PROPHETS OF GOD

Transcript:

0:00 Intro

The prophet spoke with divine authority because he was divinely called. 

Today's video is on the Prophets of God. Looking for some answers, Kyle and I went to Trinity Reformed Church to get Pastor van Eyk's thoughts on the subject. This is Faith to Film. 

A prophet of God is a person who has been uniquely chosen by God to be his spokesperson. He has been commissioned with a message that was supernaturally given that he would then pass on to the people whom God wished to speak to. 

0:34 What are the different kinds of prophecy? 

Generally, when we think of prophets we think about how they foretell the future. They give a message and say "this is what's going to happen in this and this time." And that is one of the aspects of the prophet's work, but often the prophets would also be proclaimers of God's word. So, wouldn't just be prediction of the future, it would be proclamation in the present "this is what God is saying to this people at this time." So, they would not only be foretelling the future, they would also be forth telling the message that God wished to convey. 

1:14 What was the role of the old testament prophets? 

God assigned to the old testament prophets the role of covenant prosecutors. So, the Lord had called His people to live in covenant with Him. That meant that they would have faith towards him and would also live a life of obedience. And what often happened is that the people were negligent in their religious duties towards God and they were careless in terms of righteousness and social justice and so the prophet was God's spokesperson to call the people to repentance, pointing out where they had failed to live according to God's covenant obligations and calling them to return to the Lord, promising that if they did return to the Lord, He would have mercy upon them and He would abundantly pardon all their sins. 

2:05 Where did their authority come from? 

The prophet spoke with divine authority because he was divinely called. That was the difference in the old testament between the false prophets. They spoke of their own authority. They conjured up words from their own insights. They, as one of the prophets said, they were running but they weren't sent by God. But God's prophets had been in the divine counsel, He had revealed to them His will and His desire for His people and had commissioned them to preach and to teach His word. God would often confirm the authority of the prophets with miraculous signs. Think of Moses for instance and Elijah and raising the dead boy. But also, He would confirm their authority when the events that they had predicted came to pass in due course. And so they spoke with the authority of God commissioned by Him. 

3:08 Are there modern day prophets? 

The new testament and Paul in particular, in Ephesians 2, speaks about prophets as part of the foundation laying era of the church. When we build a building, we lay the foundation once, then after the foundation is laid we build the superstructure on it. Paul says that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ being the cornerstone and so from that illustration we don't expect there to be modern day prophets or modern day apostles. Instead, what we do to hear the word of God as He speaks to us, is to turn to the scriptures, to read the bible as it is the very word of the living God and when the bible is faithfully preached, we believe that that too is God's speech to us.