Speculation has been rife since the day the serpent sold sweet poison
to Eve. True prophets and false have claimed to speak on God's behalf down
through the ages, and pulpits have been platforms for men who could tickle
the ears, whatever the Bible says to the contrary. Preachers are
especially susceptible to saying "what the people want to hear", and to do
otherwise is to run the risk of losing your life. Faithful to God, a
preacher cannot confine himself to smooth platitudes as he speaks to
people on the way to Hell.
In his own day, John Baptist called Herod an
adulterer, because before God, there was not one law for the king and
another for the people. To be a messenger of morals, even though they be
God's, is to encounter the frown and the fury of those whose lifestyle is
judged to be wrong.
John Baptist was not the first to fall foul of those
to whom he was faithful. Long ago there were two kings who agreed to unite
in adventure. One, with more of a religious twist than the other,
suggested that they should perhaps see what God had to say about their
project.
His royal friend, thinking to stack the cards in his own favour,
convened no less than four hundred preachers. As he had hoped, they all
flattered his ears with assurances of success in the royal future. When so
many spoke the same message, and all in God's name, there could be nothing
else but a bright prospect.
The first king did not feel altogether
comfortable with what looked like a suspiciously rigged verdict of
success, so he wondered whether there was another preacher whom they might
ask, perhaps "one of the Lord's prophets". To his kingly friend this was
too close to courting disaster, because there was another preacher whom
that king did not look on with favour.
The reason being that the preacher
called a spade a spade, and, in the eyes of some, that should not be done
in royal circles. The king could only say about that preacher, "I hate
him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil." Of
course, the king was doing what we all want to do - avoid hearing things
that are critical of us, our lifestyle and interests.
In the story of the
two kings, the faithful preacher had to tell what he saw was about to
happen, even although four hundred others had a different story. The
"hated preacher" was proved right, and the king whose death was predicted
met with the last messenger who ushered him into eternity. (You can read
the full story in 1Kings, chapter 22.)
The point of the story is that the
truth stands, whatever false hopes are engendered by false witnesses; and
the truth will be fulfilled however much we pretend otherwise. God's truth
about mercy and grace is realised in Jesus Christ. If you do not see God
in Jesus, you do not see him at all.
M.
MacInnes
