Who Are The Prophets?

Introduction

We have been journeying through the Bible this year

Last week we talked about the desperate need for a leader that Israel found themselves in

We focused in on the greatest king… David… and how he still fell short

And we finished with the fact that Jesus is Lord

He is someone we submit our entire lives to

This week and next, we are going to be talking about some of the hardest books of the Bible… The Prophets

Who can name some of the prophets?

What do you guys think the purpose of the prophets was?

How many of you avoid reading the prophets?

Hopefully today we can help you to better understand who the prophets were and their purpose in the Bible

Scripture Reading:

Isaiah 48:18–22 (CSB)

If only you had paid attention to my commands.

Then your peace would have been like a river,

and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

Your descendants would have been as countless as the sand,

and the offspring of your body like its grains;

their name would not be cut off

or eliminated from my presence.

Leave Babylon,

flee from the Chaldeans!

Declare with a shout of joy,

proclaim this,

let it go out to the end of the earth;

announce,

“The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!”

They did not thirst

when he led them through the deserts;

he made water flow from the rock for them;

he split the rock, and water gushed out.

“There is no peace for the wicked,” says the Lord.

What the Prophets Are Not…

In order to understand any literary work we have to understand its purpose

Reading LotR as a History book vs enjoyment

Reading epistles as written to the Early Church with the aim of encouraging, edifying, and educating them

So as we think of the prophets… what is the purpose?

Who is writing, who are they writing to? What do they have to say?

I think our tendency when we think of the prophets is to think about people who predicted the future

Whether it is judgement or success, they are people who God has given unique insight and wisdom to know key events in the future

So we might think that God sent prophets that knew the future to warn Israel of future judgement

And I think we can avoid the prophets because of that

Well it’s prophecy for the past generations thousands of years ago

Well it’s filled with judgement and very crazy imagery

But what if we didn’t have the right understanding of the prophets?

What if they were something more than predictors of the future?

Covenant Reminders

(SLIDES)

To put it plainly: The Prophets role was to remind God’s people of their covenant with God—Their relationship to God

They had been chosen to be God’s people and represent Him to the world

“the main concern of the prophets is Israel’s relationship with Yahweh as defined by the Mosaic covenant”

“The biggest part of the message of the biblical prophets has nothing to do with predicting the future”

So why have predictions of the future?

It’s purpose is to verify the prophet so that the people could trust what he speaks—not to be a mystical seer into the future

There were many false prophets

In the case of Daniel—chapters 1-6 build up his character and reliability as a prophet

Chapters 7-12 contain his prophecy

The reality is that God didn’t send the prophets to tell the Israelites to blindly trust him

God sent prophets that predicted events in the future in order that the people would see that they were indeed send by God and that they would listen to their message

(SLIDES)

Instead of predicting the future, the prophets are concerned with speaking on behalf of God, and typically not stating anything new but reminding the Israelites of what has already been stated by Yahweh.

(SLIDES)

“the majority of what they had to say constitutes proclaiming a message that explains how the word of God, already revealed and received in the past , applies to present circumstances and situations”

Basically the Prophets were people who knew their Bibles and preached it

They weren’t necessarily given a vision that no one could have seen coming

“The promise or prediction that Israel would be exiled and judged for disobedience and disloyalty to the covenant did not require anything special beyond reading and preaching the book of Deuteronomy, given so long ago. And this is the largest part of the messages of the prophets”

Like we saw with Abraham… God is a God of promises

He makes promises and keeps them

When God speaks and makes covenants He is true to what He says He will do

So given the Mosaic covenant, we should expect punishment and exile to arise when God’s people did not heed his covenant.

The prophets themselves are not doomsday catalysts but they are sent in mercy by Yahweh to remind His people of their covenant, lest they forget.

Without the prophets the people might have forgotten the reasons for everything they were going through.

God sent His people prophets that they might not have any doubts about the reasons why they were in the situations they found themselves in and that they might repent and return back.

Here is some of what they were preaching:

Deuteronomy 29:16–29 (CSB)

“Indeed, you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and passed through the nations where you traveled. You saw their abhorrent images and idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which were among them. Be sure there is no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Be sure there is no root among you bearing poisonous and bitter fruit. When someone hears the words of this oath, he may consider himself exempt, thinking, ‘I will have peace even though I follow my own stubborn heart.’ This will lead to the destruction of the well-watered land as well as the dry land. The Lord will not be willing to forgive him. Instead, his anger and jealousy will burn against that person, and every curse written in this scroll will descend on him. The Lord will blot out his name under heaven, and single him out for harm from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

“Future generations of your children who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant country will see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses the Lord has inflicted on it. All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown, producing nothing, with no plant growing on it, just like the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord demolished in his fierce anger. All the nations will ask, ‘Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this intense outburst of anger?’ Then people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he had made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. They began to serve other gods, bowing in worship to gods they had not known—gods that the Lord had not permitted them to worship. Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against this land, and he brought every curse written in this book on it. The Lord uprooted them from their land in his anger, rage, and intense wrath, and threw them into another land where they are today.’ The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 30:1–5 (CSB)

“When all these things happen to you—the blessings and curses I have set before you—and you come to your senses while you are in all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and all your soul by doing everything I am commanding you today, then he will restore your fortunes, have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. Even if your exiles are at the farthest horizon, he will gather you and bring you back from there. The Lord your God will bring you into the land your ancestors possessed, and you will take possession of it. He will cause you to prosper and multiply you more than he did your ancestors.

Deuteronomy 30:11–20 (CSB)

“This command that I give you today is certainly not too difficult or beyond your reach. It is not in heaven so that you have to ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven, get it for us, and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?’ And it is not across the sea so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea, get it for us, and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?’ But the message is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may follow it. See, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and adversity. For I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God may bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not listen and you are led astray to bow in worship to other gods and serve them, I tell you today that you will certainly perish and will not prolong your days in the land you are entering to possess across the Jordan. I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, love the Lord your God, obey him, and remain faithful to him. For he is your life, and he will prolong your days as you live in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

A Calling to Covenantal Faithfulness

And as we read the prophets we are reminded of how serious God takes his covenants (promises)

He sent prophets to remind God’s people that He had been faithful to them—and hes asking for faithfulness from them

The imagery we get in the Bible is that of another covenant—A marriage

Hosea & Gomer

And the prophets were not only concerned with reminding them of the Mosaic Covenant, but they were constantly pointing forward to a new and better covenant (which we will talk about more next week)

But this new covenant is relational—just like a marriage

The Church is referred to as the ‘Bride of Christ’

Ephesians 5:22-31 - Ephesians 5:32

Ephesians 5:32 CSB

This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church.

And so when we decide to ‘follow Jesus’ its more than the ‘get out of hell free card’

We are entering a covenant—a new relationship

And I know this can be weird for us boys—but we are the bride of Christ

And Jesus is the perfect representation of who we would want to be in a relationship with

He is loyal, understanding, patient, forgiving, committed through thick and thin

And He’s asking us to be the same

Will we be loyal to Jesus?

Or like Israel—time and time again— will we be drawn away by false gods, false promises, false hopes—and commit spiritual adultery?

And so we see the role of the prophets in the OT—people that are calling God’s people to remember their covenant (one of blessings and curses)

And the same role of the prophet is the same thing that happens here every Sunday

I don’t come up here speaking new things (predicting the future—that's not necessarily prophecy)—but the things that God has already revealed

And I come—not to tell you exactly how your life will turn out

But to call you to faithfulness to God

Conclusion

And maybe you are here today—and you feel like you’ve blown it

That God wouldn’t want a relationship with you because of the things that you’ve done or the things that have been done to you...

And I’m here to tell you that is not the case

That God loves you so much that He gave his only Son to die for you

That his heart goes out to you… that he persistently and relentlessly pursues you

That He’s the type of shepherd that will leave the 99 to track down and restore the one that was lost and wandered away

He will never leave you or forsake you

But just like any other relationship—it takes two

Like Hosea & Gomer

Like a healthy marriage

Like a friendship

The Bible gives us such confidence that our God is who he says he is

He is loving

He is forgiving and longsuffering

He is patient

He is committed to his people

And that's the prophets message: REMEMBER

Remember who God is

Don’t take him for granted

Don’t take advantage of him

Remember how committed He is to you

Remember the cost of our forgiveness

Jesus’s death on the cross

Live your life in faithfulness to him

And we will see his great faithfulness towards us