TOUCH NOT MY ANOINTED (Psalm 105)

Psalm 105 1 Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done. 2 Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. 3 Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. 4 Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always. 5 Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced, 6 you his servants, the descendants of Abraham, his chosen ones, the children of Jacob. 7 He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth. 8 He remembers his covenant forever, the promise he made, for a thousand generations, 9 the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac. 10 He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant: 11 “To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.” 12 When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it, 13 they wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. 14 He allowed no one to oppress them; for their sake he rebuked kings: 15 “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.” 

You have likely heard pastors and evangelists quote verse 15 in isolation from the rest of the chapter. You really need to know the whole context. My Dad was pastor of the oldest Baptist Church in New Jersey which was founded in the 1700's. He was the first pastor to resign - all those who preceded him either died or were thrown out. He broke that tradition, though my mom thought he would have been thrown out as well had he stayed for much longer. Actually, though, I thought this particular verse applied to leaders abusing the flock. This verse immediately follows the rebuke of kings, and is in the same sentence, so I appeal to context. Abimelech was kept from touching Sarah, Elijah was protected from a wicked king Ahab within Israel, and there are many other examples. Trapp says, “This God speaketh not of kings, but to kings, concerning his people who have an unction from the Father, being sanctified and set apart for his peculiar purposes. To touch these is to touch the apple of God’s eye, Zechariah 2:8; they are sacred persons.”

Obviously Godly pastors also would fall in his category as sacred persons, but I share Trapp's view that the set of persons mentioned is not limited to leaders. While David respected the fact that Saul had been anointed, even though he was not walking in it, he refused to do any harm to him, I find it curious that many of the charlatans out there who are a dime a dozen on TV preach a different gospel and then use this verse frequently in an attempt to silence their Berean critics. If I have a difference with my pastor, I simply go to him or mail him a respectful note explaining what and why I believe something is amiss and then it is in his court. Actually I have one I sent which has not yet been answered and of course we are in a stressful time so am very patient - the issue was not with him but one of his assistant pastors who told me he believed God often does not remove same sex attraction until the rapture. I strenuously disagreed with him using scripture, and that opinion he expressed is totally at odds with what the pastor teaches about a totally changed and holy life, so we will see. There is a chain of command. Many are in rebellion and cause upset in the church not even giving the pastor a chance to consider your appeal.  I must add hear that the overwhelming majority of my contact with the pastor is to encourage him, tell him how something God spoke through him was a special blessing, so to ask for a clarification to be sure I understood him correctly.  Paul encouraged people routinely, and my pastor from years ago said we would do best to give nine encouragements for every correction!

I know this pastor has a lot of integrity and so do the other assistant pastors. This particular assistant pastor oversees the bookstore, and the reason the subject came up was that there were two books I came across which were clearly in error. Since they have always maintained they are very strict about their bookstore - they will not even sell any NIV Bibles, only approved versions, I thought these two tomes may have slipped in unnoticed, but this assistant pastor said he reviewed them, wholeheartedly agreed with them and approved them. He even gave some of them to the young people. I was appalled. If the senior pastor had said this, rather than a young millennial, I would have been even more stunned. Nonetheless, you cannot have a mixed message in your church or you are asking for trouble. Look what God did with Achan. I have noticed we are besieged with millennial "progressive" Christians among evangelicals who take what the LGBTQ people say as worth comparing with the Holy Scriptures! You cannot compromise the character of God by accepting the memes of the wicked. The Holy Spirit says, "ALL THINGS are become new." That certainly includes "same-sex attraction", which is a sanitized expression for the homosexual spirit. How can a homosexual spirit live side by side with the Holy Spirit, as we are temples of the Holy Spirit? He CAN'T and we need to lead people into deliverance rather than accept the meme "they were born this way", which incidentally has been disproven time and again - there is NO GAY GENE! Christ can and does redeem our lives from destruction, and homosexuality, whether the act, the identity, or the desire, is destructive and at enmity with God. We need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds to prove "what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." No leader could ever convince me that "same sex desire" is part of that "good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

 Obviously, if you are in a church where the teaching is patently false from the top down, or if error is allowed to coexist alongside the truth and is not dealt with, you need to vamoose as quickly as possible because "what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness"? Also, if your disagreements with the pastor are frequent and/or deep, you need to ask yourself if you are in left field or your pastor is and either repent and change or seek out a church where the Pastor is obviously sincere, faithful to scripture, and submitted to the Holy Spirit.