0:05
all right returning to Amos chapter 7 we made it a significant portion through there and uh I suppose we will we'll just have to see how we do with
0:16
our discussion this morning if we move on to to eight I'm planning to move on to eight I'm going to be doing at least one extra week probably two or three extra weeks to get us through the end of
0:26
the book um but I want to examine this and we've ref a couple of questions as I've hinted at to this section chapter 7 um I went back and forth personally in
0:37
my own layout of the study as to whether or not we should talk in depth about what is a prophet at the beginning of
0:48
book after all we are examining examining a prophetic book nobody disputes the prophetic nature of Amos but I guess I was already thinking about it a little bit in terms of uh
1:00
Chuck's study he's currently doing on Thursday night in biblical theology following the course following the outline that the book and that the scriptures give you Amos doesn't touch
1:11
on Prophecy very much despite the fact that he's prophesying he doesn't actually examine the nature of a prophet until this moment um he does object
1:22
earlier that they had the prophets they had the word of the Lord he um Harang them for having not heard the prophecies that were among among them um I think Abigail was right last week when she
1:33
highlighted the idea of Amos as a prophet being the plum line among the people I I would with longer consideration argue I think really that it's the prophets are the plum line that
1:44
he's lowering among them um especially when you think of the idea that Amos and Hosea are here probably at the beginning of what we call the writing prophets you're going to have the writing
1:54
prophets for a time a section and then Amos himself is going to pick pick it up here in chapter 8 he's going to describe to them a time in which there will be searching for the word of the Lord and
2:06
it will not be found describing what I think is what we typically call the the intertestamental period those 400ish years in which God cut off any new revelation among his people so the plum
2:19
line as the prophets so thinking about prophets and thinking about prophecy um we we very briefly examined uh amah's uh argument against
2:31
argument against Amos last week out of chapter 7 his argument that that Amos ought to get out of here he ought to return to his own country and go earn his living as a prophet there um and we're going to
2:41
examine then amos's response to amiah um and we're going to examine in relation to that some of the nature of Prophecy as we see it overall and and what is a
2:53
prophet and some of the questions that have come up I think over the course of the study and please if I don't hit a question that you asked me um I should probably start writing down people's questions I have not been doing
3:03
that so if I missed one of your questions about prophecy raise your hand and ask me the question again and hopefully we can tackle it but um interestingly one note that I wanted to bring out before we left we talked a
3:15
little bit about amah's um state of mind and his personality the way he was interacting with these things I did want to say though it's interesting to me at least the way he
3:25
says this um his his uh t if you like that he sends to the king he says um you know Amos is
3:35
is conspiring against you he says he's um conspiring against you in the midst of the House of Israel and the land is unable to endure all his words to point
3:46
out here he's actually kind of bolstering amos's case he's attesting to the power of the prophecy basically saying they can't bear it they can't hold up under it um he he seems to have
3:58
witnessed or recognize something of of the power in it but here we have then amos's response to amiah and it's very succinct very brief um picking up in
4:11
verse 14 of chapter 7 he says then Amos replied to amiah and said I am not a prophet nor am I the son of a prophet for I am a herdsman and a grower of
4:22
Sycamore figs but Yahweh took me from following the flock and Yahweh said to me go prophesy to My People Israel now hear the word of Yahweh you are saying
4:33
you shall not prophesy against Israel nor shall you speak against the house of Isaac therefore thus says Yahweh your wife will become a prostitute in the city and your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword your land will be
4:45
divided up by a measuring line and you yourself will die on unclean soil moreover Israel will certainly go from its land into
4:55
Exile his statement here he moves almost immediately um if you look carefully at least as the way it's rendered here um I not going to get into an argument about
5:06
where the punctuation is in the Hebrew but as it's rendered I think more or less accurately in your English it's two sentences before he returns to hear the word of the Lord he gives two sentences
5:17
of Defense of himself basically um he says initially uh not a prophet nor a son of a prophet uh question for you all do you
5:27
do you have present tense or past tense in yours mine has present tense I am not a prophet nor am I the son of a prophet some of the translations go with I was not a prophet neither was I the son of a
5:48
prophet am or am so the question is was he or is he and unfortunately in Hebrew it's really hard to tell because Hebrew is not particularly good at tenses Hebrew actually tends to talk about things say
5:59
whether they have been completed or whether they are ongoing um rather than the way we think about things as present past or future um I don't know that I want to follow
6:10
that road too far because it doesn't actually make all that much difference Amos is currently prophesying and he is declaring to them the word of the Lord the question I suppose would be what
6:22
does he understand himself to be but I think you're going to find what he understands himself to be in the way that he's delivering the message but his response his uh return if you like
6:33
against amiah is to say the following amah's uh charge to him was effectively go on go back to Israel and go be a professional Prophet earn your bread
6:45
there and amos's reply his repost if you like is to say um I worked hard for my living I tended the sheep and I had a
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second job dressing Sycamore figs now I'm not going to go uh many pages on as some of the commentaries do trying to decide exactly what Sycamore figs were and how all that worked because
7:07
apparently it's a little bit disputed the gist of it is this it was a fruit that they grew that had to have in Horticultural terms scarification you had to slice a cut
7:18
into the fruit to help it ripen to help it develop its best potential so it wasn't just you tended the tree and then it grew 25 I almost got it 25 or 30 nice
7:29
ripe fruits no you had to go and every fruit that you were planning to harvest you had to go and slice it dress it it took a lot of work to get this cultivated and get it to be a profitable crop um we talked a little bit if you
7:41
wanted to update things in modern terms uh think about you know Amos coming to you in person of a of an oil stained mechanic and telling you hear the word of the Lord how people might look at
7:52
that if you like his his repost here in Modern English would be something like um I was a mechanic all day long and when I was I cobbled my Nissan Altima back together and went and delivered
8:02
pizzas until midnight okay he worked hard at two jobs to provide his living he's not a professional prophet he didn't earn his living by being a
8:13
professional Prophet professional Prophet um additionally when he gives this I want to bring out three things it's one sentence here but there are three portions to it I think that are
8:24
significant in what his the meaning just as we were able to see multiple facets of the meanings of what amiah was saying the density of what's written here in the Hebrew there are I think three parts
8:36
you can pull out of this he says yes sorry go
8:51
respectrespect yeah right be something yeah but he was telling him unlike you I was God called me right I
9:02
think there he is showing a contrast for sure because because that's part of what he's saying and we're going to talk in a moment about some of the things you can see in the history of Israel where there was a professional Prophet class some of
9:14
whom were in the court of the king at least as far as we can read he's saying I didn't have any of that I was nobody here you are the high priest of bethl I'm a nobody and until until this
9:26
happened to me and these are the three points I think we ought to bring out of this sentence he puts it all together but the Lord said to me go which is to say this is his
9:55
vocational or charge if you like that he was charged to go leave the things you are currently doing and go secondly Yahweh said to me go
10:20
H um this is his commission well where I want to put this I'm going to call this rather this is the basis of his
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authority and finally the Lord said to me go to My People Israel this is
11:22
his commissioned to a specific address that he's commissioned not to just sort of be a prophet at large but he's given a location an audience a specific goal or mission to undertake so that that one sentence go prophesy to My People Israel
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has all of the authority that he needs in it that succinctness of it though is significant in in that he's tied all of it up together he says Yahweh said to me
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it is a command that has these portions in it he has no choice but to obey the command to go to leave behind those things he was doing and to go to prophesy he is given the word he is sent
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to prophesy he cannot be silent he cannot asiah suggests go do it somewhere else because he was sent specifically to My People Israel he can't go to Judah
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that's not where he was commissioned to go so it repudiates amah's um disrespect to use ab's term there um saying you
12:19
know basically every part of what you just said was wrong I cannot ignore any of the specifics here I was commissioned by Yahweh I was told I must prophesy and
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I was told I must prophesy To His People Israel I can't not prophesy and I can't go back to Judah so his uh protestation
12:40
that he was not or is not a prophet nor the son of a prophet is really to say I don't have an authority of it because I was brought up to it I have an authority to it because Yahweh sent me with his
12:51
words that's why he wasn't brought up to it nor was he a self-appointed or professional Prophet
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um this is another class of Prophecy that we see though and it is a class of Prophecy that the scripture treats as also authoritative though perhaps in a different way and we'll examine that as
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we move forward but most of you I think will remember and I'm going to quickly read for you out of um 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles are little uh example there
13:26
part of what he says uh neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet Propet um it um it was uh shall we
13:39
say there were times in which prophets had children who were raised up in a similar position or seem to have prophesied now it's hard to find lots of examples of it interestingly the um Hebrew tradition
13:51
the talmud and so on considers that um anywhere that you see a prophet named as the son of some so for example Isaiah the son of amaz who is not Amos by the
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way am um that the reason why you would call out that father uh whereas other prophets fathers are not called out is because their father was considered also to have been a
14:14
prophet I don't know that there's a ton of evidence for that particular tradition but it is what they hold in perpetuity that anytime you have a prophet's father was called out specifically with a patronymic that that
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meant that they were a descendant of a prophet also um but I'm going to read out of 2 Kings 6 where we see the
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um the uh the mention here of the no I've got the
14:57
Prophet yes so we have a mention there of the sons of the prophet um saying to to Elijah sorry I was thinking of a different passage um yes but it says the sons of the prophets so so you have an idea of a class there and it seems to be
15:08
expounded rather in 2 Chronicles which is the passage I thought I was turning to which is why I got confused um in 2 Chronicles 18 um we have mention of what is termed
15:36
um I'm actually going to back up because this is also significant for us in the idea of professional prophets um in 2 Chronicles here it tells us the story of Jehoshaphat and his alliance with Ahab
15:47
um if you remember the sort of moment that we're in and it says Ahab I'm going to pick up in verse three Ahab king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah will you go with me against ramth Gilead and he said to him I am as you are and
15:59
my people as your people we will go with you into the battle moreover Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel please inquire first for the word of Yahweh then the king of Israel assembled the
16:09
prophets 400 men and said to them shall we go against ramth Gilead to battle or shall I refrain and they said go up for God will give it into the hand of the king Jehoshaphat you can almost see him
16:20
looking around Jehoshaphat said is there yet not a prophet of Yahweh here that we can inquire of him the king of Israel said to
16:32
Jehoshaphat there is yet One Man by whom we may inquire of Yahweh but I hate him for he never prophesies good concerning me but always evil he is Micaiah son of imla Jehoshaphat said don't let the king
16:44
say so the king of Israel called an officer and said quickly bring Micaiah imla son now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah were sitting each on his throne arrayed in their robes at the threshing floor
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entrance to the gate of Samaria and all the prophets were prophesying for
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um I'm going to skip on down a little bit because there is some other prophecy here that is proved to be false but the the gist of here in 12 the messenger who went to summon Micaiah spoke to him saying behold the words of the prophets
17:16
are uniformly favorably to the king so please let your word be like one of them and speak favorably but Micaiah said as Yahweh lives what my God says so I will speak and then he came to the king and
17:29
the King said to him Micaiah shall we go to ramth Gilead to battle or shall I refrain and he said go up and succeed for they will be given into your hand and the King said to him how many times
17:39
must I aure you to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of Yahweh so he said I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep which have no Shepherd and Yahweh said these have no
17:51
master Let each of them return to his house in peace then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat didn't I tell you that he would say nothing prophesying nothing good concerning me but only evil
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so we have this moment of the sort of professional Prophet class being called out by the obvious authoritative difference of Micaiah here Micaiah another one where his father is
18:13
highlighted with a patronic um so you have this sort of professional class there's there's many other references to professional class in some cases it seems to be professional class
18:24
of prophets who were prophesying in the name of the Lord because um you have obadiah's attestation that he hid um he says I hid 100 prophets of Yahweh from
18:35
being killed by Jezebel when Jezebel was purging those prophets who still held to the name of the Lord I hid them 50 at a time in a cave to Pro uh prevent her from killing
18:54
them um similarly you have um in First Kings sorry the other part of the school the prophets I was thinking about was um I've lost my reference here but you'll probably remember I think it's early in first actually no it must be in 2 Samuel
19:09
where um Saul is trying to kill David David runs away and finds Samuel it's got to be first Samuel because first Samuel's still alive he goes to find Saul they go
19:20
off to another area Saul says why hasn't he come back he sends his Messengers and it says The Messengers all started prophesying and Saul says where are my messengers he sends more Messengers they
19:31
all start prophesying Saul says enough is enough you want something done right you do it yourself he goes down and he starts prophesying and it says so there is now a saying is Saul also among the prophets but there's a mention there
19:42
that is usually translated in the English even though the provenance is slightly disputed that is called the school of the prophets this is an idea almost of a seminary if you like for prophets to be brought up in it and it
19:53
actually says in that specific passage I'll have to look up my reference here that the spirit of came on Saul and he too began to prophesy so it is true prophecy that's
20:04
happening in the momentet be considered teachers of the word so this is the question regarding the prophet class or the prophetic class
20:15
here because many of those who have written on the subject suggest that part of the reason that there's a school of the prophets is because the prophets are being taught similar to Seminary how to
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distribute the word of the Lord and how to communicate to the people and teach them there was already a job to do that though wasn't there the Levites are supposed to be doing that in all of the
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places where they are sent to they are supposed to be teaching the word of the Lord so I think it's beyond just handling the already written scripture it is a professional class of
20:50
of I guess we have to figure out what it's some kind of mediation or some kind of communication Aon you can correct me if there's more
21:05
to of remember Samuel and El both are in times and places where the priesthood Sam's
21:21
priesthood elely depressed and then is nearly eliminated right and in El's time you have the priesthood dealing with here which is a a false priesthood in the
21:32
northern kingdom and and a religion specifically engineered to prevent the people of Israel from going down to Jerusalem to see the real prood so are
21:43
these schools of the prophets not a sensible Gathering of of prophets in a time where the priesthood is obviously not doing it job others priesthood
21:56
others priesthood and the only one that I can think of and I guess the question is I'm I'm not remembering all of the circumstances around it I don't remember if in Saul's day it was particularly in dispute I
22:06
don't think it was and we do see um the school of the prophets sort of being mentioned well with Samuel okay that's what I'm saying is that the house of failed to do its job okay the Reon I
22:19
think that's a reasonable way to look at it the idea that that Yahweh is preserving his um teaching among his people Chuck we also have the situation that that because the people were not
22:29
paying the ti the Levites were having to work go back to the land and work so in fact the Levites by this time probably were not teaching K uh many of them
22:42
probably didn't even know it yeah right so I think that's probably a reasonable way to look at it is it is when the when the priesthood is not
22:53
pulling its weight um again it's kind of a mysterious thing that's not particularly expounded on in the revelation of scripture other than by implication um it's not really picked up and addressed and saying this is what
23:04
they were doing um Chuck and then Ariel is there any connection between this and when Paul laments those who are profiting off profiting off the gospel and those who will gather to
23:16
themselves preatures that will scratch their itching ears yes I think there is very much a connection between the idea of the professional prophets and the um
23:28
the fact that it could potentially be a lucrative way to to earn your keep um it's part of I think what amiah is saying is go on back to Judah will actually listen to what you're saying
23:39
and maybe you can earn your living by prophesying there he's he's the school of the prophets or the idea that you can go be trained to have
23:49
some kind of authority of Revelation is is strange and so but what the Oddity of it to me in particular is the idea that in the Hebrew it's the exact same word it's not not differentiated so you do
23:59
have the words se you have the words uh Prophet there's another word they use sometimes um but they're used as far as I can read interchangeably so here in in uh Amos he
24:12
actually says return to Judah you Seer we understand that to be Prophet Ariel you had your hand up I was just G ask whether saying this is simar reaction
24:24
Israel similar to thees later on who AR I think I think the moments in which we're seeing the the sort of rise in the
24:37
the school of the prophets is a is a time in which yes it is because there's a lack it is because the the the actual teaching is not happening the way it should and there's a filling in in a way
24:49
um but again you see these moments um you see these moments in various places and it's difficult at times I think to distinguish in the record whether we're talking about prophets who understood
25:01
themselves as prophets of Yahweh or prophets who said yeah I'm a prophet because there are certainly moments where we see um prophets delineated and then we find out well actually he's a
25:11
prophet of Baal for example and he is opposed to the prophet who comes to deal with him in the case of Elijah and so on I think it's pretty significant Jehoshaphat recogn recognized 400 other
25:24
prophets were not prophets of Y right right and and and additionally he has a a a rebuke if you like it's somewhat mild in the English but in in Hebrew
25:36
when he turns to Ahab when Ahab says the prophet of Yahweh and he says don't speak about the servant of Yahweh that way that's what he's saying when he says don't let the king say so he do not
25:47
disrespect the man who has Authority from Yahweh he recognizes the difference of it so yeah I think it is very significant it's additionally significant that he he immediately text
25:58
that we we're not given the tone but I can only imagine that Micaiah came with a bit of a sarcastic yeah sure go on go to battle um and he's like okay please the word of the Lord only um so yes
26:12
there is that that significance um there um I try to figure out there there's so many references to prophecy and references to prophecy in different ways that it's hard to parse them out what
26:24
I'm trying to show is there are a couple of different levels or aspects and the reason why Amos is saying I'm not or was not a prophet is because he didn't come out of one of these training centers he
26:36
didn't have a father who was he just was a guy until Yahweh says go but we do also have to understand the prophets in these contexts because um you know I
26:48
know that uh Aaron's been working a bit on PR preparing some things in Isaiah Isaiah might even be a person that would fall under initially
26:58
the idea of professional prophecy there is some thought in his Heritage that he might have actually have been a nephew or a nephew once removed from the King
27:09
and was hanging around in the Royal circles now his message was definitely from Yahweh but he was probably sort of in the Inner Circle Amos is not that guy he is just Again by his own attestation
27:20
I'm just a guy off the street I think what we're of saying is that y can use anyone and the background of the is
27:38
weal whether one way or the other whether to say well you know you don't have training you just started doing therefore you must be okay
27:55
theying that's an excellent point the idea that the ministry hereditary is pretty pervasive within Christianity yes you see a lot of Sons
28:06
of pastors going to Bible College and you know that sort of thing um JC RI most people are familiar with JC riy yeah being a bishop in the angli church
28:19
but a reformed Theologian his son h r apparently the family didn't have names just initials letters I don't know um h
28:38
r he he was a horriable liberal it did great damage to the church's conception of scripture um it's like it's not hereditary and it shouldn't I think that
28:48
a lot of men in the ministry put a great deal of pressure I hope it can't be said that to be right you know it's like yeah
28:59
I I am not the son of a prophet right you know I was an engineer and the fact that you're the son of a prophet is by no means a birth right to to Ministry I think it's dangerous yeah because it's
29:11
really kind of a religious aristocracy yeah that I was born to the cloth yeah no that's not how it works it's it might work that way it might right but it
29:22
should never be considered default yeah I think that's very dangerous for the health of the community is when it when it becomes a hereditary office right
29:33
yeah I agree yeah jand up I just wonder what do we do with the fact that the people were not paying the tie so the Levites were stopping doing their
29:44
work which was God's directive on how Israel and Judah would learn the word so uises this profit class trying to fix a
29:57
problem were problem were they wrong in what they did to try to fix a fix a problem when the people needed to be and supp thees that God dedicated to
30:10
teaching the teaching the word right yeah it is a it's a I would say that it's a tangled one in part because God had given specific direction that the Levites were to be the ones to
30:23
teach and to minister and to spread that there is um there is an element in which they are contravening that by instead of supporting the Levites or encouraging
30:34
the support of the Levites they are taking it on themselves to do it again the references to the school of the prophets are so few on the ground that it's hard to say um this is how the Lord
30:46
responded to those we see in uh 1 Samuel that Samuel is is with them and the spirit of the Lord comes on many of them there seems to be a moment there where where Yahweh is
30:59
involved in preserving his teaching um but it's oblique in the in the to the respect that we have it I think yeah
31:09
it's it would be better probably but if you think about it in it would be better probably for them to have encouraged the support of the Levites there's some odd parallels when I was looking up things
31:20
on the school of the prophets um and and don't laugh but when it was founded Harvard was once referred to as as a school of the prophets um and actually
31:31
in 1680 something whatever one of the original Founders wrote um and requested that there be a law passed that every family in New England had to give a quarter of a bushel of of
31:44
wheat effectively as a tithe to support what he referred to as this school of the prophets that they needed help so that they had time to do their studies right so some kind of tithing idea um
31:56
just a weird parallel that comes out of that in amos's day actually if we back up slightly what he was uh castigating particularly in this moment in Israel was you're in here all the time tithing
32:08
and sacrificing and doing all this stuff and supporting a whole group of priests and all this stuff who aren't actually Yahweh like you're doing all that stuff
32:18
you're supposed to do for completely the wrong people and in the wrong place you had your hand up or did I I did I was it seems that as ARA was
32:29
talking just the parallel of the par Church organization came to mind that what the prayer Church organizations are doing and the
32:40
seminaries has always been biblically intended for the church to do yes so are they right to pick up what the church isn't doing yeah is that are are our
32:53
good intentions good intentions sufficient or is it in fact further perversion of God's economy by further diminishing the
33:04
resources of the church and even now the expectation see churches no longer have a self expectation yeah of sending out missionaries their expectation is to
33:16
support a denominational missionary organization that will take care of the logistics and whatnot but we don't need to worry with that same with theological education churches will maybe they'll
33:28
help send their right young men to a seminary but they won't think to do it themselves No so at the end of the day you're not fixing the problem you're
33:39
you're actually making it worse right no I I appreciate that because honestly seminaries were the one that popped into my head when I and number of the commentators draw a parallel to
33:49
seminaries when talking about the school of the prophets and I I would say I think if I had to if I had to come down on one side or the other I would say they probably weren't doing the
34:00
right thing in the sense that they ought to be reinforcing the economy that God had already established right that the Levites are the ones to be supported um I think Aaron had your hand up first and
35:02
ahe yeah no I appreciate that because as you were you were starting that it occurred to me there's there's some moments uh that you can look at in the history of these things these things where a handful of men that I can think
35:15
of in the history of the church have but most have not which is to say there are times where you say this needs to subdivide the dough needs to get cut in half and let it keep Rising here and there and and many times they just take
35:27
and say we'll just keep growing um and it goes consider considerably beyond the capacity that the Lord has given any man to helm in in a Ministry and and then to
35:39
its detriment but AB you had your hand up just thinking we think
36:08
but then how is that different than a preacher people who are are can people School of the Prophet what we would call to
36:30
it is interesting it is a good question I want to touch on one more question before we run out of time and then finish with
36:46
this um I'm going to quickly cap off this idea of the profits because there is I is I think I put it quickly I for my own part recognized as I went through this that I have a tendency to think about the
36:57
profits we encountered them in the Old Testament as this is a prophet but the other ones are also often actually prophets there is a prophet class of whom can be inquired at
37:08
this time in the Old Testament um we just looked at the one where Jehoshaphat calls up um Micaiah I want to highlight one other one here because I think it's actually um really significant actually
37:19
I want to quickly highlight two here um significant in the answering a question that Chuck asked way back at the beginning which is did the prophet Class
37:31
come to replace the um and or thumim however we're supposed to say that the um and thumim the the ability to inquire of God with that device whatever it was and I
37:42
think frankly the answer is yes um because we see them doing this frequently um we we saw it there with with Jehoshaphat jeroboam also does this
37:53
um he he calls Elisha to inquire um uh find my place here in 2 Kings 3 um he
38:03
son of Ahab comes to Reign and he does evil in the sight of Yahweh and then we read that there's a rebellion in Moab um so then we read in in nine um and
38:15
remember this is ahab's son so the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom and they made a circuit of seven days journey and there was no water for the Army or for the cattle that was following them and the king of Israel said alas for Yahweh has
38:27
called these three kings to give him into the hand of Moab and Jehoshaphat said is there not a prophet of Yahweh here that we may inquire of Yahweh by him and one of the kings of Israel's
38:38
servants answered and said Elisha the son of Chaat is here who used to pour water on the hands of Elijah Jehoshaphat said the word of Yahweh is with him so the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and
38:49
the king of Edom went down to him and Elisha said to the king of Israel what do I have to do with you go to the prophets of your father and go to the prophets of your mother and the king of Israel said to him no for Yahweh has
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called these three kings together to give them into the hand of Moab and Elisha said as Yahweh of hosts lives before whom I stand were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah I would not look at you or
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see you but bring me a Minstrel and it came about that when the musician had played that the hand of Yahweh Came Upon him and he said thus says Yahweh make this Valley full of trenches for thus
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says Yahweh you shall not see wind nor shall you see rain yet that the valley shall be filled with water so that you shall drink both you and your cattle and your beasts this is a slight thing in the sight of Yahweh he will also give
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the moabites into your hands so he goes on but he recognized again we is there is there a Prophet of Yahweh of whom we can inquire of Yahweh inquire of the Lord and then the one that really stuck
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out to me as I was looking through some of these because I think I missed it frankly the last time I was gone through here in 2 Kings 22 they find the uh lost
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book of the law in 22 uh in 8 it says hilaya the high priest said to chiffon The Scribe I have found the book of the law in the house of Yahweh and hilaya
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gave the book to shaon who read it and safon the Scribe came back and said to the king and brought back word to the king your servants have emptied out the money that was in the house and delivered into your hands moreover he
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said to the king uh hkaya the priest has given me a book and he read it in the presence of the king the king heard the words of the law book of the law and tore his cloak and then he commanded the king commanded
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hilah the priest a aim the son of safon and abbor the son of Micaiah Sean The Scribe and Isaiah the king's servant saying go inquire of Yahweh for me and
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the people and all of Juda concerning the words of this book that has been found for great is the wrath of Yahweh that burns against us because our fathers have not listened to the words of this book to do according to all that
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is written concerning us so Hokah the priest aayam abor Aon and asiah went to holda the prophetes the wife of Shalom the son of tikva the son of haras Keeper
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of the Wardrobe now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter and they spoke to her and she said to them thus says Yahweh God of Israel tell the men who sent you to me or tell the man who
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sent you to me thus says Yahweh behold I bring evil on this place and it's on on its inhabitants even all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read because they have forsaken me and have burned incense to other gods that
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they might provoke me to anger with the work of their hands therefore my wrath Burns against this place and it shall not be quenched so they recognized this propheus um and I hadn't connected this
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but that he says go find out we found this book go inquire of Yahweh and they're like oh I know who we can go see they knew where to find the word of
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the Lord they knew who had that word um there's also the the group of of prophets that effectively judge over Israel you have Samuel um you had Deborah accounted as a prophet you have those who sit and lead in that capacity
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before the the uh incoming of of the king ship Arrow I was just going to Second the idea that it's quite disturbing that when these guys really needed the truth spoken to them they
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knew who to go find yeah so what were they doing the rest of the time right when when you didn't want to hear it Abe you had your hand up we do the same thing we have a problem at home yeah we
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can't resolve what does the Lord want us to do right and often times what we do is p is p preacher can you help us with this issue that we have yeah that happens
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today it does it does happen today and it happens I mean I'll let Chuck speak if he wants to speak to the to the idea of of doing or not doing counseling um
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but that's that is a thing that happens which is effectively well I'm going to go find the preacher because he knows what the Lord wants me to do but I'm not going to go talk to him on a regular basis talk to him when I've got a problem I can't fix
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yeah so don't have school of prophets so you have a school of prophets and you you you also have you also have a number of moments so not in amos's case but you have a number of moments of some of these other prophecies we've talked about where there's a significant
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portion of their lives and their interactions that they have that don't begin with thus says Yahweh they're doing things sometimes apparently of their own accord but the the two things that I
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want to highlight real quick and I I'll call on Chuck in just a second is one is the authority of Revelation the preacher is not authorized to reopen the revelation of
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God the prophets while they are sometimes explaining what should already be known um they are bringing a word directly now you will often find in reformed circles this idea that the
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preaching is a prophetic office Chuck what did you have your hand up for we have to remember the
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provisions of the New Covenant no man will teach his brother for all will right inquire of the Lord the New Covenant does address this issue
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and and alter it radically so I do think we have to we see patternsin Teaching Ministry of the church but I do think we have to
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recognize that U if there is a prophetic Ministry we all have it this is the second thing to highlight
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is we are now indwelt and so we have access effectively not to overstate the case but we have the same access that those
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guys had because what do we read the spirit of Yahweh Came Upon them well what is the holy spirit if not the spirit of Yahweh that indwells his people so if we have him indwelling us we have this
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access we have this ministry the other thing I found just on a more prosaic level I came across what I thought was an interesting
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[Music] um analogy that separates the two um I think some of you will be familiar with Martin Lloyd Jones's path of being Apprentice to the to the king's doctor
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and then being called to the ministry and going on to minister when we were in Glasgow actually the the fellow that U was preaching in the church went to had been uh for some years a heart surgeon at one of the royal hospitals and then
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um moved into the ministry uh neither of them came up with this idea but it was a similar man who who wrote this he said um he draws the analogy that the the
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prophet is more like the doctor in the sense that he'll come in for a moment and he will diagnose your issue and he'll tell you usually what you need to do about it here's what's wrong he's
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out the pastor is the physical therapist he's there the whole time working through the remedy with you pushing you on being alongside you as
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the things are happening it's it's not the same role in how the word is handled and how the people are handled the pastor is a different thing from the prophet the prophets usually few
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examples again you think of Samuel even though he had his issue Samuel effectively shepherding the people of Israel but that was not common to the prophets the prophets were usually
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somewhere doing something until the word of the Lord came to them or they were inquired of guess I want to walk back the way I asked my question then because it really did seem to link the pastor and The Preacher based on what you've
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just said the foolishness that we and we see in the kings of the Old Testament but then we behave ourselves is we have a problem we shouldn't go
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talk to the preacher we should be praying about the problem and how often do we not look for Solutions you know in theet we should know right the holy
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spirit is the one the right answer right and it is it is very much a symptom of viewing preachers as professional holy
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men um and similarly you know Chuck has made this comment at least to me before I think he said it publicly before the idea of of counseling is to say well I know I am one who knows what you should
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do or I somehow have greater access than you do to know the prophets in the time of Israel were special access we are now together in this new
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covenant indwelt by the Holy Spirit do some have more maturity do some have more training more time in the word yes but we are all together Walking In step
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with the spirit as a body and so that sharing there are times of of sharing burdens or of alleviating things through wisdom and experience but it is not of a
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greater access to God Scripture says in a multitude of counselor there counselor there victory the person who won't consult with those who have greater
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experience within the church within the word are not necessarily irreligious they're just foolish right no I appreciate that because that
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that is is the point of it is not to say that there is some higher power it is just well there is a higher power that we all have access to is my point the preacher does not stand in the place of
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higher power um that's what I'm trying to say and I need to be careful to use all the words to say it the there is absolutely wisdom though in
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recognizing and and we we see it in the Pastoral Epistles that those who are in positions of maturity the Elder should teach the younger we see instruction that those who have greater maturity
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greater learning greater access ought to teach and to instruct those under them even in the case of um you know Aquilla and Priscilla pulling U apolla aside to
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help straighten out the things that he was iffy on um you know there's there's those moments so there's wisdom in recognizing that but again it's not because um I have greater Faith or I
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have more access to the spirit than you if anything it's because I've had more time to study or I've had more life experience or whatever the those things might be just very quickly I I've shared
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this before but I what is the The Cinematic phrase I hate I hate I hate when people expect me to pray right
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like in a hospital okay like the pasc prayer yours are more holy than everyone else's yeah that that's so folks you know you go ahead and pray I don't have
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a hotline directly okay well we're a little bit over time but I hope I hope that helps uh a little bit on on prophets and profets and
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profits and and I didn't throw up the pun there's a whole parachurch or organization that publishes books under
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the under those headings I've not read any of them I neither endorse nor condemn but there's your upon for the day let's day let's pray father we do thank you for your
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word we thank you for your revelation we thank you most of all that you have not left us without the comforter but that you have sent your spirit among us we ask that we would be keenly aware of his
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presence this morning that we would recognize his um care of us his working within us his preparation of
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our minds our hearts our souls to um receive the word in faith and to engage with it we ask as we go before you in this time of of prayer and of song and
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of the preaching of the word that it would be blessed in your sight a blessing to you and a blessing to us that we would strive in the spirit to receive the word in the same manner in
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which it is given the power with it which it is deployed and I ask that you would strengthen the preacher as he stands to deliver your word that it would be fully in That Power by your
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hand your words delivered to us in the manner that is appropriate for the body we ask all of these things in Jesus name
