A prophet’s passion # 03

A plumb line over people and prophet
By Lars Widerberg

Reading: Amos 7:8-15

Listen to the word of the Lord sent from the throne in Heaven:
“Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more. And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. Amos 7:8-9

Listen to the utterly severe and irrevocable words sent forth from the throne of God against His own people, a nation chosen to gather as one, a solemn assembly set apart for His praise. Listen to the man standing before the Lord, before the king, the nation and the political and religious establishment, uttering pregnant sentences, devastating words, words of no return.

Listen to the words. The initial reaction must have been one of utter disbelief. The Northern Kingdom had followed a path of independence and had gathered a general political and economical momentum which could not possibly point in any other direction than upwards. A nation blessed to be a blessing. Man elevated and his pursuits and exploits benevolently looked upon by God as something perfectly in line with heavenly plans and prospects. And here is a man declaring every component of this brave social experiment to be a radical opposite to godliness and proper worship.

This man marked himself for controversy. This man set himself apart as an anti-social element. This man triggered anger and resentment. He destabilised the whole social climate within the religious and political community – those who feared him the most was the ones at the front line in the restructuring and transformation of the religious world of that day. The altars and golden calves of Bethel drew greater crowds than ever. Jerusalem and the hills of Zion were long forgotten. This man became a prophetic offence. The role and ultimate work were hidden in his name – Amos, the burden, the burdened man.

Something utterly other must have happened to this man to be able to engage in the Lord’s work in the way he did. Something had upset his sphere of existence and intervened in his regular occupation and routines which changed his outlook and stance to the point of fundamental sacrificial efforts. The herdsman turned priest, he was given a priestly mind to be able to see the suffering people and the source of the ailment of the nation. Prophets stand on their ability to suffer with the people. Prophetic ministry without priestliness is useless and without any value. Something happens and is wrought in the innermost being of a man to be able to live and work as a prophet, something which surpasses mere charismata, something carrying the nature of priestliness, something intrinsically other.

Amos declared himself to be a herdsman, one “who followed the flock”. His authority as a man of God did not come out of his own, it was not for him to handle in any way he might find appropriate. The authority of vocation, of “office”, was fully and wholly with the Lord. This man, and the great prophets along with him, claimed no natural gifting for the work at hand. No personal ambition was ever tied to it – the prophetic assignment would turn completely false and useless the very moment anything from the man himself, or for himself, became a moderating parameter. Self-appointment was, and is, out of question. Statements of endorsement issued by the established order hold no value, it stymies the prophetic dynamics. Prophets form no crafts guild for mutual support. They never allow themselves to become defiled by any tie or connection to fraternities, guilds, orders, leagues or lodges.

Amos declared, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit”. He did not come out of any school of prophets, he was a well informed man. He was no political or ecclesiastical commentator, but he knew the root of the national predicament. He was not for a moment bent to criticism, his words was therefore sharp and penetrating as a razors edge.

According to Amos personal narrative:
But the Lord took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to My people Israel’.
This man, as any true prophet, was arrested and set apart for heavenly purposes. He was apprehended and laid hold of for things far beyond his personal disposition and ability. He was conscripted for royal service. This man became what he was not before. The dear herdsman found himself to be occupied with things he would never have chosen for himself. He was taken away from following the flock. God intervened, demanded, brought out from and into. No resistance possible, no negotiation, no way to get away from it – absoluteness, totality, genuineness, veracity.

The absoluteness guaranteed a work and words of highest quality possible. The non-compromised belonging laid the foundation for pure, undefiled reality. This absoluteness constituted purity and veracity. The man was taken away from, cut off from his own. The prophet was isolated and fully insulated from whatever would spring forth from his own sphere of experience and cravings. He was no longer his own, he did no longer belong to himself – 1 Cor 6:19. There was no “my ministry”, “my work”, “my role, my office, my position”.
This absoluteness as to belonging, as to order and to authority, this totality in regards to the cutting off from what belongs to ones own was the very guarantee for prophetic quality and functionality. Therefore the prophet feared no man, neither king nor priest. Therefore every man feared the prophet.

The absoluteness brought in into a man’s constitution and living by God’s intervention, by the apprehension and arresting of a man’s life and thinking will cause a confrontative mode, a prophetic setting. The totality, the sacrificial status reached by a heavenly declaration over a man’s life according to the pattern of sanctification – You are no longer your own – will generate reactions of offence, prophetic offence. The prophet chosen cannot resist the plumb line laid over his own life. No man exposed to such ministry will be able to escape and avoid the confrontative offence thrown into his conscience.

May this absoluteness apprehend men in this very late hour for the sake of genuineness.
May this totality be established among men in our day for the sake of life restored.
We ask and pray for men to be taken out and away from their own in this very hour for the sake of the restoration of freedom and dignity according to the measures of Heaven.