Memory Text:
“Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me.’” (Isaiah 6:8, NKJV).
Last week, we noticed that God speaks in various ways. One of those ways is speaking through prophets. What is a prophet? What is their role in the plan of salvation?
When we imagine prophets, we imagine someone in vision, or perhaps a bold preacher standing up against the evil of the day, or someone calling down fire from heaven. All of that has been done by prophets in the past. But the task of a prophet is much simpler than that. A prophet is called to speak on behalf of God.
“Prophets are spokespersons for God. Their crucial role is to deliver speeches on God’s behalf.”1
Simple. But not always easy. Let me explain why.
Confrontation
Prophets speak on behalf of God. And God sends messages of hope, but sometimes He sends strong messages of warning. It’s not easy to proclaim a message that you know will touch someone’s cherished idols. But that’s what prophets do.
Look at Elijah:
1 Kings 18:17–18 NKJV
Then it happened, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, “Is that you, O troubler of Israel?” [18] And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father’s house have, in that you have forsaken the commandments of the LORD and have followed the Baals.”
Or John the Baptist:
Matthew 3:7 NKJV
“Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
Those were not easy messages to share, were they? Would you dare say such things? The life and task of a prophet are simple. But they are not easy. Hence, God requires a certain type of messenger. Grudem rightly observes:
“Quite often the prophet is a special kind of messenger. He is a ‘messenger of the covenant’—sent to remind Israel of the terms of her covenant with the Lord, calling the disobedient to repentance and warning that the penalties of disobedience will soon be applied.”2
And that brings us to our next point.
Consecration
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned His hearers of false prophets.
Matthew 7:15 NKJV
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”
But how can we know if someone is a false prophet? Look at their life.
Matthew 7:16–17 NKJV
You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? [17] Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
This doesn’t mean that prophets are immune to sin and mistakes. They can still fall. Their prophetic office doesn’t mean that they stop being human. But they do their best to reflect the message that they bear. In fact, God prepares the messenger to bear the message.
When Isaiah was called, God further consecrated him.
Isaiah 6:5–7 NKJV
So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.” [6] Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. [7] And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.”
As a result of being consecrated, he was now ready for his commission.
Commission
Isaiah 6:8 NKJV
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
As a result of his encounter with God, Isaiah couldn’t help but heed his calling. And so it is with every preceding and succeeding prophet. God calls the prophet to deliver a message, and He empowers him to give that message.
But that was just the start of a very challenging ministry. From the get-go, God explained what Isaiah was going to face:
Isaiah 6:9–10 NKJV
And He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ [10] “Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed.”
Basically, God was saying, “Isaiah, I’m sending you to people who will not hear you, people whose hearts and minds are so hardened by sin.” Tough job, isn’t it? That’s the job of the prophet. It’s simple, but it’s not always easy. But they still chose to heed the call. Why? Because they knew God was giving them a message that could save them. And the same is true for us. We might not always like the message of the Bible. Some of it might hurt; some of it might touch our cherished idols. But God deems it necessary for our salvation.
Story Time
When Ellen Harmon was only seventeen years old, God called her to share with others what He had shown her in vision.3
Sounds simple, right?
But it wasn’t.
Ellen was young, weak in health, and naturally timid. She was not the type of person who enjoyed standing in front of people. In fact, even meeting strangers was difficult for her. And now God was asking her to travel from place to place and tell people what He had revealed to her.
So what did she do?
She prayed that God would give the work to somebody else.
For several days, she asked God to remove the burden and give it to someone “more capable” of carrying it. But the conviction remained: “Make known to others what I have revealed to you.”
Eventually, Ellen surrendered and accepted the call.
But accepting the call did not make the work easier.
Some of the messages God gave her were messages of encouragement. Others were messages of warning and correction. And Ellen found those especially difficult to give. She did not want to hurt people. Sometimes, she would even soften the message so it would not sound as painful.
Afterward, she would go away by herself and cry.
She later described giving these messages as “a great cross.”
Think about that.
We sometimes imagine prophets as fearless people who could confront anyone without hesitation. But Ellen White’s experience reminds us that prophets were human too. They felt afraid. They struggled. Sometimes they wished somebody else could do the job.
But they still spoke.
Why?
Because the message was not theirs to change.
God had entrusted them with something His people needed to hear.
That was true for Isaiah. That was true for Elijah. And that was true for Ellen White.
The task was simple: speak what God had given.
But simple does not always mean easy.
Discussion Questions
- Why do you think God sometimes sends messages that are difficult to hear?
- What should we do when something in the Bible challenges something we really like or want to keep?
- If God asks you to do something difficult, what can help you respond, “Here am I! Send me”?
Notes
- Jiří Moskala, “The Prophetic Voice in the Old Testament: An Overview,” in The Gift of Prophecy in Scripture and History: An Exhaustive Exploration from a Seventh-day Adventist Perspective, ed. Alberto R. Timm and Dwain N. Esmond (Silver Spring, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2015), 17. ↩︎
- Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today, rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000), 22. ↩︎
- Sources used for this story include Ellen G. White, Life Sketches of Ellen G. White (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1915), 69–70, 90–91; Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1980), 36–37; George R. Knight, Meeting Ellen White: A Fresh Look at Her Life, Writings, and Major Themes (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1996), 19–20; and Herbert E. Douglass, Messenger of the Lord: The Prophetic Ministry of Ellen G. White (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1998), 157. ↩︎
This quarter, we explore the gift of prophecy—how God speaks to His people through His chosen messengers and reveals His truth, will, and purposes. As we study the calling, inspiration, testing, interpretation, and relevance of prophetic messages, may we learn to recognize God’s voice more clearly and respond to it with faith and obedience.