by Tom Wacaster
It is unfortunate that many members of the Lord’s church have missed the value of a good study of the prophets. I have observed in my own personal studies that even some of the pioneer preachers of the restoration era either neglected, or deemphasized the value of a study of the books of prophecy. Thankfully, the last thirty years or so there has been a resurgence of interest in a study of the prophets, and entire lecture series have been devoted to the subject. I have in my library at least six lectureship books that focus on a study of the prophets. So when it was decided by the elders that we would spend this summer studying the prophets I was excited about the prospect of such a study. As far back as I can remember, my mentors in the work of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ have challenged me to “preach like the prophets!” I made it a point in the early years of my preaching to concentrate on the style and substance of those prophets of old. My own preaching has been influenced by their fidelity to God’s word, and their undaunted courage in addressing the sins of the nation of Israel while doing so with great patience and compassion for the people. The preaching of the prophets was balanced preaching. We need more of that today.
In 1993 the Brown Trail congregation conducted a lecture series titled, The Spirit of the Prophets. They produced a book which I have read multiple times, and from which I have drawn some rich material for writing and preaching. I want to draw on three points that brother Avon Malone made in his lesson, “The Spirit of Prophetic Preaching,” and make some brief remarks relative to those points.
First, the prophets preached with audacity. The Encarta Dictionary defines ‘audacity’ as “daring or willingness to challenge assumptions or conventions or tackle something difficult or dangerous.” Does that not describe the preaching of the prophets? The prophets were not men pleasers. The Old Testament prophets disturbed their audiences with bold preaching so uncommon to the preaching of our day and age. It was not an audacity of self serving arrogance, but one that grew out of a complete abandonment of self and a full surrender to God.
Second, the prophets preached with awareness. They were aware of the world around them, aware of the mission assigned them, and aware of the God Who commissioned them. They were aware of the sins of the people, the holiness of God, and message needed by the masses to turn them from sin back to the Father. The did not live in palaces, but neither did they hide themselves in monasteries. They loved the souls of men, though oft times that love was not apparent to those who heard their preaching. Like the prophets of old, we must preach the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). I like the way brother Malone put it: “We, like the prophets, need awareness of God, His greatness and glory, His holiness and His hatred of evil, His authority and the consequent authority of His word. In addition, we need the prophet’s sensitivity to human need and nature. It may be that the hurting prophet is the one who can most help.”
Finally, the prophets preached with accuracy. They may not have been successful by human standards, but there is no doubt that they fulfilled their commission to speak the word of God faithfully (Jer. 23:28). Jeremiah is just one example of the prophet who, even in the face of physical persecution, preached only, and all, of what God commissioned him to preach. When preachers preach as did the prophets they will get results as did the prophets; either in the form of persecution, or repentance. My heart aches when I see once faithful preachers who have compromised the truth for personal gain. Carl Sandburg tells of the chameleon who got along very well adjusting to his environment until one day he had to cross a scotch plaid—and he died at the crossroads heroically trying to relate to everything at once. Brethren, out nations stands at a crossroads, and it is not the time for cowardly compromise in our preaching.
I’ll close with the precise words brother Malone used to close his lecture: “May the spirit of prophetic preaching become our spirit and may Paul’s passion become our pattern and may we be done with professional time—serving and superficial speech making. May our consciences cry out against the trivia and, worse still, the error and diluted half-truths which sometimes plague the pulpit. May we ‘preach the word’ - ‘the word of the cross’ to dying men who have no other hope.”