Isaiah 1:10

Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom

The true prophet deals with the needs of the present

It is a very miserable thing for a preacher when he lives wholly either in the past or in the future, and so allows either the one or the other to divert him from the duty he owes to God in the present.

What is more pitiful, more unlike the idea of a true prophet, than to find one whose work is to preach to men of the twentieth century occupying his time in discoursing of the sins of the Jews centuries before Christ, or even of those sinners of Jerusalem who crucified the Lord, unless his first care be to warn them lest they fall after the same example of unbelief? And Isaiah would have done a very poor service to the Jews at that time if, instead of holding out to them light for their present guidance and wisdom to direct them in the emergencies of the terrible crisis through which they were passing, he had simply been forever inviting them to contemplate the glories of a future into which they would never enter. He was there to tell men what God’s will was in relation to themselves, to deal with their own difficulties, to answer the problems by which their hearts were agitated, to cheer them under the reverses by which they were disheartened, to rebuke them for the evil which was separating them from God, and warn them of the judgment which God would bring upon them; but, at the same time, to assure them of His infinite pity and compassion. (J. G. Rogers, B. A.)

Plain speaking

This is plain speaking; but God never sends velvet-tongued men as His messengers. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Corrupt rulers

The fish stinks first at the head. (Turkish proverb.)