MEM

2Chr 36:16 But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy.

MEM issue 221 has the commentary that explores the role of the prophet. Here is a short summary of that role (edited from ISBE**):

1. The Seer and Speaker of God:

• According to the uniform teaching of the Bible the prophet is a speaker of or for God. His words are not the production of his own spirit, but come from a higher source. The true prophets declare the word which the Lord has spoken to them.

2. Prophetical Inspiration:

• The divine power, which comes over a human being and compels him to see or to hear things which otherwise would be hidden from him…

3. Relation to Dreams:

• first, because the genuine prophetical utterance is received when the prophet is clearly conscious
• secondly, because such an utterance brings with it a much greater degree of certainty and a greater guaranty of its higher origin than is done even by a dream that seems to be prophetical.

4. Freedom of Inspiration:

• Because this Spirit of God acts with full freedom, He can select His organs (Messengers) at will from among every station, age, or sex. The Spirit is not confined to any priestly class or organization.

5. Supernatural Visions of the Future:

• The attempt has often been made to explain prophecy as a natural product of purely human factors. - The prophets were themselves conscious of this, that they were not the intellectual authors of their higher knowledge. …they were in a condition to make known things which lay beyond their natural horizon and which were contrary to all probability.

6. The Fulfillment:

• In genuine prophecy… the fulfillment constitutes an integral part. It would remain an empty word if it did not attain to its full content through its realization. In fact, in the word spoken by the prophet itself there dwells a divine power, so that at the moment when he speaks the event takes place, even if it is not yet visible to man. …In other cases it is only later generations who can judge of the correctness of a prediction or of a threat.
• But it is not the case that a genuine prophecy must be fulfilled like an edict of fate. Such prophecy is not an inevitable decree of fate, but is a word of the living God to mankind, and therefore conditioned ethically, and God can, if repentance has followed, withdraw a threat (case of Jonah), or the punishment can be mitigated.

How can we know a true Prophet - read carefully because Yeshua (Jesus) says:

Is the answer found in the TDNTa commentary about peace (Shalom)?

In other words there is no call for repentance in the message of a false prophet - a call to return to the Almighty God, a plea to follow the path He ordained. Examine what you read or hear from a prophet, does the message contain the element of repentance?

2Kgs 17:13 Yet the LORD testified against Israel and against Judah, by all of His prophets, every seer, saying, "Turn from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants the prophets."

From ‘One Year book of Christian History’ (E. Michael and Sharon Rusten)

July 18 (edited for length)

God sent prophets to the people throughout their history to try to persuade them to return to the stipulations of His covenant with them and to warn them of the judgements that would fall if they persisted in their disobedience and rebellion. The prophets were largely ignored. And God judges His own people for their sin.

A true prophet has revelation from YHVH (the LORD)

Num 12:6 Then He said, "Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream.

Exod 15:20 Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.

Judg 4:4 Now Deborah, a prophetess… was judging Israel at that time.

1Sam 3:19 So Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel had been established as a prophet of the LORD. 21 Then the LORD appeared again in Shiloh. For the LORD revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the LORD.

The LORD’s people should all be prophets (having divine revelation, by and thru God’s Spirit)

Num 11:29 Then Moses said to him, "… Oh, that all the LORD's people were prophets and that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them!"

Moses, a prophet, prophesied of the coming "Greater Prophet" (Yeshua/Jesus)

Deut 34:10 But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,

Deut 18:15 " The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, 16 according to all you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.' 17 And the LORD said to me: 'What they have spoken is good. 18 I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. 19 And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.

• Did you catch why God’s people needed a prophet? Because of what they said when He appeared to them on the mountain (v16). We should hear… (The divine power, which comes over a human being and compels him to see or to hear things which otherwise would be hidden from him…)

Judg 6:8 that the LORD sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage…

Nathan (A court prophet in David's reign and a supporter of Solomon at his accession)

2Sam 12:25 (to David) and He sent word by the hand of Nathan the prophet: So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the LORD.

Gad (David’s seer)

2Sam 24:11 … the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David's seer…

1Kgs 1:34 "There let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel; and blow the horn, and say, 'Long live King Solomon!'

1Kgs 14:18 And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke through His servant Ahijah the prophet.

1Kgs 16:12 Thus Zimri destroyed all the household of Baasha, according to the word of the LORD, which He spoke against Baasha by Jehu the prophet,

1Kgs 18:4 For so it was, while Jezebel massacred the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah had taken one hundred prophets and hidden them, fifty to a cave, and had fed them with bread and water.)

Prophets sent to warn or prophecy blessings (as Jonah to Nineveh)

2Kgs 14:25 He restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which He had spoken through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath Hepher.

2Kgs 20:11 So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the LORD, and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.

God, with His redemption plan for mankind, has sent, and will send, many true prophets with a cry to repent or suffer the consequences - that we may understand the goodness and the severity of His Prophetic Word to us. Rom 11:22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.

* YHVH the Hebrew letters for LORD (the Almighty God’s name)

** International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

*** The use of Us, Our or We, will normally refer to those that have chosen to be the children of God

Proverbs 1:2 To know wisdom and instruction, To perceive the words of understanding,

Proverbs 1:4 To give prudence to the simple, To the young man knowledge and discretion --

Proverbs 2:6 For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;

Proverbs 22:21 That I may make you know the certainty of the words of truth, That you may answer words of truth To those who send to you?

Psalm 83:18 That they may know that You, whose name alone is the LORD, Are the Most High over all the earth.

Psalm 67:2 That Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations.

Psalm 103:7 He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.

"Wherever you go, there you are."
― Thomas ΰ Kempis

Have you ever thought about your mission as an Ambassador for Christ? As a prophetic representation of the Greatest Prophet of all! Why? So others may be reconciled to Him, that they may come to know Him.

PUZZLE FOR SMART PEOPLE....