See Thou Do It Not Is Said by an Angel Who Had Every Reason to Let It Happen

This one is written from the other side of it, and it is the harder side to admit.

He is the man people ask. It happened gradually and he did not build it, and by now there are four or five people who bring him things, and the things they bring are not small. Decisions about their marriages. Whether to take a job. What a passage means and what they should do about it.

And he is good at it. That is the part that makes this difficult. He is careful, he does not answer quickly, he has been right more often than not, and every one of those people is better off for knowing him.

What he has never said to anybody is that he likes it.

Not the responsibility. He would give up the responsibility. He likes being the one they come to. He likes the moment on the phone where somebody says he is the only person they could ask, and he has felt that moment enough times to know the shape of it, and he has never once turned it down.

There is a man in Revelation who falls down at somebody's feet twice, and the four words he gets back both times are the same.

He does it twice

Here is the second time, in the King James Version:

And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God. (Revelation 22:8-9)

I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel.

This is John. Not a new believer. The apostle, at the end of his life, at the end of the last book, and he does it, and then the book records that he had already done it once three chapters earlier and been corrected.

Which tells you how strong the pull is. A man can be told directly, by the person he is kneeling to, and do it again in the same book.

See thou do it not.

Four words, and they are not gentle. There is no cushioning in the sentence.

You are not unusual for feeling the pull and you were never the first to be corrected twice. Revelation 22:8 has John do it a second time after being told, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than a stronger will who unhooks a man from a position he has been standing in.

What the angel says he is

And then the description, and it is the useful part for a man who has been placed somewhere.

For I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book.

Fellowservant. One word, and the whole of it is in the first half of it.

He does not say he is unworthy. He does not say John should be more careful. He says what class of thing he is: the same class as the man on the floor, in the same service, under the same authority.

And then he extends it. And of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book. He puts himself in the same category as the prophets and then in the same category as anybody who keeps the book, which is the broadest possible group.

Worship God. Two words at the end, redirecting.

That is a complete refusal delivered in about fifteen words, by somebody who could have accepted it and who had, on any reasonable measure, more standing than the man kneeling.

You have a word for what you are and you were never anybody's mediator. Revelation 22:9 says I am thy fellowservant, and it is His Spirit who makes a man able to say that in the moment rather than only agree with it afterward.

The other man who did not refuse it

And the counterexample, because this site is honest about which way this usually goes.

And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. (Exodus 32:2)

He organized it. And afterward, when asked what happened:

And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf. (Exodus 32:24)

There came out this calf.

That is a man describing his own work in the passive voice. He collected the gold, he took the tools to it, and the account he gives is that a calf came out of the fire on its own.

Nobody is worse in that story than the rest of us. Aaron did not set out to be worshipped. He was standing in a position under enormous pressure from a crowd that wanted something, and he gave them what they wanted and then could not describe his own part in it.

That is what happens to a man who does not refuse it early. He loses the ability to see his own hands in the work.

You are able to see your own hands in this and you have not passed the point where it can be said plainly. Exodus 32:24 preserves Aaron's account in the passive voice, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes a man able to describe his own part in something rather than watch it come out of a fire.

What the position is supposed to be

And the instruction Jesus gives about what greatness looks like among people who follow Him.

But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. (Matthew 20:26-27)

It shall not be so among you.

He had just described how it works everywhere else, which is that the ones in charge exercise authority over people, and He says the arrangement is different here.

Let him be your servant. Which is the same word the angel used about himself, and the same word Paul used about himself and Apollos.

Three places now: an angel, an apostle, and Jesus giving the instruction. The word keeps being the same one.

You have a role that was described for you and you were never handed a platform to stand on. Matthew 20:26 says the great one among you is the servant, and it is His Spirit who makes that a thing a man wants rather than a thing he accepts.