Understanding the Kingdom of God预览

The Kingdom of God and the Prophets

We all have a conscience. As God’s image-bearers, we have an innate sense of right and wrong. However, sin sadly fractured our conscience and distorted our ability to discern God’s righteous ways. Moreover, sin also gave us a hardness of heart, causing us to ignore, disregard, and even reject our conscience when it tells us that what we do or are about to do is wrong. That is why we need the Holy Spirit’s conviction in our lives. He becomes our “conscience.” We also often need a close Christian friend who can hold us accountable when tempted to sin. Our friend encourages us to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

As we saw in the previous session, Israel rejected the ways of God’s Law and Covenant. Their kings fell into idolatry and became corrupt, violent, and self-serving. To hold Israel accountable, God raised up prophets. While we often see the Old Testament prophets as “fortune tellers,” their main job was speaking to the nation on God’s behalf. The very Word of God was in the mouths of these prophets.

The prophets also acted as the nation’s “conscience.” God raised them to confront the people regarding their idolatry and injustice, call them to repentance, and warn them about imminent judgment if they refused to repent.

Israel’s leaders did not listen. Instead, they chose to listen to their own “state-sponsored” prophets. These false prophets only prophesied prosperity to the nation. They never confronted the people about their sins. They were only in it for their state benefits and did not care about God’s righteousness.

In the end, the true prophets’ words came true. The nation was conquered and destroyed by the Assyrians and the Babylonians. Those who remained alive were taken into Exile. God’s people were once again in slavery. This time, it was in Babylon.

But the prophets also had a message of hope. God promised He would bring a remnant back from Exile, restore the nation, and return to His people to dwell in their midst as King. The promise God made to King David was not forgotten. Someone would one day come and rule from David’s throne. This time, however, it would be a rule of righteousness, peace, and goodness. Under this future Ruler’s reign, all the nations of the earth shall come to Zion to worship the one true God. On that day, God’s glory will cover the earth like the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).

Spend a few minutes in prayer and ask God to restore your hope in His eternal promises.