Let me ask you to turn with me this evening to the prophecy of Ezekiel chapter 2. Ezekiel chapter 2. I want to read this chapter. It's a brief chapter, as I guess chapters in Ezekiel go. And then one text, one verse from the following chapter 3. But Ezekiel chapter 2. And He said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet and I will speak unto thee. And the Spirit entered into me when He spake unto me and set me upon my feet that I heard Him that spake unto me. And He said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against Me. They and their fathers have transgressed against Me even unto this very day. For they are impudent children and stiff-hearted. I do send thee unto them, and thou shalt say unto them, thus saith the Lord God. And they, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, for they are a rebellious house, yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them. And thou, Son of Man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briars and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions. Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, for they are most rebellious. And thou, Son of Man, Hear what I say unto thee. Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house. Open thy mouth and eat that I give thee. And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me, and lo, a roll of a book was therein. And He spread it before me, and it was written within and without. And there was written therein lamentations and mourning and woe." And then just verse 17 of chapter 3. Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore, hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me." Well, we trust again the Lord to bless the public reading of His Word. Let's do bow our heads together. Our Heavenly Father, tonight as we Again, pause and mindfully reflect upon Your very presence here with us. We ask that You will take the Word that we've read or the meditations we'll share upon it and minister to us. Lord, we come in times in which there's much perplexity. Lord, certainly much need for a prophetic voice to address our generation. And we ask that as we have read instructions in charge to such a prophet in days gone by that you will be with us as we consider that very charge. And so, Lord, give us grace in the moments we share. Bless our sister churches as well. Lord, all those that would gather in this Sabbath evening, Lord, we pray that you will give grace to preacher and hearer alike in Jesus' worthy name. Amen. As you know, last term in the seminary, I was called upon to proctor, not teach, but proctor a course that Dr. Barrett taught several years ago on the minor prophets. I was privileged to sit under him for that class decades ago, myself in a different setting. And it was encouraging and a challenge to me to even hear I won't say evolution is not the right word, but Dr. Barrett had spent a lot more time in a lot of those prophets, had written commentaries on, at that time, at least one of those prophets. And, well, you could tell that there was preaching underneath all the teaching in that class. And I was moved to consider, as I thought some months ago about our Sabbath evenings this late summer and fall, of where to go. We looked at the minor prophets in 1988. I do the math, that was, how old were you in 1980? Never mind. How old were your parents in 1988? But we've looked at some of the minor prophets along the way. We spent some time in the post-exilic prophets, just survey and prayer meeting months ago. But what I'd like to do is to return to the minor prophets as a whole. I don't know how much time we'll spend on each prophet. I guess it depends on the preacher's burden and mood as you go along. There's some of those. I do remember we visited Amos again since that series so long ago and spent a good season with him. Amos was a book that God used in my life tremendously as a teenager. And I've been continually impressed with the parallel between the times in which Amos lived and the times in which we lived, to be sure. But I thought this evening, in anticipation of looking at these prophets, and I don't know how much time, as I said, we'll give to each one, perhaps more emphasis on some rather than others, but just to introduce it by looking at the office that these prophets were called upon to fulfill. Now in saying we're going to look at the minor prophets, we should perhaps pause and say that the very designation of them as minor prophets is not in any way speaking about the quality or the importance of their ministry or their words. It's simply the length of their prophecies in comparison to Jeremiah or Isaiah or Ezekiel. Lengthy prophets indeed. And these prophets had different ministries. Some of them, most of them were sent to God's people, to Israel and Judah. Some of them were sent to foreign peoples, such as Jonah, sent to Nineveh, who reluctantly went and struggled even as he did finally go. But they were called upon to preach in many ways, perhaps most predominantly, messages of repentance, calling them away from their sins and back to the Lord. But there are also many messages of hope, of encouragement for a struggling people. And so, as I said, I want to introduce these studies, the survey we seek to do again on these, with some thoughts tonight on the office of a prophet. Prophets among the mediatorial offices we speak of, prophet, priest, and king, In the Old Testament, for the nation of Israel, the offices of king and priest were dependent upon some things. They were dependent upon your heritage, dependent upon your tribe, dependent upon your family. You couldn't just say, well, I'd like to be king. Why is it just David's line that gets to do this? No, there was a particular lineage and heritage. But prophets could come from any walk of life. Amos, as I mentioned, one of my personal favorites, can we say that about prophets? He was a farmer. He was a farmer from the southern kingdom that God took from his farm and sent to preach in the northern kingdom. That was quite a change of vocation. but a fiery prophet he was indeed. But the prophets, as I say, could be called from any walk of life. And as you consider the work that they did, compare them with the priests. The prophets and the priests in some ways had mirror opposite jobs. The priests and all their functions were to intercede before God on the behalf of men. Christ intercedes for us in the presence of God this night. Prophets, in contrast to priests, they brought messages from God and appeared before men. And so as we look at them, and we might take a moment just to look at the terms that are used of these men, who were they? What did they do? were they described firstly, as you go through, as seers. S-E-E-R. I don't know if there's any HVAC people. I think there's something like that they deal with too. I believe it's entirely different. But they were those that were given to see and receive a message. There's one term in our English Bibles. There are two terms in the Hebrew Bible that are used, but they have the same idea. One of them has the idea of seeing in the sense that you might walk outside and see something, you see a tree. There's another term that's used of seeing something more with the idea of perception, of understanding. But in either case, the emphasis is that they were recipients of something. They were those that received a message from outside. And so as you come to consider that, obviously a prophet, and we'll see as we go, there's a lot of parallels between the prophets and what simply for us in the New Testament are preachers. Their job was then to receive a message and then take that message to the people. In our case, the reception of a message is not miraculous. It's not extraordinary as it was in the days of the prophets and the days of the apostles in the New Testament. We don't have new direct revelation being given us from heaven. But yet for a preacher today to engage in prophetic ministry, to ask God's voice to men, the role of prophets, what is a preacher to do? Is He to make stuff up? Is He to share His own experiences? Or is He rather to take what He's received, the Word, and then bring that to men? To confront men with what God has said. And so, in the very terminology of a seer, and that word was used primarily in the days of Samuel and David, in lesser numbers for times elsewhere. But in those seasons, these were referred to as seers. So it is for us, for preachers. The task. And if we, like these men, are going to go to a generation that has many of the same problems, many of the same sins, many of the same consequences of the same sins, then it's God's message that is needed again today. Prophets were also spoken of as men of God. The man of God from Judah that traveled and condemned the altar at Bethel. This is a term not used as frequently as the others, and yet it does appear and deserves mention. Because it speaks to us here of a quality of these prophets. To be a man of God, to be men that knew God, to be men that were known of God, both aspects are present. It speaks of their piety. It speaks of their walk with God, of their knowledge of God. They weren't just empty vessels that were repeating something that they'd heard and had no part in it. They were concerned with it. They believed it. They were moved and stirred to take it up and deliver that message because they cared about it. And they put themselves underneath it. They were to be obedient to it themselves. And so by being a man of God, a prophet was an example of what he preached. But the most common term is simply and obviously the word we use, prophet. Navi is the Hebrew word. It's the point where Dr. Barrett waxed eloquent started making squiggly letters on the, well, it's not a chalkboard anymore, it's a smart board. But showed even in the vowel pointings between the verb and the noun that the particular pointings that are used in this word for prophet, they commonly share something from the passive. That this prophet is one who speaks because that's what the word means, to speak. And yet this prophet before he speaks is one that has been spoken to. So again, the reception is involved before the giving out of the Word. And so a prophet going forth to speak to the people. We'll not turn it up, but an example. perhaps a crystal clear example of what the prophet was to do, what his role really was, is seen in the life and the example of Moses. When God appeared to Moses at the bush, He called him to go forth to Pharaoh and speak. Moses, you remember, complains. He actually stirs up God's displeasure against him and is halting him in his delay. You know, if we can pause, there's a good and worthy aspect of someone who's called of God to do something, confessing to God, I'm unable to do this. It's not in my power to do this. God knows that. That's a humble position, recognizing the need of help. And if the Lord is calling me to do it, then the Lord's gonna help me to do it. But Moses crossed the line. He said, Lord, send somebody else. And the Lord challenges and rebukes him, and then says, well, in this case, then Aaron will go. He can speak well. And what does the Lord say? You're going to be a God to Aaron, and Aaron's going to be a prophet for you. So you're going to tell Aaron what to say, and Aaron's going to go in and say it. Well, that's a very plain, obvious illustration of what all the prophets were to be. They were to hear word from the Lord as we read in Ezekiel, and then take that word to the people. So prophets are speakers, but they don't speak their own words. They speak God's Word. Well, those are the terms that are used of the prophets. But what is their work? What were they to do? When we look at the prophets, probably one of the first things that comes to our minds is predictive prophecy. They were people that foretold the future. They told us what was going to happen in the last days. There is some of that actually, some remarkable portions. Some highlights of the whole Bible with regard to the last days and the prophetic scriptures are found in the minor prophets. But as you read through the minor prophets, that's not the bulk of their ministry. In many ways, even among the prophets that brought eschatological teaching, it was supplemental to the thrust of the messages they'd already given. The prophets were primarily going to Israel in their current times in their ministry in the minor prophets as we see and go along, spanned several centuries. The prophets, we'll come in in a minute here, were calling the people back to something they'd left. And so along the way, and again in different seasons, sometimes great prosperity, Financial, economic, political prosperity and ease. Prophets were sent to challenge the sins that accompanied that season. There were other times the prophets were sent to the people in dispersion, in extreme poverty, having nothing, no way to see a future for them at all. God sent the prophet to bring hope, to bring encouragement. But the prophets then, more than just telling what was going to happen in the future, were preachers to the present. And even when we come to the New Testament, isn't that the way it is? What do we find in 2 Peter talking about the new heavens and the new earth? What do we find in Revelation? What do we find in Thessalonians? As we look to things God's going to do in the future, There's an impact now. Having looked at that, having the hope of that stirred up, brings change. It brings greater conformity to God and His will and His law now. It stirs faith in the hearts of the people. And so the prophets were preachers to the heart. Much of their ministry. you find in some of the sermons that are recorded that they brought to the people. They're challenging the people with regard to the mere outward circumstances of their worship that weren't impacting the heart, weren't changing their lives. And so as we look at these preachers, these prophets, they come with a desire to change the hearts of the people. Ezekiel here is informed of the Lord that he's to go. He's to bring a message from God. He is informed that the children of Israel are impotent. They're rebellious. They are stiff-necked. Some are going to hear. And some are not going to hear. But the challenge for them, I say, is that of the heart. Preachers of righteousness. And so as prophets, as seers, as those receiving a message and then bringing that message to the people, what was the goal? As you look at these prophets again with different circumstances, different seasons, different decades, different centuries for the people, what was the end game? What was their ministry all about? If you study Old Testament introduction, I remember when I was in seminary, actually in undergrad, and I was reading the catalog, course titles, Old Testament introduction. You just did four years of Bible major. You had a lot of Old Testament classes in that. Now you get to grad school and they're going to introduce you to the Old Testament. Well, when I got into class, I started understanding what Old Testament introduction really was. It's all the introductory material to the books. It's the background material. It's all the charges the liberals make against the books of the Bible. The demands that these supposed scholars of the Bible bring and challenging, well, did Moses really write all the books of Moses and all the above? Old Testament introduction and New Testament introduction was a lot of study of what the liberals said. And thankfully, if you're in a good seminary, You get the answers to the charges that the liberals bring. But one of the interesting things about the liberal view of the Old Testament is that they suggest they have an evolutionary view of Israel and of Israel's religion and that it just kind of started where everybody else did and it worked its way along and ultimately they arrived at monotheism. and all the stuff that we find in all the books of the Old Testament. The problem is, is they say, in some cases, the stuff that the Bible says, and we say and believe. Moses wrote, 1446 B.C. is that the date of the exodus, the time and lifespan of Moses. Well, they say that a lot of that stuff was written by these prophets during the years of the captivity and even some of it after the captivity. That they were trying to charge and challenge the people and they were making up stuff to try and bring them along. And so it's these men that gave us what supposedly us unenlightened people think Moses wrote. Well, the opposite is true. These men weren't the originators of what we read in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. They were preachers challenging the people who had experienced in some cases, think of the post-exilic prophets, what had God told the people in Deuteronomy? Walk with Me, blessing's going to be upon you. You're going to be a light to the Gentiles. You're going to impact the world. You disobey. You begin to follow the idols, the false gods of the Gentiles. And I'm going to cast you out of the land. I'm going to send you into captivity. Well, guess what? A lot of the ministry of the pre-exilic prophets is telling them, repent, or go into exile, like God said. And the post-exilic prophets say, God said this. And your fathers and you sinned, and God did this to you. In many ways, the book of Deuteronomy is the text for the sermons of the minor prophets. They received Word from God. Certainly, God gave them more than just Deuteronomy to say. They were inspired as well. But yet, as they preached to the people, it was a message of reformation. It was a message calling them back to truth, to light, to challenges from God and His Word that they had abandoned, that they had ignored, that they had become ignorant of. Rather, I say, than being innovators who were taking the old, old story to a people that had abandoned it, forgotten it, given up on it. And so these men, I say, received the message from the Lord. They were burdened for the times in which they lived. Some of them, we even find, interestingly, were reluctant to go into ministry. But God had set them aside. And they did go forth. But in receiving that Word from the Lord, in speaking and bringing that message then to the people, the call was given. for the people to repent. The call was given for the people to believe, to return unto the Lord who will abundantly pardon. So, these are the men. This is the ministry and the call that they're given. There are some things that the prophets obviously had and did that don't apply directly to us. You read some of the symbolic acts. I think some of those more striking ones are not in the minor prophets, but you read Jeremiah, you read Ezekiel. There was some interesting symbols that they were called upon to work out and live out. I'm glad the Lord doesn't call New Testament prophets to that type of symbolic act. But some of those things, and obviously the point of inspiration doesn't belong to us. But yet, for us in the pulpit, for us in the pew, we're in an age that needs prophetic ministry. I won't follow this to the ends that it could be taken. But I remember years ago there was a man in one of our churches who for some reason, maybe he was looking for a sympathetic ear, I don't know, started an email campaign with me. It was friendly enough. But he had been taken in by the Reconstructionist mindset of the church rebuilding society today. Many challenges emails, and I was finally taken aback with, you know, he's really wanting us as a church to assume a kingly role in the present world. And really what we have is a prophetic role. We're to take God's Word, if you will, to lay people, to Christians, We're to take God's Word to the world, to the unsaved, and even take God's Word to those that are in authority. We don't usurp their authority. We just go to them and say, say as John the Baptist did to Herod. What you're doing isn't right. This is what God says about it. And leave our authorities. Leave our culture. leave the church with the Word of God to deal with or not to deal with, to hear or to forbear, as God said to Ezekiel. But as prophets faithfully proclaim, this is what God has said. Let us hear it. Let us heed it. What becomes of the prophets? Well, that's an interesting part of the story. We don't have it as much in the minor prophets. There's a little bit of it in Amos. But say Jeremiah's own experiences. What happened to him for faithfully bringing what he'd received from God. But that's what we're not to count. What God said, and we read to Ezekiel tonight, very similarly said to Jeremiah. Don't be afraid of them. Don't be afraid of their faces. Don't be afraid of what they will and can do to you. We translate that into the New Testament Scriptures. Fear not those that can kill the body. You ever think about the confidence I wouldn't go so far as to say the humor of that text, but it gets close. Fear not those that can kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do to you. Dear God, God can deal with us after this life. It's with God that we have to do for the eternal day. not this vapor of time. And we'll see these men, bold, fearless, sometimes afraid, but helped in their fears. In Jonah's case, sometimes disobedient. Jonah's an interesting one of the prophets. I may share some of My rebukes through Jonah in early years of my ministry. God broke a 737 for me to read Hugh Martin on Jonah one time. That was a night, 10 hours in one airport and a red eye across the continent and an L-1011 instead of a 737. But I had my Bible and Hugh Martin. And I know the Lord broke that plane for me to read Hugh Martin because Reggie Kimbrough needed to hear some of the rebuke that was given to Jonah. Jonah had a desire for God's kingdom, but it was focused in the wrong place. He thought he knew what God should do and where he should do it. And God said, no, I'm God. You're the prophet. Go preach here. Well, I say these men, earthen vessels, sometimes fearful, sometimes disobedient, but ultimately strengthened and brought to bring the truth. And it's that type of ministry It is certainly needed today. So I trust the Lord will help us in our Sabbath evening devotions here and glean from these men over these next weeks and months. Preachers of God's Word to a needy people. Let's bow our heads together. Lord, tonight we come and we would ask that What was true of these men, Lord, not only would be truth as we look at each one that encourages and challenges us, but that which molds us more after the Word that You have given and we've received. And so give us faithfully as these men to testify in a generation where certainly circumstances, the condition of hearts has come to such a point where challenging voices, specific voices even as these men brought need to be heard. So give us grace as we would look through them. We ask now Lord as we come to the close of our Sabbath together, Prosper each one. Thank you for the blessings and benefits of the week past, the labors that went forth for the youth camp. Again, may the seeds sown bear fruit, not only just immediately, but in the days and even years following. So we commit that, the word already preached to thee. Lord, bless us as we go our separate ways. To our homes, our families, to our different occupations, May we go as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. And may the joy of the gospel be very much present in each life and each home. We ask and pray it in Jesus' precious name. Amen.