This is God's Word. Moses says, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen. Just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire anymore lest I die. And the Lord said to me, They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, how may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of Yahweh, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him. Thus ends the reading of God's word. I want to note that from the time of Moses there was a promise to the people that a prophet would arise, just as Moses promises that there will be a king that will arise. And so as we've studied the king, particularly with David and Solomon, so we want to understand that the prophet is one man ultimately, but there are partial fulfillments of this man throughout redemptive history. Just as with the king that Moses speaks of, or spoke of, the king is ultimately the Lord Jesus. And yet David and Solomon and other faithful kings are partial fulfillments of the promise of the king. And so throughout redemptive history until the coming of the king, until the coming of the Lord Jesus, the people of Israel are awaiting the prophet. Those who are truly believing Israel are awaiting the prophet that Moses spoke of. and he's to bring God's Word. And another thing about him, if you notice, he's not only like Moses, which means that he will be faithful like Moses and speak intimately from God, for God, on behalf of God, like Moses, but his content will be Mosaic. So his preaching, his truth, will be consistent with Moses. And so that's important for understanding the prophets. Because the prophets are going to be calling Israel back to the teaching of Moses, primarily, back to the covenant. But verse 18 tells us that he's going to raise up a prophet like you from among the brothers and I will put my words in his mouth. So the prophetic ministry very easily understood is that whenever a prophet was called by God and sent forth to the people, God would fill his mouth with his words. And so we have what is what we call in theology the doctrine of inspiration. He was inspired. He was carried along by the Holy Spirit. And eventually the words that he spoke were were committed to writing. And the Spirit would oversee that as well and would protect and guard and preserve that canon, which we call the Old Testament. All right? So the prophetic word comes from God. The prophets would speak as preachers, and then eventually it would become part of the books of the Bible through the inspiration and preservation of the Holy Spirit. All right, and when we do the New Testament next year, we'll see how a very similar process happens with Jesus, the final prophet, and with the apostles through the Holy Spirit in creating the final book or the last books of the canon, the 27 books of the New Testament. All right, so let's pray, and then we will look at the prophets together. Our Father and our God, we recognize your majesty and your greatness. We recognize that you're present with us. We thank you that you're our most holy king. You're the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. We thank you that you are the creator of heaven and earth, all things visible and invisible. And we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ, you great shepherd of the sheep, your lovely bridegroom. We thank you, kind king of kings and Lord of lords. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are our savior. our Redeemer, that you are the great king and prophet and priest that your people have longed for. We thank you that you've come to fulfill all of the teaching of Moses, not to abolish it, but to fulfill it every jot and tittle. We thank you that as prophet you were faithful to speak your words and to communicate those words through your apostles and then through that inspiration, that guidance by the Holy Spirit, you also preserved it by the Holy Spirit to bring about the Bible that we have today. We thank you that our Bibles are trustworthy and that we not only have this objective witness of your word and of what the Bible says of itself, but we have this inner testimony of the Holy Spirit. And so, Holy Spirit, we pray now that you would help these words to become real for us, more real, that we would understand them better, that you would light our path, that you would guide our steps, that you would make holy our minds and hearts, that you would continue to renew us in the conformity of the Lord Jesus, and help us to have ears to hear the words of the prophets today. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, a few things. So, you know, when the Holy Spirit would come upon the prophets, the prophets were anointed by the Spirit of God in order to mediate God's word to his people. And that's very important. It's also important to realize that the prophets were God's word in human form, that it is a foretaste of the incarnation, because it wasn't just that God gave the people a book. He eventually gave the people a book, but first, He came to them clothed in our own flesh as speakers of his truth. And that's something very important to think about with regard to the prophets. And then, as I said, the prophets were God's inspired penmen, the authors of Scripture. One thing that Martin Luther said very vividly, as Martin Luther was well-gifted to do, he said that the Old Testament is the manger in which the baby Jesus is laid. And Michael Horton wrote similarly, expanding on that a little bit with regard to the Holy Spirit, and he said that the Spirit gave us Jesus in the incarnation, yet even before preparing the virgin's womb, the Holy Spirit was preparing Israel as his manger through the prophets. So even before the Holy Spirit overshadows Mary and causes her to conceive miraculously. The Holy Spirit was preparing Israel through the prophets to be the manger in which Jesus would be brought forth or be born. So again, it makes more sense now when we read John 1.1 that in the beginning was the Word. and the word was with God and the word was God and that word became flesh. And so the word of the prophets was clothed typologically or partially, it was clothed as a foretaste in the old covenant. But in the new covenant, in the fullness of time, God himself was clothed, united to flesh and the word that he spoke and that he had given to the prophets to prepare the people for his coming. became flesh and dwelt among us. So that's a powerful testimony to God's grace and God's goodness and God's love to us, isn't it? All right, so I had you listen to Michael Card's They Will Know. And I tell you, I had an Old Testament professor tell me this, and I've never forgotten it, and it just continues to be true as I live out my life, is Michael Card's trilogy on the Old Covenant. You note it's the Torah, and it's the prophets, and it's the writings. He's got a trilogy, and all three of them, you need go no further than Michael Cart's trilogy to really get a deep understanding of the Old Covenant. It's amazing. My professor said this many years ago. I heard him. I thought Michael Cart was nice then. I think even more highly of Michael Cart today because he's just quite the poet and summarizes things that help us to understand the Old Covenant. And some of the words to, they shall know. I will speak. It's Yahweh speaking. I will speak. I will wait. I will send prophets among them that they might hear, that they might see and understand how much I love them. Then they will know that I am Father. Then they will know that I am Lord. They'll walk with me and be my people. I'll walk with them as their God, as their God. And of course, ultimately, he says, then they will know that I am Savior, I am Redeemer and Friend, I am Emmanuel, the God who is with them, the God who gives all he can. So quite a beautiful song that captures the heart of God and why he sent the prophets to us. in the Old Covenant. So there's a couple things to say about the prophets. Their time period is in the secession of the Davidic Kingdom. It's the time of the division between Israel and Judah. That begins right around 933, 931. uh... nine thirty one is probably more accurate on nine thirty one bc and uh... surprisingly this goes for a long time you know the exile uh... we have the northern kingdom going into exile in the seven twenty two bc uh... with the syria we have the southern kingdom going into exile under babylon in five eighty six and so the return from exile goes all the way up to right around five thirty nine bc So that's some 400 years that the prophetic ministry, that's when the prophets would minister. It was during that time period. And a bit more, but that's basically the 400 years of God's speech before he is silent for 400 years, after the time of Malachi, during what we call the intertestamental period that we'll look at next year, Lord willing, in the New Testament class. And so God is speaking faithfully and regularly, consistently, eagerly, earnestly. during this time of this secession, particularly 931 to 539. But the prophetic speech would be remembered by many in the intertestimonial period. And we don't have time to go into that period this day. And so we'll have to wait till next year. But that gives you a sense of the prophetic ministry. It was going on for a long time, 400 years. That's a long time. The prophet, the genre of the prophet, could someone tell me what primarily the genre, the type of literature that the prophet spoke in when it was committed to writing at least? Yeah, it's primarily poetry. Primarily poetry, although there's some narrative, right? There's still some historical narrative. And there's some apocalyptic. And the apocalyptic is just the, a kind of cosmic unveiling of lots of symbolism, using lots of symbolism. Of course, poetry uses metaphor and symbolism, similes. Apocalyptic literature is just picturesque, if you will. It's highly symbolic. It's oftentimes the heavens opening up to reveal the will of God. So that's the genre, primarily poetry, but also some narrative and some apocalyptic, picturesque, symbolic literature that's mixed in. Deuteronomy we've already looked at with with regard to the prophets, but we also want to look at a couple of other things We want to look at and remember the link to Deuteronomy is particularly Deuteronomy 18 15 through 22 Where Yahweh says I will put my words in the prophets mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him So that's very important There's also links to Joshua, and I just remind you of a few things. In Joshua 1, 8 and 9, the book of the law, Joshua 1, 8 and 9, the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that's written in it. All right. So that book of the law is most important, the book of the law that is written by Moses, primarily Deuteronomy. primarily the the whole of the Torah, but but but Deuteronomy those last sermons of Moses that we've talked about so there to do everything carefully according to it and then the promises that they would be prosperous and they would have good success and Joshua was told to be strong and courageous. Don't be frightened. Don't be dismayed. The Lord your God is with you wherever you go. And so that's the link to Joshua. Also at the end of Joshua, Joshua makes a covenant with the people and they commit themselves. So it says in Joshua 24, 25 through 27, Joshua made a covenant with the people and he put in place statutes and rules. Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law. Then he took up a large stone and he made a memorial so the people could remember that they have committed themselves to keeping the covenant in reliance upon God's grace. All right. The link to the book of Kings for the prophets, the link to the book of Kings, could someone tell me? We looked at that briefly last week, but what would be the primary, when we think of the prophetic ministry, what's the primary link to the book of Kings, the books of the Kings? Absolutely. Elijah and Elisha. Excellent. Excellent. Yes. And I'll lay this out in just a moment so you can see it as an overview. But absolutely. In the center of the books of Kings, roughly chapter 17, 1 Kings 17 to 2 Kings 8 are the stories of Elijah and Elisha. So at the heart of the books of Kings are these two great prophets that are sent primarily to the northern kingdom. All right. to call them to back to the law, back to Deuteronomy, back to the covenant, back to the promises that God has made to them to believe. The link to the book of Chronicles, which we haven't looked at yet, but I'll just say is that the prophets, the prophetic ministry is primarily focused on the southern kingdom. So in the books of Kings, you have the prophetic ministry focused primarily on the northern kingdom or Israel. In the book of Chronicles, you have the editor, inspired editor. He's the author-editor. He's editing it so that the focus is more on David's kingdom and Judah and what happens to Judah. Then there's a link to the Lord Jesus. We don't ever want to forget with the prophets. If you turn to Acts 3, in Acts 3, verses 24 to 26, I'll begin in verse 22, okay? Notice how important Deuteronomy is, again, to extenuate that. Acts 3.22, Moses said, you see that? Moses said, the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you, and it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. In verse 24 to 26, very important verses, And all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaim these days, you are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your father, saying to Abraham, and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. And so we see this redemptive historical art or overview of the prophets that go from Moses to Christ. And a way that we can look at that visually that I think is helpful is We can look over here at a redemptive historical understanding of the prophets based on Acts 3, but also just observing the way that the Old Testament unfolds, is Moses is first. He would be the fountainhead or source of the prophets. He was the first great prophetic mediator of the Old Covenant. And then second would be Samuel. That's why Samuel is so very important and also used to call Israel the covenant for Samuel 12. He's also the one who anoints David as king. Samuel is the ideal prophet. He's the ideal prophet of the old covenant. He's also the one who is consistently living out by God's grace and making known by God's grace Moses' teaching, all right, in the time of Saul and David. So Samuel's very important. And then there's Elijah. Elijah is the first, what we're going to look at further today, covenant prosecutor. He's the first covenant prosecutor. He's the first one who comes with charges against Israel, particularly in the north, to tell them that God has a charge against them, has a wreath, has a beef with them, has a formal charges against them, and calls witnesses to them. The classical prophets, are who we're looking at in the next couple of weeks. They're primarily the 12 plus the three, the 15 that we have, the book of the 12, what we call the minor prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah. All right, so those are the classical prophets. And they were called the classical prophets because it was during their time when the prophetic word was not just preached, it was committed to writing. It was committed to writing. And then, of course, John the Baptist was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, was he not? So here's the culmination of the prophetic word. This is the... The the culmination of the Old Testament prophets John the Baptist Jesus Christ himself says the greatest, you know was John the Baptist only because he served as the the the one who would point to The great prophet the perfect prophet and then there's Jesus Christ Jesus Christ and very important here for understanding the understanding the canon of scripture that we'll look at more fully in the New Testament class. But here we have Jesus Christ, the apostles, and then ministers of the word up to the present. All right? They're distinct, but they're all submitted to the scriptures. All right? The reason why a distinction is because the apostles wrote the scriptures. They were inspired to write the scriptures. Ministers today up to the present continue the prophetic ministry, but they're not making known any new revelation. They're only making known, thus says the Lord from the scriptures. But the present day ministers are still part of the prophetic ministry. Because Jesus does. He says that no one has arisen that's greater than John the Baptist. He's the greatest of the Old Testament. I think it's Matthew 11. Yeah, Matthew 11. I'll look it up later. But Jesus calls him that only because he's the fulfillment of all the others. He's the one who's pointing forward to the Messiah. Kimberly. Yep. And then, of course, Jesus Christ is the true and final prophet of God, right, that speaks. And it's important. You may not see this today, but I'll just say, keep this in mind. It's important to understanding the canon of the New Testament scriptures and the Old Testament canon by understanding this Old Testament or this redemptive historical overview of the prophets. Because if we get this, we'll understand that they're all doing this under the power of the Holy Spirit. Okay? And so the Spirit is giving them the words, filling their mouth with the words, and then the Spirit is guiding their hands, not as in formal dictation, but the result of their work is as if He dictated it. You hear the difference in that? It wasn't formal dictation because the Holy Spirit was mysteriously using their personalities, but the result of what they wrote was as if He dictated it to them. And then so that brings final authority. That causes Jesus Christ to recognize the 39 books of the Old Covenant as the Word of God, never quoting any of the apocryphal books or the historical traditional books that are helpful maybe for history. But then Jesus particularly calls 12 with the specific task of completing the prophetic word in the New Testament. And then ministers do not have any further revelation. They submit to the revelation that's already received in the scriptures. But it's all because of the Holy Spirit's either inspiration, guidance, or preservation. And we always have to understand that. So that's the objective historical reason why we accept the Bible as the 66 books we do. The internal reason why we accept the Bible as we do is because the Holy Spirit shows us that it is the very Word of God. It shows us what's already there. We don't determine the Word of God, we recognize it. We don't determine the Word of God, we recognize it. Absolutely. Amen. He's the last culmination, the final prophet of the old covenant where God opens his mouth again to Israel and says to them after silence, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And of course he says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So his work is for a season to prepare Israel at that final moment for the coming of the Lord, but then to decrease so that he may increase. So he moves out of place and in God's good providence, he actually is beheaded. So as to silence him for good so that the extenuation will be on the mouth of Jesus Christ and his apostles. So you don't want to ever separate. You want to make a distinction with Jesus and the apostles, never a separation. They have a real authority to speak Christ's words in a special way and then to collect that and write it and authorize people to write scripture. So that's their prophetic ministry. The prophetic ministry today, of course, again, is that the The ministers of the word would be faithful to say, thus says the Lord, this is what the Bible says, and show that from the Bible. If you're interested in the formation of the canon, we'll do more of that. We actually have a special section on it for the New Testament class. All right, so what was a prophet? Let's define a few things, okay? And then we'll move forward with that. Let's talk about a formal definition. How would we define a prophet? A prophet would be defined as a spirit-anointed messenger of Yahweh. A spirit-anointed messenger of Yahweh. He was a mediator of God's word to the people before they had their Bibles. They didn't have their Bibles, they didn't have a full revelation like we do of scrolls, yet. And so they would tell the people of God what Yahweh wanted them to know. They encouraged, they promised hope, they warned against sin, and they pronounced judgment. And they began at the courts of the kings. So their ministry has four phases. Let's talk about those four phases of the prophetic ministry. I think it's important to remember the first phase where they were called as court prophets. So you see like Elijah or Elisha. Isaiah as court prophets who were primarily Calling the king back to the teaching of Deuteronomy particularly Deuteronomy chapters 17 and 18. All right, so they were court prophets They were prophets to the kings of Israel and remember in Deuteronomy how there's that connection between Deuteronomy 17 the king who will come and then Deuteronomy 18 the prophet that will come there was always a relationship there between where the king was to rule according to God's law. The second stage or phase of the prophets was called just classical prophetism, the classical prophets. This is where the prophets were not only preachers to the kings, but to priests, to leaders, and the people in general, all right? And this is where they would preach to all. We see a lot of that in the book of the 12. A third phase or stage was that they were preachers at large. They just would go around preaching the Word of God. Some of them were not even named. They were just a man of God came and said. I'll give you an example of this in a moment of how we see these elements of the prophetic ministry. And number four were the prophetic writings, the prophetic writings. So court prophets, the classical prophets, or prophetism as it's called, where they're just prophets to kings, priests, leaders, and then through them to the people. Then three, the preachers at large that were preaching to the people, like Amos, or many of the twelve, and number four, the prophetic writings so that their prophecies were committed to writings for Israel. If you turn to 2 Chronicles, I should say, 15, 1 through 5, we have a few things that I think are helpful to get a definition of what a prophet does. And you can see the phases or the aspects of the stages of the prophet's ministry here. I think you can see the different aspects here. It's with Azariah. In 1 Corinthians 15, it tells us that the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Oded. And he went out to meet King Asa. And he said to him, hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin. All right. So he goes to the king, and now he's also primarily to the king because the king's the leader, the guide, the one who's to lead the people of Israel according to the law. But then he declares to all Judah and Benjamin, he says, the Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you. But if you forsake him, he will forsake you. So he's reminding them of the covenant obligations or responsibilities that Israel has made, the covenant commitment that Israel has made in blood with Yahweh. Verse three, for a long time, Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law. But when in their distress, they turned to the Lord, they turned to Yahweh, the God of Israel and sought him. He was to be found by them. Yes, sir. Second Chronicles 15, one through five. Sorry about that. All right. Verse three. I'll start verse three again. For a long time, Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law. All right. So Israel was out without the light of God's word. Verse four, but when in their distress, they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him. He was found by them. In those times, there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the land. And so there's a few things you can note here about the prophet. He's Spirit-anointed to speak for God. He's not speaking his own words, though he's himself. He's using his own personality. God's inspiring him to speak, carrying him along, as 2 Peter 1.20 says. The Spirit is anointing him particularly to speak to the king and to the people of Judah. The Spirit is anointing him to speak the gospel message. Now, you note the gospel message here. It is that, verse four, when Israel was in a distress, all they had to do was call upon God. All they had to do was call upon their covenant faithful Lord, and He would answer them. But there were also covenant obligations, and part of the gospel is not only preaching the grace of God, but also reminding the people that they've been given the Spirit of God, the presence of God, in order to fulfill their obligation of the covenant. not in order to achieve salvation, but in order to remain faithful to God in covenant. And so that's why he says in verse 2, the Lord is with you while you're with Him. And if you seek Him, He'll be found by you. But if you forsake Him, He will forsake you. And so another thing you can see is the Spirit anoints the prophet to remind the people of God of God's ongoing covenantal faithfulness, but also of their obligation to believe and to trust Yahweh. This would only be done by the Holy Spirit's help, just as it is today. But the prophet was a preacher who is calling the people to tell them that God is faithful. He's faithful to give you all that He demands of you. That what He requires of you, He will give to you. trust him, receive his grace. But if you do not, if you do not, if you do not, there will be great consequences. You will be cut off. You'll be forsaken. So that's it's important to understand that the prophet then would would go. He'd be called by God. He'd proclaim the word of Yahweh. He would speak. Thus says the Lord. He'd be the very mouthpiece of God. A prophet also would have two directions he'd be looking in, and this is a good time to reiterate how we interpret the scriptures. We've talked about when we looked at the scriptures, to look at the place where we are in the scriptures circumspectively, to also look retrospectively to the past and also look prospectively to the future. Well, the prophets had this kind of dual, Janus-faced kind of ministry. They were always looking to the past, all right? They were looking at, retrospectively, back to Moses, back to the covenant God had made with them through Moses, and they were always looking prospectively to, ultimately, the coming of the Lord and all the wonderful hope and promise that God had given to Israel. And so the prophet's message was back-looking, back to the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, reminding the people of God of God's covenant promises. They were retrospective in looking at Moses, but they were also prospectively looking forward to what God will do in the future. You have this The test that we have to measure the prophets and their ministry is in Deuteronomy 18. And that test is whether they are consistent with God's revelation to Moses. So, in other words, what you want to note here is even as the canon of the Old Testament is being formed, even though the prophets are being given new revelation, they're always to have some consistency with whatever has been said before. And that says at least two things. It tells us that there's a unity to the covenant. And yet, number two, it's a progressive revelation. So there's a unity to the covenant of grace in whatever time period or dispensation. And though they were giving new information that would advance the covenant and make the people understand more of God's plans and purposes, they were always consistent with Moses. They were always consistent with Moses. And so though they would say more, they wouldn't say less. It would always have to be consistent with Moses. That's how they were to be tested from the very beginning. And that tells us a lot, doesn't it, about how the Old Testament and the New Testament as well, how the authors were all consistent with one another, though there were new, there's new revelation that God gives to them. Nevertheless, they were consistent with what had already been revealed. All right. No inconsistency in that. Malachi 4, let's look there for a moment. In Malachi 4, verses 4 through 6, this is really a summary of the epitome of the prophetic ministry that shows us the redemptive hysterical overview, but shows the point I'm making about having to be consistent with Moses. In Malachi 4, Verses four through six in our canon, these are the last words of the scripture, right? The Old Testament. And so the great day of the Lord is being foretold and the prophet Malachi says, remember the law of my servant Moses. the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb Baral, Israel. So that is the ideal prophetic ministry. So on the one hand, they're calling them back to the law of Moses, all right? Remember the law of my servant Moses, remember the Torah. Remember the teaching of Moses and then verse 5 behold I will send Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes I'll send Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes and I'll turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers lest I come and strike the land with the decree of utter destruction so There we have the retrospectively looking back consistently with Moses, calling the people back to Moses, his law, his writings. And we have the prospectively of the day of the Lord that will be preceded by the coming of Elijah. And who was that coming of Elijah? It was John the Baptist. Jesus makes that clear. Though John, in his humility, doesn't call himself that, even when asked, Jesus reveals that very clearly, that John was the Elijah who was to come. And so there you have a beautiful portrait of what canon or the unfolding of Revelation looks like. It's one, consistent and unified, and two, it's progressive. And it's all because of the Holy Spirit's ministry. All right. So that's the that's that's that primary part of remembering that the prophets are looking back and they're looking forward in a kind of Janus based manner, looking back at what Moses said and being consistent with what Moses has taught and then looking forward, showing new revelation. All right. Let's talk about a covenant lawsuit, because this is what the prophets would bring to the people. Let's look at these three main themes we've already looked at. King, covenant, and tabernacle, dwelling of God with man. Remember, those are our three themes we've looked at together. Well, how might we summarize the ministry of the prophets using these? All right, so the first is that with regard to the prophets and their ministry, they have a preaching of the gospel. They have a preaching of repentance. They are preparing the people for their king. Even in a time when there is no Davidic king, they are still reliant upon God's promises to David and to his seed. They're still emphasizing the promise that God has made to Abraham and his seed. So, they're continuing that revelation. All right, saying that the King will come, the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, and this kingdom will come, this King will come. Though you're in exile, though you're suffering greatly, though you are being chastised and disciplined for your sin, though there's a succession where what was once united under David with Israel and Judah is now divided, There will be a restoration. There will be a king. There will be a Davidic king. There will be a shepherd over Israel who will unite the people. And he won't only unite Judah and Israel, he'll unite Judah and Israel with the nations. There'll be a unity between Israel and the Gentiles. And so they were preaching of the gospel of repentance, the gospel and a call to repentance that the king is coming. That though it doesn't look like it, continue to live by faith, basically. And then they would, as we get into Isaiah, we'll see this. Isaiah 7, that a virgin will conceive. Isaiah 9, these wonderful counsel of a mighty God. Isaiah 11, He's anointed with the sevenfold Spirit of God above measure. That speak comfort, comfort to Jerusalem. Isaiah 40, for the King will come. Isaiah 42, that there's one anointed by God to bring hope. to the poor, to bring justice to the world, to bring the righteousness of God to His people. Isaiah 53, that He'll be crushed for our iniquities. Isaiah 65, 66, and the nations will rise and come to Jerusalem to worship in a new heavens and a new earth. And so they were preaching that the King was coming. Repent. for the kingdom of heaven is coming. The second is, with regard to the covenant, the prophet was a covenant prosecutor. And we've talked about that a bit, but again, a covenant prosecutor is one who would come to prosecute God's people for the sins against the covenant. And they would speak in very specific ways. You might think of Micah. Micah says to Israel, you're being, or to Judah particularly, but I mean Israel as the people of God, he would say that you are oppressing your poor people. You're living apathetically. You're not being kind and merciful. What has the Lord your God told you to do but to love mercy, to do justice and to walk humbly with your God? You have failed Israel. These are the charges against you. You have stolen. You see, you are drunk. Your priests are drunk all the time. You live apathetically like fat pigs. And they would go on to describe like fat hogs, you know, on their beds, very, very visually. It would be offensive. But they were to show that there was there was apathy taking for granted. All right. Covenant prosecutor. And there were two aspects of the covenant prosecuting. There was something called a, I'll just say, well, you have to have this first. There was something in Hebrew called a Riv, a Riv, and it's pronounced like we say Riv, like that, with the long E. It's a Riv, and these were just formal charges. And so when you read the prophets, you just look at the formal charges they bring against Israel. And what are those charges? Somehow they're the breaking of Moses' law. So they're lacking mercy. They're lacking justice. They're living proud. They're living apathetically. They're taking God's name in vain. They're failing to keep the Sabbath. They're not honoring their fathers and their mothers. They're not honoring their leaders. They're murdering. bringing charges, these reeves, and then with that they bring repentance. They would call them to shuv in Hebrew, with a long u. They'd shuv, or turn. You'll see that word sometimes, most of the time in the ESV, the shuv is translated repent. But it's to turn, it's a turn away from your sin and back to God and his faithfulness. It's always repentance is always a it's a call to turn from the sin that you're committing against God and come back to a forgiving, gracious God who's revealed himself as the faithful one of the covenant. And so that was what the covenant prosecutors would do. And then with the tabernacle dwelling of God, what would happen here? Well, with the secession and eventually with the people failing to hear the prophets, the presence of God would be withdrawn. What prophet gives us that picture of the Shekinah glory of presence leaving the temple? Ezekiel. So with regard to the dwelling, of God with them, he would remove his special presence from them. And does anyone know when he would come back in his Shekinah glory presence? Did he come back in the second temple under Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi? You don't ever have any kind of... You remember in Solomon, in 1 Kings, when the glory of God came down into the tabernacle, you remember when he came to the temple? You remember in Moses? where he came down in Exodus 34 to 40, where the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. You don't ever have that event again until Jesus Christ goes into the temple in Jerusalem with charges and a call to repentance. So you see in the early church in the time of transition, a man named Simeon, who's been watching for what the prophets had promised the king. And when he sees Jesus in the temple precincts, he sees the salvation of Israel by the help of the Holy Spirit. So he sees what will be the glory of Israel, the glory of God will fill the temple again. He is the glory of God that will fill the temple, and he will do that ultimately on what day? We get a foretaste of it when he goes and clears the temple out. That's an act, by the way, of reaving. He comes and brings charges that they're making his father's place of prayer for the nations, for all people, not just Israel. You're to be host, hospitable to everyone. Your charge is this, you've made it a den of robbers. And then he calls them to repentance over and over, doesn't he? when would the spirit come, the glory spirit? And Jesus built the temple the day of Pentecost. That's when the wonderful glory of God, Shekinah glory would return to restored, reconstituted, renewed Israel. And that is most important to remember in the prophetic ministry of the apostles and how the apostles are then part of this prophetic ministry that goes back to Moses. And thus, that gets us into the canon of the New Testament because of their writings and their authority that's been given. All right, a covenantal lawsuit. So the covenantal lawsuit was particularly read as charges against Israel. I'll give you an example from Deuteronomy 30, what Moses had told the people. before he died. In Deuteronomy 30, verses 19 and 20, Moses says, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today. And so the prophets would use this same kind of language. You know, the creation would witness because the creation stood witness when the people of Israel made this covenant with Yahweh. And so he says in Deuteronomy 30, verse 19, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today. I've set before you life and death. blessing and curse. Choose life that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, holding fast to Him, for He is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to give to them. And so the message that the prophets would bring in their Reeve or their charges and then their Shuv, their turning or their repentance, their call of repentance, was that they would remind God's people of his covenantal royalty, that God has remained faithful to you. They would state the specific charges against Israel, and then they would give them a solemn warning of judgment. And ultimately, what they were pointing forward to, beloved, was the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord. And we'll do more of this in the New Testament class, but let me say this. You know that that's one of the great hopes of Israel, was that the day of the Lord would come. And for believers, the day of the Lord would be a day of salvation. It would be a day of restoration. It would be a day of blessing, all right? It was what Malachi says, that he'll turn the hearts of the children to their fathers and vice versa, that they would be prepared to receive the Lord in his coming. They'd be prepared to receive the king. They'd be prepared to submit to the king by faith. It was a day of the Lord. But the day of the Lord also for the prophets was a day of judgment, right? It was a day of salvation, but it was also a day of judgment for those who did not believe. And that day of the Lord would come not only upon the nations, but it would also come upon Israel, unbelieving Israel. So, what was then the result? What was a primary redemptive historical result of the prophets and their ministry then? Since very few listened, very few heard the words of the prophets. Very few among Israel, it was a godly remnant, beloved. It was through the exile that God would make a godly remnant, knowing that salvation was by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And that godly remnant would be the holy, true Israel. That the truth would be that not all of Israel is Israel. That though Israel was privileged as Romans 9, tells us, though Israel was privileged to be part of the covenants, many of them would fail to believe and would go on in their hard-heartedness. And when the true prophet came, what did they do to him? But they silenced him through crucifixion. Jesus says something that's very important, beloved, that you'll see in Matthew 23, if you'll turn there. By the way, if I might, just since I had a moment to look, the passage that we were talking about, about John the Baptist earlier, beloved, is Matthew 11. Is that what I said? Let me read it to you real quick as you're turning to Matthew 23. As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds. And you understand that he's speaking as the great prophet to Jerusalem here. And he says, what did you go out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in king's houses. What did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it's written, behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. Truly I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force for all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. That's John's culmination point. And if you're willing to accept it, he's the Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. When we understand the prophetic ministry, it not only helps us understand the Apostolic ministry with regard to the inspired books of the New Testament, it particularly heightens the Lord Jesus' ministry for us. We understand then what he's doing when he's weeping over Jerusalem. Look in, as I said, Matthew 23. And I want to read to you something very biting that Jesus says. It's in the woes to the scribes and the Pharisees. Right at the very end, listen to Jesus Christ in his prophetic ministry. This is chapter 23, verse 29. All right. You guys paying attention? Are you looking on? Okay, you got your Bible open? All right, good. Matthew 23, 29, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and you decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets. Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers. How are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of you whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues, persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered. Between the sanctuary and the altar, truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under... That's the pronunciation of the final curse against the temple precinct. There's no more need now. through prophetic word for a temple made with hands. And through the death of God's prophet, Jesus Christ, that temple, that dwelling of God with man will be now by his spirit. Notice in John 2, something else that's very important to take in mind, to have in mind as we look at that, what we just looked at. If you understand, he's calling the teachers of Israel the sons of those who killed the prophets, not the sons of the prophets. They hated God's Word then, and they hated God's Word now. They hate God's Word now. John 2, in verse 19, listen to what he says, Jesus is saying, and he's getting on this in a different way, what I want to emphasize. Verse 19, Jesus answered them, destroy this temple in three days, I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it's taken 46 years to build this temple and will you raise it up in three days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body. And when therefore he was raised from this dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. And so the temple dwelling of God with man would come back in Christ on the day of Pentecost. Jesus prophetically says, this house, this temple is left to you desolate. In other words, no more usefulness to God by way of typology. And furthermore, there's going to be a historical reality in one generation, about 40 years later, when Jerusalem and the temple and its environments will be desecrated, demolished, destroyed forever. and you're to believe that the temple always was purposed and planned to point forward to me, Jesus is saying. So Jesus uses the prophetic word to say that this temple, God has withdrawn his presence, that if you want to know God, it's in the fullness of Jesus Christ. But that's not different than the temple, beloved. Until Jesus came, the temple was sufficient as God's picture of Jesus Christ. But if I drew a picture of me, an image here, you saw a film of me teaching the class, it wouldn't be the same. You wouldn't need it if I came in the room to teach the class. You'd only need it if I wasn't here. So when Jesus came, the picture, the film, the type, the temple, That was a picture of Jesus Christ was no longer needed. And in the prophetic word, he says, it's desolate. I'm the temple, always have been. What the temple pointed forward to is here, no more need for it. And that's why you never need another temple, because Jesus is the ultimate temple in his body. And he makes us his holy temple through his spirit on the day of Pentecost. And so the glory spirit returns that left during Ezekiel's time. He returns in the time on the day of Pentecost to dwell in his people in union with Jesus Christ. That's powerful, isn't it? And it was all according to what the prophets had spoken. That's looking to an earthly type that has been fulfilled with a heavenly reality. Why would we go backwards? Revelation makes progress and advancement. It doesn't return. It's consistent with, but it doesn't return backwards. So that kind of mistake is kind of a mistake. It's the kind of mistake where you flatten out redemptive history so much, I think, that you overemphasize. Let me think of how to say it best. The temple's point was always a heavenly reality in Christ. Every aspect of the temple pointed to Jesus Christ. When he came, that time had been fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. The time is fulfilled. That's how Jesus starts his ministry. To return to that is to go back to a time of promise functionally, rather than seeing the reality in Christ. It's similar to what our Roman Catholic friends do when they go backwards to form a priesthood. when the priesthood is in Christ, or suggest that there's a vicar on earth who is the superior over God's visible church, rather than seeing that it's the Holy Spirit who's the vicar on earth through his word over the church. So it's going backwards. So it's a mistake that's made that's similar to Roman Catholicism in its doctrine of the priesthood. The priesthood has been fulfilled in Christ. It's similar to the doctrine of the Jews in going back to ceremonial law rather than seeing that they're clean in Christ. So it's going backwards. And it's expired. Jesus is saying the temple as a type has expired with my coming. It's no longer good and it'll be destroyed soon So don't look for another It takes away from his completed finished work it keeps people looking to earthly things Rather than looking up to see their prophet priesthood King exalted in the heavenlies as King of Kings and Lord of Lords in our flesh as prophet priest and King It keeps us looking down. Listen, it treats us like babies. Old Covenant redemption in Galatians 3 speaks of Israel as the church underage, that they needed guardians until the coming of Christ. Why would we want to go back to infancy with priesthoods and temples? Picture time's over. The reality has come. No more drawing pictures, you know, in the living room table with crayons. God was kind enough to draw pictures with crayons. But when Jesus came, he told the children to grow up and receive Christ, who is always pictured in the temple and in the priesthood and in the prophets. That's a good question. Does that help? It's very clear in the Bible, isn't it? I mean, it's very clear. I don't know why people would want to do such a thing. Yes, sir. It would. Well, it's actually a direct repudiation of the scriptures. What does the scripture say? In Revelation 21 and 22, I saw no temple in the new heavens and new earth. The temple was the Lord Jesus Christ. So for John, at least, and all the Bible authors, of course, there's no need a temple because the temple's purpose was pointing forward to Jesus. It was drawing pictures of him. It was showing a film before his coming. Well, let me just say this real quick, if I may. So the restoration or fulfillment of God's promises that the prophet spoke, and I'm just gonna do this very quickly, you ready? It would be under King, the reestablishment of the Davidic King, amen? Reestablishment of the Davidic King. Do you know when, there's three places in Acts you can write down, you ready? Real quick, Acts 2, 28 to 36, and I'll just give you two places. The other place is Acts 15. I think it's right around verses 11 and following. It's telling us that the Davidic tent Is being or booth is being re has been rebuilt with the coming of the Gentiles. It's amazing All right. All right. So then the blessing of the Covenant, what would that be? You ready? You ready? What would the blessing of the Covenant that what what was the Covenant aspect of this it became as Covenant prosecutor with charges and repentance? What was the blessing that was to come? No, none other than the Holy Spirit none other than the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit would bring peace and shalom and would begin the transformation of humanity and the creation and the cosmos, just as He did in the beginning. And that would only be possible after the Spirit comes, one, on Jesus' person, and two, you ready? On the day of Pentecost. So all of the prophets are fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit and on the day of Pentecost with Jesus and His people. All right. That's the covenant blessing, isn't it? The greatest blessing we can receive today from the Lord Jesus is his Holy Spirit. And then third, the reconstituted, renewed Israel, God would dwell. You ready? This is going to be a surprise for many in Israel. God would dwell with and in. In a way he never had. He had dwelled with the people, but he never dwelled in them. I'm gonna read one last scripture as I close. John 7, listen to this. Listen to what John says about that. Unbelievable, isn't it? Isn't it? It's precious, precious truth. Really helps us to understand the Lord Jesus. I'm convinced, beloved, that if we understand the Old Testament better, we understand Jesus Christ better. All right? Because it speaks of him. John 7 says this, you ready? On the last day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Now, the reason I read that is because Jesus had to receive as man the fullness of the Spirit upon his perfect completion of living perfectly according to God's law first on our behalf, on behalf of believers. He then had to die as the servant of God under being crushed for our iniquities. And then on the third day, he was raised. He was vindicated. And after 40 days, he was given full possession of the glory spirit. And then as God-man, not just as God, that's what's so important here. Okay? Let me stress that again. Not just as God. He is God. He always possessed spirit. The spirit was one with him in essence. We're not talking ontology here. We're not talking about essence or being. We're talking about ministry. Jesus's ministry as one person united with God. Once he was glorified in his state of exaltation, he received the Holy Spirit as glorified God-man, as man, and gave it to his men, his men and women, his believers, his church, his people. It's amazing. It's amazing. So again, the Spirit is mediated through Jesus Christ, the man Jesus Christ. who is united with deity. Unbelievable, huh? Unbelievable the prophetic ministry is very important. So let's keep these things in mind We'll say more about it, but this should give us a good start of understanding I really would want to just focus your attention on when you're reading the prophets This is the most you know as practical as I could be with it. It's just think about King Covenant tabernacle You know think about those three themes They'll really you'll see them all the time and just trace how you're they're looking back and looking forward. Okay? like that and then Remember that there's a remnant that all through this history that God is doing is he's preserving a remnant that would be a holy true Israel not all Israel's Israel and remember this that the restoration fulfillment is ultimately about the full reception of the Holy Spirit and the restoration of the cosmos and That will only take place the Holy Spirit once the Davidic King has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high And so where do we live? We live at the beginning of the consummation. It's already begun. Our resurrection has already begun. We are seated with Christ in the heavenly places by the Spirit. Already now, though we suffer, we are with Christ, filled with Christ, filled with the Spirit, with the temple of God. Already the new heavens and the new earth are dawning as the new humanity is being reconciled with God through faith in Christ and being renewed in the image. So we're becoming the true Israel that God had purposed and planned all along, that we'd be like Christ. Yes, sir? It's a building. Thank you. What I'm trying to get a hold of in my heart and mind is how we're the shrine of Jesus Christ. It's amazing, you know? And to have eyes to see in his church, though not fully perfected yet, but to see the eyes in his church of that beautiful basilica that he's creating by the Spirit in us. Isn't that amazing? So thank you for that. So the latter prophets prophetic ministry, that's an introduction overview. I was gonna say something, but I can't seem to recall it. So I think that would be a good place to close. So any questions or thoughts about the prophetic ministry? All right, I put an outline on the Holy Spirit in the time of the prophets that might be useful to you, and I would encourage you to read that. All right, so let's close in prayer. Anybody want to volunteer to close?