Prophets and Profits

Your prophets saw visions for you that were empty and deceptive; they did not reveal your guilt and so restore your fortunes. -- Lamentations 2:14

When the Apostle John speaks of the anti-christ in his first Epistle (see 1 John 2:18-23), he says there many antichrists. "Christ" is a transliterated Greek word that has a parallel meaning to the Hebrew word transliterated as "Messiah". It's all about the Anointed One, the Lord's Anointed.

An antichrist is more than just someone who denies Christ, it is one who, we might say, has a fake anointing. In the Old Testament there were false prophets who had all the accoutrements of a true prophet. In the New Testament, Peter warns against the "false teachers" of his day (2 Peter 2:1-3). Whenever there is something real, almost always there will arise a counterfeit -- especially if there is a buck to be made.

People who call Obama an antichrist are not far off. He is a counterfeit, anointed with snake-oil. He is too petty and certainly too obvious to be the Anti-Christ, who, depending on one's eschatology, might indeed show up one day.

Truly, politicians are by nature false prophets, not unlike those lamented by Jeremiah in the opening quote. This is because it is considered unwise in the world system to tell your constituency that they are, for example, a brood of vipers, even if your Congressional District includes Madison, Wisconsin.

The Lord explained to the Israelites the Prophet Test. There is one question. Did what the guy say was going to happen actually happen? If it did, he is a True Prophet. If not, stone him. It's an early version of pass/fail grading, no curve. Don't you wish that was still in effect?

Sometimes, though, the prophecies of True Prophets had an escape clause. It generally went like this: your sin is about to cause [insert catastrophic evil event] to happen to you, but if you will repent, you will be spared. Jonah, the original Soggy Bottom Boy, knew about the escape clause when he was called to go to Ninevah, and he did not want to give the Ninevites a chance to exercise it. He wanted to see Ninevah wiped out because he knew that at a point in the future the Assyrians would destroy the northern kingdom of Israel for the sins of Samaria. He speculated that if the Assyrian Empire were to be nipped in the bud then they wouldn't be around to do the job.

For a True Prophet Jonah might have been a little myopic (after all he didn't see how that boat ride would turn out). Surely the Lord could have caused some other nation to rise up and execute His judgment on the wayward. Perhaps Jonah just did not like Ninevah. I mean it could have been like an early proto-Cleveland. Who could blame him if that were case?

So, one of the signs of a True Prophet is revealing person's guilt to him. Nathan did this with David when he proclaimed, "Thou art the man." The prophet reveals guilt, not to gloat, but to show the person or the nation how far they have deviated from truth and righteousness. It is the first step in calling someone to get back to the right path.

Sometimes the only thing we can do is repent, but it is always the first thing we must do.

Restoration is not a big deal with God. First, all sin has already been dealt with on the Cross. We don't need to agonize over it. I don't want to make this too flippant. I once lost my temper and it got me into a lot of trouble. Perhaps I should clarify by saying I have, I regret to admit, lost my temper many times. One time it got me in a lot of trouble. Anyway, I remained angry and (the bad part) unrepentant for months. It began to wear me down. I became depressed and hopeless. In addition to being my usual irritable, smart-ass self, I was miserable. Finally, I broke down, confessed my condition to God and repented. In seconds, in less time than I can tell it, all that was gone. God did not hold it over my head. He did not withhold His presence. He did not accept me with qualifications. He just took it all away right there. Jesus had borne it. Why was I carrying it around? My self-imposed, self-righteous, arrogant, indignant suffering had been for naught.

Even in the Lament of the Weeping Prophet, the Lord reveals that His purpose in bringing us to repentance is our own ultimate good. Would a God with a different agenda have emptied Himself and condescended to come down into this dark world to die for us? He only calls to us to remember who we are and to listen to the voice that says, “This is the way. Walk ye in it.”