The prophetic voice is a gift of God’s grace.

Questions: When you hear the word prophet, what comes to your mind? Does it usher in thoughts of ease and comfort? When you study the lives of men like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, are ease and comfort what you find with those men? Or is it more accurate to say that God’s prophets meet with resistance from forces hostile to God and God’s ways? The questions answer themselves, of course.

Text:

When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.” (Judges 6:7-10)

Teaching: In Judges 6, as in sundry other passages from Judges, God sends prophetic voices to wake the people up from spiritual slumber and apostasy. The prophetic voice is a gift of God’s grace.

Verse 7 of Judges 6 records that “the people of Israel cried out to the LORD . . .”
Why? Because they were being overrun by the Midianites. And what did God do in his grace? He sent them a prophet. The truth-telling prophet called the people back to God, to the history of God’s fidelity, to God’s providential hand, and the prophet called the people to trust. He didn’t call them to trust wicked leaders; he called them to trust God and God’s messenger.

Encouragement: May God grant hearts and minds that discern God’s truth-telling prophets. Why? Because the prophetic voice is a gift of God’s grace.