14-3 The Personal Pleading Of The Prophets

Often the prophets break off from predicting coming condemnation to plead personally with their hearers to repent [this explains some of the strange shifts of pronouns in the prophets]. Take Micah. Chapter 2 is a message of judgment against Israel. And then Micah pleads: “And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob…is it not for you to know [the coming of] judgment?” (3:1). Likewise: “For this will I wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like jackals…at Beth-le-Aphrah have I rolled myself in the dust” (Mic. 1:8,10 RV). Rolling naked in the dust…this was the extent of Micah’s passion for the repentance of his audience. He comes to the point where he would fain make sacrifice for Israel, even to the point of offering his firstborn son, so strongly did he take upon himself the sins of his people. But he tells Israel that even this will be no good; they must repent themselves: “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord...shall I come before him with burnt offerings....shall I give my firstborn for my transgression?...what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly...and to humble thyself [in repentance]” (6:6-8). In all this, Micah came close to the spirit of the Father and Son. For the Father would give His firstborn for their sin.

We will appeal to men with conviction, as Isaiah’s heart cried out for Moab like a young heifer about to be slaughtered, feeling for them in what would come upon them, and desperately appealing for their repentance. Because the Moabites would cry out and their voice would be heard, “my heart shall cry out for Moab” (Is. 15:4,5,8). As the Lord Jesus is a representative Saviour, we too must feel the judgment that is to come upon others, and in that sense cry out for them as they will cry out. “Therefore shall Moab howl for Moab” (Is. 16:7)- but Isaiah, feeling for them so strongly, also howled for them; “my bowls shall sound like an harp for Moab” (16:11). And he felt the same for his own people, Israel. He repeatedly pronounces “woe” upon them (Is. 3:9; 5:8,11,18,20,21,22; 8:11), and yet in that very context he can exclaim: “Woe is me” in chapter 6; he identified with them to the point of also feeling unworthy and under woe [in this clearly typifying the Lord’s identity with us]. In Is. 22:1 we read: “What aileth thee now, that thou art wholly gone up to the housetops?”; and I suggest this is Israel’s question to Isaiah, as he went up on the flat roof to weep. And thus he replies in Is. 22:4: “Therefore said I, Look away from me, I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people”.

This level of love inspired Jeremiah to adopt the same attitude (Jer. 48:20,31-34); he too howled for those whose howling in condemnation he prophesied (Jer. 48:31 s.w.). As Moab cried out like a three year old heifer (Jer. 48:34), so did Isaiah for them (Is. 15:5). All this was done by Isaiah and Jeremiah, knowing that Moab hated Israel (Is. 25:10) and were evidently worthy of God’s condemnation. But all the same they loved them, in the spirit of Noah witnessing to the mocking world around him. Our knowledge of this world’s future means that as we walk the streets and mix with men and women, our heart should cry out for them, no matter how they behave towards us, and there should be a deep seated desire for at least some of them to come to repentance and thereby avoid the judgments to come. Particularly is this true, surely, of the people and land of Israel. It ought to be impossible for us to walk its streets or meet its people without at least desiring to give them a leaflet or say at least something to try to help them see what lies ahead.

And there are many other Biblical examples of such genuine pain at the lostness of this world, and their refusal of the Gospel’s grace; not least our Lord Himself weeping over Jerusalem. Think of how He was angry [i.e. frustrated?] , “being grieved for the blindness of their hearts” (Mk. 3:5). Are we just indifferent or evenly smugly happy that men are so blind…? Or do we grieve about it to the point of angry frustration? Remember how Moses and Paul would fain have given their eternal life for the conversion of Israel, this is how they felt for them. Peter’s hunger to eat was played back to him as the hunger of God to accept and save the Gentiles (Acts 10:10). Reflect too again on Jeremiah; how he responds to the prophecy he has to utter against the hated Philistines by begging the Father to limit these judgments, presumably on account of their repentance: “O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? Put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still” (Jer. 47:6). Think too of how he almost interrupts a prophecy he is giving to Israel about judgment to come by appealing for them therefore to repent (Jer. 4:13,14). Our handling of the prophecies of judgment to come should have a like effect upon us: they should inspire us to an inevitable witness. Each of our days cannot be just ‘the same old scene’ when we see the world in this way.

Doing Something Concrete

Because people matter, their inherent worth as humans warrants our all-out and most conscious, planned effort to convert them to God in truth. But beyond all this theory, how exactly are we to bring ordinary men and women to Him? Following are some practical suggestions:

- We are the salt of the earth, and one characteristic of salt is that it creates thirst. We are mistaken if we assume that all those people out there are just waiting for us to come to them with a series of true doctrinal propositions. Virtually nobody is seriously interested- until they meet you and me. We need to create some sort of realization of need in those we mix with. Through our examples and through the way we make our initial approaches to them, we need to plug in to that basic human hunger for their creator. Plenty of other religions do just this- and we ought to be far more ‘in there’ than many of us are.

- What we believe in theory, if it is believed rather than merely known, will have an outworking in practice. Not only must the difference between us and them in terms of our basic personality be apparent to them, but we should be actively looking for opportunities to put love and concern for people into concrete action.

- Realize that we are all prone to spiritual schizophrenia. We so easily are one person in our Christian life, and quite another in the workplace or home. This shouldn’t be the case of course. It is the witness we make in the midst of ordinary life which converts people, which arrests their attention. To simply give someone your time in this busy world, to write a letter rather than an email... that itself shows your value of them, and is arresting to them. People’s lives are so busy with the struggle for existence- whether in a dirt poor village in the poorer world, or in the corporate life of the West. They live their lives stumbling from crisis to crisis. If our lives are somehow evidently not like this, then this in itself will be a powerful witness. And it will beg the question, as to what and how and why exactly we are so different. And at the appropriate moment, we can give answers. This is quite a different thing to merely imposing our beliefs upon them when they don’t know us. People lack the time and emotional energy to truly care for others. When we break that pattern, it is obvious. It will arrest attention. People have never really listened to the Gospel, because nobody ever got their attention. Both literally and in a wider sense, we only listen, once someone has gotten our attention. We can teach away, with the most beautiful websites, smartly written books and tracts… but until we get someone’s attention, they’re not going to listen. And we get their attention by the startling and radical transformation in human life which there should be in us.

- In a world where there is increasingly less leisure time for much of the population, the most startling gift you can give to anyone is your time. That you bothered to write a letter. That you found time to visit them at a hard time. When the Lord passed through Jericho, there was a huge crowd around him, trying to get a few words in with Him. But despite all those demands upon His time, He looked up into the tree and spoke with Zacchaeus, and made the time to set up a meal with him. Jesus must have had so many people trying to invite Him for a meal- for this was the high point of His ministry. But despite all that, He purposefully made the time to eat with that despised man. No wonder He converted Zacchaeus. Jesus gave him time and attention. He showed that He truly cared. Almost every human being must, like I do, lay awake at night for a time, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes. It is in those moments that the people you live and work with will be thinking about you. That you gave time to them, or to someone else. It will make an impact. Cynicism of religious people, especially preachers, runs very deep in most people. They will perhaps subconsciously be keeping a tab on whether or not you are truly consistent in your life. And if they see that you are, over an extended period, it will make an impact.

- Try to avoid the temptation to think that preaching somehow equals debate with others who are committed religious people. Do it, of course, but remember that Jesus made most of His converts amongst those who were outside the religious establishment in first century Palestine. And surely His witness is the basis for ours. We are continuing His work. Time tends to soften history. We can too easily imagine that those the Lord converted were already some sort of saints at the time He met them. But the hard hearted tax collectors, the prostitutes, the rough working men, the desperately poor…were just like those types are today. Their thinking and mannerisms would have been very similar. And yet it was from these types that the Lord made His converts. People need people, not just pieces of paper with writing on, invitations to meetings etc.

- Therefore recognize that God created you as a unique person. You were designed by God with a unique combination of personality, temperament, talents and background. Respect yourself for who you are. We must love our neighbour as we love ourselves. He has placed you in the position you are, in the circle of people you know and move among, for a purpose. There is something in you that can potentially reach out to them. The world seems to have the idea that when there is a need, a job to be done, then anyone able and willing to have a go at solving it should do so. So, a company may put a guy in a position that he can fill, but it isn’t quite him. And this is why so many don’t enjoy their daily work. It is too simplistic to think that “There’s a world of need out there, so, you, brother or sister, go out into it”. Think first of who you are, and then seek to witness in the way God intends you to. It isn’t for all of us to stand up as Peter did and make a point blank appeal to people to repent. It’s not for all of us to employ the intellectual persuasion which Paul did. Or to go round telling everyone what the Lord did in our lives, as the healed blind man did. Or to knock on doors or distribute tracts. We’re all different and are intended to make our own type of witness. So, appreciating this, why not aim to make a convert? Write down the names of say three people you mix with, and pray on your knees that the Lord will open up opportunities for you to get the word over to them. Disabuse yourself of the wrong idea that preaching is all about reaching out to unknown people. Because it isn’t. It’s essentially about witness to people you know; for you are to be the light of their world. And why not make contact with people you once knew but are out of touch with- those you studied with at school, once worked with, lived with…people in this world have very few relationships, and to be contacted out of the blue like that will be a pleasant surprise to most people. Reminisce about the old times. Try to be their friend, first and foremost, before coming on heavy with the message.  You have been put into their world exactly because you are the right person to witness to them. Paul speaks as if we each have a “province”, an area, a group of people, which the Lord intends us to witness to (2 Cor. 10:16 RV).

- Most of us mix with people at the same shops or services we visit. They know your face. Give them a leaflet [we can arrange to send you leaflets if you don’t have any]. There will then be a connection between you and the message when you see them in future. Col. 4:5 sums it up: “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make use of every opportunity”. People are not always so impressed by the story of the drug abuser or murderer who turns to Christ. Far more arresting will probably be the life of an ordinary person like you, another ordinary worker, another woman who takes their child to school each morning…which has been transformed by a personal response to the truth of God. Someone like you who escaped from mere religion and found the ultimately true relationship with God.