They would not listen
Zechariah 1:4 - A quick primer on prophets
Fresco of Zechariah painted by Michelangelo and his assistants for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican between 1508 to 1512, Public Domain via Wikimedia.
“Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.’ But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the Lord.”
Zechariah 1:4 NIV
Today’s devotional, based as usual on a random Bible verse, quickly turned into a primer on prophecy and prophets! Combined with Barb’s current series on the book of Daniel, we are all learning a lot more about how God used prophets in an effort to get His people to live a proper life before we were given the Holy Spirit.
Huddled together near the end of the Old Testament are a cluster of twelve prophetic books: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These writings (which are in separate books in the Christian Bible) and some other prophetic writings make up the Jewish Nevi’im (נְבִיאִים), which is one of three parts of the Jewish Bible or Tanakh (תַּנַ״ךְ).
The Nevi’im makes up almost a third of the Tanakh, which begs the question “Why is there so much emphasis on prophets and prophecies in the Jewish Bible?” Throughout the Old Testament, God needed a way to tell His people to shape up or face the consequences. God spoke to prophets, who then passed the message along in a variety of ways to the people, with the message always being that they needed to confess and repent or suffer some disaster for their disobedience. As mentioned before in an earlier Heaven On Wheels devotional, prophets are no longer needed in the present day as the Bible is complete and describes (although in a difficult to understand eschatological way) what will happen to mankind in the future.
How did the people know if a prophet was telling them the truth? GotQuestions.org had this to say about real and false prophets:
According to Deuteronomy 13, there are two signs of a true prophet. First, he must not direct people to follow other gods. Second, whenever the prophet says something about future events, those events must come to pass. If the prophet promotes the worship of false gods, or if his predictions fail to come to pass, then he is a false prophet.
The prophets listed in the Nevi’im had all “passed the test”, so to speak, and when Zechariah uttered the words in today’s verse, he was telling the people of Israel not to be like their ancestors, who “would not listen or pay attention to” God!
Zechariah begins the verse by telling the people “Do not be like your ancestors”. That’s a powerful warning, because just about every Jewish person knew of the many ways that their ancestors had disobeyed God time after time. By telling them not to follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, God (through Zechariah) was directing His people to break the constant Old Testament cycle of disobedience and rebellion.
Next, Zechariah brings up the fact that he is just the latest in a long line of prophets who have been used by God to tell the people to “Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.” By proclaiming that “This is what the Lord Almighty says”, the prophet reminds the people that God has ultimate control over all of creation and He demands that they repent.
But of course, the Israelites didn’t obey; they “would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the Lord.” This was to have dire consequences, including being exiled to Babylon.
This single verse is a potent reminder that we can learn from the mistakes of those who came before us, and that ignoring God’s warnings has consequences! We are fortunate that we have a patient God who continues to call His people back to Him; it’s up to each of us to decide whether or not we want to accept that invitation.
Perhaps when you’re done reading this devotional, you can take a minute or two to prayerfully examine your own life to see where you are still disobeying God, seek His forgiveness for your sins, and ask for His guidance in becoming more Christ-like.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Father, thank You for the lessons You have provided to many generations through Your Word as passed along by the prophets. Through the prophets, I can learn from the mistakes of the people of Israel, who would not faithfully study Your Word or obey Your instructions, and who fell away from Your truth. May I listen carefully to Your voice, obey Your Word, walk in and by faith, and be guided by the Holy Spirit toward emulating Your Son and my Savior, Jesus Christ. AMEN.