Signs Of The Times: It is particularly significant that so many Christian celebrities today regularly issue stern warnings to their critics ‘not to touch the Lord’s Anointed’. In fact It would be difficult to find a charismatic/evangelical service/program/tract/book that is not liberally sprinkled with the word 'Anointed
Consider this.. In Matthew 24, on the Mount Of Olives, the disciples came to the Lord privately saying “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Jesus’ first words in answer to them were “Take heed that no man lead you astray” (v.4) and then He went on to say “ For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray”. (Emphasis added) For as long as one can remember there has been the odd lunatic who called himself ‘The Christ’, but certainly there haven’t been enough of them to qualify for Jesus’ warning of “Many shall come in my name” (Most of them were nutty as a fruitcake anyway and certainly didn’t gather much of a following) .. However...
‘Christ’ means Anointed.. it is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word rendered “Messiah”
In other words Jesus answered a direct question about what signs would signify the end of the world with a warning that ‘Many would come in His name claiming they were ‘anointed’.
Raise-Bar
Touch Not My Anointed!
“Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm.’” (Ps 105:15)
Whom Do They Think They Are Kidding? (below)
Benny Hinn once stated,
'You cannot win attacking the servants of the Lord, no matter who they are or what they've done ...if the anointing ever comes upon a man, don't touch that man, even if he turns away from God, and serves the devil, Don't touch him. You are in deep, serious danger.”
One is quite likely to come across different versions of this statement) apart from the obvious flaws in this particular one) So what does the Bible mean when it says not to touch God’s anointed and do His prophets no harm?
Who are the Lord’s Anointed?
There are several verses in The Old Testament that speak about the 'Lord's anointed'.
1) In 1 Sam. 12:3,5; 24:6,10; 26:9,11, 16,23; and 2 Sam. 1:14,16; 19:21 it is a reference to the kings of Israel.
2) In Psalm 20:6; the ‘anointed’ king is the divinely appointed means of the Lord’s deliverance.
3) In Lamentations 4:20 it either refers to the nation of Israel as a whole or the king at the time of the Babylonian invasion.
The mention of prophets in Psalm 105:8-15 and 1Chron. 16:15-22 is a reference to the patriarchs. They are called ‘anointed’ in the sense of being set apart by God’s Spirit, a phrase elsewhere used specifically for prophets (I Kings 19:16), priests (Ex 29:7), and kings (1Samuel 2:35).
(The patriarchs are called ‘prophets’ in the sense of being recipients of God’s special revelation, which was a title later used for those who proclaimed God’s revealed will, although some of the patriarchs did make specific predictions).
So the ‘anointed’ were the patriarchs, the prophets, the kings andr the priests
What does the Bible mean by “do not touch”
Again it is well to clearly define what God means when He says “Do not touch….”. Does touch mean physical injury or verbal opposition?
When God told Saul (His anointed) to “Smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not...” (1 Sam. 15:3) Saul disobeyed and “spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord...” (v.15). Upon which Samuel wasted no time in publicly denouncing Saul’s disobedience, telling him that “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft”. (v.2
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