Stojan Gajicki
We have said that God’s vision of a prophetic character is recorded in Ezekiel 3: 8: “Behold, I have given thee a cheek hard against their countenance, and a hard forehead against their forehead.” In his call to follow him, Christ always wanted to have not those who had only enthusiasm, but those who were aware of the value of such a call. Awareness of the price and the decision in my heart to follow that price creates preconditions for the prophet. To die for myself and my lifestyle is a prerequisite for giving birth (John 11: 24-25).
1. INSENSITIVITY TO PERSONAL INJUSTICE
I1. Corinthians 4: 9-13 The Apostle Paul describes the “reputation” of the apostles in the religious world and their reputation. The words, “We have become like the rubbish of the world,” say enough that they did not fight for their reputation, but cared more about being God’s servants than pleasing people (Galatians 1:10), the desire to always defend my position. and the conviction to always explain why I acted the way others “misunderstood” me, the effort to always have excuses for my actions, the feeling of being hurt when others criticize me, is a sign that my “I” is alive and not ready to go by the way appointed for the prophet. My “I” lives and seeks its right, its glory. Difficult to criticize is an indicator that my reputation depends on what people think and their evaluation. The “popularity of the prophet” must always depend on the evaluation of his Lord, the one who sends him. The security of the prophet’s personality is always based on knowledge of God, His will and obedience to that will. And there is no prayer for this that changes my character in a mystical way. This requires the same process that Christ went through, that we must go through so that God can use us as a people who have qualities and who can use those qualities to indicate order in God’s eternal kingdom. Jesus taught that. “Even though he was a son of God, he learned obedience from what he suffered.” (Hebrews 5: 8).
2. GOD FIRST TEACHES HIS PROPHET
“Arise, go out into the field, and there I will speak with you,” are the words that the Lord addressed to the prophet at the very beginning after the call (Ezekiel 3:22). Before we speak to them in this world, God must speak to us. We can only give what is given to us from above, what the prophet needs to experience in the process. Ezekiel 3:24 says, “Go, shut yourself up in your house.” If we experienced a call from the Lord, most of us would immediately rush to preach, to immediately mark on big bells who we are and how “we have a word from the Lord.” Unfortunately, there are many prophets who preach their denomination and theology under the “Lord’s firm”. Such people find themselves very offended if people do not accept their way of thinking, their understanding of the Word. They want to be known, recognized and praised at once. Jesus was unknown to the religious world. Respected theologians of the time wondered who he was and how he knew all this without attending “their theological school?” Jesus was unknown to the religious world but was therefore known to the heavenly world. Paul was also initially unknown to the churches. Prophets are people who are known first of all to God and heaven and then to people and the world. There is a period in the life of a prophet when “no one knows where he is.” This is the time when God invites him to receive in silence before Him His teachings and instructions for giving him a vocation and a task. In Ezekiel 3:25 we see the same experience as in the life of the Apostle Paul. God bound the prophet to guide him toward only one goal. From the day of the call, the prophet’s spirit, mind and all strength are dedicated to the divine plan. Paul speaks of this in Acts 20:22. During this period, the prophet loses his human identity and dies to himself and his gifts, so that God may resurrect him in a new spirit. Even our gifts should first “die” before the Lord returns them resurrected, anointed for service. Even when we are newborn children of God, we need to go through a period in which God will change our old habits and ways of thinking. Our spirit has already become completely new. (2 Corinthians 5:17), but the Holy Spirit needs to work daily in the areas of our personality – soul and body. Both soul and body should be subject to the spirit through which we have contact with God. The prophet should come to the conclusion that he cannot be greater than his Lord and that he will have the same reputation in the world as the one who walked the earth before him and who now sends him on the same mission. Many of us dream of a great preaching and pastoral career, and we react physically when we encounter criticism in the world. It is a sign that we have not passed the period in which God got the opportunity to talk to us. There is still that old man who is by nature such that he deserves fame, but not criticism. Receiving a message from the Lord does not always mean an order to pass it on to others immediately. There is a time for God’s message. How many times have the sermons been more harmful than a blessing to God’s people, just because the preacher in his impatience handed them over to people in the wrong spirit and at the wrong time! That is why God tells Ezekiel in 3:26 that he will not immediately become a great speaker, but “that his tongue will stick to his palate” so that he will not chastise them again. Ezekiel had to wait for a word from God and an opportunity created by the Holy Spirit to speak a message. Some of us must be heard always and everywhere. There was a period in my life when I thought I had to speak in every situation so that people would notice that I was there too! Then, through bitter and humiliating experiences, the Lord showed me that the most important thing is not to be seen and heard everywhere, but that it is important to speak and show yourself in His moment. Oh, if only I could speak at that conference one day! Or, if I could get to the first page of that paper! Then people would find out who I am and what I am! There are no popular Christian magazines and big conferences for “great speakers” in heaven, but there are rewards for those who could have
died to themselves and their ambitions by saying, “Yes, Father, may Your will be done.” The prophet even loses the freedom to say what he thinks. God wants His mouth to be silent while His ears are close to His voice and to say what He has heard that the Lord wants to pass over His lips.
3. EXPERIENCES THAT FORM THE PROPHET’S CHARACTER
Important events took place in the life of Ezekiel and they took all human pride from his heart. He should, at God’s request, shave his head and beard. For one Israelite it was a mockery, a disgrace! In 2 Samuel 10: 4-5, we see what a disgrace it was for David’s people when they were exposed to it. People whom God called to the service had to follow the rule not to shave their heads and beards. In Ezekiel 44:20 we see that this is also important for the priests, and in Deuteronomy 6: 5 it was said for all who responded to the call to service and accepted the Nazirite covenant. What a shame for the prophet! Who will listen to the prophet “bald” and without a beard? Will such a one say to us, “Thus saith the Lord”? The next unpleasant experience that destroyed every possibility for Ezekiel to be a famous and popular preacher and prophet, was again a request from God. Ezekiel was supposed to do something in front of the whole nation that would make him defiled according to the law (Genesis 5: 3; Genesis 7:21), Ezekiel 4: 12-15 says. If, after contact with the unclean, whether human or animal, he had contact with the sacred act of communion sacrifice, he would even be exterminated from the people. Ezekiel thus becomes not only a prophet who is not to their liking, but a mockery of the people, a caricature of a prophet who by his appearance and “religious characteristics can never be a prophet. As a person he becomes a message to all God’s people.” … What this means for us What are you doing? “others ask. Isaiah experienced the same thing: for three years he walked in such clothes that people wondered what it meant. It was a prophetic sign, incomprehensible to God’s people (Isaiah 20: 2-3). .These events were not just “crazy, strange moves” of vice, but something that God asked of them, which was the price for the task they received from Him. are ready to do what the Lord asks and be what God wants them to be and not equal to the taste of a religious world that has lived far from God.The prophet is often criticized not only but also ridiculed by people who do not understand what God is doing at a time when Jeremiah experienced this because of his message – he was to everyone ridicule (Jeremiah 20: 7-9). The prophetic ministry of today must also pay its price. God’s people today are not much different from the apostate people of Israel. The hard word does not correspond to the religiously dormant world, and that is why those who still care about God’s will are often “misunderstood weirdos worthy of ridicule and mockery”, rejected, despised, condemned. All the experiences made the prophet’s natural man have to die. He died expecting to be exalted as a great and intelligent preacher. The prophets were unknown to the religious world, but they
were well known by the One from whom they were sent – God. Heaven knew them. Their religious culture did not live up to the expectations of their compatriots. Their appearance and style of preaching did not correspond to organized church life. The prophets were unpopular because they disturbed the “deep sleep” of religious people and they were “those whom the world was not worthy of” (Hebrews 11:38). In any case, neither they nor the messages they had (and received from God) could be understood and accepted.
4. “THE SHAME OF CHRIST” – THE PRIZE FOR THE PROPHET’S EARTHLY LIFE
Chapter Eleven describes this to the Hebrews. We all know them and admire their exploits, and we know that these are the very people that God could have used – people who “considered the shame of Christ greater” than their reputation and the glory that the religious world offered them (Hebrews 11: 1). 26). Those who were ready before they took the stage to spend years in preparation, in secret, away from the stage light. We ARE a prophetic nation, a castle on a mountain, they are holy! We cannot escape from that role. We can’t escape the price that role is asking for. The world we live in will not always understand everything, but that is not the most important thing. Moses prayed and wanted “all the people of God to become prophets.” Oh, if that were the case! But now is not the time to regret that it will not be quite so. It is time to look at the price, agree to God’s conditions, put heaven and the One who calls us before our eyes. It’s time to say, “Lord, here I am, send me.” And when you say that, remember through the word of God, that the path of the prophet is the same today as in the time of Ezekiel, but that it is worth following it.
IZVORI, 4/1984.