A Prophetic Word
THE PERIL OF THE PRINCE IN THE DAYS OF TRANSITION
(The Foremost Pitfalls Today's Emerging Gospel Ministers Must Avoid)
The foremost temptation of ministers now is self-promotion. The crave to erect their own IMAGE, to humanly and illegitimately thrust their presence upon the Church and upon a generation. Ultimately, there will be two kinds of ministers: those who promoted themselves and those the Lord promoted...
Those promoting themselves are poised to trend first, just like princes Absalom and Adonijah rose before Solomon. And how Ahimaaz arrived before Cushi in the race to deliver THE message 'for' the King. Self-promotion is a potent short-cut.
Lot, Abram's nephew, is also after their order. Others, still, will preempt and hijack God's program for their lives like Hazael who slew his master King Benhadad, hastening the hand of God's clock by their own hand. A breed of men bereft of meekness. God can not truly use such. It was for this cause He had to break Jacob's hip.
The Ahimaazs actually will be authorized and endorsed by the princes (fathers), and his ministry will be tolerated and even earthly-rewarded by the King (the Lord). Unlike Absalom and Adonijah, Ahimaaz's ministry move wasn't in absolute rebellion, his only failure was that he lacked THE message for his generation that would satisfy the King's heart. Because He intruded into someone else's line of ministry. Speed was Ahimaaz's gift, and that was the ultimate impact he generated to his generation: zeal to serve the King. Yet an unguided and unbroken zeal will always spiral into self-serving ambition.
But watch out for the Absaloms and Adonijahs, they are often the leading ones. And "a number" of today's emerging ones are after their kind. The ultimate penalty of their rebellion is "death". (The Davids are a kind of upstarts too, but with an entirely different heart.) Absalom's rebellious spirit will be inherited and continued by his grand-daughter Maachah, the idolatrous Queen. Yes; rebellion always matures as witchcraft and idolatry. But that rebellion will never escape the third generation, to slip through to and contaminate the fourth. No. It will be judged in Maachah by David's fourth dynasty scion, Asa.
Absalom's ambition will be driven by both intimidation and manipulation, while Adonijah's will be purely diplomatic and relational. Lobbying his way through via "throne-for-power" transaction with the Joabs and Abiathars. And mesmerizing a gullible followership with the 3 Prides of life, namely, knowledge, power and mammon/success. The marks of the image of the Beast.
The Solomons will appear slow, in fact, generally considered dull and sluggish. But they won't miss their calling. They are childlike concerning worldly craftiness and self-promotion; but in spiritual understanding they are mature. They've renounced the hidden things of walking in craftiness of ministry politicking. They are neither self-serving, nor men-serving, as menpleasers. They preach not themselves, nor for themselves. They genuinely serve the church for Jesus's sake.
The chosen path of the Solomons will subject them to trouble on every side, physical and psychological pressures, persecution, and humiliations, indeed they will taste death in their mortal body; but they will not be distressed, despaired, nor destroyed. These physical, psychological and sociological reproaches will attract the Spirit of Glory to rest UPON them, first in an unannounced manner. Then they will be adorned with an even deeper dimension of inner Glory that will be fresh WITHIN their spirit, like Job... The candle of God will shine upon their heads, and their wordministry will descend like dew upon people... Their inward man will be renewed day by day. Their "light" affliction will work for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory. The weight of the Glory of God will be their signature, stamp and seal...
These are the ones who the Lord will advance, as He did Samuel, Moses and Aaron. He will cause them to always triumph, and spread FAR the fragrance of His knowledge through them, like Paul. For as Paul was, their lives are a sweetpleasing aroma to Christ. They are not corrupt at heart, neither are they of them that corrupt the word of God for personal gain...
But even these Solomons yet face a looming temptation, a peril and plight of which they must beware... it is ignoring the quest for the perfect heart. The heart that not only receives wisdom, but sustains it...
Musing... "Quest for The Perfect Heart"...
Your brother,
Niyi Adetiloye
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