Edmund Heddle looks at the sobering calling on every prophet's life to warn people of coming judgment and encourage them to repent.
God operates an early-warning system. In his mercy he warns people and nations of the inevitable result arising from their continued sin and disobedience, urging them to repent so as to escape the coming judgment. This he does through his servants the prophets.
Men may not like prophets interfering in their reckless pleasures and unjust profits and may choose to ignore their warnings. That does not alter the fact that God's warning messengers are a gift of his grace and represent the only remedy for man's pride and self-pleasing - and the only way of escape from condemnation and judgment.
God operates an early-warning system, urging people to repent through his servants the prophets.
Flood warning!
The story of Noah provides the earliest example of how God always warns mankind of coming judgment.
God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, 'I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is full of violence...I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens...so make yourself an ark' (Gen 6:12-17)
Sadly, the warning of Noah, the preacher of righteousness, was ignored and the people went on "eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all" (2 Pet 2:5; Luke 17:26-27). All men need to do to be lost is to be totally absorbed in daily living.
All men need to do to be lost is to be totally absorbed in daily living.
Fires of judgment
It is the prophet Amos who tells us that "the sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7), and we see this principle demonstrated in the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. "Then the Lord said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?'" (Gen 18:17). But he did not do that. Instead, he confided to Abraham that the homosexual practices of those cities are so utterly evil that they - the communities - must be wiped out (Gen 18:20, 19:4-5).
This sharing of God's decision with his servant made intercession possible, and Abraham did all he could to persuade the Almighty to spare those cities. When God reveals to us today that the fires of judgment must fall on modern towns far more wicked than those ancient cities, we too must intercede that they will repent and so be spared.
When God shares his decisions with his servants, it makes intercession possible.
Years of famine
The scriptures recount how Pharaoh had a double dream - a warning from God as to what was going to happen to Egypt in the next fourteen years. But neither he nor his wise men could interpret its meaning. Hearing that there was a young man in prison who could interpret dreams, Pharaoh sent for Joseph and told him:
'I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it'. 'I cannot do it', Joseph replied to Pharaoh, 'but God will give Pharaoh the answer' (Gen 41:15-16)
The answer Joseph gave to Pharaoh foretold that "seven years of great abundance are coming...but seven years of famine will follow them and the abundance will not be remembered because the famine that follows it will be so severe." Joseph goes on to say that "the reason the dream was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God will do it soon" (Gen 41:32).
The plan commended itself to Pharaoh and his officials and Joseph was put in charge, as the Egyptian leader exclaimed, "Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the Spirit of God?"
This is not the only place in the Bible where guidance was given to Spirit-filled men telling them how to cope with an announced famine. Agabus predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world, and the Christians in Antioch sent help to their brothers living in Judea (Acts 11:27-30).
Threatened disaster
The Pharaoh at the time of Moses was very different from the Pharaoh who had appointed Joseph to be his Food Minister four hundred years earlier. When Moses and Aaron were sent to ask him to release the children of Israel, it was no surprise to the Lord that his answer was "No!". In fact, God had warned Moses that "he will not listen to you" (Ex 7:2-4).
At this point the Lord began a series of ten plagues, a softening-up process which continued until the final threat of disaster upon all the first-born of man and beast resulted in "loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead" (Ex 12:30).
It is still the task of the prophet to declare that "the wages of sin is death" (Rom 6:23), and this must be done whatever the response. As the Lord said to Ezekiel, "The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says'. And whether they listen or fail to listen - they will know that a prophet has been among them" (Ezek 2:4-5).
It is still the task of prophets to declare that the wages of sin is death – whatever the people's response.
Repeated warnings
Eli the priest had two wicked sons, Hophni and Phineas, "whose sin was very great in the Lord's sight" (1 Sam 2:12, 17). They were guilty of sacrilege and of having sex with women who were serving at the Tent of Meeting (1 Sam 2:17. 22). Eli had mildly rebuked them (1 Sam 2:23) but had failed to restrain them (1 Sam 3:13).
An unnamed prophet had been sent by the Lord to warn Eli that if they continued in their rebellion they would both die on the same day (1 Sam 2:27-34), This warning was repeated when the boy Samuel learned to listen to the Lord s voice and was given a heavy burden which he wished to keep from Eli (1 Sam 3:10-14).
The prophet has a solemn responsibility to warn leaders of God's people against the dangers of manifesting a domineering attitude on the one hand and of sexual laxity on the other. Instead, all who are called to ministry should covet to do according to what is in God's heart and mind (1 Sam 2:35).
Prophets also have a solemn responsibility to warn leaders of God's people against wrong attitudes to their ministry.
Disobedient prophet
When Jonah was first sent to Nineveh to preach against that great city, he refused (Jonah 1:1-2). He did not want the city he hated to repent so he ran away. Prophets do not always like the message God gives them to proclaim. But the Lord has ways of dealing with us and bringing us to our senses; mercifully for us it is not a three-day stay inside a great fish! God deals with us in various ways to end our disobedience and to help us to a better kind of thinking (Jonah 4:11).
When Jonah eventually got round to doing what he had been told to do and announced, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown" (Jonah 3:4), there was a fantastic response - all in Nineveh from the least to the greatest repented, believed and declared a fast with the wearing of sackcloth. How well the king had got the prophetic message is shown in his words: "Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish" (Jonah 3:8-9).
God wants prophets who share his outlook and are willing to obey him, whatever the cost. They are the ones who will see outstanding results for their faithfulness.
Disobedient people
During the latter years of Jeremiah, a deputation of army officers came to him with the request, "Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do". Before they left the prophet they added, "Whether it is favourable or unfavourable, we will obey the Lord our God" (Jer 42:3-6).
It was ten days later before the Lord gave Jeremiah the answer (Jer 42:7). We must not run away with the idea that we must necessarily give prophetic direction to God's people immediately, as it were off the top of our heads. If Jeremiah took ten days, we should not expect an instant answer without the need for really seeking the Lord.
Maybe Jeremiah sensed that they had already made up their minds as to where they wanted to go (Jer 42:17). Eventually he was able to put before them the alternative: "If you stay in this land I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you...If you are determined to go to Egypt and you do go to settle there, then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow you into Egypt, and there you will die" (Jer 42:10-16).
Despite Jeremiah's warning after his long period of waiting on the Lord, they were determined to go to Egypt. This must have been a crowning sadness to Jeremiah: then as now, the tendency of God's people is to make up their minds first and then seek God's confirmation of and blessing on their plans. The true prophet can only look on with dismay.
The tendency of God's people has always been to make up their minds first and then seek God's confirmation and blessing.
Accountable watchmen
The awful responsibility of God's 'warning messengers' is highlighted by Ezekiel's picture of the watchmen (Ezek 3:16-19, 33:1-9).
The watchman's responsibility is to keep watch and when he sees the enemy advancing he must blow the trumpet and warn the people of their danger. If he does this faithfully and the people ignore his warning blasts and are killed, their blood is on their own heads.
However, if he fails to blow the trumpet and they perish, he will be held accountable. This simple picture reveals the solemn responsibility of God's 'warning messengers'. He will hold them responsible if they fail to warn the people and the nation to "flee from the wrath to come" (Matt 3:7).
Jesus' warning
The Lord Jesus is our example in this part of the prophet's responsibility, as in all its other aspects. In his dissertation concerning the end of the age some comments apply to the end times preceding his return, while others referred to the time of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70.
"When you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation spoken of through the prophet Daniel - let the reader understand - then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains" (Matt 24:15-16). The early Christians obeyed this warning from their Lord and they escaped the awful carnage and atrocities experienced in Jerusalem.
In that same discourse there are other warning words which apply to us who live in the end times. To warn men so that they may escape danger or death is an important part of a prophet's ministry and one which we dare not neglect - for the Lord has made us responsible.
First published in Prophecy Today, Vol 4 No 3, May/June 1988.