Limapela Education Project
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This project aims to provide quality education to children in Zambia's Copperbelt Province.
The prophetic ministry is often misunderstood. It is easy to minimise the difficulties of divine inspiration and discernment in which it originates, or the human factors which shape its responsible exercise. In this message, given at Greyfriars' Classical Service on 8 March 2009, Senior Minister Rob Yule examines both the divine and human aspects of prophecy, to help us better understand the biblical prophets of the past and better exercise prophetic ministry in the church today.
Prophecy is hearing from God, and speaking what God says or shows. The prophet has a double responsibility: to hear or discern what God is saying, and to communicate that so other people understand and act upon it. These two elements are respectively the divine and human aspects of prophecy.
The divine aspect of prophecy is well described by the apostle Peter: 'no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit' (2 Peter 1:20-21).
This passage tells us about the spiritual origin of prophecy. Prophecy isn't the result of human thought, reasoning, opinion, or insight. Prophecy is inspired by the Holy Spirit, as people spoke from God under the impulse or constraint of the Holy Spirit. This is the difference between true and false prophecy - whether it is from God or merely human opinion. Jeremiah says the false prophets prophesy 'from their own minds' without the Lord having spoken to them (Jeremiah 23:16-32).
Peter's description echoes the view of Paul, who says that spiritual discernment is necessary to receive spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 2:10-12). In both the giving and receiving of revelation the Holy Spirit's inspiration is necessary.
The prophet is a spokesperson of a revelation from God, declaring the mind and heart of God on a particular subject. What can't be known by natural insight, intelligence or discernment is communicated through the prophet to people by the moving of the Holy Spirit.
The divine aspect of prophecy is underlined by the variety of terms the Bible uses to describe a prophet or a prophetic call (see Lance Lambert, Till the Day Dawns: The Relevance of Biblical Prophecy, Eastbourne, Kingsway, 1982, pp. 18-25):
Many of the prophets, such as Isaiah (Isaiah 6), received their call in a vision of God. Many prophetic messages came in the form of a vision, such as Jeremiah's vision of an almond branch, or of a boiling pot (Jeremiah 1:11-14). The prophet had the responsibility to tell what he saw. In early Israel the prophet was usually known as a 'seer' (1 Samuel 9:9).
An example is the story of Elisha and the Arameans (2 Kings 6:8-17), when Elisha kept warning of their military movements, and God opened the eyes of Elisha's servant to see the hosts on their side.
I vividly recall my first experience of a vision. At a Focus on Israel prayer meeting in Hornby, Christchurch, on 21 July 1984. I saw darkness, then an outline of the northern Siberian coastline appeared, extending from Murmansk to the Kamchatka Peninsula, with hundreds of points of light in the darkness. I took these to be Christian and Jewish believers in the Arctic camps, for whom we should pray.
This is the most common Hebrew word for a prophet, meaning someone who announces to others what God has revealed to them.
Moses was told that unauthorised prophets were prophesying in the camp, independently of the meeting of elders. He replied, 'I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets (naviim) and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!' (Numbers11:29). Prophets are 'announcers' who speak out what the spirit lays on their hearts or inspires in their minds - like the role of prophesying in charismatic fellowships today.
In the Bible a prophetic oracle or utterance is often called a 'burden' (e.g. Isaiah's oracles for the surrounding nations, Isaiah 15:1, 17:1, 19:1, 21:1, 21:11, 21:13; or Nahum 1:1, Zechariah 9:1, 12:1, Malachi 1:1). The term emphasises the objectivity of a prophetic revelation - a divinely given 'weight' or 'load' of revelation placed on a prophet by the Lord.
Something like this happened to me when I was asked to speak at short notice to a public evening meeting of a Leaders Conference at Waikanae, New Zealand in September 1983. I had a tremendous burden that I should bring a message about Christian unity across churches and cultures, and spoke on the theme 'One in Christ'. To my surprise the Maori Christian MP Whetu Tirakatene-Sullivan turned up with a group of Maori Christians - and they hung on every word.
In the New Testament the Greek term prophetes simply means 'one who speaks forth' or 'proclaims' the mind of God on any matter, whether past, present or future. Prophecy is 'forthtelling' - not just 'foretelling.' Even predictive prophecy is more than divining the future: it is giving God's perspective on future events.
The human aspect of prophecy is the prophet's background, call, experience, character, capacity and response to God.
Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel says that the heart of prophetic experience is anguish or pathos: 'The prophet is not a mouthpiece, but a person; not an instrument, but a partner, an associate of God…. The fundamental experience of the prophet is a fellowship with the feelings of God, a sympathy with the divine pathos…. The prophet hears God's voice and feels His heart.' (The Prophets, Vol. 1, New York, Harper and Row, 1969, pp 25-26).
It's not easy to be a prophet. Sometimes the biblical prophets are overwhelmed by God's call. 'Woe to me! I am ruined!' cries Isaiah when he sees the vision of God's holiness (Isaiah 6:5). Jeremiah, the 'weeping prophet', questions God's justice (Jeremiah 12:1), and cries out in anguish (4:19), tears (9:1) and loneliness (15:17) because of his difficult calling. Ezekiel is not even allowed to mourn the death of his wife (Ezekiel 24:15-18). Amos's uncomplicated southern rural lifestyle is rudely shattered by God's call to preach justice to complacent northerners (Amos 1:1, 7:14-15). One can sympathise with Jonah for taking a ship in the other direction - but not even that made his life easier!
The human aspect of prophecy includes the way prophets exercise their prophetic ministry. A prophet's responsibility is not confined to the prophetic message; it also includes what I would call the prophetic manner. Prophets are responsible not only for what they say - but for how they say it. Many a prophetic word has been disqualified by a prophet's censorious attitude, carelessness, or wrong sense of timing.
A biblical example of the right way to deliver a prophetic message is the story of the prophet Nathan, sent by God to rebuke King David for his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Bathsheba's husband Uriah (2 Samuel 12). Put yourself in Nathan's sandals. How would you handle this assignment and present God's rebuke? How would you ensure that it achieved the intended goal of David's repentance and amendment of life ?
Can you imagine how Nathan must have prayed and sweated over the right line of approach? If he didn't get it right, he risked losing his life and provoking David to compound his guilt.
In the event, he told a simple story of covetousness and injustice. David took the bait, gave judgment -and convicted himself.
It gave Nathan the opening he needed:
'You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says….' (2 Samuel 12:7).
Rob Yule, 8 March 2009
© 2009, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church
