LORD, SEND US A PROPHET! A SERMON ON DEUTERONOMY 18:15-22
by Rev. Russell B. Smith
I knew him in college. He was brilliant. He had an expansive mind that could quickly grasp even the most complex theories. He was Phi Beta Kappa and graduated Magna Cum Laude. But he had a bad habit. His regular routine on a weeknight was to purchase a 24-pack of beer and stay up with friends, playing cards until the beer was gone. His method for preparation for the LSAT was to drink himself into oblivion the night before, and then to scramble with a horrible hangover to take the test. All the signs indicated that he had a serious drinking problem. However, nobody talked with him about it. Nobody raised a loving concern. Nobody went to him and said, “I’m worried that you might bean alcoholic.” Finally, one day as a group of us were gathered around, my friend said “You know, I’m mad that none of you have talked with my about my drinking. I thought you were my friends, aren’t you the least bit concerned?”
His confrontation floored and humbled me. But as I reflect back on it, it contained an important lesson: we need a prophet. We long for someone to tell us truth, especially when it hurts.
Have you seen that anti-drug TV commercial that encourages parents to get involved in their children’s lives as a deterrent to drug use. It shows a series of teenagers each uttering phrases like “Mom, Dad ... You didn’t let me stay out late ... You wanted to know who I was with ... You asked where I would be ... You Checked in my room.... You invaded my privacy ... You asked hard questions ... and I hated you for it.” And then after all that it shows each of the children saying “Thanks”. Underlying this commercial, we see a yearning for someone to speak truth — even when it makes us mad, even when we react poorly to it — we want to hear truth. We long for a prophet.
By the biblical definition, prophets are basically truth tellers. Our problem is that the word “prophet” has been so redefined by modern society and blurry-thinking Christians that we have a hard time getting our hands around the concept. What’s the first thing that you think of when I say prophet? Many of you probably have a mental image of a man with scraggly hair and beard and wild eyes who blurts out cryptic predictions of the future — like Nostradamus. Others have in mind a TV psychic — one of the seemingly endless numbers of Jamaican ladies saying “Call me now, I’ll do your tarot”. When a financial analyst makes gets one or two big predictions right, she is often called a prophet. In business and culture, someone who predicts radical change is often called a prophet. Our understanding of the prophet’s role has become solely fixed upon the future — what will happen to us in the future.
I propose to you, however, that the biblical picture of a prophet is more like a lawyer. The biblical prophets were more like God’s prosecuting attorneys than anything else. As such, they were less concerned about the future and more concerned about telling the truth in the present.
As we look at Deuteronomy 18:18, we see that God is speaking to Moses, saying, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.” What kind of prophet was Moses? Did he spend most of his time making predictions about the future? No, he delivered God’s law to Israel. Moses was a prophet because he gave Israel the Ten Commandments. Moses, the prophet received God’s word and gave it to the people. Thus it makes sense that God would say “I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything that I command him.” The prophet is more concerned with delivering God’s instructions for the here and now than he is about predicting the future.
There are elements of prediction in the prophets, but the predictions focus on the consequences of disobedience to God’s revealed law. Deuteronomy 28 gives a detailed list of blessings Israel will receive if they obey God’s law and a detailed list of curses if they disobey. The later prophets always go back to this chapter, reminding Israel that if they obey, then God will bless them.
Most people remember Jonah as the guy with the permanent whale-odor, but do not remember what he did. God sent him to Ninevah to preach judgment so that they might repent, obey God, and receive blessing rather than disaster. Jonah preached judgment to the Ninevites so they might turn away from the things they were doing that deserved judgment. The point behind his mission was not to predict the future, but to tell the truth about the future consequences of present actions, and thus prompt repentance and a change of behavior. In a very simplistic way, the prophet says “You’d better watch out, you’d better not cry, you’d better not shout, I’m telling you why...”
Now verse 20-22 make it clear how we recognize the prophet sent by the Lord — he speaks in the Lord’s name and what he says comes true. Both criteria need to be in place for a prophet to be trustworthy. This means, friends, that we must be wary of divination of the future. In the ancient world, there were all sorts of different forms of divination. The famous oracle at Delphi was a priestess who uttered cryptic messages that were supposed to foretell the future. Other times, the pagan priests would split open a sacrificial animal and try to read signs of th future from the way the entrails spilt out. Other practices included speaking with the spirits of the dead or casting spells to manipulate nature. The Scripture makes very clear here and in the early part of Deuteronomy 18 that God, the maker of the universe, does not operate that way.
Let me caution you at this point. The tarot cards and the Ouji boards and the psychic friends are not speaking of the Lord. You may say, “Oh, pastor, it’s just a bunch of people having fun — it’s a bunch of hogwash, anyway.” I’m telling you to be very careful with that kind of thinking — there’s reason that the holy Scriptures of ancient Israel tell them to purge that stuff and the people who distributed it out of their land. Remember that the true prophet, when he foretells future events always does so with the intent to turn his hearer’s hearts toward the living God of Israel. You have to ask: if someone is divining the future and your relationship with God is not their goal, then what is their goal? The false prophet wants to be a profit, not a prophet.
Now throughout the history of Israel, God sent prophets who proclaimed God’s word and called Israel to repent from disobedience and turn again to obedience. God would raise up different prophets at different times — King David had Nathan who confronted him in his sin of murdering Uriah. Jeremiah ministered near the fall of Jerusalem. Ezekiel ministered to the Israelites who had been carried off to Babylon. Each of the prophets calls for repentance and obedience. Unfortunately Israel went through cycles of repentance, obedience for a time, and then fell back into greater disobedience. That is why God promised a final prophet who would lead individuals into new obedience.
Jesus in his earthly ministry, acted like a prophet. Look at the gospels and you’ll see that he preached repentance from sin and true obedience to God. But Jesus was much more than a prophet like his predecessors. The apostles would look back to Jesus as the prophet — the culmination of all the prophetic hope. Hebrews chapter 1 pictures Jesus this way: “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.” Where before, God sent prophets as truth tellers, now God sent his Son as the ultimate truth teller.
The prophets of old were given a measure of the Holy Spirit to help accomplish their task. 2 Peter 2:20-21 tells us this: “...no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” You hear that consistency with the Deuteronomy passage — they speak what the Lord tells them, not what their own opinion was. God apportioned out the Holy Spirit to the prophets according to the task at hand. However, remember what John the Baptist says about Jesus in John 3:34-36: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” Jesus has been given the Holy Spirit without measure. That means that Jesus is the full revelation of God. [In the person and work of Jesus Christ, God said it all. There is no more need for divinely inspired prophets, because the prophet came with the fullness of the Holy Spirit and he pours out that Holy Spirit upon those who have faith in him.]
The Old Testament Prophets called Israel back into a relationship of obedience. Jesus makes that relationship possible. You see, the prophets aren’t just about knowing God’s will. They’re not about calling people to do the right stuff. The prophets are about having a right orientation of heart. You can know all there is to know about the Law. You can act in accordance with the law, but if your heart is not oriented toward a loving relationship with the Creator, then you’ve missed it. It’s not about right thinking or doing but a right relationship. Jesus the prophet proclaims that right relationship and makes the Holy Spirit available so we can turn from our own selfish agendas and enjoy such a relationship.
Last week we talked about how we are confronted with the tremendous force of the Divine. When we open our eyes we see evidence of a vast, powerful, and uncontrolled God all around us. We realize we need a mediator to stand between this awesome God and us. The prophet, the truth teller, is the first of those mediators. He tells God’s word reliably. Jesus Christ is the fullness of God’s word. He tells us the truth about who we are before a Holy God. And he tells us of the grace of God in making a relationship available.