“The Prophets”

Series: A Journey through the Old Testament [on screen]

Rev. Matthew C. McCraw, EdD

First Baptist Church, Bartow, Florida

August 1, 2021

Introductory Comments:

Have you ever gone to hear someone speak or sing or something like that it takes a while to get to the person you want to hear? I remember going to Christian concerts at Carpenter’s Home Church in Lakeland when I was a teenager. The concerts would always start with the opening band, but I was always looking forward to hearing from the main attraction. Or, just recently I went to a conference and there were several preachers, but I really wanted to hear from Dr. Tony Evans. Maybe you’ve been on a trip away from home and you can’t wait to get home and speak to your family. You just want to hear from them. 

Well, listen, church: we should want to hear from God, shouldn’t we? If He is our Lord, if He is our Father, if He is our King, we should want to hear from Him!

In the days of old, the primary way that God would speak to His people was through the prophets. God would often have a message for His people and He would deliver that message through His prophets. 

We are continuing our series called, “A Journey through the Old Testament.” Today, we’re learning about the prophets.[on screen]

Before we go any further, let’s pray to God and ask Him to speak to us now through His Word. 

(prayer)

As we study the prophets of the Old Testament, we are going to look at the major elements, the major truths, and how the Gospel speaks to us through this aspect of the Old Testament. 

So, first, let’s look at the . . . 

I. Major elements [on screen]

1. God gave prophets to His people to deliver His word to them. [on screen]

Very simply, the prophets were regular people whom God called to deliver His message. 

Most of the time, the prophets were called to deliver God’s word to God’s people. At other times, God’s prophets delivered His message to neighboring nations. 

God called many different types of people to be prophets. For instance, there were some prophets like Elisha who were trained to be prophets from a very young age. There were other prophets, such as Amos who was a shepherd, who  had normal lives, but God called them to be a prophet in the middle of all they were doing. 

By the way, we need to distinguish between the people who are prophets and the books of the Bible that are labeled “the Prophets.”  There are books of prophecy in the Bible. We often call these “major prophets” and “minor prophets.” We don’t call them that because some are more important than others. Rather, the major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentation, Daniel, and Ezekiel) are longer than the others, so they’re called major. Hosea through Malachi are shorter, so we call them the minor prophets. 

There are, however, certainly some more famous people who were prophets like Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Elijah. 

So, that’s a little bit about who the prophets were. 

Also, we learn of that . . .

2. The prophets served during the same time as the kings. [on screen]

The prophet often spoke the message of God to the king and the king was to lead the people. In other words, the prophet represented God and the king represented the people.

Sometimes there were good interactions between the king and the prophet, such as when Nathan called David to repentance in 2 Samuel 12. 

Other times, things did not go so smoothly between the prophets and the kings, such as when Elijah and King Ahab had a confrontation in 1 Kings 18.

Let’s read about this because there’s so old-fashioned biblical trash-talking, or taunting, in 1 Kings 18:17-18. It says, “When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, ‘Is that you, the one ruining Israel?’ He replied, ‘I have not ruined Israel, but you and your father’s family have, because you have abandoned the Lord’s commands and followed the Baals.’” [on screen]

This was before “your mama” insult