Prophetic Promises

Have you ever made a promise to someone? Most probably you have. Have you always kept your promises? I would guess that some didn't get followed up properly. And other people break their promises to us, of course. We're human, subject to circumstances over which we have no control and sometimes not too keen to control those which we could. We probably all break some of our promises - through inability, weakness, or our own deliberate fault. If God makes a promise, though, it is kept.

This week is the second week of Advent and we consider the prophets in the Bible. Not everything that they said or wrote was a promise, but much of Biblical prophecy is indeed God promising that something would definitely happen, or that it would occur if the people kept their side of a certain bargain. In fact, the Bible is littered with prophets and their sayings. We tend to think of the big names who wrote large books (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel) or had large parts of books devoted to them by the author (e.g. Elijah and Elisha in 1 Kings and 2 Kings, respectively). Then there are some cameo appearances by people who stick in our memory because they were particularly bold or outrageous, such as Nathan confronting King David about his adultery. If we are quite familiar with the Old Testament, then we might remember the other 12 smaller prophetic books from Hosea to Malachi (and even their order).

God speaks so clearly through the Bible partly because many of the authors directly quote his words.

But that's not really littering the pages with prophets, so who are the others? Well, some are known for other things and we might not think of them specifically as prophets. There's Moses the great leader and law writer, Samuel the king maker, David the King, John the disciple of Jesus, to name just a few. Then there are many more of those cameo appearances, for example: Iddo provided some of the source material for the first book of Chronicles regarding King Abijah of Judah; an unnamed man prophesied to the idolatrous altar on which Jeroboam I of Israel was about to offer a sacrifice, causing its dramatic destruction; Oded was sent by God to the army of Israel in the days of King Pekah to tell them to release the prisoners they had taken from Judah; Jehu prophesied against King Baasha of Israel; Agabus prophesied to Paul that he would be taken prisoner in Jerusalem.

Of course, I have mentioned only men so far, but women make several appearances on the prophetic scene as well. Miriam, the sister of Moses, is named as a prophet, as are Isaiah's wife and the national leader Deborah; Huldah was the go-to prophet in Jerusalem when Josiah was restoring the Temple; Anna was honoured with the task of announcing Jesus as the Messiah when he was taken to the Temple as a baby; the deacon-evangelist Philip had four daughters who prophesied. These nine women are specifically referred to as prophets, but others gave prophetic words on occasion: Jacob's wife Rachel, Hannah the mother of Samuel, Abigail who prophesied to King David and later became his wife, John the Baptist's mother Elizabeth, and Mary the mother of Jesus.

Advent is the lead up to Christmas, the first incarnation of Jesus, but also when we look towards his second coming. This week, I shall be posting about Isaiah, who wrote the longest prophetic book in the Old Testament, in which he foretold both the coming of Jesus as the Messiah and the end of the world. That will be followed by Jesus' disciple John, who wrote the longest book of prophecy in the New Testament, in that case just about end times. However, in this season, let's not forget the host of other people who help to bring the Bible to life by delivering the direct words of God within its pages. Also, let's not forget that Joel prophesied that all Christians will be given the Holy Spirit, which will cause both men and women to prophesy. Later Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthian church, encourages us all to eagerly desire to hear God prophetically. So now it's over to us to keep the spoken voice of God ringing in the ears of the world to complement his definitive written word in the Bible.

A life with sheep

Our last patriarch is Isaac's younger son, Jacob. Now we learn from his story (which can be found in Genesis chapter 25, verse 19 to chapter 49, verse 33) that Jacob was a smooth man. What comes to mind? Perhaps black tie and vodka martini, shaken, not stirred; maybe just a lounge suit but a touch of Boss - a man of today. The possibilities are endless. Perhaps he just had smooth skin? Ah, yes, and his brother had a lot more hair - that's it.

But Jacob was indeed a smooth operator as well. He was a man of today, even if not a licensed killer. When he and his brother were relatively young, Esau came home after a hard day in the field and asked for some of what Jacob was cooking. Smooth talking Jacob humorously asked in return for Esau's birthright as the older twin and Esau, seeing it as a joke, or perhaps too exhausted to care at that moment, agreed. Jacob, though, had been deadly serious. When it was time for Esau to be blessed as the older brother, Jacob played the part of his hairier sibling and extracted the blessing from their father. Once he had run away to his uncle, Laban, he talked him into allowing him to marry his younger daughter, while the elder was still a spinster. When Jacob ended up looking after his uncle's sheep (not the Icelandic variety pictured above), the deal was that he could keep the speckled and spotted ones, so he implemented a breeding programme to ensure that the strongest ones were indeed speckled or spotted. He was a man of the world, streetwise and untrustworthy - not perhaps a good start for becoming one of the three patriarchs of God's people.

He had partially met his match in his uncle, who tricked Jacob into marrying both of his daughters, rather than just the one he loved, and working for him for 14 years for the privilege, rather than the agreed seven. However, the sheep incident gave Jacob the last laugh and he ran away again with the large flock he had gathered, this time back home to face the music with Esau. God, though, had big plans for his life and his family. Jacob already had some idea of this, through an encounter that he had had with God in a dream, but while on the journey home he met God again and wrestled with him all night, refusing to let go of God until he agreed to bless him. In the end God did bless him, but gave him a limp as well and a new name - Israel. From that point on, Jacob was no longer the unruly young adult out for what he could get, but a responsible family man and worthy patriarch, albeit still not always very wise in the way he handled his sons.

As a result of the exploits of his second youngest son, Joseph, Jacob finally ended up living in Egypt with all 12 sons, as guest of the Pharaoh. There they stayed under royal protection and for almost 400 years the family prospered and grew into the 12 tribes of Israel. This is somewhat of a fairlytale ending for the boy who had had to run away from home and throw himself on the mercy of his unscrupulous uncle. He had started out deceitful and learned how to look after himself when others sought to outsmart him, but a meeting with God changed all that. This was an encounter which he could have walked away from at anytime, but he stayed with God until he knew that the business of the day was over. He then learned to rest in the divine blessing, reconciled with his brother and living in the best land in Egypt at the king's behest - with his sheep.

Laughter

Abraham's second son was named Isaac, which means 'he will laugh'. The laughs of disbelief from his parents when told that they would have a son in their old age had turned to joyous laughter upon his birth. Isaac's story is told in Genesis chapter 21, verse 1 to chapter 35, verse 29. The family must have been so happy while he was growing up, but the latter part of his early life became very traumatic. While still relatively young, we don't know what age, but certainly old enough to understand what was going on, his father had taken him away to sacrifice him. Only at the last moment, when he had been tied up and Abraham was holding the knife over him, did God intervene and provide a ram as an alternate sacrifice. That incident must have stayed with him all his life. He had a deeper understanding of the trauma of sacrifice than most other people and also of God's mercy in providing a substitute.

Isaac lived with his parents until he was 40 years old and then his mother, Sarah, died. After the family had finished mourning, Abraham decided that Isaac should get married and so he sent his chief servant off to the village where his brother, Nahor, lived. Abraham had given the servant a particular sign to recognize the right wife for Isaac and a young lady called Rebekah came along and said the very words that Abraham had predicted. To cut a long story short, she turned out to be a cousin of Isaac and when the servant explained the situation, Rebekah and her family agreed that she should go with the servant to marry Isaac. They fell in love, but couldn't have children because Rebekah was barren.

Now a new famine occurred and Isaac went to Gerar with his wife, where he told King Abimelech that Rebekah was his sister. Perhaps his father had told him that this was a ruse that had worked well for him in the past - which clearly wasn't quite true - or maybe it's the obvious thing to do if you visit a foreign country with a beautiful wife. Either way, eventually Abimelech found out the truth and gave Isaac and Rebekah protection in Philistia, perhaps because he had been on good terms with Abraham. Isaac became very rich there and eventually Abimelech asked them to move away, so they went back to Canaan.

After 20 years of marriage, Rebekah suddenly became pregnant and eventually gave birth to twins, Esau and Jacob. They had very different characters: Jacob was rather quiet but Esau was an outgoing hunter. Rachel preferred Jacob, but Isaac loved Esau more and this caused some conflict in the marriage. One day, when they were living at Lahai Roi and Isaac was 75, he called for Esau, to give him the blessing of the first born (since he had been born just before Jacob). However, Rachel wanted Jacob to receive the blessing, so she dressed him as Esau and presented him to Isaac, who couldn't see very well any more. Isaac unwittingly gave Jacob the blessing, but a bit later Esau came into the room. Isaac realized that he had been tricked and became angry; Esau, though, was livid, so Jacob had to run away, facilitated by Rebekah.

We don't know much more about Isaac, except that Esau married a couple of Canaanite women, who drove Isaac and Rebekah dotty and so he eventually then married a relative as well, a daughter of Abraham's son by Hagar, Ishmael, to appease his parents. Overall, Isaac's life story may not appear to be very inspiring, with a repeat of Abraham's deception at Gerar, a breakdown of trust in his marriage, a son, Esau, who married unsuitable wives, causing trouble, and his other son having to run away from home. However, God used him passively in various powerful ways. His enduring the aborted sacrifice provides us with one of the strongest messages about our redemption through Jesus acting as a substitute lamb for us on the cross. Equally, by blessing Jacob rather than Esau, he was taking part in God's plan to raise up a people for Himself through Jacob. In one of these prophetic acts the main player was his father and in the other his wife. Even with regard to his wedding, it was a prophetic word by his father rather than himself that identified Rebekah as the wife chosen for him by God.

Sometimes it is important that we hear God clearly and act on that. Sometimes, though, God uses our lives in ways where we don't feel in control, but it is important that we then are receptive to what He is doing. At times, as with Isaac, the events themselves might be quite shocking and even make us angry, but we need then to recognize that God has been at work and accept that He knows best. Where Abraham was an example of a man with a rather ordinary ability to make a mess of things being blessed by God, because he mustered up faith in the midst of not really knowing what was going on, Isaac demonstrates the importance of allowing God to use us as passive instruments for Him, even if sometimes that is against our (seeming) best judgement or will at the time.