Thursday, October 20, 2016
SCRIPTURE ALONE: THE PROPHETS
During the time of Israel and Judah's kings and after, there was a small remnant of individuals who sought to keep God's people focused on His Word. These were God's prophets. We have several examples of how they built their ministries on Scripture alone.
When the wicked king, Ahab, wanted to go to war against the king of Syria, he tried to pressure the prophet, Micaiah, into giving him good news of what would transpire in the battle. Micaiah responded, "As the LORD lives, what the LORD says to me, that I will speak" (1 Kings 22:14). That's the mark of a true teacher of God's Word; he will not give into pressure, but will simply speak what God commands. For Micaiah, integrity to God's Word was most important of all.
Other prophets followed in a similar manner. One of the most famous, Isaiah, spoke at great length about the importance of Scripture alone. In one prophecy, concerning the resurrection, Isaiah pointed the reader's confidence to Scripture, "He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken" (Isaiah 25:8). We, too, want our hope in the resurrection to be because "the LORD has spoken." That is the attitude of faith in Jesus.
The opposite of faith was also spoken of by the prophets. Jeremiah wrote, "The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them" (Jeremiah 8:9). Placing confidence in man's wisdom is foolishness, and it is a direct result of rejecting God's Word.
The Scriptures hold the key to more than just wisdom. As Isaiah prophesied, in God's Word we have the hope of life after death, of a resurrection like that of our Savior Jesus. Let our confidence be in Him and not in ourselves, just as it was for God's prophets.
