Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 21, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 19: The Prophets

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July 21, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 19: The Prophets · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Warning, warning, warning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Please exit the building.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: That's what our fire alarm here at the church sounds like.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Only magnified a thousand times.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: It's so loud, it's so startling that you couldn't possibly ignore it.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time we assume there's no fire, but um not always.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: And then the doors start slamming shut and slamming shut.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: And you go out and check out to see what's really going on.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's usually nothing, but it's always interesting when the fire department shows up.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: But that warning gets your attention.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: You could never sleep through that, that warning.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: And um today we are looking at the prophets of Israel and Judah, and they are sounding the alarm.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: They are that alarm for Israel and Judah saying, warning, something is about to happen, or you need to take some action.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: They were the ones that God used to sound that alarm.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: We have been reading them now for quite a while, and we will be reading them for quite a while.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: And it what has amazed me afresh is how relevant, how poignant the book of Isaiah is to our time.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: It's really amazing.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: God has been using that greatly to encourage me to put my thoughts and prayers in a different direction.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: And I hope and pray that He's been doing the same with you.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray and ask God to bless our time together.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Father God, we thank you that you used the prophets to sound the alarm and that it wasn't just for them, but it really truly is for us as well, those of us during the church age.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And so we give you praise for that.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: I ask you to be with us today as we look at the prophets.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: And Father, um, just come and manifest yourself in this teaching this morning, I ask.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Chuck Swindal says this.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: I love this quote by him.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: It is doubtful that any other group of people in all literature represents a more impressive or colorful picture as these Old Testament prophets.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: They were men who knew God and trusted him in the face of seemingly unsurmountable odds, sometimes ignored, sometimes hated, mocked, and attacked.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: They stood firm, usually all alone, against the most imposing, influential people of their day.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: I feel like that is a significant statement for today, for our times as well.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: When times are difficult, like they are right now, and people speak truth, it's not very popular.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of people speaking truth, what I believe right now, that are speaking truth, and people do not want to hear it.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: They don't want to hear the truth.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: If we think about the prophets in that context, we can see how difficult it was for them to do what God called them to do.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: The whole period of the prophets covered about 400 years from 800 to 400 BC.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: The word prophet is Hebrew, and in essence it means authorized spokesman.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: Prophets were ordinary people from various walks of life.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: They are called by God to be his mouthpiece, his spokesperson to their generation.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: After King Solomon's reign, prophetic activity reached its peak, obviously.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: If God was going to speak to his people, and he was, during the divided kingdom, then it was imperative that he come up with a way to speak to them.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: The people of Israel and Judah may or may not have been continuing to read the Torah, we're not real sure until they established synagogues.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: But during this time, right after during the captivity period, this is a really extremely difficult time for Judah and for Israel.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: So God sends prophets with his message to them.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: How incredibly gracious of our God to pursue these stiff-necked people.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: But he does.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what we see with the prophets.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Sending prophets was positive proof that God was still with them, that God was still for them, that they were still, that he still desired a relationship with them.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we hear in the prophets all the time.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: God's calling them.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: So far in our study of the Old Testament, we've seen God use individuals like Noah, who was a preacher of righteousness, to warn the people of the judgment that was coming, the flood.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Then God used Abraham, then Moses and Aaron and the priests, then the judges and the kings.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And now, because there's a leadership vacuum in Israel, he's using the prophets to communicate through to them.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: How creative and tenacious is our God.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Truly.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Even though the people have rebelled and no longer want to hear from him, he is still remaining faithful to them.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: It's remarkable.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: God is still trying to do relationship at this time in the divided kingdom with Israel because it's his desire that his people know him and love him and have relationship with him.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: If the priests who were supposed to represent God's holiness would have done the job that God wanted them to do, perhaps these people wouldn't have remained, they would have remained strong in their faith.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: But priests can only do so much, right?
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And then personal responsibility takes over.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: And that's when leaders come in for Israel.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Instead of staying focused on the Lord, Israel turns away from Yahweh and they moved toward the worship of idols.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: Hosea, one of the prophets, 8.1, says, Though Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Hosea 11, 1 through 2.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son, but the more they were called, the more they went away from me.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: What a sad indictment that is.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: How God's heart must have ached for them because they were so stubborn and wanted to do things their own way.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at the function of a prophet because this is important.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: We have to know what the prophets were supposed to do and what they did.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: A prophet functioned as a spokesman, we've already seen for God in his generation.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: The prophet was led by the Holy Spirit and used words that God had either previously spoken through his written word, or more often, what God was freshly giving to them.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the Spirit came, the Holy Spirit came temporarily on people for a divine purpose to enable them to be able to do what God called them to do.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: We saw that in the tabernacle with Moses, with Aaron, and now with the prophets.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: But back in the Old Testament, he came on them temporarily to enable them to be able to do what he wanted them to do.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: Having the Spirit of God enables us to hear directly from God through his word and into our hearts and our minds, which is one of the functions of the Holy Spirit.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: He is there to bring illumination to our to our minds and to our hearts through the written word.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: The words God spoke to the prophets and through the prophets is still being used by the Holy Spirit to this day in our hearts and in our minds.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: That's what I've been experiencing through Isaiah.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: The prophets also functioned as a watchman.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: There's the warning.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: Let Israel know this because your sins are so many and your hostility is so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Yet snares await him on all his paths and hostility in the house of his God.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: In the ancient Near East, watchmen were stationed on the city walls, all surrounding the city, continually looking for any danger that would be coming toward the city.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Any, any um, and but they were also looking inside the city to make sure that nothing was amiss inside.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: So they were looking outside for coming danger, and they were looking inside.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: If they saw the enemy approaching, they were the first ones to alert the people and to tell them so that the people could defend themselves.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: The watchmen sounded the alarm, and that's what the prophets did.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: They sounded the alarm.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: God would give them a word about impending judgment on the horizon, and they would warn Israel.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: God did this with both the northern kingdom Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they would observe the sinfulness of the people within the nation, and they would sound the alarm with the hope that that alarm would startle the people enough to wake them up to help them realize we are sinning, we need to repent.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the prophet's words were intended for the immediate future, and sometimes for the distant future, and sometimes for both.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: So it was a dual prophecy.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: That's what we think, and and I think much of Isaiah, especially and Ezekiel, are dual prophecies, one for the immediate and one for the future.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: The prophet's message was not entirely of judgment, they also announced deliverance and hope.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: The characteristics of a true prophet are really important for us to understand because anytime God reaches out to save his people, you can be sure that Satan will also try to sabotage the rescue by creating a deadly counterfeit.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's what that's what Satan does.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Today we have false teachers and false prophets.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: False prophets often rose up alongside the true prophets.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: So how would someone know if someone was a false prophet or if they were a true prophet?
12:23
SPEAKER_00: That's what we want to see.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: First, whatever they said had to come true without fail.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Whatever they said.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 18 22.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: The prophet has spoken presumptuously.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid of him.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, whatever they said must have encouraged obedience to God.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that make total sense?
12:53
SPEAKER_00: A prophet would not speak something that was going to lead people to disobedience.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 13, 1 through 3.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: If a prophet or one who foretells by dreams appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place and he says, Let us follow other gods, gods you you have not known, and let us worship them, you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Third, nothing they said should have contradicted God's God's word, because God never contradicts himself.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 23, 16 through 22.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord Almighty says.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: They fill you with false hope.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their messages.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: But if they had stood in my counsel, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from evil ways and from their evil deeds.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: False prophets would have said anything to keep the king and the people's favor.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: They would have said anything to gain their favor.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: True prophets, however, spoke the words that God spoke to them no matter how unpopular those words were, and no matter how opposed they were.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Try to think as an ancient Hebrew thought, not thinking in our Western way of thinking, our Western mindset.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: They were much more dramatic and gregarious.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Much of the prophetic literature is pictorial.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: It's drawing pictures that convey a concept or a thought.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: The prophet Joel said, Restore to me the years the locusts have eaten.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And the pictorial word pictures are very, very clear in the book of Daniel.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: The prophets use symbolism because God had used symbolism with them in very dramatic ways.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: He used the burning bush with Moses.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: He used the plagues to get Pharaoh's attention.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: He used the cloud and the pillar of fire when he was leading Israel.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: He used the tabernacle, which was full of symbolism, which we've already seen.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: And we could go on and on with the dramatic pictorial ways, visual ways that God dealt with Israel.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: If you really ponder this, you will see how true it is that God always dealt in visual, dramatic ways with his people.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: He was very creative and pictorial, and it's understandable then that he would continue to speak this way to them through the prophets.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: It makes so much sense.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: It's what the people had come to expect from God.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that what the prophets say or do, it sounds a bit harsh.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: It sounds a lot harsh to our Western ears, but it would not have sounded that way to Israel.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: It would have sounded normal.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: But think about this too.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Might God do the same for Israel in the future?
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Could we anticipate that he might once again relate to them, reach out to them in dramatic pictorial ways?
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Why wouldn't he?
18:36
SPEAKER_00: It's how he dealt with them their whole existence.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: So why wouldn't he?
18:41
SPEAKER_00: What do we know about the two prophets?
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Prophets in the book of Revelation in the end times.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: This is what we know.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands, more symbolism, that stand before the Lord of the earth.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: These men have power to shut up the heaven, the sky, so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: And they have the power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: How interesting.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: That thought just thrills my soul.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: God is going to use prophets during the tribulation.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: That's when these prophets are on the earth prophesying.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: And it wouldn't surprise me at all to see God use something very symbolic to bring the Jewish people to the point of seeing that Jesus really was Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: And what did Jesus do when he was here?
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that amazing?
20:16
SPEAKER_00: We tend to think that this was new with Jesus, that this was a new kind of relating, but was it new?
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: It was just a continuation of the way God had always been dealing and speaking with Israel.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting to think of Jesus' ministry as that continuation.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: So some of the tasks of the prophets are important for us to understand too.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Some are seen as writing prophets because the authors, those prophets wrote or recorded their utterances.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: Then there were oral prophets who didn't write down their utterances but were used mightily by God.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: The oral prophets were Nathan, Ahijah, Idud, Yehu, Elijah, Elisha, Obed, Shemiah, Azariah, Hananiah, Jehaziel, and Holdah, who was a woman.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: In our Bible, there are two categories of prophets.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: The categories are the major prophets, and the term major refers to the length, not their importance.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: The major prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, which was written by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: The minor prophets, again, the term refers to the book's length, not its importance, was Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Or Malachi, the Italian prophet.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: Just kidding.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: I um We're going to look at the major prophets just briefly because we will spend a lot of time in these books.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to help us understand them a little bit more as we're going through them.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: The first one we'll look at is Isaiah.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah, the son of Amos, was the most highly educated of all the prophets.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: He was from an influential and distinguished Jewish family.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: He was the blue blood, the aristocrat among the prophets.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah had a very long ministry to Judah, the southern kingdom.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: His ministry ranged from 740 to 680 BC.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: And it encompassed the reigns of Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah's name means salvation is of Yahweh.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: And that is the theme of the book.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: This is most evident by the fact that the term salvation occurs 26 times in Isaiah, but only seven times in all of the other prophet books combined.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: So no surprise that the key word for Isaiah is salvation.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: No other book in the Old Testament portrays the Messiah, Christ, as completely and comprehensively as the book of Isaiah does.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: The key verse about Messiah is Isaiah 7, 14.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: A virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 53, 4 through 7, surely he took our infirmities and carried our sorrows.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: But he was pierced for our transgressions.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: He was crushed for our iniquities.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: The punishment that brought us peace was was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: We all, like sheep, have gone astray.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Each of us has turned to his own way.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Now we understand why salvation is the theme of the book of Isaiah.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't it be wonderful?
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Truly wonderful.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: If God used the book of Isaiah to reach modern-day Israel and to turn their hearts to God and to Messiah Jesus?
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Let it be so, Lord, let it be so.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Next is Jeremiah.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah is the son of Hilkiah, the priest, and he is from the city of Anath.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah had that wonderful balance of tenderness and toughness.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: He was very strong and determined to stand firm against the idolatry of his day, and yet he was very sensitive to the people's needs.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And the pain of the people moved him greatly, moved him to tears, but it didn't move him away from his mission.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: J.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Oswald Sanders says, Jeremiah was a figure of bronze dissolving into tears.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: He's often called the weeping prophet.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 1, 2 through 3.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, son of Amnon, king of Judah, southern kingdom, and through the reign of Jehakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah, down to the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, son of Josiah, king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: There were two other kings that reigned for such a short time that they're not even mentioned here.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: But that means that Jeremiah lived and prophesied during the generations of five kings, almost five decades of ministry.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: So as you are reading day after day after day after day, remember how long he served.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Remember that he had a lot to say.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah watched that slow deterioration of a nation.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: His was a tough calling.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: It really was.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: But he stayed faithful to his calling, even though it broke his heart completely to see this, and especially as he watched the people be carried off to Babylon into captivity.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: How difficult would that have been?
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Spending your entire adult life warning people and trying to get them to repent and come back to God, only to watch them be carried off to Babylon.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Two themes are prominent in Jeremiah: warnings of God's judgment against sin and a message of hope and restoration if the nation would genuinely repent.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: The key verses of Jeremiah are Jeremiah 1, 4 through 10.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Before you were born, I set you apart.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Ah, sovereign Lord, I said, I do not know how to speak.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: I am only a child.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord said to me, Do not say I am only a child.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you, declares the Lord.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, Now I have put my words in your mouth.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: As you read Jeremiah, keep these verses in mind.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: In my regular Bible, the Isaiah and Jeremiah take up 129 pages.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: It's very lengthy.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: It may feel like you're never going to get through them, but I really encourage you to let their words speak to you, to you personally.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, then your heart is as hardened as the Jewish people were.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: Then the book of Lamentations.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Lamentations, of course, is not a prophet, but most theologians believe that, scholars believe that Jeremiah is the author of Lamentations.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: And the dominant message of lamentations is that sin always has consequences.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Sin always has consequences.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Lamentations is a book of consequences.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Chuck Swindahl puts it really beautifully, puts the book of Lamentations into perspective.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Burned.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: All burned.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's holy temple, the king's stately palace, every house, every important building rich with history, burned to the ground.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem's hope, Jerusalem's future reduced to smoking rubble.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: The weeping prophet, his warnings so long spurned, himself so often abused, tenderly takes his people's anguish to his heart and composes his lament.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: The book of Jeremiah held warnings and was looking forward to judgment.
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SPEAKER_00: The book of Lamentations is looking back and it is mourning all that had taken place.
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SPEAKER_00: They are defeated.
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SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem is decimated.
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SPEAKER_00: And it happened exactly as Jeremiah said that it would.
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SPEAKER_00: We hear all of that in lamentations.
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SPEAKER_00: You may have experienced some of those same emotions, especially this last year.
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SPEAKER_00: You may have experienced some of those same things: loneliness, heartbrokenness, weeping, emptiness.
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SPEAKER_00: Have you ever felt those emotions about another person and the choices that another person is making?
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SPEAKER_00: I certainly have.
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SPEAKER_00: When you talk to them and you just see that their hearts are hardened toward what God wants to do with them and through them, it breaks your heart.
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SPEAKER_00: Have you ever pleaded for people to repent and to come back to God?
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SPEAKER_00: Have you ever prayed diligently and compassionately for someone like that?
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SPEAKER_00: And if you have, and you probably have, then you partially know how Jeremiah was feeling during this time.
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SPEAKER_00: I say partially because most likely none of us has spent our entire adult life warning people they love of coming judgment.
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SPEAKER_00: And then seeing the warnings and the judgment come.
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SPEAKER_00: How incredibly heartbreaking would that have been?
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SPEAKER_00: We can understand in part because we felt those same things, but we can't understand fully.
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SPEAKER_00: This ministry of Jeremiah was a very difficult one.
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SPEAKER_00: And that is the book of Jeremiah and Lamentations.
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SPEAKER_00: Isaiah warned, Jeremiah wept, and Ezekiel went.
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SPEAKER_00: Where did Ezekiel go?
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SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel went into captivity with Judah, the southern kingdom, when Babylon came and took them captive.
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SPEAKER_00: Even in exile, God is faithful to them.
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SPEAKER_00: Even in exile.
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SPEAKER_00: When he has to bring the judgment down, he is faithful to them and he sends a prophet with them.
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SPEAKER_00: If you were a parent, you understand this.
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SPEAKER_00: How many times have you said, stop doing that?
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SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
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SPEAKER_00: If you continue to do that, there's going to be consequences.
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SPEAKER_00: As parents, we probably all have.
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SPEAKER_00: We've all said that.
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SPEAKER_00: And they go ahead and they defiantly do it, and you have to deal with them, their disobedience, and you have to do it swiftly, or you should do it swiftly, right then.
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SPEAKER_00: You deal with it.
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SPEAKER_00: Do you leave them in that state, or do you gather them into your arms and explain why there are consequences to disobedience?
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SPEAKER_00: That's how we should do it.
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SPEAKER_00: A loving parent is going to explain to their child why they are disciplined and they're going to continue to love them.
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SPEAKER_00: That's what God does.
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SPEAKER_00: God sends Ezekiel along with the exiles so that he can comfort them in their pain because he wants repentance from them.
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SPEAKER_00: He wants fellowship restored, reconciliation and adoration of him resumed.
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SPEAKER_00: That's what he's after.
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SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that just grab your heart?
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SPEAKER_00: God sent the prophets with them into exile so he could communicate these things because he loves them.
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SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel received his call as a prophet after he was carried off to Babylon in the second deportation in 597 BC.
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SPEAKER_00: In the 13th year, in the fourth month of the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Qadar River, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
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SPEAKER_00: On the fifth of the month, it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehaiakim.
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SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, the priest, the son of Buzai, by the Qadar River in the land of the Babylonians.
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SPEAKER_00: There the hand of the Lord was upon him.
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SPEAKER_00: God was very creative in the ways that he used Ezekiel to speak to Judah.
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SPEAKER_00: God gave him visions about dry bones coming to life in Ezekiel chapter 37.
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SPEAKER_00: I think it's 37.
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SPEAKER_00: He gave him to represent new life for Judah and Israel.
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SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel told parables about vines and allegories of birth.
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SPEAKER_00: And at one point, God made him mute, except when he had a word from the Lord, for seven years.
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SPEAKER_00: Seven years.
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SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel's life reminds us that faithfully communicating God's word can be personally costly.
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SPEAKER_00: And for many, many pastors, they understand that.
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SPEAKER_00: Along with the terribly painful parts of his ministry, God blessed him.
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SPEAKER_00: Do you hear that?
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SPEAKER_00: Along with the really painful part of his ministry, God blessed him with visions of his glory.
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SPEAKER_00: How gracious of our God to demand something really truly difficult of him, but then to bless him.
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SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel saw God's heavenly glory.
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SPEAKER_00: I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal as if full of fire.
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SPEAKER_00: And that from there down he looked like fire.
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SPEAKER_00: The brilliant light surrounded him, like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day.
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SPEAKER_00: So was the radiance around him.
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SPEAKER_00: This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: When I saw it, I fell face down, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
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SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel also saw the departing glory from the temple.
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SPEAKER_00: Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim.
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SPEAKER_00: While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them.
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SPEAKER_00: They stopped at the entrance to the east gate of the Lord's house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.
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SPEAKER_00: These were the living creatures I had seen beneath the God, the God of Israel by the Kadar River, and I realized that they were cherubim.
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SPEAKER_00: And Ezekiel saw God's earthly glory.
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SPEAKER_00: Then the man brought me to the gate facing east, and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east.
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SPEAKER_00: His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory.
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SPEAKER_00: The vision I saw was like the vision I had seen when he came to destroy the city, and like the visions I had seen by the Kadar River, and I fell face down.
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SPEAKER_00: The glory of the Lord entered the temple through the gate facing east.
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SPEAKER_00: Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
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SPEAKER_00: More than sixty times in his book, God said he acted so that the people would know that I am the Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: That tells us how persistent God's love is for his people.
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SPEAKER_00: If he didn't love us, he wouldn't bother to pursue us.
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SPEAKER_00: And then the book of Daniel.
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SPEAKER_00: Daniel was taken into captivity to Babylon in 605 BC by Nebuchadnezzar.
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SPEAKER_00: Daniel was an ordinary Jewish man who lived an extraordinary life.
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SPEAKER_00: Daniel lived in light of what his name means.
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SPEAKER_00: His name means God is my judge.
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SPEAKER_00: Daniel's life is marked with integrity from the beginning to the end.
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SPEAKER_00: He is one of my heroes in Scripture, and one of the reasons I wanted to name our son Daniel.
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SPEAKER_00: I love what Chuck Swindell says about Daniel.
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SPEAKER_00: It is doubtful that any Old Testament prophet played a more significant role in the history of Israel than Daniel.
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SPEAKER_00: Taken from his homeland while still a teenager, probably no older than 15 years of age, and pushed through a highly competitive crash course in foreign culture, Daniel emerged as the premier prophet during the reigns of several kings during the captivity era.
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SPEAKER_00: In Daniel, we find a model of integrity flawless to the core.
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SPEAKER_00: And in his prophecies, we discover a panorama of truth regarding God's plan for the Gentile nations, us, outlined nowhere else in such clear detail.
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SPEAKER_00: It's with its New Testament counterpart, the book of Revelation, we can fit together a fairly complete account of future events set forth in the pages of Scripture.
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SPEAKER_00: Daniel 1, 1 through 2.
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SPEAKER_00: In the third year of the reign of Jehiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
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SPEAKER_00: And the Lord delivered Jehakim, king of Judah, into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God.
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SPEAKER_00: These he carried off to the temple of his God in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his God.
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SPEAKER_00: Who delivered Judah to Babylon?
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SPEAKER_00: God did.
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SPEAKER_00: God did it.
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SPEAKER_00: The first six chapters of Daniel focus on the events of his life, but the last six chapters contain Daniel's prophetic visions for the future.
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SPEAKER_00: That's still future to us.
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SPEAKER_00: Interesting fact, Daniel was probably in his 80s, late 80s or early 90s when he was thrown into the into the lion's den.
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SPEAKER_00: And one of the few well-known, he's one of the few well-known Bible characters in Scripture about whom nothing negative is written.
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SPEAKER_00: The theme of the book of Daniel is God's sovereignty.
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SPEAKER_00: And the purpose of the book was to encourage the exiles in Babylon by reminding them of God's ultimate control.
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SPEAKER_00: Still, his ultimate control.
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SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons the last part of the book of Daniel is encouraging to us here now in the 21st century.
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SPEAKER_00: It has and it will happen exactly as God says it will happen because God is sovereign in the affairs of man.
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SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest lessons we learn from Daniel is that a person with integrity is a powerful instrument in the hands of a mighty God.
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SPEAKER_00: I hope this look at the major prophets will help you see them as real men whom God used in powerful ways through difficult circumstances.
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SPEAKER_00: Powerful ways, powerful, powerful prophet, real men whom God used in powerful ways through difficult circumstances.
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SPEAKER_00: When circumstances become difficult and even more difficult in the future, which I believe is just around the corner, just around the corner, remember these prophets.
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SPEAKER_00: Marinate yourself in their words, in the word of God.
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SPEAKER_00: And through their words, be an example.
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SPEAKER_00: Be an example because in the future God is going to use real people in powerful ways in difficult circumstances.
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SPEAKER_00: He will.
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SPEAKER_00: And yet your heart was still and is still to bring them to yourself.
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SPEAKER_00: And you will do it, you will do it in very creative ways.
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SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for everything we have seen today.
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SPEAKER_00: Continue to impress upon our minds the importance of these important men and their ministries.
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SPEAKER_00: Give us ears to hear and eyes to see, God, what you're doing.
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SPEAKER_00: And we bless you and we thank you.
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SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
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SPEAKER_00: Amen.
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SPEAKER_00: I will see you next time.
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SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.