A Prophet's Eye-View Of Bible History"

In the early days, God's leaders wore two hats. They were the political and military leaders of the nation, and they were also the spiritual leaders. But the people were not happy with this arrangement and they begged God to give them a king to rule them. In doing this, man took governmental rule away from God. So, God split the job of leadership into two separate jobs. He gave His people a king to rule politically and militarily. And He sent prophets to come alongside of the kings to make His will known, to be the spiritual leaders. Some of these prophets worked with kings who honored and obeyed God and willingly looked to them for direction. Others were sent to kings who were in rebellion to God and viewed His prophets as their enemies.

Lets look at the role that some of the major prophets played in government.

The prophet Samuel worked with the first king Saul, and he later anointed David as king to replace a disobedient Saul. Samuel tried to teach Saul how to rule in God's way, but Saul's heart was rebellious. Saul tried to set himself up as a spiritual leader for the people by offering a sacrifice before a major battle -- and that offended God and the prophet because Saul had wrongly stepped into the arena of spiritual leadership, where he did not belong. Later God gave Saul some very specific battle instructions. Saul was to totally destroy his enemy, including their livestock. But Saul choose to save the best of the livestock to increase his material wealth. God's response to Saul's disobedience was to reject Saul as king. The prophet Samuel was sent to deliver that message to Saul.

Saul was self-serving and disobedient, but he still recognized God's power and hoped God would help him with his military battles. The prophet Samuel died of old age and was buried. Not long after that, a huge army massed to attack Israel. Saul was terrified and did not know what to do. God would not speak to Saul in any of the means He had previously done so -- dreams, Urim or prophets. Saul was so desperate for a word from God that he had a witch do a séance so he could talk to the dead Samuel. Samuel did appear at the séance, but did not do what Saul hoped -- he did not give him military advice or a promise of God's victory. Instead, Samuel pronounced God's judgment on Saul and told him that he was about to die and the kingdom would be given to another.

It is very interesting that God actually allowed Samuel to come back briefly from the dead to prophecy to Saul. Saul had been rejected as king because of his disobedience and rebellion. At that time, Samuel had told him, "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft .... [so God] has rejected you from being king" (1 Sam 15:23). Now Saul actually resorted to witchcraft to seek a word from God, who Saul knew detested mediums and witchcraft. This shows us that Saul was not really seeking God, he was seeking a solution to his problem. He was seeking military victory -- and Saul looked at the prophetic as a "magical cure" for his problems. However, that is not how the prophetic works. The prophetic is simply God making His will known to man. It is not a way were we can manipulate God to do what we want Him to do for us.

Elijah was another very major prophet He moved strongly in God's power and the miraculous. He was able to multiply food, to change weather patterns and even to raise the dead. He was also uncompromising in speaking the word of God, and moved strongly in word of knowledge and supernatural revelation. Elijah lived in Israel after it has split into two nations: Israel and Judah. Israel was the larger one (population wise), but it was also the one that turned away from God to idolatry from it's inception. Israel had a series of wicked and ungodly kings, and the worse of the batch was Ahab, who married Jezebel and introduced the worship of Baal to the nation.

God sent one of His most anointed and powerful prophets to work with one of the most wicked kings. The book of first Kings is full of stories of Elijah and his encounters with Ahab and Jezebel. Elijah had many power encounters with them where he demonstrated that God was much more powerful than Baal. Elijah ministered for 60 years and he ministered to other kings after Ahab died. In addition to prophesying to kings, Elijah personally trained/mentored his successor -- Elisha. When Elijah was taken up into Heaven without dieing, and his mantle fell to Elisha.

Elisha moved in the same power and anointing as Elijah did, and did more miracles and greater demonstrations of God's power. Elisha also took care of individuals, he did not minister only to kings. For instance, a man borrowed an ax and while he was chopping wood, the ax head flew off and went into the river. Elisha made the metal ax head float so it could be retrieved and returned to the owner. The widowed wife of a prophet was in great debt and her sons were about to be sold into slavery to pay these debts. The one resource she had was a little oil in the house. So he instructed her to borrow many containers and begin pouring the oil into them. The little vat of oil she had filled every container she borrowed. Then Elisha instructed her to sell the oil and use that money to pay the debts so her sons could remain with her.

Elisha was also given supernatural revelation to help the king with his battle strategy. When the Syrians went to war against Israel, Elijah prophetically gave them military intelligence about enemy movements. He also supplied battle strategies that allowed Israel to win battle after battle. The king of Syria was convinced he had a spy in his midst who was giving tactical information to the king of Israel. When he found out that the prophet Elisha was the source of the "leak", he sent soldiers to arrest him. However, Elisha caused a blindness to fall on them and led them to Samaria (their enemy). Note that once Elisha delivered the soldiers into the king of Samaria's hands, this king asked Elisha for advice on what to do with these prisoners of war. After that incident, the king of Syria left the Israelites alone.

The book of Isaiah is considered possibly the most anointed or powerful of the Old Testament prophetic writings. It contains some judgments on various nations and enemies of God. It also contains the strongest and most detailed messianic prophecies. It is full of words of hope and promises of restoration for God's people. Isaiah wrote about God's coming redeemer, and there are many graphic passages in Isaiah that describe details of Christ's life and death. It is a favorite, and most quoted, book of many believers today.

The prophet Isaiah did a lot more than just write a book of the bible. He ministered to more than one king of Judah (the Godly nation). His greatest influence was with King Hezekiah, who had a heart after God and was a good king. When the nation of Judah got into trouble, king Hezekiah cried out to God and God would often answer through the prophet Isaiah, then God would move powerfully on Judah's behalf. Isaiah was involved in some fairly powerful stuff, such as God saving Judah from the attacking Assyrian army. He also moved in physical healing, saving king Hezekiah's life from a fatal boil. He also did at least one miracle because he caused the sun to backtrack in the sky as a sign to Hezekiah.

The prophet Jeremiah's ministry also spanned multiple kings. His ministry began before Judah was taken into captivity by the Babylonians. Judah had a long godly history. But by the time Jeremiah lived and ministered, it had decayed to become ungodly and idolatrous. God decided to bring defeat and captivity on them for their unfaithfulness. Therefore, Jeremiah's message was primarily one warning people of God's coming judgment and of their upcoming captivity to Babylon. That message did not make Jeremiah very popular with the political leadership. King Zedekiah had him imprisoned for prophesying that Israel would fall to Babylon.

Jeremiah was alive (and in prison) when the Babylonians captured Judah. The Babylonians also heard about his prophecies -- and they set him free because he had prophesied in their favor. While the Babylonians took the rest of the Jews into captivity, they allowed Jeremiah to go free.

Ezekiel was another of the "major prophets." Most of the major prophets worked primarily with national leaders. But Ezekiel worked a bit more closely with the people. He lived during the Babylonian exile and seemed to hold a prominent place among the Jews, where he ministered for about 23 years. The city elders would often come to him and consult with him. Ezekiel's writings deal with God's coming rule and contain a lot of end-time prophecy.

God had many other prophets in addition to the ones we have discussed. Some of them wrote portions of the bible and others never wrote anything. For instance, there was a prophet from Judah that God sent to King Jeroboam, in Israel. The king had just built an altar to a false god and was in the process of offering a sacrifice on it. Just then, the Judean prophet arrived and prophesied against the ungodly altar. Jeroboam stretched his hand out to point at the prophet, and said, "Arrest this man!" However, his arm became withered and he was unable to pull it back. At the same instant, the altar began to spit apart, ashes flying everywhere. The king immediately changed his tune and begged the prophet for mercy. So the prophet prayed for him and his hand was restored.

You might get the impression from the above account, or from reading about Elijah and Elisha, that God always miraculously protected His prophets.

That is not the case. God allowed Jeremiah to suffer in prison many years for delivering His message. Many other prophets were imprisoned or killed. When Jesus lamented over Jerusalem in Math 23:37, He said: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." Sometimes God sends His best because of His great love, but the people He sends them to choose to reject his prophets and His Word. They killed many of them.

I remember being strongly impacted the first time I read the story about Micaiah in 2 Chron 18. The background is that Ahab wanted to get Jehosaphat to go into battle with him, but Jehoshaphat wanted to inquire of the Lord before doing any battle. So Ahab had 400 "prophets" all come and prophecy to Jehoshaphat that God would give them the victory. But none of these were prophets of the Lord, they were prophets that served another "god." So Jehoshaphat asked for a prophet of the Lord, and they called in Micaiah. The other 400 false prophets all told Micaiah what to say. At first he told Ahab what Ahab wanted to hear, but he did not say "thus sayeth the Lord". Ahab called him on that and asked what God said. So Micaiah prophesied that if Ahab went into this battle, he would be killed. Ahab was furious with this word because it was NOT what he wanted to hear. So he commanded that the prophet be thrown into prison and kept on bread and water until Ahab returned victoriously. Of course Ahab never returned from that battle. (The story is recorded in 2 Chron 18.)

When I read that story, I was offended that God did not protect His prophet. I told God - "If that is how You treat Your prophets, I am not sure I want to be one!" That story made me think that God did not take very good care of His servants. God explained to me that He sometimes spent "His best" to reach man. Then He reminded me of how Jesus had laid down His life to redeem us. I had to repent and apologize to God.

The truth is that if you want to serve God as His prophet, then you become one of His valuable resources. And it is up to God how He wants to spend those resources. We know that He sometimes protects His servants because He has a specific job He still wants them to do. But we also know that at other times, God will spend His precious resources to try and reach man with His love. And just as He asked Jesus to lay down His life, God may also ask His prophets to lay down their lives in His service.