Prophets
The prophets of God, holy people of God, proclaimed God’s will. They declared God’s Word to the people of Israel and the other people in the Old Testament. Their work and deeds have been significant to all Christians throughout history. Without the prophets of God, there would be no way for the people to know God’s will because, unlike us, they did not have the Scriptures. Later, they wrote down the words of some prophets and read them in synagogues.
There are different forms of holiness as well as different ways of glorifying God, like prophets of God, righteous people, confessors of the faith, apostles. Among the other prophets of God from the Old Testament are Noah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, King David, and King Solomon. In the Bible, we see the constant care of God which is manifested in not leaving the people without prophets and leaders. The role of the prostitute throughout history is of great importance. Moses was, too, a prophet. Moses was the savior of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage and, in the sense of a foreshadowing, we connect him with Christ the Savior.
The most notable are the four great prophets of God, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. With their words and life, their books, they distort evil and sin, preach repentance and virtue in fulfilling the Law of God. God revealed to them, so many centuries ago, the divine Image of Christ, his Birth, suffering for the sins of the world, and the glorious Resurrection. God’s people rarely had a good relationship with their Prophets. Prophets often hesitated to accept because people usually rejected both the messenger and his message. It is why they always paid dearly for the presentation of God’s prophetic words. Jesus emphasized that he would deal with Christians to misbehave because they have persecuted the prophets before.
God works through the prophets
Why did God send prophets? We find the answer in the Second Book of Chronicles 36: 15, And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. The context of this passage is impressive. The kingdom of Judah lost a lot, and it was on the doorstep of Babylonian captivity and destruction. The last king of Judah defiled the house of the Lord, which he had sanctified in Jerusalem. It was a series of bad kings and bad decisions.
It happened even though it is God who sent numerous prophets, including Jeremiah. He spoke from the mouth of the Lord to the king and the people. As we can see in verse 15, these prophetic messengers are sent because the Lord was sorry for his people.
God has sent valuable messages since the beginning of time through prophets. Prophets are ordinary people who God chooses to represent Him by receiving His divine messages and faithfully send them to His people. God spoke to His prophets through many different forms. Sometimes it can be visions and dreams or even animals and people.
The prophets transmitted what they saw and heard in words. Prophecy is never human, but the word of God to people. The prophets had an essential role in the entire history of humankind. They are showing why God blessed his people. The prophets serve as a fundamental link for communication between God and men. In the Bible are preserved for us, Lord’s messages with instructions, explanations, warnings, rebuke, encouragement, and final plans. The Bible is a set of God’s letters for His people and His record actions among people.
“I will raise them a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” (Deuteronomy 18:18, KJV)
Who are the prophets of God?
The Lord made a covenant with Abraham with a promise through Isaac created a people dedicated to Him, renewed and spread that covenant through Moses, and then continuously sent small prophets. When he sent John the Baptist as the Forerunner (that is, the one who prepares the way) before Christ. In the end, Christ appeared and said that all the Prophets and the Law had prophesied until John (Matt. 11:13) and that after John, there would be no more prophet legislators.
What, then, is the need for new prophets? The time of the prophets has passed. Prophets were necessary to humanity when it was at the beginning of its path to God, just as a teacher is necessary for a minor child. There are warnings that many false prophets will come out and deceive many (Matt. 24:11).
The Prophecy is a special gift from God because the prophet announces the future. And that is proof of his authentic connection with God. As we know, time is – belonging to our created world. Only He Who is beyond time and Who sees our past and present and future
knows everything.
The One Who is beyond time and Who sees and knows everything. And outside of time and space, there is only the One Who created time and space – God. And to those who are in direct communion with Him, that is, the prophets, He reveals from His Divine knowledge what will be. That is why the Bible gives us a crystal clear criterion for distinguishing a false prophet from a true one: to be executed. (Deut. 18: 20-22). And the Lord Himself warned that many of those who call themselves prophets are, in fact, like this (Jer. 14:14).
Tests for Prophets
The Bible shows the phenomenon of an increment in the number of false prophets is not tied only to modern Christianity. Note that service the prophet encompasses much more than predicting the future. The principle of qualified prophecy allows to change conditions or relationships can also imply a change of predicted future. It happened with Jonah’s prediction of the downfall of Nineveh. The system revealed truths consist of a series of related messages.
The same Spirit revealed all the prophetic messages in the Bible. Therefore, next time someone tells you they have a gift of prophecy, you might want to quote Scripture. As we approach the end of time and wait for the Second coming of Jesus Christ, more and more false prophets will arise. Surely, the only real prophets are the ones in the Bible. Every forgery implies the existence of something real. It is how people trick people. The false prophet says something true and well known, and then warp it up with his lies. The more perfect the forgery, the more provides proof of the real value of the version he wants to substitute.
That is why Satan is trying to replace true prophets with false ones: he is aware of the purpose of the truth of divine messages. Let’s try spirits, but we do not stifle the voice of the Spirit. However, we should keep in mind to successfully test in terms does not make one or more of these features someone a true prophet, just like nor the divine vision he had King Nebuchadnezzar is not of him made a prophet in the full sense that notion.
The Prophets of God- Summary
There are biblically-based methods of checking the prophets. However, we must first point out that today we do not have people who have a prophetic ministry, that is, people we could call prophets. As the Bible says, the last prophets were here at the end of the first century, at the time when the canon of the Holy Scriptures was closed. In today’s existence of extra-biblical revelations would lead to a violation of the sufficiency of the Bible as the only infallible authority.
If we had other infallible authorities besides the Bible, for example, prophets, this would mean that the books of the Bible are not enough for us. And that the canon of the Holy Scriptures can theoretically remain open for some future addition of content challenges and problems of the church (which, unfortunately, happens in practice in churches). But we believe that the Bible is a sufficient authority in the spiritual life of today’s Christians and that there is no need for new revelations. The existence of prophets, that is, supernatural revelations, made sense only at a time when the canon was not closed, starting from the Old Testament age until the writing of the last books of the New Testament.
It is why the above-mentioned apostolic writings on the usefulness of the prophets in the church should be understood in that context. Although we do not have prophets in the church today, that does not mean that the tests we will present have become useless. They are useful as long as we have people posing as prophets. As there are Christians who believe that the church still has prophets today, and since we are witnesses of their appearance, Christians should be familiar with the basic methods of verifying the truth of a prophet.