October 18

Amos 3
I have a friend who used to joke with me that one of God’s names was Shirley. “After all,” he said, “the Scripture says, ‘Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, Unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.’” Okay, I admit it. It is a bad pun. But it does bring an interesting point in today’s passage. Does God still operate that way? Many would say that the prophet was an Old Testament thing and does not belong to the church. O really? I guess then that they have to reinterpret many major passages of the Scripture such as Acts 11:27; 13:1; 15:32; 21:10; Roman 12:6; 1 Cor. 12-14; Eph 2:20; 4:11; 1Jn. 4:1.
The prophets of the Old Testament were often viewed as troublesome people, kind of thorny. As one king of Israel said of a famous prophet, “Can’t you find someone else? He never has anything good to say about me.” (2 Chronicles 18:7 Chaffin paraphrase.) The Old Testament prophets served in several ways. One major function was to correct the nation when they had strayed from the covenant. If the king and/or people would repent, they also would bring comfort and hope as they extended mercy in the future and for the present,. You can imagine then, if you think you’re right and you are not, along comes the prophet who publicly rebukes you, it is a very thorny situation. You really only have three choices of action: 1) repent & submit, which really is quite embarrassing; 2) ignore him and hope he goes away, which could begin to foment problems resulting in civil unrest; 3) stop him from speaking. Many chose the last option resulting in many prophets being scourged, chained, thrown in prisons, stoned, sawn in half, killed with a sword etc.
How do the prophets serve in the New Testament? Since they are given to the church, would not one of their functions be to correct when the church is going or has gone astray from the New Covenant? As such they might be viewed as troublesome people, kind of thorny, perhaps even abusive. Indeed, if the prophet operates in the flesh, he could become abusive. But if the prophet operates in the Spirit and the church repents, would not the prophet then bring comfort and hope both for the present and the future? But what happens if the message of the prophet is not received? Probably people ignore him and hope he goes away or they stop him from speaking in some way.
Does the Lord still do nothing, unless He reveals it to His servants the prophets? Why don’t we hear more from the prophets? Maybe it is because we do not listen. Maybe it is because we silence their voices. Maybe it is because we cannot distinguish between the voice of the prophet and false prophet. Maybe they are afraid to speak. I think it is still the glory of the Lord to reveal His will to the church. Since there is a gift of prophecy, one of the routes through which He reveals His will is through His prophets. It is to His glory for us to listen to the prophets. Since there are false prophets, it is to His glory to discern between the true and false prophets. It is a tough task to correct each ‘maybe’ and to discern truth and error. But if it is His glory to provide us the grace, the divine enablement to do each one, is it not worth our trust to seek Him for that enablement? When He provides that grace, will it not bring Him greater glory? Indeed, we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john