IT SHALL BE TOLD THEE

 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

Acts 9:6.

Sometimes, it is shown what we must do.  Sometimes, it is told.  Unfortunately, often, we would rather be shown than be told, so, like a good camera regrettably focused on the wrong thing, we miss a message while looking intently when we should have been listening carefully.

Once upon a time, God was speaking to Prophet Jeremiah, then said to him, “Next, you shall be shown, not just told,” and the prophet moved to the studio where he was to be shown (Jeremiah 18:1-3).  On the contrary, to John the Apostle, while listening, it was said, “Come up hither, and I will shew thee things …” (Revelation 4:1).

While Saul was on his way to waste the followers of Jesus, he had a life-transforming encounter.  He heard the great voice of God; he had a privileged dialogue with God.  However, when it came to the most crucial question he had asked, about God’s plan for his life, rather than answer him directly, God said, “Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee …”  If that had been me, I would have protested, saying, “Lord, what can any mortal tell me better than what You can say to me here and now?  You are already speaking to me, so go on, say it all, now.  To wait to hear from a mere mortal when I have such access to You, is needless delay.”

God was saying to Saul, in other words, that the specific detail he had requested would be transmitted to him through a third party, a human vessel.  That would mean that, even when we have all the access to God, even in matters as important as what we “must do,” He does not always communicate with us by a single channel, because some things are better said and heard through the voice of other men, maybe so that there is a witness that we were told (Acts 13:1-3).

If Saul were like some of us, and had sat where he was, fasting and praying forty days and sixty nights, insisting that he would hear no message from any ‘man,’ unless ‘directly from God,’ he would have wasted his days.  The word of God from the lips of the sent saint was no less the word of God than when upon him it boomed down from heaven on his highway to Damascus.

Did hearing from men mean that Saul had lost connections with God?  No. Blinded as he was from the encounter with the brightness of God, he still saw “a vision” of “a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him” (Acts 9:12).  Did a man who could see so clearly from God need to hear from ‘men’?  That is what we would say, thus we miss the voice of God in the voice of His saints.  There were other matters about which God said, “I will shew him” (v.16), but about the specific matter of his life mission, for which he had diligently enquired, all that he heard was, “it shall be told thee what thou must do.”  Not now, not here.

So used to rowdy winds and mighty fires, we sometimes miss the Father in the “still small voice.” God is not in every noisy wind and terrible fire (1 Kings 19:11-13).  The God who often spoke to David was also the One who sent Prophet Nathan to him.

When God had to call little Samuel, He called him in the voice of the master he served and revered, the blind high priest, Eli.  If God had called him in my pleasant baritone voice, it would have been a stranger’s voice, to which the little boy might have been too frightened to respond in that night, or he might have ignored it as a ‘missed call’ intended for a different Samuel (1 Samuel 3:4-5; John 10:5).

Some things will be shown from above; other things will be told from below; or told from above through a channel below.  God’s word is no less His word because of the means by which it comes.  If it comes as piercing light and burning love, though it be by the voice of a Stranger on the darkening lonely path to Emmaus, it could be His voice.  If not properly received, He may be gone by the time you know it, only then to lament, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

Angels don’t always come in wings, so they are sometimes sadly missed by those they should have helped (Hebrews 13:2; Luke 24:4; Mark 16:5).  Keep moving.  “… Go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do .…” Amen.

From The Preacher’s diary,

May 13, 2025.