This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Habakkuk” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 15, 1995.
About this sermon
Biblical prophets and pagan prophets share a vocabulary but nothing else, the ecstatic utterances of the nations bearing no real resemblance to God’s own word through Habakkuk and Jeremiah. Only the biblical prophets speak truly, not because of their technique but because of who sends them. Christ himself is the prophet every other prophet only anticipates.
Sermon transcript
We begin our scripture reading this morning in the prophecy of Jeremiah. We are beginning at chapter 1, verse 1. Let’s give our attention now to the reading of God’s holy and infallible word. The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anatoth, in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. And before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my word in thy mouth.
See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.” Then, turning over to Habakkuk chapter 1, verse 1, the burden which Habakkuk, the prophet, did see.
O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear, even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not say? Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me, and there are that rise up strife and contention. Therefore, the law is slack, and judgment doth never go forward, for the wicked doth compass about the righteous. Therefore, wrong judgment proceedeth.”
Let’s pray together. Our desire, O God, is that your word would be effectual in us to salvation. We are praying, Father, that we might attend your word with all of our energy. And as we do, O God, may we have a personal diligence, but also be of a help to those that worship with us, that their diligence also may be encouraged. May we prepare ourselves, O God. May we come with prayer. May we receive your word with faith and love. May we lay it up in our hearts. and we practice it in our lives. For the sake of Jesus Christ our Savior, Amen.
In Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 1, Habakkuk is identified as a prophet. But what is a prophet? What is a prophet? Now, we are all aware of the simple and common answer to that question. A prophet is a foreteller. A prophet is one who has the ability to tell the future, to forecast it.
And in our popular culture, there have been figures who have stood out for the popular mind in this regard. We think of the modern veneration of the invented saint Nostradamus. It was supposed to have prognosticated everything that we’ve gone through thus far, even charting the course to the end of the world, and that seemingly infallibly. There are also our modern-day crystal ball gazers, our horoscope charlatans, like Gene Dixon and Edgar Cayce and many others whose advertisements appear on television. These people, in the common parlance and vocabulary, are called prophets because of their claim to be able to forecast future events.
But as we shall see this morning, hopefully not only are none of the individuals that I have mentioned thus far prophets in the biblical sense—in fact, they are nowhere approximate to what prophets are in the biblical sense. But we will further see that the telling of the future, though related, for surely prophets are in some sense defined in terms of their eschatological connection, yet telling the future is not quite at the heart of what the prophet, the biblical prophet, is all about. Yes, the future is in view, and that in a very fundamental way. But the biblical prophet is about much more than just foretelling or prognosticating the future. This is the case even if we examine the pagan notion of what prophets are and what they do. We will find out that the forecasting of the future is not specifically at the center of the definition of the prophet, even amongst pagans. Take the prophets of Greek culture, for instance.
They were not forecasters, they were instead interpreters. That was how they were seen. They were interpreters of the dark sayings of the gods. They were very necessary for Greek religion, but they were interpreters of the dark sayings of the gods. They were looked upon as inspired spokespersons who laid before inquirers the will of the gods and the methods by which the inquirers might appease the gods.
Now, in relationship to the famous oracles, such as that at Delphi—we’ve probably all heard of the oracle at Delphi—the Greek prophets there stood before the high priestess of Apollo, who had placed herself on her tripod over a cleft in a rock that emitted trance-inducing vapors. In actual fact, the high priestess of Apollo was in a narcotic swoon, uttering what were thought to be the incomprehensible expressions of the god Apollo. See, the god Apollo didn’t actually speak. All he could do was sort of groan or make noises.
And these noises were picked up by the high priestess, and then the prophets stood by and they were to interpret the groaning of the high priestess for the sake of the inquirers who had come the world over, and yes, with money in hand, to make inquiry of the oracle. Now, the Prophet’s messages from the High Priestess invariably had to do with the most immediate questions that the inquirers might bring with them.
Questions like, well, what should we do? with our finances? What should we do with our lives and these particular matters that are of such importance to us? What course of action should we take? What course of action will have the blessing of the gods and thus prove fortuitous for us? Although these matters are related to the future, we can see that. They are of a broader concern, and even have a moral dimension to them.
Therefore, the prophet, even in Greek culture, was not a foreteller, but rather a foreteller. The prophet told forth the will of the God. He declared the will of the deity. Now there are obvious differences between the pagan prophets and the biblical prophets. There are certain formal similarities at the same time, for it seems as if in both the pagan cultures and in Hebrew culture, the prophet was a messenger. The prophet was a messenger. There are obvious differences between the pagan prophets and the biblical prophets.
The biblical prophets are not, for example, involved directly or indirectly in the use of drugs and narcotics. The biblical prophets are not given over to ecstatic wildness and frenzy. But these observations, which I think are plain on the text of scripture, have not stopped some biblical critics from suggesting that the biblical prophets had their roots in the wild, Jewish-like antics of the Canaanite and Phoenician prophets. and in the annals of the prophets of other cultures as well.
If it wasn’t the drug craziness at Delphi, then it had to be the frenzy-generated babblings of the dancing, drooling fools from the hill shrines of Poland, or the self-mutilating, knife-wielding fanatics from Sidon who showed up 400 strong at Mount Carmel to challenge Elijah and his God.
Now, supposedly, these critics, in support of themselves, turned to the figure of Saul, the first king of Israel. Remember the story of Saul, the band of prophets coming down from the hill shrine? Saul joining up with the prophet Band for a while. This ecstatic, so the biblical critics read it, this ecstatic if not irrational experience of Saul, when it was asked of him, is Saul also among the prophets, is thought to confirm the point.
The roots of Hebrew prophecy of the biblical prophets is then found in the soil of pagan prophecy. Applying this to the Elijah case, in other words, even though Elijah had moved beyond the bizarre behavior of the prophets of Baal—he didn’t lacerate himself—his advantage was merely formal. His advantage was not one of kind, but of degree. The difference between Elijah and the prophets of Baal Prophets in ancient cultures, religiously speaking then, according to these biblical critics, are all from the same school of the prophets. The prophets of Israel, they say, may have been a little more sophisticated, a bit more civilized in their practice of the prophetic arts, but they, like the mad Cydonian oracles and the Delphic sybils, manufactured, generated their prophecies from within themselves out of various stages of self-induced altered consciousness, by which they prepared themselves through their ecstatic experiences to receive the divine message.
But it is precisely at this point that these radical theories with regard to biblical prophecy fall apart, break down. The consistent witness of Scripture does not set the biblical prophet in the company of the pagan prophecy, even remotely, but over against the pagan prophecy. Pagan prophecy, as we have already intimated, is self-generated, and in many instances it demanded an elaborate scheme not only for the attracting of the gods’ attention, as on Mount Carmel, but also in communicating the words of the gods, such as at Delphi.
To be sure now, the biblical prophets, like the pagan prophets, are understood to be messengers of deity. But unlike the pagan prophets, the biblical prophets are messengers who have had the most direct discourse with God imaginable. A discourse, I might add, that is always represented in an intelligible exchange between persons. not an ecstasy-driven descent or ascent into the unintelligible. This discourse between God and his servant, the prophet, is immediately the result of the approach of God himself, who, in his sovereignty, intelligibly gives his word to his prophet, even placing it in his prophet’s mouth. The biblical prophet, then, is one in whom God’s word is found because God has put it there. The biblical prophet is the mouthpiece of God.
Now, there are two passages among many that I want to call your attention to that express this very point. I remind you of the story of the call of Moses. Moses’ call is recorded for us in Exodus 3 and 4. And you will remember how after God has issued his call to Moses, Moses begins making his excuses and pleads with God that God might send someone else to speak to the Israelites and to the Egyptians, because he, Moses, is slow of speech and of tongue.
God then tells Moses that his brother Aaron will be as a prophet to Moses, and Moses will be as God to Aaron. God plays off of an analogy. As with himself and his prophet, so now with Moses and with Aaron. Aaron’s role as Moses’ prophet, then, we are told, is to be Moses’ mouthpiece.
We find that in Exodus 4, verse 16. it is that the prophet of God is the mouthpiece of the Lord. That, rising out of this text. The second passage I have in mind is the one we read this morning from Jeremiah, chapter one, and the call of Jeremiah to his service. After Jeremiah complains about his inadequacy, sounding very much like Moses, verse six, The Lord puts an end to the matter by stretching out his hand and touching Jeremiah’s mouth. He says, then, Behold, I have put my word in your mouth.” Verse 9.
It is clear, then, the biblical prophet is God’s mouthpiece. He speaks the word of the Lord. He is inspired. Something supernatural is going on here. It is obvious, is it not? There is a special relationship between the Prophet and the Lord. He is specifically defined, then, by the function that he carries out for God and for God’s people.
But I will reiterate at this point. The exchange between God and His Prophet is always portrayed to us in the most intelligible way. And I will suggest to you that that is the case not only in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament as well. And I will be bold to suggest to you that that is what is at stake in 1 Corinthians 14, where the subject of prophecy comes up. A matter that greatly concerns the Apostle Paul as he deals with the congregation there. The prophet is always attached to intelligibility and to communication, yes, in his discourse with God, but also in his discourse with the people.
The haze and the mist is removed. of irrational mysticism is dismissed, and an ecstasy-driven kind of religion is put in its place. Biblical prophets, Old or New Testament, do not stand in the company of pagan prophets in this regard. Now that’s not to say that in dealing with the biblical prophets we are not brought face-to-face with extraordinary experience. This means, then, that the biblical prophet is not merely defined by his function as one who serves as the mouthpiece of God, but he is also defined by what has transpired in him and to him by his call, that affecting a life-altering change.
Now, it’s important to suggest here, then, that this call of the Prophet sets the Prophet apart from what he is in himself. He has become new. He has been changed, and changed radically. This means, then, that the biblical Prophet is not what he is by the intensification or the maturation of his inherently good and stellar qualities. This means also that the Prophet is not what he is because he is a candidate for the office of sage, relying on his native or acquired spiritual apprehension and intelligence. This means that the Prophet is not what he is because he has acquired some very sensitive conscience with regard to the nation, having as his chief goal the development of an impeccable sense of moral balance among the people. Was the Prophet a graduate-level theologian?
Brilliant, and a cut above the rest. who is a deep and driving passion for one grand religious idea, such as monotheism. And he most certainly is not that truly sensitive soul defined by his alert grasp of the plight of the underprivileged and even the oppressed.
The prophet has seen God. And that’s what makes the difference. The prophet has been called by God, specifically. And that is what makes the difference. In that confrontation with God, in that call, he has been personally transformed. And that, specifically, by the one he has beheld, and by what he has been privileged to see.” This means that for us to understand the call of the prophet, we’re going to have to move in two directions.
It’s not just a visitation by God from heaven to the prophet that is in view. It is a literal translation of the prophet himself into the council chambers of the Lord. It’s not just a matter of God coming down, it’s a matter of a prophet going up. The visions, then, of the prophets and the emphasis upon sight in the prophecies, the biblical prophecies, brings in view the prophets’ privileged access to the planning session of God’s council chambers. Think of it. To be taken up into heaven, as it were, to behold what is going on there. Even to listen in as God makes his plans. Then to be commissioned to take what you’ve heard and seen back to the people of God. It is a life-altering experience.
In order to confirm this, I want to call your attention to the prophet Micaiah, 1 Kings 22, verse 19. Remember that Micaiah was the unpopular prophet. amongst all the prophets in Israel during the day of Ahab. Ahab didn’t like Micaiah. But Micaiah is called to prophesy before Ahab and Jehoshaphat, and this is the way in which Micaiah introduces his prophecy.
I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing by him on his right and on his left.” What do you think is taking place there? What Micaiah was privileged to see was a planning session in heaven that God had convened between himself and his angels.
This is proved by what is said next in the text, and the Lord said, who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead? That question, together with the great question that is asked by God in Jeremiah 23, verse 18, establishes the point that we are making. In that Jeremiah text, 23 verse 18, God asks, so as to discredit the false prophets, who has stood in the counsel of the Lord that he should see and hear his word? Implying, of course, that the false prophets never have stood in the counsel of the Lord, but every true prophet has.
Think of the marvelous record of Isaiah’s call in this regard. Chapter 6 in Isaiah’s prophecy, you remember how it begins, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on his throne high and lifted up, and his glory, his whole train filled the temple. This is a vision of the council chamber of the war into which now Isaiah is brought. And out of that council chamber, Isaiah is himself commissioned to bring the message of the Lord to the people.
Nothing less than this is in view in Habakkuk’s vision as we begin it. Habakkuk’s vision is of one taken up into the council chamber of the Lord And in this case, in the opening chapter of the Bacchic, the prophet himself enters into a dispute with the Lord in his own council chamber. Now, he isn’t going to have a last word. Habakkuk enters into a dispute with the Lord about what is presently happening in Judah and what is surely to happen to Judah and Jerusalem. But you see what takes place now.
Even as the Prophet, in his calling, brought into this circumstance, there is a transformation that is effected, a transformation for Habakkuk himself. And that transformation is such that the prophet is not only God’s messenger to the people, but in his person he becomes God’s message. In that transformation that the prophet experiences, he becomes the pattern for regeneration itself. And when he brings his word to the people of God, he says, if they too are privileged to see into the council chamber of God himself, and that message is transforming, you see the purpose of God, you hear his word, and that changes the transformation of the prophet himself becomes pattern for your own transformation. Just as he is changed, you are changed by the word of the Lord.
And it’s not as if you’re standing remote from what is transpiring. The word that the prophet brings is animated, it is alive. He has the power to take you and put you right there in the council chamber yourself. It has the power to set you right before the face of God. Do you see Him when you hear the Word? That’s how you know that the Prophet’s Word is having effect in you.
You’re changed. You get up out of your seat. You go out a different person than when you came in. Is this then an exercise in nonsense, in futility? Is all of this preaching for naught? Having seen the Lord, you cannot be the same. Having heard the Lord, you cannot be the same if you love him.
The prophet in his person, then, becomes a proper pattern for appropriate response. Oh, that all God’s people were prophets. The prophet in his person becomes the pattern for appropriate response. The Book of Habakkuk, then, in its entirety, is a wonderfully compact presentation of a prophet, a changed man.
Changed by what he has seen, what he has witnessed, what he has heard. Changed by what he has now observed concerning the purpose and the intention of God. But there is one other way in which the prophet is himself the message, not just the messenger, but the message. You see, what the prophet has seen in seeing God, and in seeing glory, is his own end and destiny. He is looking at the conclusion of the matter.
He has been brought marvelously into the presence of God, and there he is witnessing the destiny that awaits him and all God’s people. For as he, the prophet, has temporarily been brought into such an environment, he now knows that he and all God’s true children shall be brought to that very point to live permanently with God forever. Nothing less than this is imprinted upon Habakkuk’s prophecy as you move through it to its great, wonderful climax in the great psalm. in chapter 3, where Habakkuk the prophet, despite his complaints with which the prophecy began, now shows himself a man willing to suffer the loss of everything if he has God.
Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exalt in the Lord.
What is a prophet? A prophet is God’s mouthpiece. God’s prophets speak for him, having been called by him not only to deliver a message, but to be a message, both in their response to the revelation that they had been given, but also by their living anticipation of their final glory and dwelling with God. But however well all this is communicated by the many prophets and their many messengers, in the pages of the Old Testament, it is only imperfectly communicated and awaits the perfect communication by that one who is the prophet indeed, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The one through whom God has finally and fully spoken, the one who in his person perfectly responds to God’s purposes and reflects and embodies our hope of glory. Indeed, he is the veritable Word of God.
Let’s pray. Father, we are impressed by the marvelous witness of your word concerning the prophet’s office. And Lord, we are overwhelmed by the supernatural character of the whole matter. And Father, we are asking that as we receive your word, we would in fact be responsive even as the prophets themselves. But Lord, as those prophets have been given to us as testimony of our eventual end and destiny, may we live in light of the hope which they communicated, namely, glorious fellowship with you in heaven. We pray our Father now that you would give us strength even as we would give our attention to your word and submit ourselves to your servants whom you sent to us for our good. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.