Messengers to Hear- why the Prophets speak to us today Deuteronomy 13:1-5;
18:18-20 9/23/11
Wouldn’t it be great to predict the future?
I know a couple from our church that are going to Las Vegas.
What if you were able to predict where the roulette ball would land, or
what hand the dealer had in black jack, or who will win the USC-Auburn
or Clemson-Virginia Tech game next week?
What if you knew the week before that the stock market was going to dive
last week so you invested in the things that went up?
Day traders would love to be able to predict the future.
Last week, every news program and feed I saw spoke of a 6 ton satellite
falling to earth from outer space, and they didn’t know where it would hit or on
whom it would land. The constant
thing I heard was 1 in 3,000 chance of a person being hit.
But what they didn’t say is that there are over 6 billion people on earth
so that means 1 in 18 trillion of a chance of being hit by any space junk this
week. I could have been a prophet
and said that no space junk would land on me with 1 in 18 trillion chances.
Biblical prophets were not consumed with mathematical probability, but in
listening to the Spirit of God speaking in tandem- never contradictory to the
Word of God in the scriptures they had.
It was no different in the time of Israel.
People wanted to know what their future held, because it effected
their lifespan. When would an
army invade? When would there
not be enough food? When
would the drought occur?
When would the floods come?
When the people of God in Israel drifted away from Word of God, they
looked to the occultic practices of the people around them.
So they looked to sorcerers and necromancers (people who said they talked
to the dead). A survey last year
quoted by the BBC said 1 in 7 Americans have consulted a psychic- and
scams were a growing problem. The Romans
would take a chicken’s entrails and spill them out to try to predict the future-
messy business.
The Prophets of
Israel predicted the future. They
did so with amazing accuracy.
They predicted, for example, that the Assyrians would invade and
take the people off hundreds of years before it happened.
They predicted by name that a man named Cyrus would restore the
people. They predicted hundreds of
years before the birth of Christ that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.
Jesus clearly predicted decades before it happened that the temple and
Jerusalem would be destroyed in 70 AD.
The purpose in those predictions was not so people would win bets, get
richer, or feel better. The
ultimate purpose was so people would see that God was in control of the future
and put their trust in Him. In the
end, we all are called to do just that.
We are called to remember who is the King of Kings.
It is not the American Government or the Chinese government.
It is not the billionaires or even the masses of the people collectively.
It is God Himself. In Him we
are called to put our trust. In
fact, one of the signs of a biblical prophet given in Deuteronomy 18 was that if
a single prediction did not come true- that prophet was not from God.
That rules out the Edgar Cayces, Jean Dixons, and Ron Hubbards
of our day.
There are lots
of TV shows today and in the recent past about telling he future.
Person of Interest is a show about a person able to predict the
future because of a machine that he created that could digest all the variables
and say when something bad was about to happen to someone.
What if God knows all the variables?
What if God can predict the way the wind will blow- the greatest weather
person ever? But what if more than
that, God can change the variables?
Why not? Why can’t the One
who made everything choose to intersect it- to stick His finger into the sweet
recipe of life? Why cannot the
Great architect also be the engineer and contractor?
One thing the prophets tell us clearly and strongly is that GOD IS IN
CONTROL- SO TRUST HIM! The
prophets still prophecy to us today.
We do not need prophets in the 21st century because God has
given us all we need to know. We
need to believe- to trust Him- to trust the Word given to us by the prophets.
THE PROPHETS
WERE ALSO FORTH-TELLERS AS WELL AS
FORETELLERS. In fact the
real task of the prophet was to speak to the people on behalf of God.
Sometimes- that would mean a
prediction, but far more frequently they were telling the people something.
Basically, the prophets had something to say that the people needed to
hear. I would say this- the
prophets have something to say that we need to hear.
Often they would say, “Hear o Israel…”
Or they might say, “The Lord says…” Or “This is the word of the Lord.”
In the book of
Exodus God called Moses to speak for him to Pharaoh and to the people. Moses
said he could not for he stammered and stuttered.
So God called his brother Aaron and said “You will be like God to Pharaoh
and Aaron will be your prophet.” In
other words- you tell Aaron what to say and he will say it.
Aaron will be Moses’ prophet.
It is a little bit like the White House Press spokes person is the
prophet and the president is the power behind the spokes person.
That is how prophecy works- God tells the prophet what to say,
His message, and the prophet speaks.
Our task is to listen- not to be hard-hearted as Pharaoh was.
Isaiah warns the people (as Jesus did quoting him)do not have ears
and not hear. Do not have
eyes and not see. Do not be blind
and deaf to God. We put ourselves
in a position to hear and experience God only as we listen to what we have
already heard. Why would God give
us more messages if we can’t listen to the ones He’s already given us?
Sometimes the
prophet would rebuke the people and tell them where they were going astray.
It would almost be like a voice of conscience.
We do not like that. In
fact, I enter this fall’s Disciples’ studies with fear and trembling because it
is tough sometimes to hear what the prophets say.
But, if I’m driving down a
road and the creek has washed out the bridge, I would appreciate it If the voice
in my GPS, or a sign, or someone waving a red flag tells me “bridge out ahead.”
Basic message of the prophet is you are better off with God- so don’t
rebel against what He says, but listen to Him.
The prophets
spoke of FAITH , HOPE, AND LOVE.
They spoke of faith- as I already expressed- the need to keep focused on
the true God and not turning aside in disobedience or in the worship of other
gods .
But the prophets
also spoke of hope. We think of
Isaiah and Jeremiah predicting the demise of their nation, but they also
predicted hope. There is no more
hopeful words than Isaiah’s words, “Comfort, comfort my people.”
Or Jeremiahs- “I will give you a future and a hope.”
The prophets
also spoke of love. The
prophets say, “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (jer. 31:3).
Hosea has these great words, “I will heal their waywardness,
and love them so freely.
The people will dwell in the shade and blossom and flourish like the vine, and
see that the Lord’s ways are right.”
(Hosea 14). See the prophets
are not all about woe and wow. They
are also about faith, hope, and love.
They were the ones that gave the people hope of a promised messiah- that
God would come down and not leave us alone.
Years ago there
was to be a hydroelectric dam built in a valley in Maine.
The valley would be filled in.
A small town in the valley that used to be well-kept and clean was to be
moved. Between the time the dam was
announced and actually built, the town fell into disrepair because they
felt they had no future. One
resident said it like this, “Where there is no faith in the future, there is
no work in the present.” The
prophets taught the people to not despair, but to always put their hope in
God.