Prophets – Predictions of Destruction, Redemption and the Messiah
How many Prophets can you name?
Why do some prophets have a book and others do not? Is every prophet of God? Why all the predictions of destruction? These are but a few of the unanswered questions about the prophets.
Major prophets, minor prophets, false prophets, seers, and more… No wonder we seldom hear preaching from their harsh messages of doom.
Yet more important than the messenger would be the message of the LORD.
Burden of the Prophets
What is the God trying to tell these people to whom the LORD sent prophets? What is the LORD telling us through the warnings of the prophets?
Is He speaking to me? What messenger can we believe?
What must I do now that we have heard the burden of the prophets?
In this year’s Advent series we will explore an even more important prediction of the prophets: the burden of the end times and coming of the Messiah King.
The Righteous Branch
Jeremiah 23
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. 2 Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people:
“You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.
3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.
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.’
The short answer
Returning to our initial memory test of Names:
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel… Let’s see: Ezekiel and then Elisha, but they don’t have books. (Why not, we wondered?)
Then there are a whole bunch with shorter books… Let’s see: Zechariah (or was he a priest?), Micah… Malachi (I remember it, the last one). We are hard-pressed to remember them all, let alone know or understand what they wrote and why they wrote it.
In fact, most books or the minor prophets are short and their message of the LORD directed to specific lands of their day. Yet I caution that the message of the LORD remains applicable in these last days.
Here's a quick look at the 12 minor and 4 major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and (oops, I forgot briefly) Ezekiel.
We find references to Elijah, Elisha and many others in several books of the Bible, largely the historical books of Kings and Chronicles. The Old and New Testaments also list those who are false, guiding God’s faithful to discernment of the agendas of evil lying men of every age.
A brief overview of Jeremiah 23
Jeremiah lived in the 7th century B.C. He is called the weeping prophet for good reason. Lamentations looks back to the destruction of Israel (the northern kingdom).
Jeremiah and Zephaniah both prophesy the beginning of the end for Judah as well. King Josiah, who was the last king to do good in the sight of the Lord, would die (as do all earthly kings). A succession of evil kings would bring about the end of Judah as well. The Assyrian empire fell, but the ten banished tribes would not return to the land the Lord had promised.
The imagery of the shepherds and the sheep is common to leaders and their followers.
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!”
Kings, religious leaders, even military or political leaders of families or tribes. Shepherds. We could apply it to a governor or bishop, a president or leader of false religion.
“You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.
Pretty harsh condemnation of powerless leadership leading their followers like sheep to the slaughter. Has so much changed in these last days?
I will repay, says the Lord, the God of Israel.
To be continued…
Next: Jeremiah’s Hope
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