Throughout this series if the solitary word prophet is used it is meant to include both the male prophet and the female prophetess whose roles as mouthpieces for God are interchangeable.

Let us continue to examine Jeremiah as an example of the prophets. God had to transform Jeremiah as a person because God had to use Jeremiah with a defiant person. In essence, God had to transform Jeremiah into the opposite of who he had been. The same is true more times than not for modern day prophets.

Jeremiah 17:14,17 (AV)(KJV) – Jeremiah Prays for Deliverance

14 Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.

16 As for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before thee.

Because prophets are gentle and compassionate by birth, traits found in their temperament, the idea of the task they are called to as prophets is often difficult for them to accept and at first somewhat distasteful to them. This explains the need for the transforming work of God in their lives.

The role of the prophet to some of his or her contemporaries is indefinite at times. People often confuse the godly indignation they feel, which is born out their sympathy with God’s Divine wrath, with the prophet having a personal axe to grind with them. This happens because the indignation they feel becomes so much a part of them through that Divine sympathy that it is hard for them and others to distinguish the difference between the prophet’s personal feelings and the feelings coming through their sympathy and understanding of God and how God feels toward His creation at times. The prophet is not giving vent to personal hostility; most of the time the indignation he or she feels is not something they control the presence of in any manner it is independent of their being yet, it is also something they must not lose control of when they are dealing with people.

Please read that last sentence a couple of times in order to absorb what I am expressing through that statement because the statement is of vital importance to understanding a prophet or being a prophet.

There is little doubt that the prophets feel the extreme of emotions. They can go from agony and pit to tremendous joy. They might also be enveloped in Divine wrath or ache with compassion for people. Prophets will go from words of accusation and admonition to pleading with God on the people’s behalf for mercy. However, get in the way of God’s prophetic Word and the prophet will call for retribution from God. God’s Word is always first priority for the prophet or prophetess.

These extremes in emotions can be misleading to people because it makes the prophet appear to lack consistency, which can be misunderstood as a lack of integrity. This makes people wonder if there is a moral problem. However, one must understand that a prophets inner life is not solely their own. His or her emotional state reflects Divine relationship to the Body of Christ, God’s people, and the world. Both the compassion and anger they feel does not always originate with them. It is often more than the prophet feels he or she can bear as well.

Jeremiah was accused of taking delight in the harsh words of negative future events if the people refused to turn from their sin or they refuse to begin to act; yet, he took no such delight in the Words he had to speak. A man who loved his people and served his people was now considered an enemy to them because he spoke Words they refused to hear or accept. Such is true in this period in history with the current prophets. This leaves the current prophets feeling much the same as Jeremiah felt, they must accept the anguish of having to bring the Words and the aching soul, which comes from the defamation.

The prophets and prophetesses of today are similar to Jeremiah in that they are continuously exposed to the situation of God. They are assiduously attentive to the mood of the people offering with boldness the challenge, warning or call needed to untangle the knots in the relationship between God and man.

I wish to remind the readers that these are not simply my own beliefs this series is a collection of agreed upon beliefs by many respected servants of God, highly versed in this topic.

Spiritual/Political Disclaimer:

This blog will not be for the faint of heart or the easily offended. It will not be in any way politically correct. It will make every effort to share the truth in love, [Ephesians 4:11-16], to a decaying and dying society and church. I share what I share not to hurt, harm, or offend any person[s] or group; I do it because Christ’s Standard and Truth is not being represented by enough of His Followers and I do it out of love. I love enough to tell His Truth.

Ephesians 4:11-16 NKJV

¹¹And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹²for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.