Words for Worship

Ministry Today

Prophets of Old

 

At the beginning of the year,

We were asked to consider

a number of problems

of global and national importance

and find what Christians

should be saying

about them.

 

In response, I would suggest

that the Church’s view

should be rooted  

in an old word,

a very old word –

indeed an ancient word –

and that word is prophecy.

 

Yet prophecy

is not only a venerable word

but it is also

one that is not employed

seriously

today.

 

In all honesty,

we would expect

someone to be called

a prophet

as much as a lamplighter

or a coachman

or a high button-boot maker

if such was ever

an occupation.

 

Yet the dangerous

and often heart-rendering

concerns of 21st Century earth –

the sort of thing

we see nightly

on our TV –

needs this old fashioned profession

more than ever.

 

Or with less beating

about the bush,

these demanding

even harrowing situations

command us

to rediscover the skills

of being a prophet

and speak clearly

of what we must

then say.

 

However, I could understand

that you wouldn’t take up

this pastime of prophecy

willingly;

in fact

I would be a bit suspicious

if you did.

 

For no other prophet

wanted that job

either.

 

Let us hear about

the employment description

of one of them…..

 

 

First lesson: Ezekiel 2.1-9 (p831)

 

Anthem

 

OK you say

I don’t want to be a prophet

particularly

but surely plenty others do.

 

After all

there is a veritable host of people

in the media,

politics and public relation companies

gassing away

on every issue of the day.

 

So why say

you would be suspicious

if I wanted to be

yet another prophetic voice.

 

Well the trouble is

not all are on the right wave length –

not all are speaking

what is genuinely good

for human beings –

not all –

quite frankly –

are speaking truthfully.  

 

In other words

not all are pronouncing

the words of God.

 

And so there are risks

in taking up

the role of being a prophet.

 

For with every self-serving diversion

the apprentice prophet

becomes something else –

he or she

turns into what

the Greeks called

a pseudo-prophatus –

a false prophet.  

 

Yet the problem of false prophets

is as old as the hills too

and so are the risks they run.

 

Indeed, listen to this

pretty gruesome prediction

in the Bible

as to the fate of false prophets.

 

Second Lesson: Jeremiah 14.11-16 (p773)

 

HYMN…………

 

 

Very famously

during the Blair years

his press guru –

Alistair Campbell –

reminded the Prime Minister

that we don’t do God.

 

Albeit –

it to has be said –

that in the end

someone did for him.

 

Yet quietly

it was put out

just last month

that Tony Blair

did pray

before going to war

in Iraq.

 

Actually, this is a statement

I don’t doubt.

 

What then went wrong?

 

Why did he not hear

the correct word from God?

 

Why indeed

did prophecy appear to fail?

 

Well, I don’t intend

to pursue that rabbit hole

further.

 

However, it does

surely illustrate

a key fact.

 

And it is this.

 

Prophecy –

the finding of the word of God –

is not some

archaic and arcane practice

of thousands of years ago;

a quaint habit

recorded only in the Old Testament

from an ancient

and superstitious people.

 

Rather, prophecy

is very much alive

and well today

and continually being used

and even abused.

 

The problem is

then

not that God’s word

no longer appears

to be available –

the real nub  is –

are the current prophets

speaking it!

 

 

There was once

a local seer

in the village

in which

I had many ancestors

in Sutherland.

 

He predicted that

the residents

of the house

at dalhork

would one day

be able to fish

from its windows.

 

This was taken

as a sign

of some great calamity

that would cause

Loch shin

To rise

to such phenomenal levels.

 

Needless to say

his hearers were shocked.

 

But of course

all those years back

they did not know

that one day

a hydro-electric dam

would be built

and thus

cause the prediction

to come true.

 

And that chap

is the common view

of what a prophet was-

But is that a true picture?

 

 

Well to find out

let us take the next few weeks

to have a look

at the whole prophecy game

and discover

not only what type of speaker

was called a prophet

but also who are involved

in prophecy

at the moment.

 

More to the point,

how we are going

to be prophets

in the future.

 

And to achieve that

we need to go back

in time

and unearth the strange phenomenon

of the prophet

as told to us

by our Bibles.

 

 

However, it is as we open

their pages and start

that we hit upon

the first difficulty –

because it quickly becomes

unclear

what the Old Testament writers

meant by a prophet?  

 

Actually their Hebrew vocabulary

gives a number of names

for a stack

of rather bizarre individuals

who later ended up

with the moniker – prophets.

 

In fact these seers

were a very motley crew

indeed.

 

No surprise then

that the late Robert Carroll –

my Old Testament professor

said that a prophet

could be a madman,

a wind bag

or a speaker for the divine.

 

So to gain a bit of clarity –

let’s do a bit of comparison

of those

who proved themselves

to be true prophets.  

 

For there is no debating,

this type of study

brings some nuggets of gold –

well at least

some useful similarities.

 

For if we leave aside

the odd miraculous happening

like a floating axe,

the isolated coup détente

against tyrant kings

and the occasional highland fling

of an ecstatic dance,

there are indeed

parallels

that are highly instructive

as to what a prophet

seemed to have been.

 

Firstly, let me state the obvious .

 

And that is

each prophet

genuinely believed

he was uttering

the very words God

would have spoken

if he had a larynx.

 

You can see this for yourself.

 

Simply take

any biblical book

and you will recognise

that most truly prophetic utterances

were prefaced

with phrases

such as

this is what the lord said

or thus says the Lord.

 

 

And that observation points

to the major test

of any prophetic statement.  

 

For it seems

always instructive

to ask ourselves –

Who is best served

by what they are saying –

for whom

are they speaking –

are you speaking for good

or from self-interest.

 

This certainly seems

the test

we are being guided too

in our Jeremiah lesson.

 

It was the test

he applied

to his contemporary pundits.

 

In truth, it was also

this test

that a great number of commentators

had obviously failed

in Jeremiah’s eyes.

 

And as a result

he denounced

his rivals with the words….

They are prophesying

to you false visions,

divinations

and delusions of their own minds.

 

However, we need

not just keep the test

of a true prophet

to our quiet times

with our bible.

 

In fact, let me

have the temerity

to set you

a little homework

for the week ahead.

 

And it is to apply this test

to all pronouncements

from politicians,

businessmen

or quango grandees.

 

Ask yourself

for whom

and for why

are they speaking.

 

Because such scepticism

is not sinful.

 

Instead it is the first wise step

in hearing God’s authentic voice

for our here

and our now.

 

Nevertheless,

prophets speaking

from the point of view

of no other vested interest

other than God’s

did not prove popular.

 

As a result we come

to the second parallel feature

shared by true prophets

and that was

they were disliked

to the point of being persecuted.

 

Yet it wasn’t just

the spin doctors

that they had crossed

that disliked them.

 

They were wholehearted disliked

by their whole community.

 

And why was this –

well that takes us

to the very core

of what a true prophet

probably was.

 

You see

he was not

as popularly believed

an antique Nostradamus

conjuring up predictions

of the weird and wonderful

in the future.

 

Nor for that matter

was he a moaning Minnie

dragging up

various issues

just to make a living out of them

as some pressure groups

seem to do today.  

 

Even less was

he an utterer

of ambiguous forewarnings

like the Greek oracles.

 

Just like the ones

that the Greek warrior ruler

Croesus encountered.

 

For he once asked

the oracles of Delphi and Thebes

if he should make war

on the Persians.

 

Both oracles gave the same response,

that if Croesus made such a war,

he would destroy a mighty empire.

 

Needless to say it was his own!

 

No instead

the job of the true prophet

was all about seeing

the prevailing society

with the eyes of God

and then telling it as it is.

 

They were required

to speak not so much

as they found

but as God found.

 

And in the common way of it

that wasn’t very much.  

 

Even worse for them

they could not prevaricate

or use weasel words.

 

Needless to say then

their forthright and unvarnished truths

did not go down a bundle

and people took their guilt out

on them

literally with clubs and stones

 

However it was this telling out

of the truth,

the whole truth

and nothing but the truth

that makes the prophets’ words

really valuable today.

 

For they start us out

towards

finding how

and what

we must say

on God’s behalf.

 

And they do that

by showing us

how God looks

at the world

and they teach us

to see what he sees.  

 

For, of course,

the culture of ancient Israel

is very different from ours

nowadays.

 

Yet as we hear

the word of the prophets

it’s hard to believe that.

 

Because the causes

of the problems

of so long ago

have the same foundations

as all the others

in the centuries ahead.

 

Put another way,

the root of all

of human difficulties

lies in greed,

selfishness,

tribalism

and the thirst for power.  

 

In truth, the whole spectrum

of rebellions against God.

 

And it these appetites

that we too

must learn to see

with the vision of God.

 

It is these motives

that we must speak out against.

 

And it is these desires

that sadly

we must make ourselves

heartily unpopular

by being prophets

in opposition.

 

For only then

will we be

the ‘straight speaking oracles’

for the whole people of God.

 

Hold on you say –

where is the certainty

that anyone will listen to me.

 

And that is the third lesson

that the prophets

of old

have to teach us.

 

And it is that provided

we speak God’s word

honestly

it doesn’t matter

who pays attention.

 

This crucial point

Was made by Jeremiah,

Ezekiel and all the prophets.

 

For what really matters to God

is our verbalising

his discontent

and his warning.

 

For then no matter peoples response –

all have heard,

all have had the chance to change

and all will know

what will come about

one day.

 

In fact, all are given

the opportunity

to see also with the eyes of God

and to jump aboard

with the winning team

rather than wait

for inevitable defeat.

 

Well, we have come

to the end

of our first look

at prophecy.  

 

Next week we will look

at the greatest prophet

of them all

and is

of course

Jesus Christ.

 

So in the mean time

let us not be tardy

in applying

what we have learnt.

 

Let us think clearly

which of the myriad of voices

in our world

are speaking for God.  

 

Let us not look

for those with the popularity vote

but for those speaking insistently

the self-evident truth.

 

Above all,

let not despair

when the voice of compassion,

goodness and fairness

speaks to no effect.

 

For we must be

absolutely certain

that the prophets of old,

the divine speakers of today

and our own efforts

in the future

are informed,

encouraged and cajoled

by one simple fact.  

 

And it is God’s will is exactly that –

it will happen

and he will be heard

and it will be

as he ever

sees it to be!

 

Amen