet provoked Eve's disgust and contempt for the first weak human on earth; Adam and Cain were magnificent specimens of physical humanity. Eve relished the physical; she could see little else. The breath that she thought so fleeting that would soon evaporate was the very stuff of life itself.

It is into and from such situations that a prophet is born: whether in family, community or national estrangement; whether in self-doubt or ideological barrenness. He is given into such circumstances as an unacknowledged gift, and out of those circumstances is he formed. He is the goodness that comes out of the cradle of sin, totally ignorant of his effect on those around him. Even his mother considers abandoning him for the pain he inadvertantly inflicts upon her. He is wanted by no one. This, and this alone is the hallmark of the Prophet: complete and utter weakness.

The Self-Sent Judas

We are in a deadly -- yet needless -- competition with the world to prove ourselves. The lust of vindication weighs heavy on the Church's soul to justify its position in the market of the world: to prove itself relevant, contemporary and compassionate. It shouts with the other clammering voices to show how astute we are; we yearn to be listened to, to be taken seriously by the world, to be noted by the world's media. But we are playing their game by their rules and we sink in self-degradation, for the Church -- the vessel and ark of God's promises -- has abandoned the ground for which her Saviour bled and died. We have descended into the fray, into the midst of the battle because we have focussed on men and their needs -- not our Lord. Rather, we should have stayed on the mountain top with our arms outstretched to the Lord, until he had given victory. But we have looked down from the mountain and, moved by the sight of our brothers falling in battle, we have been pulled by an empathy and emotion little better than human sentiment from our ground into the valley. We call this 'love'. It is the disobedience of a deserter.

We have centred on the seen need rather than the unseen Lord of the Harvest. It is easier to look at a physical need, meet it and move on rather than look into the sick dark souls of men, including our own.

We have sent ourselves because we felt vindicated at last by a blanket divine diktat: "Go!" We have run ahead and fallen headlong into a trap. We do not Go! because we or God love the world. We do not Go! out of utilitarian necessity: they need Jesus! We do not Go! out of emotion or empathy or tears. We Go! because we are sent by divine commission, by the Sovereign authority and will of Jesus Himself. There is no other reason that compels us. It is in His name that we go - not ours!

"Stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." (Luke 24:49)

But we have not stayed in the courts of the Lord on the temple mount. We were told what to do; Jesus told us! We have not waited for the Holy Spirit to fill us. But Jesus breathed the Spirit upon us! We have left the city. Jesus sent us; who can stop us? Wait! I know how to do this! I've seen Jesus do it before. WAIT!

We have left the city before Pentecost; we did not stay and abide in the temple. So taken with our cause we have forgotten the reason for the cause and the first cause Himself. We should have waited in the city; we should have met and prayed daily in the courts; we should have pondered the life and death and the resurrection; we should have allowed His Spirit to put together the complete jigsaw of Christ from the Law of Moses to the Psalms and the Prophets; we should have waited until we saw Him who is risen, until we saw Him -- for who He is -- in all His wholeness and perfection and completeness; we should have waited until we got Him, until we got it, until we understood, until we grasped Him, until we had been clothed with Him from on high.

The power for going cannot be separated from Him who sends, and Him who sends cannot be separated from Him who died and rose. We do not go to finish a work for God, as if there is anything we can add! But we go because it is finished. Until we get the perfection of His work, we will always seek to complete something that is completed already, for we have an inferior view of Jesus' work upon the Cross. We cannot leave until we are completed, untilt here is Shalom: no work is perfected until it comes out of the Rest of God. But we are taken with ourselves and the self-importance of our role, that it is an emergency! They need us now. Jesus waited days before raising Lazarus; we would not have waited. We are taken with our trip and our destination and what we will DO when we get there. God is on our side. Our authority, our commissioning, our cause. God does not need us, Jesus has done All. Nothing more need be done apart from obedience.

But we have absconded too early on an errand we thought the Lord had given us . . . just like Judas (John 13:27). We want to do it quickly, in our time. But ultimately we betray Him. We convince ourselves it is God's will: the errand is even performed in front of the whole church, and the apostles look on; the contract is completed in the Temple before the High Priest. We thought we had a cunning way. We thought our way right, but we left before the supper, before the bread was broken and the wine shared. We left to do what we thought was right. We came to Gethsemane too late and from the wrong direction.

Every refusal to wait is a betrayal.

'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Part 4

Both "might" and "power" in the original Hebrew are masculine, however, the "Spirit" - Ruach - is feminine. There is a reason for this.

"Might" refers to resources of all kinds, whether in ourselves or in the world or between collectives of individuals. It assumes either skill, organisation, qualification, ability or an inward worthiness through qualification of some form. 'In ourselves' implies valour or bravery or some such quality highly valued. 'In the world' speaks of a force or unit of military or financial or manual resources, as such recognised and known by a distinct identity. 'Between us' is the 'system' of efficency or production or a network of labour that is ordered or works as a unit. These, together, are all the abilites that would normally be put to good use to complete any job. However, there is a divine embargo upon this 'might'. Not only this, but there is this embargo on any and every work of God that has the hallmark of the Spirit upon it . . . not just for Zerubbabel, not just for Zechariah - but for all of us.

One could not conceive of any mighty engineering project without many if not all of the above 'mights' being included. Indeed, this was how the Tower of Babel was constructed and assembled. Man builds, but God grows. It is man's remit to plant and to water, to tend and to care. For every work of God there is a season, but for man any time will do as long as it is now and quickly. One thing man will not do is wait. How often we work for God but without Him! How often is our divine host and midwife excluded from proceedings?

All these 'mights' existed before the commission came from God. We could quite easily fulfil this commission through these 'mights'; we could fulfil them for Him but without Him - once more asserting our independence and autonomy from God whilst serving Him! Such 'service' is an outrageous sin and usurping of God's authority, a setting aside of God's 'niavete' for our own sophistication and 'knowingness'. After all, we live in the real world, we know how things are done and achieved - otherwise nothing will happen! How can a Spirit build a temple? But we forget how He brooded over the waters and what came of that. Or is it that we want to make a name for ourselves? By using our education, our natural talents and skills, our coordinated effort, we want to serve God out of ourselves out of our convenience to show what we can do.

The question needs to be asked and answered; it is not enough to say I am going to use all these 'mights' for God. They may well be used, but it is not our place to choose them. Silence must come in the aftermath of the commission; reaching for the first tool to hand must stop. The "Not . . . " must sting us and shock us. This is a different project, wholly other, where the Eternal Spirit irrupts into this world; it must bear the distinctive of that same Spirit - not the world it manifests in. Until we are willing to let go of every competency we possess, and place them in limbo indefinitely, He will not use us in the work that will last. Undoubtedly, we could build skyscrapers and corporations and mega-churches but, when the fire comes, will they be stubble? The test is this: do we despise the small thing? Do we look down upon it and wince? The mustard seed? The wheatgerm? The stemcell? Or will we be like Jack and the Beanstalk?

The power of the Cross is the power not to do: we have the power to do something but we refuse to do it. We are silent; we are still in the face of the enemy; we stand and raise our hands; we call upon the name of the Lord; we consult the prophet and we obey. We are weak so that God can be our strength, and in that gap, that dark hopeless abyss of separation the Son of Man will rise. And if He is lifted up many will be drawn to Him.

Jachin and Boaz: He Establishes in Strength

If a man is to be made by God he must be alone with God: not in a bodily sense but in a societal sense. He must feel the estrangement of those nearest and dearest to him, who have his 'best interests' at heart. He must be rejected and scorned by them; he must be patronised by them. They will think him mad and try to restrain him with derision. Why? So he can stand alone with God without looking for support from 'Egypt' or any other source: his allegiances and alliances must be rendered null and void. Once he is torn away from the familial and societal structure everything is exposed, the soul ties and the affections. He is pulled until something snaps.  But this isolation is NOT self-enforced, it is the result of trying to be near those he loves, of speaking to those he loves of Him whom he loves, and then he finds he is totally alone with God in the heart of all the people. This is what God wanted all along. He wanted that man for Himself, He wanted to see what lay in his heart and now He knows. Then he will be made a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall (Jeremiah 1:18). He will become the embodiment of God's stout word. He will be established in strength (2 Chronicles 3:15-17).

True familial ties are not based on blood but upon obedience to God. This man, who has no place to rest his head, is willing to sacrifice his family for God, he is willing to replace his family and allow his family to be usurped by another, all for his obedience to God. We might say, Jesus has done this. There is no need for me to go through the same suffering. Our limbs do not just belong to Jesus as if we are a separate entity, these limbs are Him Himself (1 Corinthians 6:15). Therefore the privilege of being made by God and being made like God is to walk like God (1 John 2:6); we will go through everything He did if we follow Him. Why would we expect anything else?