A.W. TOZER on TRUE PROPHETS
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 has 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 priests or pastors or 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.
To such men as this the church owes a debt too heavy to pay. The
curious thing is that she seldom tries to pay him while he lives, but
the next generation builds his sepulcher and writes his biography, as
if instinctively and awkwardly to discharge an obligation the previous
generation to a large extent ignored...
[-From the Foreword to Leonard Ravenhill's "Why Revival Tarries". A
brilliant book!]
The historian D'Aubigne writes: "A great work of God is never
accomplished by the natural strength of man. It is from the dry
bones, the darkness and the dust of death, that God is pleased to
select the instruments by means of which He designs to scatter over
the earth His light, regeneration and life." [- D'Aubigne's "History of
the Reformation"].
Another writer has observed: "In the various crises that have
occurred in the history of the church, men have come to the front who
have manifested a holy recklessness that astonished their fellows.
When Luther nailed his theses to the door of the cathe- dral at
Wittemburg, cautious men were astonished at his audacity. When John
Wesley ignored all church restrictions and religious propriety and
preached in the fields and by-ways, men declared his reputation was
ruined. So it has been in all ages. When the religious condition of
the times called for men who were willing to sacrifice all for Christ,
the demand created the supply, and there have always been found a few
who have been willing to be regarded reckless for the Lord. An utter
recklessness concerning men's opinions and other consequences is the
only attitude that can meet the exigencies of the present times."
[Quoted by Frank Bartleman in "Azusa Street", pg 46. (Also published
as "Another Wave Rolls in"). - Another brilliant book!]