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What is a Prophet
The word Prophet usually conjours up an image of an old man with a long white beard, dressed in a long smock and carrying a staff. This is not surprising when one considers that almost all the prophets known by most people lived in ancient times.
What if a prophet was to be raised up in modern times? Would he be so dressed? Of course not! He would wear the contempary clothing of the times.
Just what is a prophet? According to scripture, a prophet is a person raised up by God for a particular purpose. God speaks to his children (us) through His prophets. God said of Abraham, "I knew you before you were in your mother's womb." God had chosen Abraham for his particular calling. A prophet is a special person, their purpose being usually to warn us of the consequences of our actions, of approaching events, prophesise of things to come, and give us new information which God wishes us to be aware of.
Many people believe that God has finished speaking to us. That, at the closing of the scriptures to be found in the Bible, He would have nothing else to say to us. therefor prophets are no longer needed.Is this the case?
It is noticeable that, at the beginning of each dispensation, a prophet was raised up by God to give new informaiton He wanted us to have. The very earliest prophets lived at a time when almost everyone was pagan and had many gods. Prophets such as Enoch, Noah and Abraham were instrumental in teaching the concept of One God.
Prophets such as Isaiah, Daniel etc., prophesised about future events, some which have already taken place, and much that is happening right now or about to happen in the near future.
Usually,whenever a new teaching comes to us from our Heavenly Father, it heralds in a new dispensation. A dispensation is a period of time when God has revealed new knowledge to hi children. Knowledge which He wants us to have and which He thinks we are ready to recieve. Jesus Christ, the only begotten son in fhe flesh of the Father, amongst other things, was also a prophet. He brought to the Israelites a Higher Law than the sadducees and pharisees had. This commenced the dispensation which I personaly call the all the "Time of the Church".
In each case, the new teaching is added to the teachings which came before it.
We are now in what is usually known as the dispensation of The Latter Days.
In many ways this is the most important dispensation of all, as it is the last before Jesus Christ returns, to set up his millenial reign. Does it seem so very unlikely that God would raise up a prophet to bring us further knowledge and warn us of the iminent need to repent before it is too late?
We are told in the Bible, that in the last days there will be "a restitution of all things".
Could this mean that the structure of Christ's Church, as it was in the first century, will be restored to the earth? Could we see again prophets on the Earth? Maybe our stubborness in believing that God no longer speaks to us either through his prophets or by revelation blinds us to this concept! Perhaps there have been a prophet or prophets on Earth since the beginning of these Latter Days!
Some people have the idea that a prophet is some sort of perfect being. However, except for Jesus Chirst, no person born of woman is perfect. Prophets make mistakes. Not everything a prophet says is prophesy. A prophet is only a prophet when he is prophesising. Moses, an ancient prophet, made mistakes. He sometimes did not please God. For reason of his errors, he was forbidden by God from entering Caanan, the promised land. Prophets are usually ridiculed by their contempories. They are called blasphemers and heritics. They are frequently. They often seal there testimony with their own blood, by being killed by those who think that God would not bring new doctrine into the world. The teachings of Jesus Christ are a very good example of this. He was called by the pharasees a heritic and a blasphemer. They thought they had Gods teaching in full and need no other teachings.
It often takes a great many years after the time of a prophet before people accept the teachings of a prophet of God. Do we have a modern prophet? Has there been a prophet on the earth since the beginning of the Latter Days? Has God given his children further truths for these latter days?
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Good questions... I've wondered the same myself. Were you going to answer these, or are they rhetorical, to provoke us into asking ourselves? bea
http://journals.aol.com/bgilmore725/Wanderer/ -
02/03/08 03:09