Scripture Notes: The Message of the Prophets, Part 1

The prophets send many messages: doom and hope, destruction and restoration, warnings and reassurances. Sometimes these messages seem contradictory, complex, even overwhelming. But when we look for one thread to tie them together, one theme that binds up all these apparently conflicting communications, one overarching message that gives all the rest their meaning, we find nothing less than God’s infinite love. This love is expressed in many diverse ways throughout the prophets, and admittedly, some of the prophets’ words do not look or sound much like love, at least from a human perspective. Yet if we read the prophets with an open mind and an open heart, we soon see that they continually declare God’s love for His people, both for their own times and for ours.
    
God’s love shines forth when the prophets speak of the covenant God has made with His people, that family bond that makes Israel God’s first-born son and royal priestly household. In Hosea, for instance, God identifies Israel as both His wife, the one He chose and took to Himself, and His son, the infant He took into His arms and led with “cords of compassion” and “bands of love” and held up to His cheek and bent down to feed (Hos 11:3-4). This tender love appears in Ezekiel 16, too, when God describes His people as an abandoned child that He cared for and bound to Himself by covenant. 
    
What does Israel do in response to God’s great love? The people sin. They turn away to idols. They break the covenant. They follow their own paths and turn their backs on God. The prophets have the special task of calling out the people for their sins, of telling them straight that they are offending God. Ezekiel shows in chapter 16 how the bride of God turns into a harlot who chases after other lovers, the idols. He reveals in chapter 8 that idolatry has found its way right into God’s Temple where the priests and leaders worship the sun and other “gods.” Isaiah calls Israel an unfruitful vineyard that responds to God’s loving care with only “wild grapes” (Isa 5:2). Jeremiah declares God’s accusation toward His people, who have said that they will not serve him, that they will continue to go after their idols and deliberately spurn God’s law (Jer 2). They have become corrupt. Amos speaks of that corruption to the idolatrous northern kingdom that worships golden calves and combines their sacrifices to God with sacrifices to the Baals. Micah points out how the people are even unfaithful to each other, not behaving like a family but cheating and lying and treating each other with the greatest of injustice. God wants His people to be aware of what they are doing so that they can repent and change their hearts. He is offended, and His people are destroying themselves, and because He loves them, He wants to prevent that.

So God warns His people through His prophets. Punishment will come if they fail to repent. He is not threatening for the sake of threats; rather He is warning out of love. His people should be so much more, for they are His covenant family. Amos warns the northern kingdom of its coming doom. Micah warns both north and south. Isaiah makes it quite clear that Jerusalem will be destroyed if the people do not return to God (Isa 22). Jeremiah speaks of imminent invasion from Babylon as well as the fall of Jerusalem and captivity for the people (Jer 6, 21. 25). Habakkuk wonders why God has not punished His people sooner, but God assures Him that He is “doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told” (Hab 1:5). The Babylonians will come and destroy Judah. In Zephaniah 1, God declares “I will stretch out My hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem” because of their idol worship (Zeph 1:4). Even after the exile, God continues to warn His people to follow His laws, as in Malachai and Haggai. God even extends His warnings to the rest of the world through Isaiah (Isa 14, 34), Jeremiah (Jer 47ff.), Ezekiel (Ez 25ff.), and Nahum (against Nineveh). They, too, are His people, for He has created them, and while they are not in a covenant with Him, they are potential members of His covenant family whom He loves and whom He warns. They, too, must stop sinning.