Elijah
I want to share something that was written in the following book foreword. It was posted on Pastor Ken's site, Apprising Ministries.In the foreword to Leonard Ravenhill’s anointed book Why Revival Tarries A.W. Tozer wrote:
Great industrial concerns have in their employ men who are needed only when there is a breakdown somewhere. When something goes wrong with the machinery, these men spring into action to locate and remove the trouble and get the machinery rolling again. For these men a smoothly operating system has no interest. They are specialists concerned with trouble and how to find and correct it.
In the Kingdom of God things are not too different. God had always had His specialists whose chief concern has been the moral breakdown, the decline in the spiritual health of the nation or the church. Such men were Elijah, Jeremiah, Malachi and others of their kind who appeared at critical moments in history to reprove, rebuke, and exhort in the name of God and righteousness.
A thousand or ten thousand ordinary Old Testament priests or New Testament pastors and teachers could labor quietly on almost unnoticed while the spiritual life of Israel or the Church was normal. But let the people of God go astray from the paths of truth and immediately the specialist appeared almost out of nowhere. His instinct for trouble brought him to the help of the Lord and of Israel.
Such a man was likely to be drastic, radical, possibly at times violent, and the curious crowd that gathered to watch him work soon branded him as extreme, fanatical, negative. And in a sense they were right. He was single-minded, severe, fearless, and these were the qualities the circumstances demanded. He shocked some, frightened others and alienated not a few, but he knew Who had called him and what he was sent to do. His ministry was geared to the emergency, and that fact marked him out as different, a man apart.
Those who know Leonard Ravenhill will recognize in him the religious specialist, the man sent from God not to carry on the conventional work of the Church, but to beard the priests of Baal on their own mountaintop, to shame the careless priest at the altar, to face the false prophet and warn the people who are being led astray by him.
Such a man as this is not an easy companion. The professional evangelist who leaves the wrought-up meeting as soon as it ends to hurry over to the most expensive restaurant to feast and crack jokes with his sponsors will find this man something of an embarrassment, for he cannot turn off the burden of the Holy Ghost as one would turn off a faucet. He insists upon being a Christian all the time, everywhere; and again, that marks him out as different.
When I was a child, I wanted to be like the great men of the Bible. Now, ignoring the fact that I'm not a man, I still have that desire. Sometimes I wonder if anyone will listen to me. As a woman, I have a much gentler role to fulfill. It is one that currently needs attention, as I have a laundry list of "gentleness" shortcomings I'm trying to iron out (pun, yes).
But I still wonder, if I put off all that hinders, taking the grace to do so as it is handed to me (because only God can provide the grace necessary to become like Christ), and remain faithful and obedient (that obedience part being key) if I could become the voice for truth I always wanted to be. Surely in the past I suffered from misplaced zeal. I surely do now as well.
But if I focus on Him, on following the corrective measures He places in my life for my benefit, will I be counted worthy of suffering for the cross of Christ by countering the falsehood creeping into the church with the Truth?
I was reminded of this as I read through my journal, the one I took to church to write notes in. These notes were jotted down shortly before the Lord shook me out of my slumber. I looked back over them and found a lot of error that I had not noticed before. I wouldn't have anyway, because I was not wise to what was happening. But now I am wise to the subtle humanization of the church (growing more humanistic by the minute). Now I see the errors.
I know I must continue to grow in the knowledge of the Lord. I must continue to grow in my faith, crying out to Him for help when my feet slip. And I wonder if I haven't been placed in the line of contact as I have been for such a time as this? And if I say something, what then? And if I don't say something, what then? I've already received a rather nebulous response that I didn't know how to receive when it arrived, but now I have a much firmer argument against it. But what about that?
What do I do?
posted by Marcian @ 10:04 PM
1 Comments:
Be what He is making you, and He WILL use you. Rest in Him, and He WILL work you. Wait for Him and He WILL open a door for you.
Your passion and your prayerful spirit are always evident in your writing. You have been given the ability to express deep, heart-piercing truths. I have no doubt that God will use these things for His glory in His way.
Be encouraged. Phil.1:6
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