The hounds that bay before they bite.
The prophet speaks here as if he were announcing axiomatic truth. And it is nothing less. It might be argued from reason; it is historic fact; and it is a prominent Scripture doctrine.
I. JUDGMENT NEVER COMES WITHOUT WARNING. The Deluge, the destruction of Sodom, the plagues of Egypt, and the fall of Jerusalem, are cases in point. Sometimes judgment has taken people unawares (Matthew 24:39), but this is because the warning has been disregarded (Genesis 19:14; Genesis 6:3). When there has been no warning the judgment has been provoked, not by a course of wickedness, but by a single flagrant transgression in connection with which warning was out of the question (Exodus 32:27, Exodus 32:26; Numbers 26:10; Acts 12:23). The warning of coming judgment is:
1. A disclosure of sin. To allow men to sin unheeded, and to find it satisfactory, would be to amnesty evil doing and practically to encourage it. To erect the gallows of impending judgment, on the other hand, brings into sight the fact of sin, and emphasizes its demerit. Next to execution, the sentence of death is a revelation to the criminal of the enormity of his crime. It is a mental association of guilt with penalty, and so measuring of its moral proportions. It is also:
2. A deterrent from sin. Judgment executed without warning loses half its value. The fear of the rod is a wholesome restraint on the folly of the child; greater often than the actual blow, because it operates through a longer Period. God's moral government in its relation to sin aims at cure rather than mere punishment, at prevention rather than either. His blows fall only after his threats have failed to move (Proverbs 1:24, etc.; Jeremiah 6:10, Jeremiah 6:11). Accordingly:
3. To denounce judgment sometimes makes it unnecessary to inflict it. A notable instance was that of Nineveh. If her repentance were more common, her escape would be more common also (Matthew 12:41). God frights with the thunder of his threats, that he may not be compelled to smite with the lightning, of his judgments. He makes a display of his resistless forces that the rebels may yield without going into action. "Turn ye, turn ye: why will ye die?" that is the message of his open preparations to destroy.
II. THIS WARNING REACHES MEN THROUGH THE PROPHETS. On his way to the establishment of personal relations, God always treats with men through mediators. Covenants are made with representatives, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Christ. Justifying righteousness is negotiated typically through a priesthood, and antitypically through Jesus Christ. So saving knowledge is negotiated through the Holy Ghost, and by the instrumentality of inspired men.
1. This was the only feasible way. Not every man is fit to receive a revelation direct from God. To do so implies mental and moral conditions that are realized in but a small percentage of men. His revelation must reach many through a third party in any case. If the worse qualified must be spoken to through the better qualified, it is only carrying out the principle to speak to both through the best qualified of all, i.e. the prophet selected by God himself. The Scripture is God's revelation, and adequate to man's need (2 Timothy 3:15-17). The attempt to substitute for it an "inner light" or any other device, is to substitute our own nonentity for God's reality.
2. It tends to call faith into action. God wants his Word believed. And he wants it believed in a certain way and on certain grounds. To believe what we see is not the faith he wants (John 20:29), nor properly faith at all. "Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed." Only such believing is intelligent or voluntary, and therefore possesed of moral qualities. If God revealed his will directly to each individual, bearing it in resistlessly on his consciousness, the moral discipline involved in faith would be lost to men.
3. It secures a record of God's message for universal use. A revelation given to men individually would be only for the individual, and for the time then being, It would neither be common property nor permanent property. And it is worth being made both. God's way is one in all ages. He is in the came mind about sin, and deals with it on the same principles always. The record of what he has done is the prophecy of what in similar circumstances he will do. The prophet wrote so much of his message as had permanent interest, and the aggregate of such inspired deliverances is the Scripture, which is "a light in a dark place until the day dawn." It is not a revelation for an individual merely. Having served its turn with one, it is no less available for others in endless succession.
III. GOD'S PROPHETS ARE FIRST OF ALL HIS SERVANTS. "His servants the prophets." The explanatory words, "his servants," widen greatly the sentiment of the clause.
1. To prophesy under Divine direction is itself an act of service. There is a wide sense in which all are God's servants who carry out any of his purposes. Thus Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar (Isaiah 45:1; Jeremiah 25:9) are styled respectively the "anointed" and the "servant" of God, because they were designated to and did a work for him. This was a purely external relation, but it was real. All the prophets, even the wicked Balaam, were God's servants in this sense. They represented his interest. They went his errand. They carried his message. They laboured to accomplish his purpose. Their exercise of the prophetic office was service.
2. Official relations have their basis in personal relations. Shepherds and sheep alike come into the fold by the Door, Jesus Christ (John 10:1-14). All come in to the effect of their own salvation first, and being in fall into rank as gatherers-in of others. First faith, and then works, is thus the spiritual order; faith establishing personal relations with Christ, and work, among other things, trying to get others to do likewise. Hence Church officers are to be chosen out of the number of Church members. The conditions of spiritual work are spiritual gifts, and the condition of spiritual gifts is to be in the spiritual connection (John 14:6; Ephesians 2:18).