Dvd 27 a Critique of the Prophetic Movement — Art Katz

A Prayer for Repentance and Divine Truth

So, precious God, what can we add to the prayer that has been prayed? If you'll only fulfill that prayer, you'll not have a whimper of complaint from me. So let it be, Lord, an extraordinary statement, not calculated for our titillation, but for our repentance, for a bringing down that you might bring up.

Stab us, my God, with truth. Things as you see and understand them, however much they are at variance with our own perception, we desire yours. So come, Lord, and turn this time into an event of an ultimate kind, whose time has come, and remarkably in conjunction with the unhappy collapse fall of a notable man, internationally known, Lord, that somehow seems to be more than circumstantial, but appropriate, both to the time, the occasion, and the things that you are already putting into my heart.

So do we bless you, Lord, precious God, you're a living God, you're great altogether. We love you because you are truth, and help us, my God, in our terrible frailty, infirmity, to be worthy of you, my God, and to stand for you, bear your words before men, help us to your divine integrity, Lord, ours is so much less, and we bless you and thank you and give you praise for the high standard that you are in yourself, and the great provision for us to meet it through the excellent power of your life.

Come now and express yourself out of that life, and move your ministers to jealousy, not only what they hear, but what they see, the thing in itself to which they also are called. We thank you and give you praise in Jesus' name.

Amen. So, okay, thank you. Let me take off my ministerial jacket, which I have received secondhand from a German brother, just my size, and appropriate for all occasions, and you can turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 23, the Lord's condemnation of false prophets, which might well be a condemnation of falsity itself, especially where it's most painful, when it issues out of ministers.

So may the Lord give us insight and an understanding that what is touched here is much more than prophets who are in error, but ministers who are in error, so much so that they don't even perceive it.

Jeremiah's Condemnation of False Prophets

And it's hard to know where to leap in, but the Lord speaks about a horrible thing in verse 14. They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness.

They are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants, therefore, as Gomorrah. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets, behold, I will feed them with wormwood and make them drink the water of Gaul, for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you. They make you vain. They speak a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They say, still unto them that despise me, the Lord hath said, you shall have peace.

And they say unto everyone that walks after the imagination of his own heart, no evil shall come upon you. For who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord and hath perceived and heard his word? Who hath mocked his word and heard it?

Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind. It shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord shall not return until he hath executed, till he hath performed the thoughts of his heart.

In the latter days, you shall consider it perfectly. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from the evil way and from the evil of their doings.

Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord? Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? For I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams, which they tell, tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.

The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream, and he that speaks my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord? Is not my word like a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words, every one from his neighbor. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that cause their tongues, that use their tongues and say, he saith.

Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies and by their likeness. Yet I sent them not, nor commanded them. Therefore, they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord.".

The Contemporary Consequences of False Prophecy

So, this is more than an appraisal of the prophets of old. It is profoundly contemporary, and I think especially for the prophets of our charismatic time and generation, but that we need to understand how the whole of society, the whole of the church is affected by what is fraudulent and casual and light.

It brings a profaneness into the whole land. It cheapens the whole texture of the faith. We're all adversely affected. Even if we don't know these men, even if we don't hear them, somehow the role of the prophet is so central to the sounding of God and his heart that any false expression of that has adverse consequence that can't even be measured.

But how shall I say it? I hope I'm not exaggerating. Is the whole of our contemporary Christianity fraudulent? Is it a whole play-acting? Is it remarkably in error that is so pervasive and perhaps so compelling and attractive and biblical, at least in its vocabulary, that it purports to be true and has been accepted as true, but something is rotten in Denmark, if I can quote Shakespeare, and we need to find the root of that because the stench is rising and the first visible phenomena of God's anger and fury is already being expressed in the public exposure of a man who enjoyed international renown as the prophet of the hour and the oracle of God for the church in this time, who had never impressed me personally, and yet he impressed many.

Could it be that the alcoholism and homosexuality with which he's being charged is not the root and cause of God's displeasure and judgment, but is the symptom of a deeper malady, a deeper sinfulness, that will express itself horrendously and externally and shamefully in the moral way, but the root is deeper?

The root is the willingness to be introduced as the oracle of the hour and the prophet of the hour and not rise in protest and say, you're saying too much, I'm undeserving of that acknowledgement, and for me to sit on the platform and to hear myself described in that way will do serious damage to the faith, because I'm not that.

I have a gift of personal prophecy, perhaps, but to call me the oracle when I do not bring oracular statements is a title and an acknowledgement that I cannot allow to pass for truth and for integrity's sake.

So we're not only guilty of what we speak, we're guilty of our silences when we should speak. So there's something wrong with this pulpit that my Bible keeps sliding. Do you have a special Teflon coating?

Positive Prophecy and Sentimental Religion

Okay, so what do these false prophets say? They always speak so-called positive things. They affirm us and confirm us, and they're pleasant to hear. Even when they make allusions to Israel, it's in a kind of general way that sounds honorific.

They pray and acknowledge the peace of Jerusalem, and they want to see the state to survive its present troubles, and they make the kinds of conventional sounds with regard to Israel that, in my opinion, are intrinsically false but widely accepted, because it confirms the church in a comparable kind of sentimental affinity and endorsement that is improper, biblically, prophetically speaking, but is kind and nice and desires something well-meaning.

But the church is called to so much more than that and other than that and is doing Israel actual disservice to affirm it and to encourage it and to think that it's going to pass its present crisis and somehow gradually, by a process of amelioration and progressive improvement, become the prophetic fulfillment which we all desire to see and will be saved from the necessity of having to pass through apocalyptic fury, devastation, and judgment unto death, that it might be raised up out of the ashes of that death as a resurrected nation, because its calling pertains to the glory of God forever, and that can and must only issue out of resurrection through death.

So to applaud Israel in her present condition and hope only for improvement is so much more than a well-meaning acknowledgment. It's a statement of ourselves, the shallowness of what we are about, and the willingness to agree with generalities of a kind that are so visibly contradicted in Scripture, if we would pay attention to it, because we don't have a stomach for calamity, and we shrink from apocalyptic scenarios, and we want to see improvement and progressive amelioration rather than death and radical transformation, not only for Israel but also for ourselves.

So I'm just throwing that in. That's just a little bonus. For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord in verse 18? Who has really stood? The very word who rings powerfully to suggest not many, Lord. Who has his eye-ropes to and fro over the face of the church?

Standing in the Counsel of the Lord

Who among them, especially who allow themselves to be acknowledged as prophets or apostles, have actually stood in the counsel of the Lord, hath perceived and heard his word? Because his word is something other than our own.

It's really nice. It's really, really comforting. You'll know that it's his word because when it comes, it always requires. It's always a requiring word rather than a comforting and an affirming word, though occasionally the Lord might in his grace bestow that.

But who has an ear to hear that kind of thing from God so as himself to speak and to proclaim it? Not many, or God would not be saying, who? Who hath stood? We're too fretful. We're too much in movement.

There's too much activity. We can't allow silences and waiting and the kinds of things that would allow us to come in to the place of the counsel of the Lord. We're too distracted. We can't afford early morning devotional times because we have a heavy agenda ahead of us and all kinds of administrative details to consider because we are more CEOs than we are men of God.

The whole nature of the church and its success militates against being still, being in the place of quiet, being able to hear. There's an urgency. There's an agenda. There's something that needs to be attended that even if there were time to find the counsel of God by standing still, our disposition is already ruined.

The mechanics of our religion have already so affected our disposition that even if we had the leisure and the time, we wouldn't know how to employ it. Our mind would be racing with what needs to be attended.

We couldn't give God the kind of attention that he deserves in order to stand in his counsel and to hear him. And even if by some remarkable grace that were possible, would we have the courage to speak the words that we hear there?

The Prophetic Word as a Call to Death

Who has mocked this word and heard it? Who has really given heed to his word because his word is always a requiring word, radically requiring, drastically requiring. In fact, not an exaggeration to say, it's almost always and invariably an invitation to death.

So that word came forth in this place last night. You need to get the tape. And there was an appropriate response. There are people actually shaking at the altar, as the pastor himself noted. But it almost was interpreted more as an invitation to a deeper level of consecration than it was to an invitation for death.

See how we always avoid the totality of God's requirement in an honorific way because a deeper consecration is not a bad thing, but it's not the ultimate thing. It's an adjusted thing that we can well afford to accommodate because it does not require our death.

It only requires our deeper consecration, which we're only too glad to make because that ought to ensue in a better quality of ministry and blessedness. So who has really given heed to his word and really heard it so as to proclaim it with the risk of loss?

Because you can't proclaim a word that makes ultimate requirement of people and not pay a price for that. Someone has got to be offended. Flesh has got to be jarred. People will find a place where that kind of requirement is not made of them.

So it's hard to believe that both to hear and to speak the word of the Lord does not come at price and cause agitation, unrest, and disjuncture. And how many of you pastors want to avoid that? By all means, the last thing you want to consider is that your people should hear a word from God of such a kind that is not all wrapped up in one speaking and that though they may be momentarily challenged, at the end it'll be happy and they'll go home rejoicing and in a happy mood and disposition rather than they should go home in a painful state of confusion or bewilderment of what is God saying and that they should wait and look to the Lord to allow that word to be sifted through their deeps.

And it's the application to the realities of their life that will not be done in one message. What is it about our time and our generation that everybody has to go home happy? Why can't they go home jarred and agitated and deeply disquieted and compelled to search?

And what does this mean? This man is speaking in mysteries and it's not all complete in this now generation that has to have it now and immediately. So if that's what rules you as a minister who wants to make sure that the people go home happy lest they don't come back again, how are you going to be given both the hearing and the speaking the word of God that calls to a totality, makes requirement that cannot be altogether fathomed and understood even in one hearing?

So the Lord is not pleased with this deference to man, this accommodating spirit that pervades our modern day Christianity even in its best forms, and his fury is going forth. I think we're seeing now the first statement and expression, but it will not end there, because it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.

And don't think that the wicked have horns. God is always contrasting the righteous with the wicked, and the wicked implies for me those who should know better, have had opportunity to know better, and even in the face of a better knowledge or understanding, are still acting grievously, and even are opposed to the righteous, and called the true prophet false, and a danger to the church, and causing unrest and disquiet, etc.

Presumption, Self-Initiation, and the “Word of the Lord”

So, we shall know in the latter days and consider perfectly, and these latter days are now, and may we consider the heart of the Lord in what is being expressed in judgment and what is coming forth out of this piece of dust this morning before you, who says, I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran.

I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. I don't have a word for this. Presumption doesn't say enough, and of course, it certainly is presumption to think that you're sent and that the word that you're speaking is God's.

It's deception of an ultimate kind by men who don't know him as they ought and have not sought him as they ought, and yet they have an inkling, a disposition, a flair, a certain thing, and they're ready to go off with that and say, thus saith the Lord.

I don't know that I've recovered from that full gospel breakfast, where was it, in Germany or someplace, where some Swedish man of the hour, wearing his, whatchamacallit, shirt, Gucci, is it, whose trademark is quite conspicuous, so we can see how well-dressed he is, because after all, his prosperity and his affluence is the statement of his faith, and he's wearing it so that you can see it.

And he began by saying, this morning, the Lord spoke to me and gave me a word for you. I said, oh, wow, I'm leaning forward in my seat. I want to hear every syllable of the word that has come to him for us this morning.

And as he went on to speak and to share, what was that purported word? I slumped back in my seat and have not recovered to this day. It was no more the word of God than the cow jumping over the moon. It was a piece of fraudulence.

But the remarkable thing is that I think that the man actually believed that it was the word of God and that it had given to him. After all, didn't the thought come into his head as he was shaving? Isn't that God?

Because God knows he's going to have a full gospel breakfast and he'll be the speaker, so isn't that stray thought the Lord's thought? And isn't it consonant with Scripture, so it must be his? You understand what I'm getting at, saints?

There's such a shallowness. There's such a casual air. There's such a lack of the real knowledge of God as God. There's so little time spent in his presence and the knowledge of him for all of our talk about his presence.

The first stray thought that comes, boom, and then we have the audacity, the gumption, the Jews have a word for it, the chutzpah, the unbridled arrogance to say, thus saith the Lord. The Lord spoke to me.

The Lord said to me, doesn't he know that when it comes forth, it's hardly more than a cliche? It doesn't have enough weight to be sustained in a paper bag. There's no weightiness in that utterance. There's nothing oracular.

There's no freshness. There's nothing that suggests that it has come from the throne of God, that it's a now-present statement. It's a cheapie. But you know what? The whole audience drank it up and loved it and applauded it because it made no requirement of them and came with a certain air of titillation.

And after all, it was expressed by the man of God for the hour, who is an overwhelming success because his church has 2 ,000 or more. Can you understand? The whole scheme of things stinks. It's a rotten fraud, but it's amazing how it could be sucked up by God's people.

And there's not one who blinks except cats. And we know that he's queer because you've not kept your heart with all diligence. You have not guarded your spirit. You've opened it for any intrusion of anything that purports to be spirit that is really soul, so much so that the distinction is blurred.

And anything that comes that has some appearance of spirituality or whatever with an ability to stir and touch emotion is received of you. You don't know what price you're paying to be so indiscriminate and so acceptive of anything that comes as being somehow from the Lord, because it ostensibly celebrates him and therefore mutes your spirit and dulls it and makes you less capable on the next occasion for being able to discern between soul and spirit until you're finally taken up in the whole soulish enterprise and become a functionary in it yourself.

Because of my calling, I'm jealous to keep the integrity of my inner man and of my spirit. But you know what that means? It means sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb while everybody else is celebrating and falling out of their seats or whatever or crying or laughing.

You're sitting there like a dum-dum. You're completely unmoved because it has not touched your spirit. And you're not going to open to something that offers itself as being in the realm of spirit when it's soul.

And therefore, you'll remain unmoved, looking unspiritual. There's a price to pay for integrity, for guarding your spirit and your heart. And if we're not willing to pay it, we'll be caught up with the whole stream and be less able to discern its character and finally be participant in it.

I have not sent these prophets. Do you love the word sent? You know that it's the root of apostolos. If it's not sent, my dear saints, if it's self-initiated, if a man picks himself up and goes and speaks, my God, the world is full of claptrap and noise and gift of gab.

And this is the most valuable of all ages. There's never been such a sea of talking and words and profusion of writings and mailings. And we're swimming in it. But where is the man who is sent? And sent with a word that has its auspices from the throne of heaven and is the now-present truth as it is in Christ Jesus.

God did not send these men, but they ran. Think of the arrogance of this. God has not sent you. You would think you would come with a certain kind of timidity and dare to express yourself, but they come running because the whole tempo of the church is running.

There's a mechanics. There's something that has to go on with a certain velocity and certain speed, certain momentum. I always wonder about these speakers that when they're called on, they run up to the platform and they're right on the spot and happy and buoyant and ready to go.

What's wrong with me? I'm a snail. My heart sinks when I hear I'm being called upon. The last thing is to come up to the holy desk and open your mouth before God's people, let alone his ministers and in his name.

I can't understand how they can run. The very fact that they run is ipso facto evidence that they're not sent. Why can't we wait? Why can't we allow a moment of interlude in between the end of the worship service so-called and the commencement of the speaker?

No, there can't be a moment's silence allowed lest the congregation be distracted or bored. There's a tempo that is so fixed and you're guilty for it. You've not blown the whistle. You've not called the halt.

You've gone with the rhythm, and it's antithetical to waiting on God. It's antithetical to receiving a word from God that you might be sent. There's something wrong with running, and we need to recognize that.

I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. Audacity. Better if they would have said, this is my opinion. After some reflection, I'm offering these comments for your consideration, but I don't presume to say that God has given me this statement and that this is a thus saith the Lord.

Dear saints, in the day that we allow men to use that kind of vocabulary and punctuate their speakings by freely employing the name of the Lord to sanction it as having been given when it was not given, then the church is at its end.

We're at the age of apostasy and fallenness when we allow such license, such unmitigated liberty as for men to take the name of the Lord on their lips so as to authorize, sanctify, validate something that had its issuance only in themselves and never came from God, but freely punctuate their statements by saying, thus saith the Lord, or the Lord said, or the Lord told me.

And you sat there like a bunch of dummies and swallowed that, and you don't know what a price you paid for that indulgence and for that condescension. You should have gotten up and shrieked and cried out and blowed the whistle and say, this far, no further, not another word.

You're desecrating the faith and the name of God from which we'll not recover if this becomes a practice and a standard that others will equally follow as playing the game. You'll make of the faith a game, a charade.

The church is the pillar of truth, not a piece of flim flam that reflects the low standard of the world, only employing another vocabulary. Where's your jealousy? They ran. They don't know him, but they're quick to employ him in a utilitarian sense as if he's a commodity.

Can you believe that? To traffic in God and to use him as an endorsement for something that has its origins out of your own soul and humanity? He's not a commodity. He's the most high. The church is in lamentable condition since, even in its best forms, because we have tolerated such practices and in fact have indulged them ourselves.

This first fallen internationally renowned prophet is only a first statement of God and it'll not end there before he unravels the entire fiasco and fraud and makes it known. So we need to understand and examine and be critical of the condition into which we have come, kind of system, the tempo of services and the fear to allow there to be a moment's silence that is not filled by some activity.

Something is already wrong by its very nature that we have come to that kind of condition, that we cannot tolerate silence with the God who says, be still and know that I am God. And there's so little occasion to be still.

The religion demands activity, momentum, and we're practitioners and we're doing it and think we're doing God a service. So God save us from staggering presumption and arrogance. And the heck of it is this, how is it that we did not discern this arrogance and presumption in these internationally renowned oracles and faith for the hour?

The Appetite for Sensational Prophecy

It's not just they that are the object of God's disfavor, but we who have sat there like dummies and have applauded them and run to hear them so that we can get a personal prophecy and be assured that God knows us because the prophecy indicates details that can only be known to God or to the devil.

But we want so much to hear and have our ears tickled and maybe there's an experience of some kind which we desperately need because of the grayness of the church and its terrible predictability that needs to be alleviated by something of a sensational kind that can be experienced.

So already the trap is set by the need to have ourselves confirmed before God by some man of the hour who can give us a personal word of prophecy and assure us that God knows us. Oh, thank you, Lord. I didn't know that you knew me until I heard.

Whatever happened to being accepted into beloved that does not need this kind of dubious and questionable confirmation that comes from questionable personal prophecy that might well be more clairvoyance than it is the gift of spirit.

I'm getting at the root of the matter, you dear saints. This is not a finished message. This is a guy who's gotten up bleary-eyed this morning without sufficient time to prepare and trusting the Lord that I'm full enough just to open my mouth and believe that his heart is finding expression because I don't give a rap about my reputation.

What reputation? Or the esteem or the acceptance of the congregation or any such consideration and that permits me a vast freedom to be his fool. May you come to that freedom, although the system does not encourage it.

So what is the thought of his heart, the intent of his mind, who has known it, known him, that they can say with confidence, he has sent me. Thus saith the Lord. But if they had stood in my counsel, verse 22, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from the evil way and from the evil of their doings.

Humanism as the Root of Evil

Now, don't think that this means to turn them from pornography and vile sensual practices, but the evil means the evil of self-initiated humanisms in whatever form, even that which seems honorific and moral and ethical and religious and even Christian.

It's wicked because it does not issue from God, but issues from man. Let the unrighteous man, how does it say in Isaiah, let the wicked man forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts. It's not because his thoughts are pornographic.

It's unrighteous because they are his thoughts. They're human thoughts, even when they're religious. That makes them unrighteous because the only righteous thoughts comes from a righteous God. And so these prophets who themselves are exhibiting their own humanity are encouraging their hearers to do likewise, which is evil.

See, of course, I'm giving you a prophetic interpretation. You understand what I'm saying? Which is always more black and white, always more intense, always focused more intensely, because you would never have interpreted the word evil here in the way that I'm suggesting it to you.

You don't even see it as evil because you yourself are conducting yourself in quite that way. You don't see that what issues from man isn't in its essence evil. It's unrighteous, all the more because God says forsake your thoughts.

And my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. And you can have my thoughts if you'll only forfeit and put away your own. But to persist in your thought is wicked. It's evil when you celebrate your thought and have no need for my own.

And what's worse, even to interpret that thought as being God's, when it had its issuance and its origin in yourself, and maybe even from below. But your condition is so poor that if it comes in spiritual terms, or it quotes scripture, that's enough to you to validate it as being God.

Spirituality is the last hiding place of self. Had they stood in my counsel and had caused people to hear my words, then they would have turned from the evil way from the evil of their doings. It's evil because it's their doings, even when it's a project or a program or something ostensibly to serve the purposes of God, in which we liberally use the phrase his kingdom.

If it has its origin in man and from below, it's evil, it's wicked, it's unrighteous. It's theirs, not mine. And these false prophets who are active out of themselves are modeling something for the church to emulate, which is altogether not God.

The Fear of God and Accountability

So can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? You know what the astonishment is? That men can speak and act and do and not think that they are being observed of God, that somehow they can get away with it, that the Lord is not attentive on that day.

We're not like Paul, who always lived in the conscious sense of the judge and the day of judgment, and that we shall be held accountable for every idle word that we speak, and that all that we have done in our bodies, both good and bad, will one day come before us when we stand before the judgment of God.

We lack a consciousness of God actually as present and seeing and observing not only the things that we say and do, but even the condition of our secret heart when it's silent. You got the picture? What, am I commending some kind of legalism and rob you of your charismatic freedom and bring you into some kind of constraint that God is always there seeing and knowing?

I'll tell you, dear saints, the greatest malady of the church today is the lack of the fear of God as God. There is no awe, no sense of fear, no deep respect that he's a living God and a seeing and a knowing God, and we can't get away with our little gitchy goo and cutting corners as if he does not observe it.

The remarkable thing is he lets it go on, and he's silent, and we assume that either he has condoned it or he's not seen it until the day comes that we find ourselves not only into homosexuality but also into alcoholism.

It catches up with us. We're not communicating the sense of God, which is the function, the first primary function of foundational men who are apostles and prophets is not their cleverness to resolve church difficulties and disputes, it's to communicate in themselves the sense of God as he in fact is as God.

They should trail clouds of glory with them, something about themselves, their stateliness, their stature, the how they walk, they talk, their eyes, their demeanor as men who have come out of God's presence, who know him, who have waited upon him, and whose meekness and humility which no man can obtain by any practice is transmuted into them by the intimacy of the fellowship with him in his sufferings.

Hiddenness, Suffering, and Spiritual Authenticity

We're seeing shallow pieces of goods of men without histories in God who have no origins in the church and in the body. Johnny-come-lately's boom, and they obtain international renown. It doesn't take much in the public relations game.

It has to be resisted, or a Jewish man like myself who was better looking earlier, but always vocal and even eloquent. Hey, a man like that can go far. If you can promote a nothing who is, what shall I say, lacks any solidity, any tensile strength, any quality of life and history, and make of him the oracle of the hour, what can you do with the cats if he will allow you?

So Moish Rosen, the head of Jews for Jesus, who drafted me out of public school teaching and was my instructor in being a missionary to the Jews, prophesied, by the time you're 50, Art, you will be the Jewish Billy Graham.

I saw him recently. I said, you know, you missed it. I'm now 75, and I've yet to become the Jewish Billy Graham. I don't think I ever will. Well, he said, it's not that I was wrong in my prophecy. You could have become it, he said, if you played your cards right.

But you fool, you went to Minnesota, up into the boondocks where even the travel agents can't find it on the map. And you were there for 30 years in total obscurity and hiddenness in the subarctic zone whose temperatures are colder than Alaska, because you felt that the spirit of God said to you, end time teaching center, community refuge, and acted on that still small voice.

You intuited such a whisper that if you had chosen not to hear it, the Lord would not have disqualified you and would have allowed you to be the greatest success Jewishly than you have become. What are we hearing?

What are we allowing to be heard when it calls us to sacrifice and to suffering, to humiliation, community refuge, community? Hey, I want to retain the aura of the man of the hour under the anointing of God from the platform.

But what is it going to be when I'm living with the same people intensely and intimately, not just on Sunday, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, running? Aren't there going to be occasions when my clay feet will be revealed?

Aren't they going to see the displeasure of my wife and the mistreatment of my children, or the celebration of my dogs over that of the body of Christ? It's only a matter of time before you'll be found out cats and be humiliated because you cannot retain that aura of the anointed man publicly when you're living with the same people day in and day out in all the vicissitudes of life that are especially demanding in community.

But it's the greatest provision that God has ever made for me and saved me from being phony baloney and being a hothouse flower and flitting from one holiday into the other as God's prophet for the hour.

Hey, there's a price paid if you're getting any value out of what I'm speaking because what I'm speaking is what I am. And that's what a prophet is called to be. The thing in himself, not a promulgator, a mouthpiece with a gift of gab and a little glitzy aura that captivates the shallow and the carnal who want to emulate and become just like that, but don't want to go to northern Minnesota to obtain it or any other comparable form of self-denial, let alone suffering.