Talk of JESUS .com

Category: Prophets – Warnings for 21st century ‘christians’

stone carving of the prophet Jeremiah reading Bible - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel are major Prophets of the Old Testament
Jeremiah by Michelangelo

Old Testament Prophets WARNED Israel, Judah, and neighboring nations about what GOD has planned IF they did NOT REPENT (and they usually didn’t).

How does this speak to 21 c. ‘christians’ in these last days? Are you bold enough to WARN your SOCIAL ‘Friends’ of what Jesus Christ warns? Does the message of a Prophet apply even more to them and US, now? SHARE your scriptural warnings from the Prophets and WITNESS for our LORD, WHO IS and returning… soon.

  • Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 1

    Disaster because of Disobedience

    Jeremiah 6:16 

    This is what the Lord says:

    Stand by the roadways and look.
    Ask about the ancient paths:
    Which is the way to what is good?
    Then take it
    and find rest for yourselves.
    But they protested, “We won’t!”

    Perhaps in these last days one might ask, who wants to hear from the Lord? Yet even now, as in the days of the Prophets and fall of Jerusalem, ‘We won’t.’

    Isaiah 41:1

    Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment.

    Will we even seek the presence of the Lord in humility and silence? Though we claim His righteousness we speak judgment to the nations without counsel of His Word.

    Ezekiel 12:2

    “Son of man, you live among rebels who have eyes but refuse to see. They have ears but refuse to hear. For they are a rebellious people.

    Have we not heard these words before, “you with eyes to see, you with ears to hear?” Yet we also remain a rebellious house, a rebellious nation, a rebellious claimant of God’s favor.

    Why will we not seek God’s leading before the disaster by which the Lord will judge? What difference could it possibly make?

    Exodus 32:

    “Come, make us a god who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!”

    7 The Lord spoke to Moses: “Go down at once! For your people you brought up from the land of Egypt have acted corruptly. 8 They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them…

    9 The Lord also said to Moses: “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave Me alone, so that My anger can burn against them and I can destroy them… But Moses interceded:

    Turn from Your great anger and relent concerning this disaster planned for Your people. 13 Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel—

    The Writing on the wall

    The Lord has warned man, made in His Image, over the generations and millennia. 

    Prophets of the Lord have both pointed us backward toward our disobedience and forward to its consequences.

    Daniel 9:

    Ah, Lord—the great and awe-inspiring God who keeps His gracious covenant with those who love Him and keep His commands— 5 we have sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, rebelled, and turned away from Your commands and ordinances. 6 We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.

    7 Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but this day public shame belongs to us…

    11 All Israel has broken Your law and turned away, refusing to obey You. The promised curse written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, has been poured out on us because we have sinned against Him… 13 Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not appeased the Lord our God by turning from our iniquities and paying attention to Your truth.

    14 So the Lord kept the disaster in mind and brought it on us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all He has done. But we have not obeyed Him.

    Some indictment! Those who have claimed the Lord and righteousness have disobeyed the Lord God. Therefore God will judge our sin. Does the Lord our God not have this right – to judge sin and execute justice or show mercy?

    Grace of a Cross and Judgment of all Righteousness

    Some in these last days yet claim that disaster will not come upon us. Others claim that the Lord will not return. After all, it’s been a long time just like with Israel did not know what had happened to Moses.

    Many claim that Christ will tolerate false teaching and false prophets, that the Lord would not punish those who put their trust in the idols of our own desires.

    Yet if Jesus IS, if He IS the true and only Son of the Living God; how can the Lord not faithfully return in fulfillment of all Scripture?

    How can Jesus not return once more, when He IS risen and ascended and He has prophesied a glorious eternal new Kingdom?

    The Final Defeat of Satan

    Luke 9:

    18 While He was praying in private and His disciples were with Him, He asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” … 20 “But you,” He asked them, “who do you say that I am?” 

    Peter answered,

    “God’s Messiah!”

    21 But He strictly warned and instructed them to tell this to no one, 22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.”

    Luke 10:18

    He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning…

    John 8:

    21 Then He said to them again, “I’m going away; you will look for Me, and you will die in your sin. Where I’m going, you cannot come.” …

    25 “Who are You?” they questioned.

    “Precisely what I’ve been telling you from the very beginning,” Jesus told them…

    33 “We are descendants of Abraham,” they answered Him…

    34 Jesus responded, “I assure you: Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin…

    42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, because I came from God and I am here…

    58 Jesus said to them, “I assure you: Before Abraham was, I am.”

    He IS before those who prophesied, before David and Moses and Abraham. Jesus IS before Eden and before Adam, created in His Very Image! 

    And as the Lord has promised, He will return. Sin and death will reign no more. All flesh living and dead will be judged and all souls will bow before Him, making account for our sins or proclaiming His own Sacrifice for those He loves.

    Jesus IS Lord. He has saved us from sin and death to dwell in His love forever and ever. 

    As these last days draw to a close, we will examine predictions of His certain return, God willing.

    To be continued…

     

  • That you may have Certainty – 6 – Gentiles

    That you may have Certainty – 6 – Gentiles

    “I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness,
    And will hold Your hand;
    I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people,
    As a light to the Gentiles…

    Behold, the former things have come to pass,
    And new things I declare;
    Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

    Isaiah 42:6,9 NKJV

    What is a Gentile?

    The NLT Study Bible’s introduction to the Gospel of Luke summarizes the perspective of Gentiles to the Jewish mind in this way:

    “The ultimate outsiders were Gentiles, and Luke emphasizes that God’s salvation extends even to them.”

    Jewish daily practices had been refined into an exclusionary culture of separation from Gentiles who observed worship from a distance. Have you ever entered a worship service and felt like an outsider? I have.

    We'll address a first century meaning in our next post, but first Isaiah's context from seven centuries before Christ.

    What makes Gentiles different from Jews?

    גּוֹי – gowy from the Hebrew – nation or people, usually of non-Hebrew people

    Although used generically as description of people from any nation, Gentile may be used as an insult to a foreigner. (Of course, no one today would do that, would we?)

    Hear Isaiah’s tone with this word (גּוֹי) here translated, ‘nations.’

    Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Isaiah 1:4

    Which one of the Nations does Isaiah address, which people to which the LORD is foreign to their lives?

    Isaiah speaks specifically to Judah and Jerusalem!

    Faithfulness to the LORD is what is supposed to separate Jews from Gentiles. The Prophet of God warns that because of their sin (iniquity), these Jews are no different than other nations.

    Does any of this have a contemporary ring?

    Like ‘sin,’  ‘iniquity’ is accusation too intolerant for ears of leaders unwilling to obey the Lord God.

    Iniquity – עָוֹן – `avon – perversity, depravity, guilt or punishment of iniquity

    Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;
    for the LORD has spoken:
    “Children have I reared and brought up,
    but they have rebelled against me. – Isaiah 1:2

    By the time of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, Isaiah’s rebuke from the LORD fell on deaf ears of a broken Israel. But God’s warnings had been constant for Israel, then neglected by generations even back to Moses.

    Deuteronomy 8:

    “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers…

    3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna… that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord… 19 And if you forget the Lord…

    20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

    Nations, Gentiles (the same word): make yourself like them by turning from the Lord and you shall perish. As Isaiah concluded more than six centuries later: they are utterly estranged.

    Why does a Jewish Messiah matter to the Nations (Gentiles)?

    Zechariah 2:
    [circa 5th Century Before Christ]

    10 Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord.

    Were these the songs of Palm Sunday, praise from Jews and the Gentiles?

    11 And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you.

    The Messiah, Jesus, Emmanuel, God With Us; here entering Zion (Jerusalem) and joining Himself also to the Gentiles. How will He do that? How will the Nations know that Jesus is sent also to them?

    12 And the Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.”

    Here gathered the Jews for a Passover festival in a Zion ruled by Gentiles. Romans, Greeks, people of the Nations all present for an event of witness. Yet the witness would be of a New Covenant of Blood on a Cross. Their witness would be of a resurrection and a new hope. The Gentiles were now joined to God in the Blood of the Messiah!

    13 Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.

    To be continued…

    That you may have Certainty – 7 – An outsider’s view from a Gentile

  • The Beginning of the End – A Burden of the Prophets – 4

    The Beginning of the End – A Burden of the Prophets – 4

    Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

    Remember the predictions of the holy prophets

    Previously: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3

    The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

    Think back beyond your years and perhaps you may recall an event  just two generations past in the days of your grandfather. But who can understand the times a hundred generations before us, even the lives of those living when Christ was born.

    Even before Christ the impatience of man questioned the patience of the Lord. Early Prophets like Amos had been long forgotten by the time some promises had been fulfilled by the birth of a Messiah.

    Just as now the unexplored landscape of our new world would have been completely unimaginable to Columbus, men in the days of the first century did not remember Moses or David or the Prophets with any contemporary context of understanding. Yet in each generation before Christ men and women of those days could hardly imagine the promise of the Messiah to come.

    Each century between the Prophets and Christ would have seemed unmeasurable with the century’s beginning unfamiliar to the generations of its completion. Think about each hundred years of history as if today you looked back upon the just ending World War I [November 11, 1918], then multiply our forgetfulness of the promise by 21 centuries since the manger of Bethlehem.

    Promise of a Messiah a long time away

    How far away could you imagine the promise of hope spoken by a Prophet of the LORD in each of these centuries, so many generations ‘Before Christ?’

    A thousand years, ten centuries, uncountable generations from the success of Solomon to the hope of a Savior.

    Challenge: Scroll slowly through the centuries between David and the Son of David, the promised Messiah.
             
           
    * Date estimates by Roger Harned http://talkofJesus.co
    		       Source: TOW
           
       Period / Century

    		 Northern Kings – Israel (Samaria)

    		 Northern Prophets Israel Sararia

    		 Southern Kings – Judah (Judea)

    		 Southern Prophets Judah 
    United kingdom under Saul, David, Solomon, c. 1030 – 931
    10th c. B.C.
    Divided kingdom Jeroboam (931-910) Rehoboam (931-913)
    Nadab (910-909) Abijah (913)
    Baasha (909-886) Asa (911-870)
    9th c. B.C.
    Elah (886)
    Zimri (885)
    Omri (885-874)
    Ahab (874-853) Elijah
    Jehoshaphat (873-848)
    Jehoram (852-841) Jehoram (853-841)
    Jehu (841-814) Elisha Queen Athaliah (841-835) Obadiah
    Jehoahaz (814-798) Joash (835-796)
    8th c. B.C.
    Jehoash (798-782) Amaziah (796-767)
    Jeroboam II (793-753) Amos
    Zechariah (753-752) Jonah Isaiah (760-700)
    Shallum (752)
    Menahem 752-742)
    Pekahiah (742-740) Hosea (c. 792-740 B.C.) Uzziah (790-740)  Joel
    Pekah (752-732) Jotham (750-731)
     Israel ruled by other nations Hoshea (732-722) Ahaz (735-715) Nahum
      Hezekiah (715-686) Micah
    7th c. B.C.
    Manasseh (695-642)
    Amon (642-640)
    Josiah (640-609) Jeremiah
    Zephaniah
    Jehoahaz (609) Huldah
    Jehoiakim (609-597) Nahum
    6th c. B.C.
    		 Habakkuk
    Judah ruled by other nations – Babylonian exile (597 – 538 BC) Jehoiachin (597)
    Zedekiah (597-586) Ezekiel
    Persian Period (539-322 BC) Zerubbabel, governor {538-520 BC) Daniel
    Post-exilic prophets Haggai
    5th c. B.C. Darius I (521-486), king of Persia Zechariah (520-???)
    Nehemiah, governor (445-425) Malachi
    4th c B.C. Artaxerxes II, king of Persia (404-358 BC)
    Hellenistic Period (332-141 BC)
    Alexander the Great Macedonian Greek empire 356 – 323 BC
    Ptolemaic (Egyptian) Seleucid rule in Jerusalem
    Seleucos I (Persian) 321-215
    3rd c. B.C.
    Antiochos III inherited in 223 BCE
    2nd c. B.C.
    1st c. B.C. Herod the Great, Roman appointed king of Judea 37–4 BC

    John the Baptist

    c. 5 BC – AD30
    * Period summary source

    Prophets Predicted Christ

    How long did you consider the generations between the time of David, 3000 years ago and the thousand years until the birth of the Messiah?

    The LORD saved and redeemed a people who in every generation believed that God had forgotten them.

    “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old..

    Luke 1:68-70 ESV

    A short list of Prophecies: Promises of many generations

    Joel 1:

    15 Alas for the day!
    For the day of the Lord is near,
    and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.

    19 To you, O Lord, I call.
    For fire has devoured
    the pastures of the wilderness,
    and flame has burned
    all the trees of the field.

    Joel 2:28  “And it shall come to pass afterward,
    that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
    your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
    your old men shall dream dreams,
    and your young men shall see visions.
    29 Even on the male and female servants
    in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

    Joel lived about eight centuries before fulfillment of his prophecies.

    Micah 1:

    2 Hear, you peoples, all of you;
    pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it,
    and let the Lord God be a witness against you,
    the Lord from his holy temple.

    Speaking of ‘Peace’

    Micah 3:
    5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets
    who lead my people astray,
    who cry “Peace”
    when they have something to eat,
    but declare war against him
    who puts nothing into their mouths.

    Micah 4:

    (Some may recognize this scripture forgotten from the charter of the United Nations at a time Israel was reborn as a nation in 1947.)

    “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
    that he may teach us his ways
    and that we may walk in his paths.”
    For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

    3 He shall judge between many peoples,
    and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away;
    and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
    nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war anymore;

    4 but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree,
    and no one shall make them afraid,
    for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

    The Place of Birth of the Messiah

    Micah 5:

    But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
    from you shall come forth for me
    one who is to be ruler in Israel,
    whose coming forth is from of old,
    from ancient days.
    3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time
    when she who is in labor has given birth;
    then the rest of his brothers shall return
    to the people of Israel.
    4 And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,
    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
    And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
    to the ends of the earth.
    5 And he shall be their peace.

    Micah’s promise of the birth of Christ would not be fulfilled for about 700 years.

    Zephaniah 3:

    16 On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
    “Fear not, O Zion;
    let not your hands grow weak.
    17 The Lord your God is in your midst,
    a mighty one who will save;
    he will rejoice over you with gladness;
    he will quiet you by his love;
    he will exult over you with loud singing.

    Zephaniah is the great-great grandson of Judah’s King Hezekiah from the time Micah prophesied. He prophesied during the time of a successful and good King Josiah ( 640 to 609 BC). Zephaniah saw in the day of the Lord the destruction of his country, his neighbors, and eventually the whole earth. Source.

    Malachi 1:

    2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord…

    Should this not be sufficient for worship of the Lord our God?

    Over the centuries and generations Israel repeatedly has turned from the Lord, rejecting God’s love. Yet the Lord is merciful and promises a Messiah, the Savior of the faithful.

    The Messenger of the Lord

    Malachi 2:

    17 You have wearied the Lord with your words.

    But you say, “How have we wearied him?”

    By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

    Are we so different, even in these last days? Has Christ not promised an eternal redemption for our sin? Yet we remain impatient with mortal life.

    Malachi was a late messenger among the Prophets, one after whom a great silence from the Lord would follow until another messenger of the Messiah would appear to announce the onslaught of these last days.

    Malachi 3:

    “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

    The Book of Remembrance

    16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.

    17 “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. 18 Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

    Malachi likely delivered his message many years after the Israelites rebuilt the temple in 515 BC. The prophet’s concerns mirror those of Nehemiah’s, suggesting that Malachi prophesied to the people while Nehemiah left the city for several years, beginning in 432 BC. Source.

    Generations of silence without prophecy, then the LORD sends a messenger to the wilderness and a Messiah to a manger in Bethlehem.

    Judgment and mercy will be in His right hand. He will be a Savior of the Remnant and Hope to the Nations.

    A messenger will announce the Son of David, the Promised One…

    In the LORD’s time… the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the Nations; predicted by the Prophets, proclaimed by angels, born in a manger, worshiped by shepherds and kings: Jesus, Son of God, Son of man!

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