THE EDITOR, Sir:
"PORTIA WILL be Prime Minister," declares Dr. Phillip Phinn in a recent Mind and Spirit interview with Mark Dawes (Saturday, April 30). If she does not become the next Prime Minister, does this make God a liar? If, in fact, she does make it as the next PM, does this prove Dr. Phinn to be a genuine prophet? And, does God have a right to pre-empt the selection process?
Let the prophet speak. It takes a lot of courage and boldness to proclaim the word he hears from God. And yet, we must not confuse his revelations with the prognosticator, who simply 'reads' into the future. After all, the occult soothsayers and fortune tellers did this with great precision, but with God's disapproval.
The truth is, details of names, dates and places, which tend to excite our religious emotions and occupy our academic curiosity about the future, are of secondary importance to the biblical prophet. God warns us not to be preoccupied over "times and seasons which the Father has put in His own authority." It is the spiritual and moral reason and the divine purpose of God which give significance to the names, dates and places mentioned in the utterances of the prophetic servant of God.
PROPHECY FULFILLED
For example, Samuel, the prophet of Israel, under God's instruction, went into the home of Jesse and announced the least likely of his sons to be the next king of all Israel. Although he was not from the lineage and with the learning of kings, the shepherd boy had the moral courage to lead his people. Fifteen years later, this word was fulfilled.
When the prophet speaks, there are three things which distinguish his word as the Word of God.
DECLARATION OF BLESSINGS
First, the prophet's word emphasises the sovereignty of God, who alone determines times and seasons in the course of human history. It is He who promotes and demotes in the affairs of nations to fulfill His providential purpose.
Second, the prophet's motive is to call the people back to the Law-Word of God that governs their lives. Choices placed before men challenge them to measure up to the moral and ethical demands of God's righteousness. Obedience to the law promises blessings. Disobedience attracts the judgment of God.
Third, the prophet was a messenger of hope with a declaration of future blessings, in keeping with God's covenantal promises to redeem, restore and prosper His people.
Jamaica needs to hear the prophet speak. We are now driven so perilously close to the edge of despair, that it will need something more than tough policy-driven programmes and mechanisms to pull us through the trauma of the past 20 years.
I am, etc.,
C.B. PETER MORGAN (Bishop)
bishoppm04@yahoo.co.uk
Episcopal Office
53 Water Lane
Kingston, Jamaica
