Bible Lessons is on the air, our weekly meeting for an in-depth study of God's word. And today we will continue our study on the gift of prophecy, focusing especially on the Old Testament prophets. We will understand the nature of their calling and especially their message.
That is what Bible Lessons is about, and much more, starting right now. We are already here together to study with you today's topic, which is unmissable. We are going to talk about the prophets of the Old Testament.
But first, I would like to introduce these friends of ours who are here throughout this season sharing the blessings of God's word with us. Here on my right is my friend Pastor William Timm. Welcome, William.
>> Thank you, pastor. It has been a blessing. A lot of learning in the first two editions.
Now it will be a blessing, for sure, today. >> No doubt about it. Pastor Renato Stencel, it is great to have you here with us.
Welcome once again. Feel free to give your greetings. >> Thank you very much for the invitation, for the honor of being here together on the Bible Lessons program, and I would like to send a hug to my staff at the White Center who work there, students, secretaries.
May God bless you all, Leila, Melissa, and Mateus, and everyone else who works there. >> How cool, pastor. A hug to that special group that helps a lot with the work there.
Yes. God's work, right? Pastor Alberto Timm, welcome once again.
>> Thank you very much. It is an honor and a privilege to be with you. >> Amen.
The honor is ours. I will ask Pastor Renato to pray for us, please. >> Dear Father, we thank You for the opportunity You give us to study Your word.
We plead once again for the presence of Your Spirit, that He may enlighten us and give us discernment to understand, and also that all those who listen to this program may have this same discernment in Jesus 'name. Amen. Amen.
Thank you very much. Well, the theme, as I have already said, is Old Testament prophets, who are the first prophets, right, that appear there. Pastor Alberto, please, introduce us to this important theme.
>> Well, we have already dealt with the need for God's communication with human beings, since there could no longer be face-to-face communication. God used His instrumentalities, the prophets, but the prophets were not ends in themselves. They were just instruments that led to God and also to Christ, obviously.
And I like that the lesson here deals with, in this case it compares, it introduces the global positioning system popularly called GPS , which we all use. A GPS. The GPS is not the highway or the street, it is not the starting point either, and certainly not the destination.
It simply seeks to guide us faithfully along the path. If you are about to veer off to one side, it says: "No, no, no, come back here. " Another path as well.
In the same way, I understand that the prophets were not ends in themselves, but mere human instruments. That is why they were humble by nature and did not call attention to themselves, but to God and His word, whether it was written or indeed moral, because the authority of a prophet or the word made no difference if it was written or not. So, in that sense, they all exercised a ministry of this kind.
And now we are going to begin our journey first with the Old Testament and then with the New Testament. But there is a point that is crucial for the entire discussion that lies ahead. Every true prophet who appears along the way speaks in harmony with the accumulated prophetic legacy of past generations.
For example, we accept David as a true prophet because he spoke in harmony with Moses. I also accept Isaiah later on, because he spoke in accordance with Moses and David; I accept Jeremiah, because he spoke in accordance with those I mentioned. This contrasts greatly with this theory.
As exists, I will not mention some churches that claim to have prophets, where a later prophet can correct earlier prophets. That does not exist. Although prophets are fallible, they always add to things in harmony with one another.
Therefore, this is a very important criterion. Now , there is also another trend today of saying that the Bible needs to be updated. No, the Bible does not need to be.
Cultures change, but human beings do not. We are all sinners in need of God's grace. Therefore, the message of repentance, of turning back to God, which has been preached since the dawn of humanity, is relevant to all of us today, in all eras and in all places.
I think this is very important as we begin our trajectory of analyzing Old Testament prophets and subsequently those of the New Testament as well. I think it is very important that you mentioned this in connection with this point I want to highlight regarding the issue of updating the Bible, which some say is necessary, right? Because the prophets after Moses, who is the first prophet to have recorded his writings in the Bible, the Pentateuch, what they do afterward is not to innovate or differentiate from Moses; they simply return to the Torah or Pentateuch, emphasizing, contextualizing, and applying it to the reality at hand.
Generally, the prophets are called, as was said in previous programs, to restore the covenant that was already written in the Pentateuch. >> So the biblical canon is exactly what you said. It is a >> it is a composition of writings that were put together to return to its original embryo, which is the covenant with God.
Jesus could very well have said, look, we are now under new management. >> Exactly. >> But he drew attention to the Old Testament.
Wow, you guys have a lot of discourse here. You must obey the law and the prophets. I did not come to abolish, I came to fulfill.
And what Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount is exactly to deepen it. He doesn't say , "Now you have heard that it was said to those of old. " He says, "Yes, but there is this, this inner aspect.
" So Jesus deepens it; instead of canceling it, he deepens it. This is a very important point. >> It is curious that in Revelation 12:17, speaking of the characteristic of the church in the end times, it is said that they keep the commandments of God.
And here is a very clear reference to the Torah and what is recorded in it. And the testimony of Jesus, a very clear reference to the work of the prophets. The testimony of Jesus is an expression that points to prophecy throughout history.
So, the church preserves this; it is the guardian of this, it is the depositary of this, and it proclaims this to the world. Not something new, different, and much less contrary to what is in it, right? It would also be interesting, Pastor, for us to begin our journey by trying to identify in the Bible who the first prophet was, wouldn't it?
And according to the studies, we have the reference that it was the prophet Enoch, who was called by God. He did not write anything in the Bible; he was taken to heaven, according to what we know from the word of God. But God left him a message that is recorded in the Bible.
And I would like to highlight this message. It is found in Jude, verse 14 and verse 15. This touches us deeply, because when the apostle writes, he says: "Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam , prophesied about these men also, saying:' Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints.
'" >> Uh-huh. What does that mean? It means that the first prophet of the Old Testament received a vision from God, in which he saw the second coming of Christ.
>> This seems a bit disconnected in terms of time, but it was what God revealed to him. If you go to the last prophet of the Bible, the apostle John, and look at Revelation 14 and Revelation 19 , you see a replica of this same vision in those two chapters, but now with more details, right? This reveals the essence of the prophetic gift.
Because if the first prophet and the last prophet both saw the return of the Lord Jesus in a vision, that carries a very powerful message for us. In other words , the return of the Lord Jesus is the most emphasized message in the word of God. There are more than 15 passages that are promises made by God to each one of us, confirming the prophetic voice and above all confirming God's plan for us, which is salvation in Christ Jesus.
>> Excellent, pastor. Very good. And one of the elements regarding the prophets of the Bible in the Old Testament, which I find very beautiful for those who enjoy studying history, is that the Bible does not romanticize their lives and is very honest in showing their flaws.
Even though we are talking about great leaders of Israel, people who had a lot of power, who were highly admired by the people, or at least later on, the Bible goes right ahead and points out their defects. Moses, for example, he writes and he writes about his own flaws, situations where he was not honest, right? >> And here you have an example of a prophet who does a very beautiful work, but also has a moment of great confusion, which is Elijah.
We studied last week that Elijah has a great victory there demonstrating the power of God. He later leads a certain group of people to repentance, at least momentarily. But Elijah, after having this total success, in quotes, in his life, he now goes along with Ahab to Jezreel.
He is not running away, he leaves normally, but when he arrives, Jezebel then wants to take revenge for what he had done. >> And now he will flee. He will walk approximately 145 km to Beersheba.
And when he arrives in Beersheba, technically he should be calmer, because he was now in the Southern Kingdom. The southern kingdom belonged to Jehoshaphat. He leaves his servant there, an angel feeds him, and you’d think, well, now he’s fine, but no, he takes off and now walks through the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, heading in the opposite direction until he reaches Horeb.
Horeb, the place where God had appeared in the burning bush to Moses, but also where the Israelites had an encounter with God. And there you have a correlation, because what was once an identification , a theophany there, now in those elements of the theophany, God is not in them. >> And when Elijah gets there, he >> God is not in the fire, nor in the noise.
>> Exactly. And when he gets there, God asks: "What are you doing here? " And in truth, you see then that it wasn't God who sent him there.
And here is an interesting point, because Elijah, who was fleeing the threat of death, now asks God to kill him. >> Hmm. >> And for me, what is most interesting is that the prophet who asked to die is the prophet who doesn't die because he goes to heaven first.
>> So you have several elements there. But the most interesting point of this whole story of Elijah is that we are talking about him, right? They were men subject to the same passions as we are.
So, as much as Elijah had an extraordinary victory there, afterwards he is almost renouncing his prophetic calling, asking God to kill him, because he is in a moment of despair, to the point of having fled for many, many days from death only to arrive at his hiding place and ask for God to kill him. But God will make a new plan for him; He will have him train a disciple to continue his work as well. Excellent.
>> I thought it was cool that you said, that you highlighted this point, right, that he walked 40 days to Horeb, to Sinai, in the opposite direction to what the people of Israel did, right? The people of Israel left Sinai towards the promised land. >> Uh-huh.
>> And he does the opposite to place himself there at the site of the point of origin of God's covenant with the people. And there God said: "What are you doing here, right? " It's as if He were saying: "The prophet's place is not in the comfort of Sinai.
" The prophet's place is there before the people, presenting what I offered here at Sinai, which is my law, that they may hear it there, that they may know it there. And perhaps Elijah was feeling somewhat the opposite of Moses, right? Because back at Sinai, centuries earlier, Moses said: "Blot my name out of the book of life if You do not go with this people.
" >> Uh-huh. >> Right? And here Elijah was saying: " Look, this people, there's no solution for them anymore.
" And then God said to him: "I still have people there, there are 7,000 who have not bowed to Baal, go back and finish the work you started . " And God did just that. >> You know, in his case, we have to be careful as often the greatest victories are followed by the greatest defeats.
When we have that adrenaline, it seems like we are focused, but later when we are left alone with ourselves. I even thought about writing an article once that I never wrote titled "After the spotlights go out. " When you're on stage and everything is happening, the lights are there, it's one thing.
Now, when you come down and are alone with yourself, it's not without reason that some say that some actors and actresses who show all that wonderful performance , when they are by themselves, are the most depressive people possible. >> I've already seen something along those lines saying that the people in the theater business who are most prone to depression are comedians, right? >> Wow!
>> People who do comedy and so on. So we have to be aware of this. It's important that sometimes the devil can take advantage of a victory you win there and such.
And if he can't lead you to depression, he can lead you to think you're the best, that you're the one. But we must watch out for any trap that may arise; if this happened to Elijah, why couldn't it happen to us too, right? He was a man like all of us , as James said, right?
We have those same tendencies, right? Life doesn't just happen on top of Carmel, where we speak and it happens; we also come down . Life is also made of threats.
The enemies of God rise up to pursue us. But the same God who was with Elijah on Carmel was also with him on his journey back; He went with him into the cave and brought him out of there. We must have this awareness, right?
Life really does have its ups and downs, but when it's at a low, it doesn't mean that God has abandoned us. >> In The Desire of Ages, you will find an expression that I like very much, which says: "In Christ there was perfect peace; He was not elated by applause, nor depressed by criticism. " So, this ideal of life is to have a certain stability, but as you said, we are still walking in that direction.
Even if we enter a state of depression, God does not abandon us. >> That is true. God does not abandon us because He knows our needs, knows our life, and knows what is best for us all .
At the same time, He is patient with us, isn't He? God does not abandon us when we think there is no solution left , right? We are going to take a break now.
I just wanted to anticipate one thing: don't be surprised, and don't wonder what happened to Novo Tempo, because political broadcast time is playing now during the break; it is mandatory, okay? Novo Tempo has no partisan stance; we are just providing the space by force of law so that the candidates can present their proposals, okay? But don't go away.
The Bible Lessons program will be right back. We are back now for the second block of today's Bible Lessons program. And I want to make a heartfelt recommendation to you.
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Well, you will find Professor Leandro Quadros, put in the aim of truth here, answering the most difficult questions in the Bible. I will mention just a few that I have here for you. Does the gift of tongues come from God?
So, what is the deal with the gift of tongues? Difficult texts about the gift of tongues are answered here in this magazine. Can we speak to the dead?
So it will confront issues involving the state of the human being after death. And does a secret rapture exist or not? These and many other questions are answered in this magazine, answered with the word of God .
If you have the courage to ask, the Bible will have the courage to answer. Look, I am even bringing Professor Leandro Quadros's program here for you to order this magazine for free right now. And look, you will still be able to count on the content of this physical magazine.
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So order the "Hope in the Crosshairs of Truth" magazine right now. William, I’m going to put you in the crosshairs of truth now, since we are talking about the gift of prophecy, prophets, we need to learn how to identify true prophets, because we live in a time, and Jesus himself said there would be false prophets, false Christs in the time of the end. And since the Old Testament, the characteristics of a true prophet were already very clear.
Please present them. >> So, we have a problem in the Old Testament, because besides the prophet having to lead the people to repentance , now there is a conflict with false prophets. And false prophets, they have no commitment to anything.
So, you have , for example, Jeremiah 28, where the false prophet even starts by saying: " Thus says the Lord. " >> And he’s going to speak a false prophecy there. But then we have a prophet here who is in First Kings, First Kings 22, who is Micaiah.
And Micaiah is interesting because look, let’s read the verse here, First Kings 22, verse 8. 22: 8 says: "The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat,' There is still one man through whom we can inquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, >> but only what is bad. '""This is Micaiah, son of Imlah.
" And here we have an interesting point, because the king doesn't ask if the prophecy is true or if it isn't. He doesn't ask about the content of the prophecy. Actually, he doesn't like Micaiah because the prophecies are not positive about him.
And this is a point, because false prophets, they don't have a problem with that. They can prophesy, in fact, what the king wants to hear, >> because it's almost a political question of power and everything else. Making a correlation with today and the Bible.
I was, when I read this text, I was thinking how often we can go to the Bible with an idea and how open we are to a prophetic word, a biblical text that confronts what I think. To what extent am I open to seeing a text that perhaps teaches something I don't believe or perhaps something I don't prioritize? How open am I to being changed by the biblical text?
>> Uh-huh. >> And this is one of the fundamental aspects, perhaps. The biblical prophet has no problem if he has to suffer for the sake of the truth.
The other prophet, however, will use a discourse that strokes the ego, because we will see later that this relationship between prophet and king is very delicate, especially in the Old Testament. He will do everything to gain more credit and more power within the kingdom. And it is also interesting to note, Pastor, that often when we try to identify a true prophet, we tend to look only at the side of visions, dreams, or them speaking some future prophecy, right?
But when we look at Monday's lesson, how can we identify this prophet? Also, to add a bit to what William said, we need to understand that the prophet never speaks of himself, for himself, or for anyone else. >> Uh-huh.
>> He is a spokesperson who has the responsibility of speaking what God has revealed to him. >> Uh-huh. >> And there is a classic text in the Bible that we know well, but it is important to highlight here, which is the text of Second Peter.
Chapter 1, verses 20 and 21, right? Verses 20 and 21 say: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man. ""But holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
" I believe this text is perhaps the clearest and most evident answer for us to identify a true prophet. >> Uh-huh. >> And to answer the questions here on Monday.
>> Exactly. Now, regarding First Kings, chapter 22, >> Uh-huh. >> Here you could even preach a fine sermon titled "How to Manipulate a Prophet," right?
In the first place, you see two kings, >> one with a positive attitude and another with a negative one. One wanted to be instructed by the word of God. If you read 1 Kings 22: 5, it says: " Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, ' Please inquire for the word of the Lord today.
'""Yes, but isn't there by chance a good prophet here? " Verse 7, Jehoshaphat says: "Is there not still a prophet of the Lord here? ""Yes, there is, but he never prophesies good concerning me.
" He always wanted to be flattered, wanted endorsement. Many people approach the Bible looking for support for their theories and not letting the Bible speak. Then, from verse 13 onwards, the servant messenger of King Ahab goes.
So it already begins . See what verse 13 says. "Indeed the words of the prophets with one accord encourage the king.
" Let your word be like the word of one of them and speak what is good. >> In other words, we only want to hear what we already know we want to hear, right? >> Yes.
It’s not what God says. >> Now look, and then comes the social pressure. Everyone talks like this.
Are you the only fool who’s going to speak differently? And then he said: "I will speak what the Lord tells me," he said there, but throughout the discourse and the journey there, "no, no, no, you have to speak this way. " The pressure was very great.
Then, naturally, the prophet, seeing that things were not looking good, used a certain irony, but he even received a slap, right? Uh-huh. But he is very clear there in his loyalty was unconditional.
It is not the voice of the majority, it is not the consensus that determines the word of God. >> Exactly. The relationship between the prophet and the king was a very delicate one, right?
Because he was part of the court; he had a role there within that royalty, the function of being the king's advisor. And as a heavenly seer, he could advise the king from the divine perspective to give the best counsel for the king to follow. Except that this king here, Ahab, was a king who did not want to hear what God was saying.
He wanted to hear what would be the echo of his own will. >> Hmm. His own, his own conscience.
>> Uh-huh. >> That is the secret to failure in life. When we have a mirror in front of us and see reality only that way, seeing nothing beyond ourselves, we will walk toward defeat.
And Micaiah here, at first, in irony says: "No, do you want to hear good things? Then go ahead, you can go, you will be successful, go there, you will have a resounding victory. " And then when the king realizes that wasn't true, Micaiah says : "In truth, I saw the defeat.
" And that he didn't, he didn't want to hear it again, did he? See? He never says anything good about me.
Man, God was giving him the opportunity to know that the future wouldn't be good, but even so, he proceeded. It’s interesting that in this correlation between the king and the prophet, there is already a problem from the start. If we look, for example, at First Samuel 8: 5, which is when the first king is to be appointed.
>> Uh, there is this text that is very well known, perhaps the most known regarding this relationship, right? When the people come and say, "We want a king to rule over us, like it happens in all the nations. " And here we have two curious points.
The first point is that if you look from verse 11 to verse 18, Samuel begins to list several bad things, horrible activities. There is an archaeologist—he is, in fact, an Assyriologist who studied named Isaac Mendelsohn. He studied a lot this issue of the Canaanite texts, and he realized that here, Samuel was actually describing horrendous practices that the civilizations around Israel, that the kings did.
They were tyrants to the people. They would take their children to fight in war, underage children. They would rob the people.
And now he begins to list these aspects so that the people might once again think that, in truth, theocracy is the best government for them. But the government —the people of Israel are not convinced. And you have here in verse 18, then, where the expression "you will not hear" appears.
And this time, "you will not hear. " And it is a clear connection to Exodus 2:23, when God hears the cry of the people and is going to deliver the people from Egypt. But now God will not hear their cry because they are choosing this.
Before, you suffered a consequence, but now the choice is yours. And here you have, perhaps, one of the sorrows, often, of the prophetic ministry, because Samuel knows this is not good, he knows this will turn out badly, he knows how the next kings of Israel will be, but as much as he knows this, he has to be the voice of the people in this. And he ends up having to start the lineage by choosing the first king who will later bring division to the empire of Israel and many years of apostasy.
You see how God is also merciful with His people and ends up softening some choices and putting the people back on the path, right? The best moment in the history of the people of Israel, the peak, the highest point, was with David and Solomon, when the kings were prophets, right? So, the monarchy assimilated an aspect of theocracy, right?
Because these kings who were writers of the Bible, because they were prophets, they administered the kingdom in a better way. >> Exactly. But now there was a sensitivity, because the way the king dealt with the word of God would impact all the people.
>> Before, they were responsible for their own actions, but now there is a king, a voice that will direct the people in certain ways. But after Solomon, there also came kings >> horrible, >> horrible, who were not prophets in that >> Exactly. In the Thompson Bible, if you take a look at the back, because there are many very enlightening notes in the Thompson Bible, you will see a diagram of the nation of Judah practically starting with good kings, descending, and declining more and more.
And the, this diagram is titled the cause of the captivity. Why did the Babylonian exile occur? Because the kings were increasingly departing from justice, heading toward apostasy and complete idolatry.
>> And so many prophets arose. And the prophetic mission is difficult, having to speak to sovereigns. >> Yes.
>> And Tuesday's lesson says that they had to speak to kings. >> Uh-huh. to priests, the people, and sometimes even messages to neighboring nations.
So they got into a lot of trouble because there was, as you said, tension. Some say that the tension, there was continuous tension between prophets and kings, right? But that was their mission.
>> Exactly. I think this relationship helps us think a little about what our life and even the church should be like , right? Sometimes we are tempted to separate administrative aspects from theological aspects to try to make a connection here.
See, the church, our life, we shouldn't separate things that cannot be separated, right? Spiritual life, the word of God must be at the center of the conduct of everything that is successful in life. The church will prosper when it is, the church prospers, better said, when it is managed based on the word of God, not on good administrative ideas, boldness, capable, competent people, who are not following the path that God has already established.
Eh, so, I like to think about that. When the kings of Israel or Judah listened to the prophets and there was a perfect combination between the administrative vision and the theological vision, the kingdom prospered. Ahab, for example, was a good king from an administrative point of view.
The kingdom of Israel prospered under Ahab's rule, but he was in complete disharmony with biblical revelation. And the prophet was brought in, Elijah, to confront him. And the prophet's word prevailed, because God is not seduced by prosperity, by administrative excellence, when that is divorced and separated from the "thus says the Lord," right?
So, we need to listen to the prophets. Well, of course , today "prophet" is in quotes, but it's like this: we need to hear the word of God because it will sometimes bring us back on track, right? And it is also interesting, Pastor Vinícius, to observe that when we talk about change, when we talk about the restoration of truth, when we analyze the analysis made here of these critical periods of the history of God's people with the kings, apostasy, idolatry, we look at the Old Testament and it seems that the voice of the Holy Spirit is there, but it seems it's not very strong in the hearts of the people so that they could, you know, become more converted, right?
Then you look and ask: "So, at what moment do the people turn back to God? And there is a distinct characteristic in the Old Testament. It is when the people restore >> their worship in the temple.
>> Uh-huh. In other words, when they eliminate the gods that are binding them to idolatry, paganism, and corrupt practices, isn't it? restoring worship in the temple, offering sacrifices that pointed to the coming Messiah, understanding that it meant the blood of a lamb that would come and would be forgiving their sins.
This applies to the kings, it applies to the population as a whole at that time. So that is a point we can also highlight here, right ? Renato, you touched on a very interesting point.
The key question that permeates practically the entire Bible is:" Who is worthy of worship, right? Either it is the true Creator and Redeemer God, or we will fall into false, well, false worship, because the human being is by excellence a worshipping being. >> Either I worship the true God, or I will worship other things, or else myself or my intellect.
>> Exactly. We are going to take a brief break. Don't go away and don't be surprised by the mandatory political campaign ads.
You who are following us on TV Novo Tempo, right? You will see here and there some electoral program. It is part of this requirement that Novo Tempo has as a TV station, but our content here is the word of God.
Don't go away, Lições da Bíblia will be right back. We are back now for the final segment of today's Lições da Bíblia program. And a word of gratitude to you, isn't it?
Who follows the Lições da Bíblia program and you who are an Angel of Hope, who keeps this program on the air. Your offerings are destined here to Novo Tempo and they are used exclusively to preach the word of God. I can guarantee that to you.
You who are not yet part of the Hope family, here is an opportunity for you to also participate in this work, this mission so important of bringing the word of God to people through Novo Tempo. Send a message right now to the WhatsApp appearing on your screen and join this mission as well. Well, here we are going to talk a little bit about the ministry of prophets in the female branch.
The Bible also speaks of prophetesses, Pastor Alberto. >> Yes, it's an interesting side. Someone might ask, but listen, were prophets only men?
No, we find examples in the Bible, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, of female prophetesses. It is interesting to consider that within the priesthood, which really began back in the early days, because in the patriarchal period the priest was always the father of the family. In the father's absence, the eldest brother assumed the role of offering sacrifices.
But with Aaron, Moses' brother, the concept began, or rather, the basic function of priest within the Jewish tabernacle, later the Jerusalem temple, but it was a lin a lineage that was inherited and was male . Someone, some might say, right, but only priests, men. Yes, within the people of God, yes.
Now, outside, among the pagans, there were priestesses. >> Uh-huh. >> cultic ones as well.
But within the lineage of the people of God, the priest, remembering that he prefigured, was a type of Christ who was to come. But in the case of the of the of the prophetic function, we have allusions to men, perhaps in the majority, but women who were influential. Moses ' sister, Miriam, was a prophetess.
We have the influential prophetess Deborah also mentioned, and the prophetess Huldah. >> Uh-huh. These are the recorded ones, perhaps there were more, because we can never say there were only them or only these prophets, because there were others as well.
These are the ones mentioned in the Bible as prophets and these prophetesses too. >> And these women played a very important role in the history of God's people. Here the prophetess Huldah is mentioned here, right, with a prominent role in restoration, isn't it?
Uh, of the covenant broken at the time, already at the end of the Kingdom of Judah period, right, in which the kings were already forgetting, right? The Bible, the Old Testament, the law had even been forgotten and it had been found in the temple there in a way; that is, no one was reading it anymore, no one was turning to it anymore. The king, who was supposed to govern the kingdom based on scripture, didn't even know it existed, did he?
So this prophetess takes on this important role in this context of attempting to restore the word of God, right? >> And Deborah also held the role of judge as well, didn't she? So at the same time she was a judge, she was a prophetess.
So we have to avoid that— I think this is a good example to avoid the idea that a person could only hold one role, that they couldn't accumulate them. >> As in the case of Christ, he is simultaneously mentioned as king and priest, besides being a prophet. right?
And >> and this line is cool because we have three classic roles there in the Old Testament. We have the priests, who were a lineage from father to son. We have the kings as well, who were in that same lineage >> dynasty >> of a dynasty.
But the prophets were those whom God chose. And so God could choose several different people. We have five women nominally chosen in the Old Testament as prophetesses, and each has a different, specific function there.
Just like you mentioned there, right? The peoples there also had prophets and prophetesses, right? But there is a very clear difference between the prophetess of these other peoples and the biblical one.
Uh, in these other peoples, what has been found to this day are prophetesses who resemble the false prophets of the Bible a lot. They are always endorsing the figure of the king. The king can say anything about any war, and they will say: "It has been revealed to me that you will win the war.
" She never makes, perhaps, a—she never has a dissenting discourse. And here we cannot perhaps conjecture that maybe it would be too delicate for her to confront the king, as for example a prophet does here >> in the Old Testament. But we have the case of Huldah, which I find beautiful, because it's different from the case of these prophetesses from these other civilizations, because Huldah is here with a message and we have the high priest, the king's officials, all waiting for her word.
And when she speaks her word, now they will continue then with the reform they were doing. So she has a power to be able to speak; she is—I trust her word that it in fact comes from God, and that makes all the difference. And just one detail that might be curious: it is logical that there is often an overlap in roles and all, but, in the primary sense, usually the priest is the one who intercedes for the people before God.
Although he represents God—or in this case, Christ—he prefigures Him, but he usually speaks for the people, in the name of the people, to God; he intercedes. He is a mediator. In turn, the prophet is the one who speaks in the name of God to the people, right?
>> Very interesting. >> I would like to highlight a detail in Thursday's section concerning the prophet Jeremiah, right? Which has to do with a prophecy that God granted him with a message of judgment.
And this message of judgment implied war, famine , and pestilence. And when God grants this message to Jeremiah, the false prophets who were nearby immediately rise up and manifest themselves, as they always do, right? And in chapter 14 of Jeremiah, the Lord steps onto the scene.
It is interesting for us to observe this. God defending His own word, isn't it? Chapter 14, verse 14 says: "The Lord said to me, the prophets are prophesying lies in my name.
" I mean, the Lord said to him, He entered the scene and spoke directly to the prophet: "I did not send them, nor did I command them, nor did I speak to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, worthless, the deceit of their own minds. " And when you analyze the role of the prophet Jeremiah here in relation to the false prophets, you really see how much work he did before the people during that period. Remember that Jeremiah was in Israel and where was the people?
In captivity in Babylon. He was there prophesying and he wrote messages from God, guiding the people to listen to the voice of God. If you consider the word "hear," the verb to hear in its most varied forms and verb tenses, you will see that the prophet Jeremiah is the one who repeats this word the most in any book of the Bible.
He uses this expression 189 times. It is the verb*shama*. However, when you evaluate the term*shama*in the original , what kind of hearing is this?
What kind of listening is this that God wants us to have before His word, before His revelation? In the biblical context, it means to hear with the willingness to obey. To hear with the willingness to obey.
And this is not always a common category for all of us. Even now, the same verb, right, for hear and obey. >> Exactly.
Yeah. Now, Renato, you touched on a very interesting point. How many things have been done throughout human history in the name of God?
Ah, >> some of the worst wars and barbarities were committed in the name of God. as if I'm speaking in the name of God, right? >> And and there is the issue here with Jeremiah, which I think is hard to even comprehend, right?
Because, you see, Jeremiah isn't talking about a distant reality, he's talking about what's happening with the famine, the donkey that has no straw to eat, the doe also has no food and abandons her fawn. And the prophets, actually, the false prophets, they start making, in fact, an excuse there, saying no, don't worry , none of that will happen, no, it's all fine. And then you have the king's ego at stake, right?
Because then the king prefers to hear a message like the one we saw before, right? A message that will soothe his heart. And often the false prophet's job is not to invent a lie from scratch, it's to distort the truth.
>> Uh-huh. >> And it's much more delicate. Satan, he doesn't, he doesn't ignore 100%of God's discourse, for example, in the Garden of Eden.
He, in fact, distorts God's discourse. >> And the same thing will happen in several aspects here. So they start from a premise.
No, but wait a minute. We perform sacrifices, we perform the rituals, God will not abandon us. So he creates a false correlation which is more or less the same as when, for example, Israel took the Ark of the Covenant into war thinking they would win.
If this is the presence of God and it's in the middle of the war, how could we lose? So, the false prophet's job is often not to invent a new truth, it's to distort the truth, to create a false logic to lead people to >> Now, you know there's a city in the South of Brazil in Rio Grande do Sul called Nova Brécia, where there was, I don't know if it still continues, a national, or even international, lying contest. And I saw an interview with the individual who won this contest several times, >> the father of lies.
>> And then they asked: "But listen, what is your secret to winning this contest so many times? " It's simple. The lie has to be so close to the truth that it's impossible not to believe the lie.
>> Interesting. >> So, when it's self-evident, then it's easy to spot, but that's the devil's and the false prophets' strategy. You put a little lie in the middle of the truth and the person believes it.
No, no, but that can't be, it has to be, right? And going back a little bit to the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 7 and verse 23, it reveals the love of God again through the prophetic voice. God says this: "But this is what I commanded them, saying: 'Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people.
'" And then God adds a conditional element. Walk in all the ways. We are talking here about half-truths, right?
>> We can walk only half of the way. Look, half the way I will walk according to what God expects, but this little piece here I will, I will use my own shoes, won't I? And God is saying: "Walk in all the ways, right?
That it may go well with you. " But then there is the people's response, God saying, look, they did not listen, nor pay attention, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil hearts. And here comes an interesting point that we can apply here, pastor.
The text says: "They went backward and not forward. " >> Uh-huh. This means that when we do our own will, we do not look at what God expects us to do, the paths he wants us to walk, we are walking backward and not forward.
>> And if you stop for a moment to think about what happens to a person when they walk backward, they fall. Hmm. >> They will fall at some point.
They will fall. So God challenges us to live the whole truth, to walk in all the ways, and to be faithful to the truth he places in us. >> And here something comes into play, in verse 20.
Let us acknowledge the Lord and our wickedness, the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against you . There is no other solution but to humbly acknowledge our sins. >> Yes.
If we do not acknowledge them, I once even said in a sermon that today we have non-alcoholic beer, decaffeinated coffee, and sinless sin, that doesn't solve anything. Only the acknowledgment of sin, repentance, and accepting the salvation that God has for us. >> Amen.
Let us listen to the prophetic word. God has much to reveal to us to bless us and to save us. This prophetic word is in the Bible.
If it is in the Bible, it is good for you. I will see you next week. May God bless you greatly.
A big hug and see you then.
