By Greg Shellborn

News Columnist

Some of the most interesting characters in the Bible are the Prophets.

The Bible contains stories about the Prophets and Books that contain the words of Prophets.

Prophets were spokesmen for God to His people. Their job was to remind people that they had committed themselves to a relationship with God in which they had promised to be faithful to follow His ways. When the people forgot to live out the things they had promised, God sent Prophets to call them back to their commitment.

They also spoke of the things God would do in the future. Their ability to speak accurately about the future gave them credibility in the eyes of the people.

Sounds like a pretty cool job, “Prophet of the living God.”

But it rarely worked out well.

The main problem with being a Prophet of God was that very few people really wanted to listen to what they had to say. At times they were hunted down and labelled trouble makers (1 Kings 18). Prophets like Ezekiel were told to do some pretty strange things in an attempt to get people’s attention, with mixed results.

After volunteering to be a Prophet, Isaiah was told that he was to keep speaking ,but that people would not listen (see Isa 6:7-10). Jesus quoted Isaiah to describe the people of His day (Matt 13:14-15). In their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled:

“You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; you will keep on seeing, but not perceive; for the heart of this people has become dull, with their ears they scarcely hear, they have closed their eyes, otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return, and I would heal them.”

God does speak. The problem is that we don’t want to listen.

Job 33:14 tells us, “Indeed God speaks once, or twice, yet no one notices it.”

How can it be that the God of the universe speaks and no one notices? Part of the answer is that God does not want to shout at us to get our attention. Another part of the answer is that we don’t listen because we are sure we don’t need to.

Jesus encountered people who would not listen to Him because they thought they already had the answers. One Prophet had the same problem. Jonah was told to go to work in Nineveh. He thought he knew better and went in the opposite direction. Jonah could hear God, he just thought he had a better idea than God’s, and so he would not listen.

Like Jonah we can argue with God, thinking He should follow our plans. We are inventing a god who thinks like us. The Bible calls that kind of god an idol, and warns us that they are worthless.

Hanging on to our own idols and ideas prevents us from hearing God.

Later, Jonah saw and understood this and wrote, “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs,” (Jonah 2:8-9).

Don’t miss God by refusing to listen.

Greg Shellborn is pastor at Maple Ridge Vineyard