The Preacher's Diary

9.      NO LYING POLITICAL PROMISES

King Cyrus did not make political promises that were never to be fulfilled. He followed up his Temple-Project promises with practical implementation, much unlike the popular politician today. For example, he restored to the cause of that Temple Project such precious resources as the treasures of gold and silver that his other-godly predecessors had confiscated from that holy place (Ezra 1:7-11). Not only did he fulfil his personal promises of support to the Temple Project at Jerusalem, he personally made a proclamation encouraging other citizens to support that same Project that himself had publicly identified with.  If that is Cyrus, may he rule a thousand tenures. 

Read more

1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, 

2 Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.                                                     

Ezra 1:1-3; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23.

1. WHO WAS CYRUS? 

Cyrus, that is one name commonly conjured by apologists as a metaphor for the sanctified outsider that should rule over the skeptical remnants in the land.  Who was Cyrus? You probably were better taught at Sunday school than some of us, so have never been shaken by such good names often shopped to cloth stark villains.  Follow me.

Read more

Moses sought an encounter with God.  In response, God said to him, “Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock …” (Exodus 33:21).  That specific place “upon the rock” was going to be the place of the requested encounter.  Why didn’t God do it where they were already having the conversation?   

Read more

Moses asked to see the glory of God.  God told him that his request was beyond mortal capacity, “for there shall no man see me, and live.”  However, God was going to oblige him the rare experience, so He asked Moses to go stand at a particular spot, somewhere “upon a rock …  And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by” (Exodus 33:20-23).  In other words, God was saying to him, “I will take you up and put you in a cleft, a crack in the rock, then cover you with my hand while I pass by, until you can see only my back when I am far gone.”   

Read more

1. The Hand Over

The end of the road in Prophet Elijah’s frightened flight from Jezebel was the instruction from God, among others, that he should go and anoint Elisha as a replacement prophet to himself.

Then the LORD told him, “Go back…, and when you arrive, … anoint Elisha (the son of Shephat of Abe-meholah) to replace you as my prophet (I Kings 19:15-16, Living Bible).

Anointing Elisha as a replacement would suggest that Elijah’s ministry had come to an end; that a new prophetic dispensation was about to begin.  Three verses later, which appears to be soon after the encounter with God, Elijah carries out the first induction ceremony on Elisha in obedience to the instructions from the Lord.

Although the foregoing events would seem to suggest the termination of Elijah’s ministry, that termination was a process, not automatic.  From the prophet’s experience on Mount Horeb to the transportation to heaven by means of the chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11), there was an intervening period of not less than six years.  In other words, Elijah did not leave the scene as soon as God had said his time was up, and Elisha did not begin to prophesy and perform miracles as soon as God had said he had become a prophet, or a replacement-prophet.  He spent the intervening period of about six to ten years serving and learning from the Senior Prophet.  Imagine a man called by God to be so great a prophet, starting out as a mere servant to one he had been chosen to replace! …

The conclusion to be arrived at from the story of Elisha is that, maturing into our call is often a process.  It is not automatic.  And fading off from our call or from ministerial relevance is also often a process, sometimes a long process so imperceptible that the prophets might not even realize that they are on their way down and out.  As it is possible for one or two miracles to still attend the efforts of such prophets, in spite of the onset of their decline, the quickness to recognize the decline from grace becomes more difficult. In such circumstances, several are bound to conclude that the instance of the occasional miracles in their ministry implies that ‘retirement’ is still a century away.

2. The Years of Transition 

We shall proceed now to investigate the number of the intervening years between Mount Horeb (when Elijah was told to get a replacement) and the point beyond River Jordan from where he took off to Heaven in a Chariot of Fire.

• In 1 Kings 19:16-21, Elijah returns from Horeb and throws his mantle on Elisha, and Elisha begins to follow him.  We do not know that date, but let’s call it ‘Point X.’
• In the subsequent chapter, we read that there was war between Syria and Israel.  We do not know how long it was between Point X (when Elijah anointed Elisha) and the start of this war.  But let us assume that the war had started about the same time as Point X (1 Kings 20:1).
• In verse 22, after that war, a prophet announces to the king of Israel that the defeated Syrian army would return a year later; that is, a year from Point X.
• In verse 26, the army actually returns after one year and is defeated, giving us one definite year from Point X.  We shall call the new date Point Y.
• We learn later that, after this second war (at Point Y), there was a three year period of respite, during which there was no war between Israel and Syria.  That would be Point Z, 3 years from point Y, or 4 years from Point X  (1 Kings 22:1-2).  The battle at Point Z was the battle in which King Ahab died and was succeeded by his son Ahaziah (vv.35-40).
• King Ahaziah who succeeded his father reigned for only two years; two years from Point Z (v.51).  Let us mark the end of Ahaziah’s two-year reign as Point D. The encounter between that king’s soldiers and the retiring prophet, during which Elijah called down fire from heaven, was that prophet’s recorded last outing before he went up to heaven in a chariot of fire upon the soldiers sent to arrest him (2 Kings 1).  For both king and prophet, that was the last memorable event.  In the next chapter, Elijah is taken up to heaven (2 Kings 2:1-11).  The duration from Horeb to Jordan, therefore, or from the announcement of Elijah’s retirement in Horeb to the time of the prophet’s departure may be computed as follows:

1. Point X – (1st battle/Elisha’s ordination) – Point Y (2nd Battle) = 1 year
2. Point Y (2nd Battle) – Point Z (3rd battle)   = 3 years
3. Point Z (Ahaziah’s reign)  = 2 years
4. Total period = 6 years (at least)

How long does it take to mature into one’s call? How long does it take to slide ‘off the scene’ and not realize that one is being ‘phased out’?  Solomon’s backsliding did not become so obvious until “when Solomon was old” (1 Kings 11:4).  By that time, the disaster was almost irreversible.

Does an ordination ceremony automatically make one a prophet? Does receiving the Anointing in ‘double measure’ license anyone to begin to scheme to edge out their ‘expired’ boss?  What kept David, the twice- anointed, from doing that to King Saul?  David and Elisha were anointed to replace their incumbents, but they had to wait for the indefinite great day of their ‘swearing in.’  Did they have to ‘waste’ all that time, waste ‘the anointing,’ waiting on an ‘expired grace’ to make way for their New Move?  Should the vibrant and anointed New Wine waste grace serving an ‘old wineskin’? …

He who would become a leader must start out not as lord but as the servant of all (Mark 10:43-44).  Unfortunately today, there is a generation that seeks the double portion from those they have never served; a generation that seeks the mantle of power beyond the Jordan, before they have received the mantle of service in the fallow fields beyond Mount Horeb!

From The Preacher’s diary,
July 18, 2001.

As earnest seekers of God, we are often in search of the right place to meet with Him: somewhere where we would be closer to Him than at other places, often somewhere with the notional serenity of the Garden of Eden, with nothing interrupting our dreamed communion with the Father “in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8).  Sometimes the search takes us to some remote mountain top promising an all-night glory-cloud and a Transformation encounter (Matthew 17:1-6).  Sometimes we look to find Him in clear day on the boisterous Sinai peak with its blinding lightnings and deafening thunders; its smoky fires and the billowing voice of the Awesome One (Exodus 19:16-20).  To answer to our longing for the deep, we have at times been pointed to some grandiose ‘Temple of Solomon’ resplendent with uncommon regal decorations of burnished brass and glistening gold; a holy place with its irresistible history of thick glory clouds compelling worshippers to be prostrate in reverential praise (2 Chronicles 5:14).    

Read more

If it was not in the tradition of prophets to receive gifts from those who consulted with them, Naaman would not have been carrying gifts to see Prophet Elisha with, in his quest to be healed of his repugnant leprosy.  However, Naaman’s gifts, as lavish as they must have been, were gifts that the prophet was not to receive.  Why?

Read more

4. Case Three: Occupied Vacancies

A few months back this year, an Old Testament scripture hit me with a newness that I had never known. I find that scripture an applicable next file to open.  Again, the scripture is a Heavenly announcement about an incumbent earthly king; a Heavenly verdict of which the majority on earth was tragically ignorant, or chose to be vehemently, brutally so, even the man at the centre of the matter (1 Kings 22: 24, 27).   That notice from Heaven came in the discriminated minority voice of a very disliked prophet of God.

Read more

PREFACE

The Vision of an Empty Throne  

 On Thursday, October 13, 2022, I got a call from a respected brother and minister of the God.  He had had one of his often encounters.  “Oga came again-o,” he said.  I assumed that I knew the boss that he meant – some political ruler; but I was wrong.  It was the Boss, the Lord.  In the vision of the night, he was in the dark throneroom of Nigeria, then a light appeared.  Like a spotlight gradually brightening up a theatre stage, he saw the light as it slowly took up the office.  First, it showed the empty throne, then the flag of Nigeria behind it in the empty office.  Thereafter, a voice announced, “The office and the seat of the presidency are vacant.”  At once, he began to plead, “You are the King of kings.  You are the Lord of lords.  You are the President of the nation.  We surrender the nation to You …” then, as gradually as the scene had appeared, it began to fade off.  It struck him as a call to more prayers for Nigeria. 

Read more

I. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Genesis 1:1-2

What we see may not always look like God at work, and every beginning is not always a rainbow.  Here, “in the beginning,” God was at work, yet the state of affairs was a trinity of chaos: formlessness, emptiness, and darkness. By what expert theology can anyone convince any other person that those states of affair are the sign that God is at work? Where God is, and when God is at work, there should be fullness, not a void (Psalm 16:11).  In fact, there should be an overflow, as well as light, not darkness; for He Himself is Light (Revelation 4:3-5).  On the contrary, this epic ‘beginning,’ with the Great Designer Himself at work, was marked by three apparent lamentable woes: ugliness and emptiness and darkness. Strangely, some beginnings are like that. Formlessness and void and darkness do not always mean the absence of God.  Sometimes they are merely the sign of a great beginning.

The Bible story of Lazarus serves a useful illustration. ‘In the beginning’ when Jesus got the information (or received the ‘prayer request’) about the terribly sick condition of Lazarus, He said “This sickness is not unto death” (John 11:4). But Lazarus did die. Did Jesus become a false prophet therefore? No. That was merely the disappointingly ‘formless’ and ‘dark’ beginning of something greater that the Master was up to.  The end proved Jesus right as Lazarus became the attraction to where Jesus was; as the apparent crisis of yesterday became the basis of the wonder today (John 12:9). The things we see might sometimes seem to say that God has been false.  Wait.  It could merely be the formless and void and dark signs of a great beginning.   The end will prove Him right.  Often, we have erred for judging beginnings as if they were the completion.  According to an ancient hymn, “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.”

God took Prophet Ezekiel to a valley full of dead dry bones. It was a very sorry, very helpless sight. God asked the prophet, “Can these bones live again?”  The prophet wisely returned the question back to God.  “Thou knowest,” he replied.  That apparently distressing sight down in the valley was merely the beginning. In the end, those lifeless bones had become “an exceeding great army” (Ezekiel 37:1-10).

Did you ever visit a great sculptor at his studio?  What did you find? Broken bits of ugly wood. Did you meet him at work on a chunk of unattractive timber?  As he chopped off this and that from here and there, you might have protested, “Hey, that doesn’t look beautiful at all.  This is no masterpiece.” And he might have said to you, “Just give me time.  This is only the beginning.”  Often, we get attracted to the beautiful showroom, forgetting the ugly workshop where it all started.  Masterpieces didn’t have their beginnings in the classy showroom.  Many have missed their showroom who missed the workshop because it did not look like the proper process to the place of their palatial dreams.

Are you in a ‘beginning’?  Do not despair.  God could be at work.  ‘In the beginning’ of all beginnings, the Master Creator Himself was at work, yet to the observing eyes even of the inspired Reporter, everything seemed formless (without shape, without apparent pattern, without order), void (without Presence, and dry), and dark (without Light, and apparently without God).  In other words, it was a trinity of chaos.  Ironically, that ‘hopeless’ and ‘chaotic’ condition became the attraction for much more: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).  There was a ‘desperate’ and ‘chaotic’ and ‘formless’ need, so the Spirit of God moved there.  May your great need and your reliance on God this day attract the Move His Spirit upon your waters.  Amen.

Whereas the narrative had started with formlessness and void and darkness, in the end, the report was different.  The initial formless ‘clay’ in the hands of the Expert Potter had become a masterpiece (Jeremiah 18:3-6). The initial absence and void had been filled with His glorious fullness, the initial formlessness with His Beauty, and the initial darkness with the brightness of His glory.  We have moved from the chaotic ‘workshop’ at the beginning, to the Edenic showroom in the end.  “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, It was VERY GOOD” (Genesis 1:30).

God is not about to give up on you until He has brought you through the preliminary chaos to the final showroom of excellent goodness.  Let no ‘formless’ ‘beginning’ despair you.  In our lives and our land, may we wait for the final verdict of everything “very good.”  According to Solomon the Wiseman, “The end of a thing is better than the beginning” (Ecclesiastes 7:8) especially when God is in it.  It is unwise to measure beginnings with the standards of the completion; to judge workstations with the parameters of the showroom. Amen.

From the Preacher’s diary,
April 4, 1998.