January 10, 2021 - The Prophets of God
Notes
Transcript
• At this point in our OT journey, we’ve come a long way.
· We can see the finish line.
· We’ll be finishing up today, and then follow it up with a RECAP sermon where we walk thru a SERIES RECAP...
Helps to get a big picture view of the Old Testament before we move on to something else...
· So last week we focused on the TIME OF THE KINGS...
• We focused in on the Reign of Solomon, who took over when David died in 970 B.C.
• We saw how Solomon was blessed by God - exceeding all kings in riches and wisdom...a wisdom given by God.
• How Solomon ruled Israel during it's golden age...
• ...things were good...flourishing
• In his 4th year as king, he began building the Temple.
• BUT, we are dealing with man here right?
• By this point, we've established a pattern.
• We should know what's coming right?
• And because Solomon was so popular...
• ...because he had 700 wives, and 300 concubines...
• He got into trouble.
6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done.
• In his old age his many wives ended up turning his heart away for the Lord [to other gods].
• And so we saw that even the wisest of men, are still.....men.
• ...and this sets Israel on a trajectory of idolatry, a breaking of the Covenant, and God's judgment.
• All this lead to a divided kingdom.
• The people of God...shattered.
• And ultimately, this all leads to...exile (bondage)
Following 1st and 2nd Kings we come to 1st and 2nd Chronicles...
Now these 2 books don’t add to the history of the OT…they look back at the time of David and Solomon’s reign...
And they focus in on the GOOD ASPECTS of their time in authority...
• The next 3 books will close out the chronological picture of the history of God's people in the OT.
• Ezra
• Nehemiah
• Esther
• In Ezra we have the rebuilding of the Temple (515 B.C.)
• In Nehemiah we have the rebuilding of the walls.
• Nehemiah did what God had put into his heart and found that joy of the Lord was his strength.
• In Nehemiah we see God sovereignly working to preserve His people for His glory.
• ..and we see God's people renewing the Covenant.
• God brought His people back just like He promised...
• Esther is another one of those books that looks back (like Ruth, or 1 and 2 Chronicles).
• ..and it looks back at a time when God's people, under threat of extinction, is saved by the providence of God.
• So the book is saturated with the providence of God.
• And so that is IT in regards to the History of God's people.
• That's it.
• So anything else we read, following Esther is going to be discussing, maybe in a different light what we've already seen.
Nothing in the OT following the book of Esther adds to the history of the OT.
• ..and then following ESTHER - we come to the writings of God's people (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (Songs)
These books were written DURING the TIME of the prior books.
• And so it was DURING that time..
• ...when Israel was going down the drain...
• What did God do?
He raised up prophets that would speak for Him.
• So today, we're going to focus in on these prophets of the OT.
• First, we'll establish what a prophet is...and look at the characteristics of a prophet.
• And then once that's established, we'll come back and focus in on a couple of these prophets...
• ...to see what God spoke through them individually, and what God spoke through them collectively...
• What was the foundational message that God was trying to get through to His people and the world.
What Was a Prophet?
What Was a Prophet?
• A prophet in the OT was someone who was used by God to communicate the message of God to the world.
And so basically, a prophet was "God's Megaphone".
• God used these people....spoke thru them...to get His message to the world.
• Now, prophets were also called 'seers' in scripture.
• Which is to say that they could "see spiritually" as God gave them insight.
9 (Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he said, “Come, let us go to the seer,” for today’s “prophet” was formerly called a seer.)
• The prophetic books can also be divided up in a couple of different ways.
• The books in the Bible are divided up between Major Prophets and Minor Prophets.
Major Prophets:
• Isaiah
• Jeremiah
• Lamentations
• Ezekiel
• Daniel
Minor Prophets:
• Hosea
• Joel
• Amos
• Obadiah
• Jonah
• Micah
• Nahum
• Habakkuk
• Zephaniah
• Haggai
• Zechariah
• Malachi
• So this is how the books are divided up.
• The difference between major and minor isn't that some of these guys were more important.
• It was just a way to divide up the books.
• With the Major Prophets, the books are longer and the content more broad.
• With the Minor Prophets, the books are typically shorter and the content more narrowly focused.
• But the Prophets can ALSO be divided up another way too.
• The writing Prophets
• The non-writing Prophets
Writing:
• Isaiah
• Daniel
• Amos
• Malachi
Non-Writing:
• Gad
• Nathan
• Elijah
• Another thing to keep in mind is that the Prophets came from a variety of backgrounds.
• God can use anybody can He not?
• These prophets had different backgrounds...
• Spoke to different audiences...
• Possessed unique styles
• And used different methods
• Now, with that said - in spite of the different variety, most of their messages concerned the people of Israel.
• AND, in spite of the variety, the Prophets of God were CHOSEN BY God.
• This wasn't a vocation that man decided to attain or not attain.
• A key message that you'll see throughout the Prophet stories is this:
• "the word of the Lord came"
• God is the One who appointed these men, and women
• Isaiah and Ezekiel were given visions of God's glory.
1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
1 In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Chebar canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
• Jeremiah was told by God that He had picked him before he was even born...
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
• God Himself initiated this thing, and He had specific parameters in mind…here it is:
• ...Say what I tell you to say.
• *My First Sermon I ever preached (deciding)
• These prophets here....appointed BY God to speak FOR God.
• The prophet Micaiah said in 1 Kings:
14 But Micaiah said, “As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak.”
• Try to run from this responsibility and you'll get corrected.
• Remember Jonah?
3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
4 But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.
• The unnamed prophet from Judah who directly disobeyed God's command, lost his life.
• God took him out, so God is in charge...God is looking for obedience.
• These prophets lead hard lives!!
• They proclaimed the truths of God to people who NEVER understood.
• How many of us have had conversations with people who just never got what you were trying to tell them?
• I have.
• Frustrating?
• Of course it is.
• MASTER CLASS - Research paper - my own thesis vs. predetermined outline for the paper.
• These prophets spoke to:
• people who never understood
• people who were rebellious to God
• people who wanted to kill them (and did).
• Listen to how Jesus describes Jerusalem...
34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
• Or how about Stephen talking with the Jewish leaders...
52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered,
• So, needless to say, the prophets of the OT had hard lives....why?
• Because they spoke the TRUTH of God...
• ...AS OPPOSED to the FALSE prophets who did not.
• False prophets were liars who claimed to speak for God, but who were actually intent on deceiving the people for their own purposes.
It’s interesting that this past week we read of a Minister – claiming to be Christian…In front of Congress
· Praying to false gods…
• And I'll tell ya...false prophets had an insurmountable task before them....be true.
• Because, if you're false just ONE time, you're exposed as....FALSE...
• AND...put to death.
20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’
21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’—
22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
• So, this gives you an idea of what a prophet is, what a prophet is not.
• How they were used, how they were not used.
TODAY - it seems everyone wants to be - a Prophet
“Let me tell you what God told me to tell you”...
“God spoke to me last night…He said...”
And today this PRACTICE takes place with NO REGARD or any heightened sense of - FEAR OF GOD...
People say WHATEVER they want… it then DOESN’T COME TRUE - and there are no consequences...
1st century - you’d be put to death!
• So at this point, let's focus in on some True Prophets.
• First one we’ll look at is:
SLIDE: Prophet of God: Hosea
Prophet of God
Prophet of God
• With the book of Hosea being written between 755 and 725 B.C., Hosea has been called "the death-bed prophet" of Israel.
• Why?
• Because he was the last to prophecy before the Northern Kingdom fell in 722 B.C. to Assyria.
• Listen to how this book starts out:
2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”
• So God here is telling this prophet to go marry an adulterous wife.
• Now...pretty sound counsel don't you think?
• No - but God has a purpose.
• What's the purpose?
• This unfaithful wife of Hosea's would serve as an example of Israel's unfaithfulness to God in their idolatry.
• [Spiritual adultery] is how God views this.
SLIDE:
When the people of God turn from Him and go after other gods, it's equivalent to them forsaking their husband to go after other lovers.
• Let's go to James chapter 4 (NASB)
2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?
• Ok, verse 4 again...
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
• You adultresses...
• ...so, we have women here....
• "do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward (your husband) God?"
• ...so here we have a wife falling in love with another man.
• "therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world (this other suitor)...makes himself an enemy of God."
• So God is like a husband, whose got a wife (you and me)...
• ...and He yearns for His wife...He yearns for you and me....jealous.
• He wants (her) sleeping with Him, in His bedroom and nobody elses!
• And what is she doin?
• She's praying....she's praying. Back to v3
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
• She comes in...down on her knees....saying "oh husband...
• ...i need $50....i need $50...would you please in your great mercy give me $50"
• And He gives her the $50.
• She then goes down the hall, and pays it to another man, so she can sleep with him.
• And so she makes God - a husband whose been cheated on by His wife.
NOW - understand - women - AND MEN - we are ALL that wife
• Israel had made God a husband who had been cheated on by His wife.
• Their idolatry was spiritual adultery...
• And God used the prophet Hosea to expose them.
• The main message that God is getting across thru Hosea is:
SLIDE: Message of Hosea: The Depth of God’s Love for His People
The Message of Hosea
The Message of Hosea
• God begins by revealing Israel's apostacy…
• ...then CONDEMNING them...
• ...but then RESTORING them thru His mercy.
• This is the prophet Hosea.
SLIDE: Prophet of God: Jeremiah
Prophet of God
Prophet of God
• If Hosea was the death-bed prophet of Israel, then Jeremiah was the death-bed prophet of Judah.
• With Jeremiah being written sometime between 630 and 580 B.C....
• ...we see that Jeremiah records the last prophecies to Judah before it's downfall.
• See after the death of King Josiah (who was the last righteous king), the nation of Judah had almost completely abandoned God.
• And Jeremiah begins warning them of the judgment to come, BUT he also understands who mankind really is.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
• So Jeremiah, while he warns Judah of the judgment at hand, he seems to understand the inevitability of what was to come.
• Jeremiah LOVED Judah, and so this was a difficult message for him to deliver.
What can we take from this??
• We need to know that at some point, God's going to call you to deliver a similar message to someone you love...
• ...a family member
• ...close friend
• In these times we have to trust God that He is good and righteous...and that leading someone to truth, while painful sometimes, isn't nearly as painful as the wrath of God.
• We need to remember that we're leading these people out from under the wrath of God, and into the fullness of joy.
*And I think we forget that part… (God’s ALL BUSINESS (eye-roll))
• And so while Jeremiah does bring a message of judgment, the main message that God is getting across thru Jeremiah is again...
SLIDE: The Message of Jeremiah: The Depth of God’s Love for His People
The Message of Jeremiah
The Message of Jeremiah
• Even with God's judgment being poured out on the people of Judah, God promises the restoration of Judah into the land God had given them.
10 “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
• And so again, we see this Covenant keeping God fulfilling His promise to Abraham.
• Not only that...but Jeremiah presents a prophecy of the coming Messiah...
5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
• You see that phrase there...'The Lord is our Righteousness'
• Even some 600 years prior to Christ's death, we see God pointing to what - Faith alone in Christ as the way of Salvation.
• That the Lord's righteousness would be OUR righteousness....thru faith.
• Well, Jeremiah isn't the only one to point to the coming Messiah.
• Isaiah did the same.
SLIDE: Prophet of God: Isaiah
Prophet of God
Prophet of God
• Now Isaiah was written a short time before Jeremiah was...
• ...sometime between 701 and 681 B.C.
• And God primarily used Isaiah to prophecy to Judah.
• At the time, Judah was experiencing ups and downs...revivals and times of rebellion.
• And so Isaiah's message was filled with calls to repent of sin...
• ...and hopeful expectation of God's deliverance in the future.
• And so basically Isaiah prophesied of God's judgment, and God's salvation.
• In regards to God's judgment:
11 The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
12 For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low;
That’s God judgment....
• In regards to Salvation and the coming Messiah, listen to these prophesies.
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
• And so this King is coming to save, and yet, Isaiah presents this King as One who will - - suffer.
• Listen to these words written 700 years before Christ walked the earth and you tell me who this is referring to.
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
• And so with this prophet, God reveals the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
• And so when we step back and look at the OT landscape, from creation, to the fall, all the way thru, we end up getting to this:
SLIDE:
The foretelling of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
• That Jesus Christ was despised and rejected (v3)
• That He was stricken by God (v4)
• That He was pierced for our transgressions (v5)
• That by His suffering He paid the punishment we deserved and became for us the perfect sacrifice (v5)
• The gospel of Jesus Christ. (written down 700 years before Christ walked the earth)
• God here, speaking thru man...
• ...revealing - His plan of redemption, thru His Son Jesus Christ.
Let’s close with this:
Initially, when the exiles returned to the land, prophecy and Scripture writing continued for a short while (cf. Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Ezra, Nehemiah). Nevertheless, this era included a long “period of silence” known as the intertestamental period (c. 400 – c. 3 B.C.). Those living in Palestine noted that the spirit of prophecy had been taken from Israel. Without it, the writing of God’s Word also came to an end, and we have no Old Testament Scripture after the book of Malachi. Thus, for almost 400 years, God’s constant communication with His people, commonplace from the time of Abraham to the exile, existed only as a memory. No longer could the people inquire directly of God, learn of Him through the prophets, or commune with His presence at the Temple. The Jews began to long for a Messianic Age, when prophecy would revive and God would restore Israel’s fortunes, returning His favor to the people.
Longing for God’s presence in their midst, the Jews looked forward more eagerly than they had ever done in the past to a moment when God would return to dwell with them. They found hope in the prophecies of Israel’s past, such as Ezekiel 43, which told of a time when God’s glory would once again fill the Temple. They recognized that it was for this reason that the Messiah would come, an unmistakable sign of God’s favor. He would be called Immanuel, meaning “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14). As the story moved closer to Jesus’ birth, prophecy began to appear once again: we find Anna and Simeon in the Temple in Luke 2 and also John the Baptist, God’s promised messenger (Malachi 3:1-5). These transitional figures spoke of the return of God’s Word, when He would once again walk among Israel. Jesus Christ, the greatest prophet of all, the Word made flesh (John 1:14) would soon appear, and He would gloriously fulfill Israel’s hope.
Let's Pray....