Prophets: Do they still exist today? 3

* Luís Alberto Alves

What is the role of the prophet? It was to listen to the Lord and to pass on to the people his Words, even those considered harsh, as Jeremiah did when he spoke of God for more than 20 years, and the Israelite people refused to listen to him, to the point of throwing him into a pit full of mud. There is the case of the prophet Hanani, 2 Chronicles 16/7, who rebuked the king of Judah, Asa, who refused to trust in God, seeking refuge with the king of Syria. In this same book of 2 Chronicles, 18 / 14-34, there is the story of another anonymous prophet, Micaiah, who prophesied the truth against King Ahab.

For many centuries, the prophets fulfilled their role: to hear the messages of God and to pass on to the people. Isaiah had the privilege, 850 years before, of announcing the birth of Jesus Christ, as it is written in the book of Isaiah, chapter 9, 1-7. Isaiah is the prophet considered to be messianic because it was much used by God in predictions that were to occur more than 1,000 after his death.

It was through him that in chapter 10, verse 1-10, that Isaiah describes how our Justice operates, where at present "the poor are deprived of their rights and the oppressed do not have full access to the Judiciary." He is so used by God that the Lord gives him notions of astronomy, as it is in chapter 40, verse 15. In this same chapter, God tells Isaiah, in verse 22, that "He sits on his throne above the dome of the earth, whose inhabitants are to him as grasshoppers ... "

The names of some prophets, with their writings transformed into books in the holy scriptures, show the care of God. Zechariah (God remembered), Malachi (My messenger), Samuel (Heard by God), Isaiah (Lord saves), Jeremiah (God exalts), Ezekiel (God is powerful), Daniel (God is my judge).

* Luís Alberto Alves is a pastor

Prophets: Do they still exist today? 2

* Luís Alberto Alves

The Hebrews came to the earth flowing with milk and honey, as God had promised. To keep the Word of God in effect, the Lord is choosing people to be His emissaries, acting as prophets. They are men of great intimacy with God, for they hear his instructions and sometimes repressions and pass them over to the people. But the rebelliousness, since more than 3 thousand years ago, already accompanied the Jews.

In Deuteronomy, chapter 31, verse 14, the Lord announces to Moses that he will soon die and asks him to call Joshua in the Tent of Meeting, as will be the case after his departure for Glory. In this conversation, God warns Joshua that the Israelite people will embrace corruption, worshiping strange gods, forgetting the Lord. Because of this, many tragedies will strike them.

It is in this style that God will come in contact with the prophets in the following centuries until the day comes when Jesus Christ will be sent into this world to make the perfect sacrifice. Something no man, since Adam, has been able to do, because of sin. Christ was the perfect lamb without any blemish. Used by God to defeat Satan forever.

In these centuries until the birth of Jesus Christ, in the year 1 of our era, no one could get in touch with God except through the prophets. There were those whose books are in the holy scriptures (Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi, Samuel, Obadiah, Joel, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Daniel, Hosea, Ezekiel, Habakkuk and Jeremiah, Joshua, Nehemiah among others) and the anonymous ones , but which served as channels with God.

* Luís Alberto Alves is a pastor

Prophets: Do they still exist today? 1

* Luís Alberto Alves

But what is the role of the prophet? Why did God choose certain people to serve as interlocutors, passing to the people his messages of blessing or correction? More than 3,000 years ago, a case of Deuteronomy, which would have been written about in the period from 1440 to 1400 BC The first prophet, according to the Jews, was Moses, but God raised up his brother Aaron to speak for him, as he relates Exodus 7/1.

We can never forget that at that time God only communicated with the people through prophets. An example of this is with Moses, when God is manifested in the tabernacle, which is the tent that kept the tables of the covenant. It is when the Lord appears in the form of a cloud, covering the whole tabernacle from dusk to dusk, with the appearance of fire.

When God appeared in the tabernacle in the form of a cloud, no Israelite was allowed to approach the place, because he risked dying from the flames that hovered over the place. Only Moses was allowed to stay there receiving instructions from the Lord. Not even Joshua, who would take his place years later, received a green light from God to enter the tabernacle.

God manifested Himself grandly at that time. The Jewish people saw when the cloud descended or ascended from the tabernacle, there were lightning and thunder, the flames of fire coming out of that place, without burning the cloths that covered the tent, where the tabernacle was.

* Luís Alberto Alves is a pastor

Prophets: Do they still exist today?

* Luís Alberto Alves

Here is a controversial subject: prophets! Many people now call themselves prophets, some even assuming to be prophets of certain cities or states in Brazil. The problem is that a lot of people do not study deeply the scriptures. In this case, the Old Testament.

At that time, a few centuries after the departure of the Hebrew people from Egypt, the Bible did not exist as it exists today, divided into chapters, verses and united in one block, the 66 books, composed of Old Testament and New Testament. Moses wrote the Pentateuch, the first five books composed of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

It is these five books that will form the Torah, considered sacred by the Jews. The other books were written centuries later, including the Apocrypha (not considered sacred by Judaism) and in the Roman Empire, when Christianity was officially officially declared, and by the year 400, Catholicism then annexed them to the Bible used by the church catholic

Many prophets did not know each other. They were used by God to write His Words, which centuries later would be annexed to the Old Testament. Example: Malachi did not live in the time of Elijah, just as Micaiah did not live in the time of Ezekiel.


* Luís Alberto Alves is a pastor

Our challenge

* Luís Alberto Alves

Our daily challenge is to renounce ourselves, rather than to be moved during a song of consecration during worship, what God expects of us, is to do as Christ did: sacrifice our desires and desires and, for the sake of Him and the who are like lost sheep, submit ourselves wholly in obedience to his good, pleasing and perfect will (Rom. 12: 2). This ranges from a willingness to wake up a little earlier to have a longer prayer time than to be sacrificed in the name of faith.

* Luís Alberto Alves is a pastor

Waiting on God

* Luís Alberto Alves

You may be expecting answers to many questions in your life. BUT WAIT IN THE LORD JESUS. In Psalm 39, verse 7: "And I, Lord, what do I hope for? You are my hope. "Do not expect things to happen, but may the Lord be your hope, because when He is your hope you have everything. But if you have everything and you do not have the Lord as the fulfillment of your hope, you have nothing.

* Luís Alberto Alves is a pastor

Sense for life

* Luís Alberto Alves

When we find God, we find the meaning of life. It is in the presence of God that there is fullness of joy and perfect love. It is at the right hand of God that there are continued victories. God is the source of living waters, the source of peace and joy. In him we have life in abundance. He is our pleasure, our heritage, the reason of our life. !!

* Luís Alberto Alves is a pastor