It’s like a slap in the face with a wet fish

LOL - It’s like a slap in the face with a wet fish. Know what I mean?? You are reading something and you’re not really paying very much attention. Suddenly a sentence, a phrase, maybe even a headline leaps off the page and startles you into wakefulness. It really is like a slap in the face with a wet fish – it is that much of a surprise. It may even be a shock. A name you recognise maybe or a place you know very well – maybe from long ago. In my case it was a familiar scripture – the story of Samuel going to Bethlehem to anoint David as king of Israel.

Samuel didn’t want to go. After all, if King Saul found out he was anointing another as king, well, he might get just a tad upset don’t you think? As I read on, the verse suddenly hit me. I almost jumped as the realisation hit me of what was actually said. Try it for your self – it’s 1 Samuel 16:4 “So Samuel did what the LORD said, and went to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” Do you see it yet? Let me dramatise it for you a little bit.

“Mr Mayor, Mr Mayor – the town lookouts report a small party approaching the town – 5 or 6 men, one on a donkey.”

“Send someone to greet them – find out who it is.”

A period of waiting.

“Mr Mayor – It’s the Prophet of All Israel – It’s my Lord Samuel himself!”

“Oh my goodness me. What’s wrong? Who has done what? Let’s hope it’s nothing serious.”

You get the drift, I’m sure. The prophet was not just respected – he was feared. As the spiritual father of Israel, he had very real power and authority – and he could use it. Even the king called him Father or My Lord Samuel. Remember later on when Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel? To enforce his victory he killed or executed 450 of them at the Brook Kishon – and the king did nothing to stop him apparently. That is real authority – real power. So it was with all the earlier prophets like Samuel. Actually, Samuel was the last Judge of Israel and the first prophet too. He supervised the transition from an autocracy, (Moses, Joshua, and their successors), to a kingdom (King Saul) whilst retaining the authority of judge over the whole nation; and future prophets inherited all of that authority. Only the king, or in Jezebel’s case the queen, could do anything about him. He carried God’s Word to the people from the highest to the lowest and he carried the authority of God too.

What I am getting at here is that in that one verse of scripture, we see the power, and the authority of the prophet and we also see the fear, the respect, and the reverence in which he was held by all the people. That is what I mean when I say that, although I had read the story quite a few times before, it was on this one occasion that the import of what I was reading hit me so hard – it woke me up. It really was like a ‘slap in the face with a wet fish’.

I feel quite safe from contradiction when I say that, in these present times, there is not one person in the entire world with the authority and respect of Israel’s prophets of old amongst world leaders, heads of state, or kings and princes. Perhaps the nearest we have at this time is Benyamin Netanyahu the present Prime Minister of Israel – and even he, as far as I know, isn’t regarded as the Prophet of Israel, in the old original sense at least. Certainly, no present day prophet carries that anointing or authority. Very few carry much authority at all although one or two are respected and revered.

This is the ‘two-edged sword’ of the Word of God for you. It carries authority and power. It carries revelation and knowledge. Yes, sometimes the words do leap off the page at you and take your breath away with their simplicity and truth. This is why I have learned to love and cherish the Word of God – I read very little else these days.

How about you?