THE PURPOSE & EFFECT OF REVELATION

PART FIVE

Revealing the Knowledge of God and Making Known the Heart of Man

In the desert fathers, there is a story of three friends who took it upon themselves to serve God to the best of their abilities. The first friend went to the city to help restore broken relationships. He labored to help bring reconciliation in difficult situations. The second man went to care for the sick. He spent his days tending to their wounds and redressing bandages. The third friend went into the desert to seek God in silence and solitude.

Over time, the first friend found himself burnt out and unable to help to the degree that he had hoped. He went and found the second friend to see how he had fared. He found the second man just as tried, burnt out, and unsuccessful as he had been. The needs of the sick were never abated, no matter how much effort he put into caring for them.

They resolved to go and find the third friend and see how the desert had treated him. When they arrived at his dwelling, they sat with him in silence for a while. Eventually, the two friends told the third man their failures. Without saying anything, the third man took a bowl and filled it with water. He dropped it in front of the two brothers and asked them to look into the bowl. Over time, the water calmed and both friends noticed that as the water calmed they could see their reflection in the water. The third friend said, “My brothers, such also is he who finds himself among men; from the agitation, he does not see his sins. However, when he removes himself far from the world and establishes himself in an isolated spot, and his senses are quieted, then he sees his shortcomings and corrects himself, if he so wishes, with the help of the Grace of God.”

One of the Hebrew words for vision is the word “mar’ah” (H4759). While it is most often translated as vision, it can also be translated as mirror. As a vision is one means by which we engage with revelation, taking the Hebrew word mar’ah into account, revelation can act as a mirror. What is the purpose of a mirror? To reflect back to you your own image. 

When God comes to Jacob in a vision (mar’ah), Jacob is shown his own fear and the promise of eventual blessing. The vision functions as a mirror of Jacob’s heart and destiny.

Genesis 46:2-3 Then God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, “Jacob, Jacob!” And he said, “Here I am.” So He said, “I am God, the God of your father; do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there.

Just as with the three friends and their reflection in the cup of water, prophetic revelation ought to help still the waters of the heart to give a reflection of what God truly sees when he sees us. Paul claims that revelation will reveal the secrets in the heart:

I Corinthians 14:24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all.

The gift of prophecy is one means that the heart of a man is made known. One purpose of prophetic ministry is to remind people of who they are to bring softness to their heart. The heart is a mystery and can only be known by God. The Bible says that God is the knower of the hearts. When his Spirit is active and moving, the secret places of our hearts are brought to light.

Think of it this way: only the Spirit of God can reveal God.

I Corinthians 2:11-12 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

We can only know God in proportion as he reveals himself, and he reveals himself to the degree our capacity can apprehend him. Our minds are finite and he is infinite and is therefore unknowable. How can you possibly know what is infinite? It would be very difficult for an individual to describe a thing that is infinite. Yet he also longs to be known. The Spirit of God dwells within us and reveals the nature of God to us. He sent the Spirit of his Son into your heart that you might cry out to know him:

Galatians 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

Abba Issac the Syrian claimed that within every Christian, the Holy Spirit acted as an inner mirror:

These are the words of those who love Jesus and who hope in Him, whose souls have become brides adorned with every kind of virtue, having within themselves a holy mirror, in which they look carefully at themselves, lest they find any stain in the animate image of God and not be pleasing to their Bridegroom. In this mirror they unceasingly behold the reflection of the glory of the Bridegroom, as the Apostle Paul says: “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

This inner mirror reflects back to you not your own face, but the glory of the Bridegroom. As he reveals himself within through the agency of the Holy Spirit, he also reveals you to you. You are his dwelling place and you are his image. Anything that reveals his nature, will, on some nature, reveal your nature. This is why Augustine the Great can pray:

God, always the same, let me know myself, let me know Thee.

So, when the Spirit of God moves, he is busy revealing himself and you. Now, as we have seen before, prophecy must be understood as the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. As a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, prophecy shares the properties of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit moves in prophetic utterances, hearts are revealed. And this is exactly what we see Paul expecting in 1 Corinthians 14:24-25. 

This was germane to prophecy in the Old Testament as well. When Daniel interprets the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, he tells the king that the vision has come to reveal the thoughts of the heart of the king: 

Daniel 2:30 But as for me, this secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but for our sakes who make known the interpretation to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your heart.

One facet of prophetic ministry is revealing to us what is a mystery to us, that is: the depths of our heart. When Paul said that the secrets of the heart would be revealed, he meant that they would be brought into the light and that prophetic utterance would cause what was hidden within to bubble up to the surface. 

I have a friend who was in a gathering where a recognized prophetic voice was pointing at people and prophesying over them. This friend was quite skeptical of prophetic ministry. A number of events had transpired over the few previous years to move him from his cessationist background to a cautious interest in prophetic ministry. As he sat at the back of the room observing, he was not prepared for what happened next.

“You in the back, with the red shirt,” The man in the front said while gesturing my friend’s way.

My friend looked around wondering who was wearing a red shirt in his general vicinity. After a few furtive glances around he realized he was the only one wearing red. 

“You mean me?” he said as he pointed at himself.

The man nodded in the affirmative. 

“The Lord told me to tell you this. You would crawl on your hands and knees through broken glass from Toronto, Ontario to Prince Edward Island just to find the love of the Father, but the Father is right here with you now.”

My friend was stunned. The two cities mentioned were the city where he was from and the city where he was serving in ministry. He had struggled to come to grips with the immense pain of his childhood and the brokenness of his own father. He knew that God loved him as a son intellectually, but that moment did a profound work in his heart. The secrets of his heart were made known, placed into the light, the nature of God was made known, and his heart was redeemed. The prophetic word had effectively held up a mirror and helped him to see himself as the Father saw him.