Popular or Prophetic

Popular or Prophetic
For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.”
Matthew 10:16-23

No one likes to be unpopular, to be shunned and ignored.  Part of our personality is the desire to be a part of the community and to be accepted by others.  Of all the emotions we experience, perhaps there is none worse than rejection and loneliness.  
As Jesus sends the disciples out to preach the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus warns that it will lead to alienation and rejection.  To proclaim the kingdom's coming is to call people to surrender to the sovereign authority of God. However, this message is unpopular.  We desire a loving and caring God but not one who demands our allegiance, loyalty, and obedience.  We want a God who affirms us, not aims to transform us.  To proclaim the love and grace of God is acceptable, but the crowds quickly turn when we call them to surrender their lives to Christ.
Consequently, Christ warns his disciples that their message will not always be popular.  But our task is not to communicate a popular message but a prophetic message. A popular message is one driven by the crowds.  Paul warns that people will no longer desire the whole message of Christ and his kingdom agenda.  Instead, they will gather around them preachers who say what they want to hear ( 2 Timothy 4:2-5).
To have a transformational message that genuinely brings people into the kingdom, our message must conform to God's redemptive plan. This plan is not just for the salvation of sinners but for advancing the kingdom of heaven.  It is to challenge people to be genuinely and utterly submissive to Christ.  First, This requires we seek pastors and churches that preach prophetically rather than those who preach messages to be popular. By “prophetic preaching,” I am not referring to the narrow meaning of proclaiming new revelation from God. When John finished the Book of Revelation, we had the complete revelation of God’s word, so we no longer need new revelation. Instead, I am referring to the broader meaning of “prophetic preaching,” which refers to those who apply the Law of God to their day's current moral and spiritual crisis.  In the Old Testament, the prophet's task was not so much to preach new revelation from God but to apply the law of God to the current situation.  This is the kind of preachers we need today who fearlessly apply the scriptures to current issues and call people to a life of surrender and obedience to God.  A popular preacher gains a following by preaching what people want to hear and is popular because of their eloquence.  Prophetic preachers base their message upon the Scriptures, confront the sin of society, and proclaim God’s word.  Instead of catering to the crowds, we need preachers who stand firm in prophetically asserting God’s message and truth.  We need pastors who allow the Holy Spirit to guide and direct their message so that they proclaim God’s message, not our own.
Second, we need to proclaim the message of Christ to others fearlessly. We must “not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation” (Romans 1:16).  Even when people are hostile to our message, we must still be bold in our witness.  When we stand before God, the measure of our life will not be in our popularity but in our faithfulness to God and his Word.  Instead of compromising our message to make it acceptable to our popular culture, we need to boldly confront our culture with the need to live in complete obedience to God and his word.  It may not be popular, but it will be pleasing to God, and in the end, that is all that matters.    

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