I once asked an audience to tell me which book was more inspired, between St Luke’s Gospel and St John’s Gospel.  There were those who were sure that St John’s Gospel was more inspired, that it was more ‘the word of God’ than St Luke’s Gospel.  A few maturer folks said that both books had equal inspiration as the word of God.  The Introduction to the Book of Revelation clearly shows that Apostle John had an encounter with the Almighty where he was instructed to write; so, the authenticity of that book cannot be questioned (Revelation 1:1, 10-11).  The same apostle wrote the Book of John, which opens in a unique mystical way, almost like Genesis: “In the beginning…”  But St Luke’s Gospel with a different mode of inspiration is part of the same Bible.

At the back of the minds of many Christians, Luke was one of the Twelve Disciples of Jesus.  No, Luke was not even saved when Jesus was preaching.  He got saved later.  He was not even a Jew.  He was a gentile.  One of his two books is the third in the New Testament, and the other is the fifth: Acts of the Apostles.  John could say, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day…” and that a voice had said to him, “write” (Revelation 1:10-11).  Luke doesn’t make such claims, yet he was inspired no less.  Let’s hear Luke:

The Gospel of Luke was a product of research; it was “a careful account” of “eyewitness reports … carefully investigated.”  It is no less the word of God than Revelation or Genesis. Strange.  Knowledge.

What God does not give by revelation He might have chosen to give by investigation.  Elisha the doubly-anointed prophet once had a case about which he confessed, “the LORD hath hid it from me, and hath not told me.”  He did not say he could not see “it”; he said God deliberately “hid” that information from him, and wouldn’t tell him, despite how much he sought it by revelation.  Why?  God knows.  So, the prophet’s limitation about that information was not because he had become blind or had backslidden.  God Himself did not want to transmit that information by revelation.  He had to seek it by investigation, sending his servant to “Run now” and seek the information from the woman: “Is it well with thee?” (2 Kings 4:26-27).

Does God sometimes hide certain matters, even from His prophets?  Does He choose at times to reveal information by a different channel than we are used to?  It says in Amos 3:7 that “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets,” but it doesn’t say how He would reveal it, and we do not know all His “servants.”  Many of them are not on our billboards or at our ‘high tables.’

At the birth of Jesus, the wise men from the east were led to Jerusalem by the sign of the star they had seen.  Their mission was in fulfilment of prophecy of which they had not been aware.  To be doubly sure, when they arrived Jerusalem, they sought by information what they could no more access by signs and revelation, because they had lost the star.  They enquired to the palace of Herod.  That was an error.  Having begun in the spirit, they sought perfection by the flesh (Galatians 3:3).  Discernment was important every step of the way (Matthew 2:1-12).

A young woman was going to get married.  Her pastor, a very gifted man who has had remarkable encounters with angels and with Jesus, prayed about it.  He proceeded to make investigations on the proposed husband’s background.  He shared his very worrisome findings with the woman.  She waved them off.  She was ready to go, maybe too much in love to care, or too much in a hurry to worry.  Two months after, she was the victim of such severe domestic violence that she ended up in the hospital, abandoned to her parents.  The husband had also deserted.  The paster received credible information, not by revelation but by investigation.  That information was no less the voice of God than the visions or when he had prophesied.  It was to her detriment that she had not valued the voice of knowledge and wisdom as she might have done a ‘prophecy.’

When Jesus would go into Samaria, the people gave Him ‘latest news’ about the hazards along that path.  He had to process the news and certify if God was in that information, as far as it concerned Him (John 11:7-9).  It was probably the same safety concerns that had made Him unable to respond as urgently as it seemed when the call came from Mary and Martha about Lazarus their dead brother, His friend.

Because God has not spoken by a prophet does not mean that He has not spoken at all.  That He does not speak through popular names that we have elevated as ‘His servants’ does not mean that He has not, for “The Lord knoweth them that are his” (2 Timothy 2:19), and not all that bear His name as His.

The more we draw nigh to the Lord, the more clearly we would hear Him.  The more He reaches us through His many channels, so much will the enemy strive to corrupt the same channels.  Peter had a nasty experience just after one fantastic endowment from Heaven, and Paul might have been fooled by a fine voice that sounded much like the recent prophetic commendations he had known at Antioch (Matthew 16:22-23; Acts 16:16-18).  Try the spirits.  I have had my little share of voices and visions and trances, even though not as much as others have.  Still, I am my greatest critic.  I have had my share of the privilege of dreams and illuminations, ‘encounters,’ and sensations, still, I do not run at the instance of one voice, being my own greatest critic.  Yet, caution against mistakes should not keep one from the miracles of the Father’s channels.

May we no more miss some of the messengers from God because they come in a fashion other than dictated by our religious sensibilities.  While we sharpen our spirits and train our souls, may we not carry our heads in vain.  Yet, may the heads not become our god.  O God, guide us in Your path. Amen.

The third of the three channels highlighted in our primary text is knowledge: “any that knoweth.”  So, not only by signs or by prophets, but also by the one that “knoweth,” we can hear God and be saved.  The knower could be ourselves or another.  In other words, this knowledge that saves could come from a third party or it could be knowledge acquired by ourselves for ourselves. On facial value, it might not look as ‘spiritual’ as what comes from the Prophet, or the signs of God that we interpret to decode a divine message, yet it saves no less.

This is the channel we are most familiar with: prophets, who stand as connections between God and mortals; persons anointed to be able to see into the spiritual realms, as most others cannot.  When people are not sure about the will of God, they usually seek to a prophet of God.  For example, it took a prophet to tell David that he was not supposed to build the temple of God (2 Samuel 7:4-13).  When the people of Israel wanted to know the mind of God in the closing days of the Kingdom of Judah, they went to Prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 42:1-4).

The experience of Balaam in the course of one business mission provides a handy illustration of circumstantial signs that God sometimes puts in our path to slow us down or altogether deter us from potential dangers, if we would hear.  Unfortunately, many times, we think ourselves too ‘committed’ to a people or to a project to hear those signs and save ourselves. Only from hindsight do we rue our losses.

Heaven has one Broadcasting Station but numerous channels on earth through which its messages are conveyed to us.  The following passage puts the many earthly channels of divine communication into their three broad categories: signs, prophets, and sourced information (or knowledge).

Should priests of God receive instructions from politicians?  Can a political leader provide spiritual leadership? Does every priest always know what spiritual interventions his land needs? Is every political leader inherently inferior in spiritual matters to every priest?

Generally, we might piously say that politicians should keep to their offices and priests to their altars, but, as the following story will show, whether or not one can influence the other depends on the context, on the kind of politician and the kind of ‘instruction.’ 

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9.  The Marathon Convoys

To get the value of a foreign transaction, we would usually translate those costs into local currencies.  How do we translate the value of David’s donations into contemporary currency?