1. Free to Change
2. Freedom and Responsibility
3. My Kind of People
4. "Come Out And Be Separate"
5. Private Intepretation
6. A "Monkey-Wrench" Scripture
7. The Truth That Frees
8. Literary Devices
9. Fear of God
10. A Love Story
11. The Three Trees In Eden
12. Imputed Righteousness
13. Different Essentials For Different People
14. God's Sons In All Ages
15. Looking To Lust
16. Divorce Her!
17. "While Her Husband Is Alive"
18. "They Won't Let Me Preach!"
19. God's Perplexing Prophets
20. Religous Titles
21. Who Sinned?
22. "I'll Join Your Church"
23. The Church As The Route To Heaven
24. One Hundred Years Old
25. Can Our Churches Unite?
26. Can The Cause Of Sickness Be The Cure?
27. When Life Begins
28. Abortion: Law Or Principle?
29. Human Chattel
30. The Hope of Israel
31. The Great Temptation of Jesus
32. The Rich Man And Lazarus
33. My Hermeneutic
34. Is Immersion Proved By Example?
35. Who Gets The Credit?
36. Hook's Points
37. Heresy
38. I Am A Debtor

Other Books at Freedom's Ring

When a man becomes a spiritual leader declaring the message of God, we expect his conduct to be exemplary in all ways. Since he is a spokesman for God, we look for the qualities of meekness, courage, integrity, unselfishness, impartiality, compassion, kindness, and love in him. Those features are not what we always see, however. Sometimes we are treated to some bizarre behavior.

Before me is a bulletin article titled, "Ezra: A Model for Preachers." Today's spokesmen are urged to follow the example of this prophet: "For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments" (Ezra 7:10). That is a great example.

The bulletin article did not tell, however, that when Ezra was told that the priests had defiled themselves by marrying foreign women and had corrupted their religion with the idolatrous abominations of the land, he became emotionally passionate. Later, Ezra told of his own response: "When I heard this, I rent my garment and my mantle and pulled hair from my head and beard, and sat appalled" (Ezra 9:3). Wouldn't that look great on the television news!

At least, Ezra did no harm to others. The case with Nehemiah was different. Concerning those who had married foreign women he wrote, "And I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take an oath..." (Neh. 13:25). He also chased one priest from him (v. 28). Look, everybody; he's our preacher!

We would have been proud of our man, Elijah, when he contested the gods at Mount Carmel, but then he went a bit beyond debate and defrocking when the took the 450 prophets of Baal to the brook Kishon and killed them (1 Kings 18).

As a successor to Elijah, Elisha did some courageous things to make us proud; however he was a bit sensitive and temperamental about his hairline. Once a bunch of young boys jeered at him, saying, "Go up, you baldhead!" They wanted to see him go up in a whirlwind like Elijah did. Being called "old baldy" got under his scalp. "And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys" (2 Kings 2:23f). Such an incident would likely put him out of business as a prophet today!

Our present day television evangelists are not the first to be disgraced by their exploits with women. David, a prophet and spiritual leader, had a sordid affair with Bath-Sheba in which he had her innocent husband killed. One wife wasn't enough for him, either. David gained much popularity as a killer of a giant and he gained added fame by his courage and skills with the sword by killing many other men. He could stir your soul with a psalm or kill you as the occasion dictated. Once he pretended insanity, drooling in his beard and scrabbling on the door, in order to save his life. We are nurtured by his wonderful expressions of trust and praise in his psalms in spite of the fact that some of them are imprecatory, praying destruction on his enemies (Psa. 35, 58, etc.). David could not have survived in our day of television exposure. The comedians would have a field day at his expense.

In the New Testament history, the passions of the prophets seem to have cooled with a few exceptions. A notable exception involved Peter. Even though we recognize that it was a work of God, Peter presided over the killing of Ananias and Sapphira in the church assembly! He pronounced the harsh indictment against them in a worship service. After the dismissal, do you suppose that the people shook hands with Peter at the door with a customary "Enjoyed the service, Peter!"?

An occasional public whipping might enliven our "five acts of worship". We have no record of it happening, but when Jesus chose and sent out the twelve, he warned them to "beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues..." (Matt. 10:17). If they did not receive a hearing or hospitality at a house, they were to shake the dust from their feet as they left (v. 14) in a display of contempt. Should our door knockers practice that?

Paul became a bit impassioned when he called Elymas a son of the devil and struck him blind (Acts 13:10f) and when he and Barnabas publicly ripped their clothing.

It seems totally out of harmony that a prophet of God would lie; yet there was an old prophet in Bethel who lied to the courageous young prophet who had confronted Jeroboam. Belief in the lie caused the young prophet's death. Then the old prophet mourned his death and recovered and buried his body. Strange behavior. How could he be called a prophet?

When King Saul was chasing David, he sent messengers to take David who was with Samuel and the prophets. As the men approached, the Spirit of the Lord came upon the messengers so that they prophesied. This also happened to two other contingents of messengers. Then Saul went to take him, but the Spirit came upon Saul so that he prophesied also. In fact, Saul stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel naked and lay naked all that day and night! I don't try to explain all of that; I just marvel at it! And, to think how embarrassed I was just to be seen teaching unzipped!

Jonah would be a good man to build our congregation, wouldn't he? He did not want to convert those foreign enemies, for saving Nineveh would not make him the most popular prophet back in Judah. He did his best to avoid preaching to them. It seems that he only preached to them to save his own life, and he did not have much enthusiasm about life at that. He asked God to let him die. He needed Robert Schuller to help him with his "possibility thinking!"

Wouldn't you like to have a man like Jonah for your preacher? Oh, you have one like him already? He has been motivated by "woe is me if I preach not the gospel," and he is trying to save his own life by preaching it. It comes through that he loves law which seems to give him power over others more than he loves the people. You get the idea that he looks forward to the time when the pagans, those of other churches, and all the backsliders will suffer their much-deserved punishment. He sees so much evil in the world, and living the Christian life is such a burden to him, that he inspires little enthusiasm or joy for life.

The history of Balaam is veiled so that we know little of his realm of operation and influence. He was a prophet of God, though he might not have been the most beloved and trusted one when word got around that he carried on a conversation with a donkey without registering any surprise. Although he knew what was right, he would have cursed Israel for money if the Lord had permitted him to do so. Balaam gave treacherous advice to enemies, and as a result of it a plague came upon Israel which destroyed 24,000 of them. This bizarre spokesman was killed in a battle fighting against Israel, the army of Israel being led by another prophet of God, Moses.

John the Baptist surely must have stood out in a crowd and, no doubt, must have been avoided by many who would see his weathered complexion and his coarse clothing of camel's hair and leather. His wilderness life and the smoke of campfires probably made him distinguishable by odor. In character with such a rough life, he had abandoned ordinary tact and diplomacy. He felt comfortable to call his listeners a bunch of snakes fleeing ahead of a fire and to make a public denunciation against the king for his private marital affairs. Why would God use such a strange character to introduce his Son?

God used some bad-spirited fellows to proclaim Jesus. They were not the last ones who have preached Christ from envy and rivalry. Paul wrote that certain ones "proclaim Christ out of partisanship, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment" (Phil. 1:15-18). Surely, no one would use the pulpit to uphold sectarian exclusiveness and take pleasure in putting down a fellow-preacher who is not even present. Preachers are all too loving, accepting, sweet-spirited, and humble for such a thing! The marvelous thing is that Paul could conclude: "What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in that I rejoice."

In considering the persons who spoke for God we must not overlook the women. They add a perplexity, not so much because of their strange conduct, but more because we have not known how to fit them into the picture.

First, there was Miriam: "Then Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dancing. And Miriam sang to them..." (Exo. 15:20). Holy women behaving like that? We excuse her unseemly conduct because she lived a long time ago, and she has nothing to do with us!

Also, there were Deborah who went into battle to give courage to her commander (Judges 4:4), Huldah, to whom Josiah sent for a message from God (2 Kings 22:14), Noadiah, a prophetess who wanted to make Nehemiah afraid (Neh. 6:14), and Anna, the 84 year old worshipping widow who would not leave the temple (Luke 2:36). We don't have pigeonholes for such women.

Then, there were the four unmarried daughters of Philip (Acts 21:9). Although they prophesied, they must have done it in teaching a private Ladies' Bible Class at home with their heads covered___certainly not in public or "in the church"!

It seems to me that God would have withdrawn the gift of prophecy from persons who abused the gift or made misuse of it like the women in Corinth who would prophesy without their veils, like those who spoke in foreign languages with no interpreter, and like those in the Corinthian assemblies who were so eager to speak that they would not wait for the floor. The human will and selfish pride in the prophets and prophetesses brought much disorder and confusion into the assemblies. Yet, God was teaching his people through these men and women. No criticism was made of their message. Evidently, the message given each person by the Spirit was fragmentary for one might receive a revelation while another was speaking. The big problem seems to have been that the spirits of the prophets were not subject to the prophets. That all adds to my perplexity.

A recitation of all the eccentric actions of those who spoke for God would seem endless; so we shall go no further in this review. What message are we to gain from the examples of these spokespersons? You may have drawn some conclusions of your own already. I will offer a few observations which may justify my calling attention to God's perplexing prophets.

1. The violent actions of some of those men were expressions of God's justice and wrath demonstrated through his servants.

2. Even the greatest of leaders have feet of clay. Perhaps God called them because of their temperamental nature. A sensitive person may be more responsive to the need that God wants fulfilled.

3. Gifted persons do not always use their endowment in the way God intended. Spiritual gifts do not perfect the man even though the Spirit might overpower a man to his humiliation.

4. We must remember the great mission and work of a person instead of the incidents of poor judgment or misconduct. Human weakness must be overlooked and misbehavior must be forgiven. Otherwise, none of us could be useful. We, like Paul, can rejoice that, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed.

5. Viewing the conduct of those men from our perspective of history, we probably would not accept any of them in our pulpits. We would not defend a spiritual leader in our congregations who behaved as they did. We would be embarrassed and infuriated, and we would expose him publicly.

6. Finally, most of our spiritual leaders, though they are imperfect, lead exemplary lives. Our love and forbearance are tested by the exceptions.