The Lone Stranger

    Men who speak for God never merge into the fog around them. Noah stood alone in a civilization of culture and progress. His contemporaries must have laughed at him as an eccentric who was...looking for the world to end. Elijah stood alone among the priests of Baal and the stooges who ate at Jezebel’s table....True prophets are solitary people; eagles do not fly in flocks. It is not easy to be a Lone Dissenter. When the messenger was sent for Micaiah he must have said, in effect, “The clergy have agreed, and you had better make it unanimous....This is a good gravy train and you had better ride it. This is the mood of the hour and you had better get with it.” The same subtle pressures today would persuade preachers to get in step with the times and ride the wave of the future. What we need are more preachers out of step with the times, more odd prophets like Micaiah....The pulpit is not a platform from which to boost the projects of men to bring in a false millennium.... 

Vance Havner, The Best of Vance Havner, The Berean Call, January 1998