Pray Like the Prophets

When most people think about prophets, they picture some fortune teller, predicting disaster to come. This picture is distorted.

Prophets did warn people of consequential disaster if proper decisions weren't made. They saw a bad future as a result of disobedience. The future they saw was not hundreds of thousands of years down the road (EX: 2000 and beyond); it was their immediate future.

Prophets saw tragedy coming because of disobedience to God, idolatry and social injustice, but they also saw restoration after the doom. Let me repeat this: They saw visions of their near future. Later, early Christians saw glimpses of their own times in those messages, times predicting the coming of a new day, led by Jesus.

Prophets warned, promised a better future, and stood as lawyers defending their clients.

That last part is what is least known, but possibly the most important job description of a prophet. The job responsibility of a prophet was to stand in the courts of heaven and plead for their clients who were their own neighbors and fellow countrymen. Their clients usually hated them and didn't want them to defend or to warn them. They just wanted them to go away so they could go on with their lives without interuption and negativity.

Remember Moses? He delivered his own people from slavery in Egypt, and when the people got out of Egypt, they complained against him and wanted to kill him, because the land they went through made for difficult living. When the people complained about him and decided to set up other rulers to take them back to Egypt, God got ticked off at the people and threatened to let them die in the desert and let Moses become a great nation....

But Moses did not agree with God, and he stood up to God; willing to sacrifice his own life on behalf of the people (he even went so far as to ask God to remove his name from God's book, if God did not back off from judgment). Moses stood on behalf of the people to protect them from God's wrath.

This was the picture: God's wrath was on its way like a rushing army prepared to destroy Israel. Moses and the prophets after him (and Abraham before him), stood up to protect the people from that army/God's wrath. They protected the people in several ways:

1. They took the people's side. They never cheered on God's wrath. The only exception to this rule is when God's wrath was directed toward Israel's enemies. Jonah wanted to see God's wrath poured out on Ninevah, but God showed them mercy, which disappointed Jonah.

2. Prophets fought with God in prayer for the people. Prophets reminded God of his mercy and the honor he would lose by seeing his people destroyed. They also reminded God of His promises for his people, thus challenging Him to keep the vows He made with Abraham, Moses, and David.

3. Prophets included themselves with the people they were defending. Let me explain this one. When prophets prayed for their people who may or may not have hated them, they included themselves as a part of the same people. For example, the prophet would pray, "Forgive us O Lord, for our sins... We have sinned against you..." and so on. They did not seperate themselves from their clients. Even if the prophet alone was righteous before God, he would not and dared not seperate himself from his clients.

So how does this relate to us today?

As Christians, we should not cheer on or gloat over disasters that happen to others that we don't like; such as when disease ravishes the gay community, or a flood destroys a city that we consider immoral (remember Abraham prayed like a prophet for Sodom and Gomorrah, asking God to pass over judgment), or an earthquake destoys a third world country that is steeped in Animism.

Contrariwise, we need to pray for God's compassion and forgiveness for these places. We need to beg God to help hearts to be turned to Him and to turn His heart to these people who do not hold on to our values. We need to pray for our politicians and not seek their destruction. We need to pleed before God for our nation and others that face or may face disaster after disaster.

Don't focus only on the suffering of your own people or church, open your eyes to the injustices that take place in other groups that do not share your values. Stand on the side of Muslims who are overwhelmed with war, poverty and injustice. Let your voice be heard on high for the poor and the powerless, for the tormented and abused, for the sinners and those who turn their backs on the Living God.

Jesus told us to love our enemies. The Apostle Paul said that while we were God's enemies, Jesus loved us and died for us so that we could be reconciled to Him.. how much more we should love our enemies.

Learn to pray like the prophets. Learn to love like Jesus.

"But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you (Luke 6:27-28)."