Luke 1:70

MODERN PROPHETS

‘As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began.’

Luke 1:70

The message of Zacharias is as true to-day as when he sang. There have been, and there are, prophets and teachers of righteousness all through the ages. God has not left Himself without witnesses; He still has prophets prophesying in the way of Christ.

I. The prophet in the home.—Parents stand, or should do, to their children in the relation of those who have studied the book of experience, some of whose pages were written in blood, some of which were written amid lamentation and tears. It is a difficult task for the most upright and conscientious of parents to decide how to interpret the ways of God. Pure habits, the proper observance of Sunday, absolute truthfulness, unflinching honour and unbroken consistency—surely such things exist, and we can trace them to the voice of father or mother now hushed and dead. If such a voice has spoken to us, let us thank God for it. If we can look back to a prophet who prepared for us the way of the Lord, let us once more thank God for it.

II. The prophet in the school.—The ‘crammer’ is one thing, the educator is quite another. Any schoolmaster can push forward a few prize men, but it requires some self-denial and much genius to develop and turn to their proper uses the unpromising and unprofitable. Let us thank God once more that we have found from among our teachers those who have had patience with us, who have trusted us, who have shown us what we might be, and the heights to which we might attain.

III. The prophet in the Church.—Pre-eminently, as we are reminded at every ordination sermon, God is always sending out into His Church fresh prophets, those whose mission and life-work it is to reprove, rebuke, and exhort, whose duty it is to warn and to watch, and, while they minister before God, to devote themselves to the wants of their fellow-men. In no way is advice more unpopular than in religion. We know to-day the contempt expressed for preaching and sermons; but there never was a time when sermons were wanted as they are now. Do not think for a moment that the duty of the prophets is to tell you how you must despise this world, that you may live in a better. Do not think that they are insurance agents, who tell you to make a provision now against possible danger hereafter. This may be a part, but it is a very insignificant part, of their duty. Their message is to bring God into your life, to help you to realise His real presence. God be praised that He has not left Himself without witnesses! God be praised for that voice He has left behind!

Rev. Canon Newbolt.

Illustration

‘It is possible that some of you who have seen an ordination may have been struck by a discrepancy between the solemn claim for the awfulness of the service and the agents on whose behalf this claim is made, and over whom the words are spoken. You say: “These men are so young, fresh from the University or training college, who but recently were at school; what do they know about the world, with its hundred appeals to the human heart? What do they know of the intricate questions of the day? of the criticisms which have assailed the Bible? We should like priests who are men of the world, men who have studied, men who can talk to us on questions of the day, men whose Bible is the open page of contemporary history. We need prophets of research who shall show us God as He is to-day—not God as He appeared to an Eastern race some hundreds of years ago.” I accept the appeal. It is true that we need men of research—men who do not speak the dead language of the past, but the living language of the present. But where is that research to be made? What are the fields to which these new workmen are directed? Is there not a danger of forgetting that there is a vast field of spiritual research? If they are young as regards questions of the day and things of the world, does it follow that they are young as regards spiritual things—things which are hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes? John the Baptist, the great forerunner of Christ, was no man of the world. He was no courtier. He was no learned man, and yet he exercised the most wonderful influence. He could answer the questions of the people and he could meet the rough words of the soldiers, and all were satisfied. Why? Because he was a man of spiritual research.’