The
Preacher As A False Prophet
By the Rev. James Stalker, D.D.
To: The Rev. Alexander Whyte, D.D.
UPON anyone who is studying the
physiognomy of the age of the prophets there is one disagreeable feature which
obtrudes itself so constantly that even in the briefest sketch it is
impossible to pass it by. This is the activity of the false prophets (1).
It culminated in the lifetime of Jeremiah, whose whole career might almost be
described as a conflict with them. Again and again he and they came to open
war; and on at least one occasion the whole body combined to take away his
life. Ezekiel was scarcely less afflicted by them. They were perhaps not so
prominent an element in the life of Isaiah, but he also refers to them
frequently; and, indeed, their sinister figures haunt the pages of all the
prophets.
It is a kind of humiliation to speak of them at all, and I would gladly pass
them by; but the figure of the true prophet will rise before our eyes more
clearly by the contrast of the false: and it is perhaps a duty to look also at
the degradations to which our office is liable. The higher the honour
attaching to the ministerial profession, when it is worthily filled, the
deeper is the abuse of which it is capable in comparison with other callings;
and its functions are so sacred that the man who discharges them must either
be a man of God or a hypocrite. Yet there are plenty of motives of an inferior
kind which may take the place of right ministerial aims. Though it is painful
to speak of such things, yet here again the method which we have adopted in
these lectures, of following the guidance of Scripture, may be leading us
better than we could have chosen ourselves; and it may be wholesome to have to
look at an aspect of our subject which of our own accord we would avoid.
There are two things in Scripture which I have never been able to think of
without strong movements of fear and self-distrust.
One of them is that, when the Son of God came to this earth, He was persecuted
and slain by the religious classes. His deadly opponents were the Scribes and
Pharisees. But who were the Scribes and Pharisees? The Scribes occupied almost
exactly the position in the community which is held among us by the literary,
the scholastic and the clerical classes; and the Pharisees were simply what we
should now call the leading religious laymen. Had they been adherents of a
false religion, there would have been nothing surprising in their resistance
to the final revelation of the true God. But the religion which they professed
was the true religion; the Scribes were the expounders of the Word of God, and
the Pharisees occupied the foremost places in the house of God.
Yet, when the Son of Jehovah, whose name they were called by, appeared amongst
them, they rejected Him and took away His life. Many a time, as I have
followed Jesus step by step through His lifelong conflict with their ill will
and contradiction, the question has pressed itself painfully upon my mind: If
He were to come to the earth now and intervene in our affairs, how would the
religious classes receive Him? and on which side would I be myself? If to any
this question may seem fantastic, let them change it into this other, which
cannot appear idle, though it means exactly the same thing: What is the
attitude of the religious classes to the manifestations of the spirit of Jesus
in the life of to-day? do they welcome them and back them up? or have the new
ideas and movements in which Christ is marching onward to the conquest of the
world to reckon on opposition, even from those who call themselves most loudly
by His name?
The other circumstance which has often affected my mind in the same way is
that which comes before us to-day - that the true prophets of the Old
Testament had to face the opposition, not of heathens, and not of the openly
irreligious among their own countrymen only, but of those who had the name of
God in their mouths and were publicly recognized as His oracles. To us these
are now false prophets, because time has found them out and the Word of God
has branded them with the title they deserve; but in their own day they were
regarded as true prophets; and doubtless many of them never dreamed that they
were not entitled to the name.
They must have been a numerous and powerful body. Jeremiah mentions them again
and again along with the king, the princes and the priests, as if they formed
a fourth estate in the realm; and Zephaniah mentions them in the same way
along with the princes, the judges, and the priests. They evidently formed a
separate and conspicuous class in the community. They cannot have been equally
bad in every generation; and there may have been many degrees of deviation
among them from the character of the true prophet; but as a body they were
false, and the true servants of God had to reckon them among the
anti-religious forces which they had to overcome.
This is an appalling fact - that the public representatives of religion should
ever have been the worst enemies of religion; but it cannot be denied that
even in Christendom, and that not once or twice, the same condition of things
has existed.
At the same time these men did not suppose that this was the position they
held; but history has judged them. It is not easy for a man to admit the
thought into his own mind that in him his office is being dishonored and its
aim frustrated; and it is far more difficult to do so if he has the support of
the prevailing sentiment and is going forward triumphantly as a member of the
majority. But there is enough in the history of our order to warn us to watch
over ourselves with a jealous mind, lest we too, while clad in the garb of a
sacred profession and in the authority of an ecclesiastical position, should
be found fighting against God. It will not do to think that, merely because we
sit in Moses' seat and have the Word of God in our mouths, therefore we must
be right. Nor must we be too confident because we are in the majority. If we
have faith in our views, it is quite right, indeed, that we should try to make
them prevail; and there is a legitimate joy in seeing a good cause carrying
with it the sympathies and suffrages of men. But we are all too easily
persuaded that our cause is good simply because it can win votes. In
ecclesiastical affairs there is often as feverish a counting of heads as in
party politics. The majority have the same confidence that the case is finally
decided in their favour; and there is the same exaltation over the defeated
party, as if their being in the minority were a clear proof that they were
also in the wrong. But this is no criterion, and time may sternly reverse the
victory of the moment. Even in the Church the side of the false prophets may
be the growing and the winning side, while Jeremiah is left in a minority of
one.
The false prophets were strong, not only in their own numbers, but in their
popularity with the people. This told heavily against the true prophets; for
the people could not believe that the one man, who was standing alone, was
right, and that his opponents, who were many, were wrong. The seats and the
trappings of office always affect the multitude, who are slow to come to the
conclusion that the teachers under whom they find themselves in providence can
be misleading them. This is, to a certain extent, an honourable sentiment; but
it throws upon public teachers a weighty responsibility. If they are going
wrong, they will generally get the majority of the people to follow them. So
completely may this be the case, that by degrees the popular taste is vitiated
and will not endure any other teaching than that to which it has been
accustomed, though it be false. There is no sadder verse in all prophecy than
the complaint of Jeremiah, “The prophets prophesy falsely, and My people love
to have it so.” Like prophet, like people; the public mind may be so
habituated to what is false, and satisfied with it, that it has no taste or
even tolerance for the true (2). Jeremiah could not gain a
hearing for his stern and weighty message from ears accustomed to the light
and frivolous views of the false prophets; and to Baruch, his young coadjutor
and amanuensis, who was starting on the prophetic career with the high hopes
of youth, he had to deliver the chilling message, “Seekest thou great things
for thyself? seek them not.” The path to popularity and eminence was not open
to anyone who did not speak according to the prevailing fashion.
The false prophets won and kept their popularity by pandering to the opinions
and prejudices of the people. The times of Jeremiah were big with coming
calamities, and he had to predict that these calamities were sure to come; for
there were no signs of deep or genuine repentance, and, indeed, the time for
repentance was past. The self-flattering, ease-loving people hated to hear
these disagreeable facts. Their frivolous minds were engrossed with the gossip
and excitement of the passing day, and it was too great an exertion to give
their attention to the majestic views of the Divine justice and the
far-reaching sweep of the Divine providence to which Jeremiah tried to direct
their attention. They wished to enjoy the present and to believe that all
would come right somehow. The false prophets flattered these wishes.
They said that the calamities which Jeremiah was foretelling would not come to
pass, or that at least they would be much less formidable than he represented.
They were, as Jeremiah says, like an unconscientious physician, who is afraid
to probe the wound to the bottom, though the life of the patient depends on
it. Ezekiel accuses them of making nightcaps to draw over the eyes and ears of
their countrymen, lest they should see and hear the truth, and of muffling
with a glove the naked hand of God with which the sins of the people should
have been smitten. The constant refrain of their prophecies was, “Peace,
peace,” though the storm-clouds of retribution were ready to burst. The people
said to them, “Prophesy to us smooth things;” and the false prophets provided
the supply according to the demand.
We cannot flatter ourselves that this is a danger which belongs entirely to
the past. There will always be a demand for smooth things, and an appropriate
reward for him who is willing to supply them in the name of God. Popularity is
a thing which will always be coveted; and under certain conditions it is a
thing to be thankful for. If it means that the truth is prevailing and that
men are yielding their minds to its sway, it is a precious gift of heaven. It
is a good thing to see many coming out to hear the Word of God, and to both
preacher and hearers there is a great deal of exhilaration and inspiration in
a full church. But popularity may be purchased at too dear a rate. It may be
bought by the suppression of the truth and the letting down of the demands for
a religion which does not agitate the mind too much or interfere with the
pursuits of a worldly life.
I have seen a very trenchant article from an American pen on the power of the
moneyed members of a church to dictate the tone of the pulpit; and it is a
common accusation against ministers, that they flatter the prevailing classes
in their congregations. If their congregations are wealthy, they are afraid,
it is said, to speak up for the poor, even when justice is calling out on
their side; and, if their congregations are poor, they take the side of the
working-man, right or wrong. I should question whether temptations so gross as
these are much felt. Far more dangerous are the subtler temptations - to
truckle to the spirit of the age, to keep at all hazards on the side of the
cultivated and clever, and to shun those truths the utterance of which might
expose the teacher to the charge of being antiquated and bigoted. Let a
preacher dwell always on the sunny side of the truth and conceal the shadows,
let him enlarge continually on what is simple and human in Christianity and
pass lightly over what is mysterious and Divine: let him, for example, dwell
on the human side of Christ but say nothing of His atonement, let him extol
the better elements of human nature but say nothing of its depravity, let him
preach frequently on the glories of the next world but never mention its
terrors: and very probably he may be popular and see his church crowded; but
he will be a false prophet (3).
Who were these false prophets, and how did there come to be such numbers of
them? These are questions which an attentive reader of the Bible cannot help
asking; but it is not by any means easy to answer them.
The prophets whose names have come down to us are not by any means numerous;
but, besides them, there must have been many other true prophets. There were
times when the spirit of religion was breathing through the community, and
then men were not wanting who felt called to be its organs. The spirit of
inspiration might fall on any one at any time; no prescribed training was
necessary to make a man a prophet. It might come, as it did to Amos, on the
husbandman in his fields or the shepherd among his flock. It might alight on
the young noble amidst the opening pleasures of life, as it did on Isaiah and
Zephaniah; or it might come, as it did on Jeremiah and Ezekiel, on the young
priest preparing for his sacred functions.
But some of the more noted prophets endeavoured in a more systematic way to
diffuse the spirit which rested upon themselves, and thus to multiply the
number of the prophets. They founded schools in which promising young men were
gathered and plied with the means of education available in that age,
cultivating music, reading the writings of the older prophets, and coming
under the influence of the holy man who was at their head. These were the
Schools of the Prophets, and their students were the Sons of the Prophets.
Samuel seems to have been the first founder of these schools. They were
flourishing in the times of Elijah and Elisha, and they probably continued to
exist with varying fortunes in subsequent centuries. Perhaps all who went
through these schools claimed, or could claim, the prophetic name. Those who
took up the profession wore the hairy mantle and leathern girdle made familiar
to us by the figure of John the Baptist; and they probably subsisted on the
gifts of those who benefited from their oracles. Their numbers may have been
very large; we hear of hundreds of prophets even during an idolatrous reign,
when they were exposed to persecution.
In times when the spirit of inspiration was abroad or when the schools enjoyed
the presence of a master spirit, it is easy to understand how valuable such
institutions may have been, and how they may have been centres from which
religious light and warmth were diffused through the whole country. But they
were liable to deterioration. If the general tone of religion in the country
declined, they partook in the general decay; an inspiring leader might be
taken away and no like-minded successor arise to fill his place; or men who
had received no real call beforehand might join the school and pass through
the curriculum without receiving it. Only they had learned the trick of speech
and got by rote the language of religion. They had no personal knowledge of
God or message obtained directly from him; but it was not difficult to put on
the prophet's mantle and talk in the traditional prophetic tones. The
fundamental charge against the false prophets is always this: “I have not sent
these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken unto them, yet they prophesy.”
If I am right in tracing the origin of false prophecy to the schools of the
prophets, this gives a suggestive hint as to the point at which the same
danger may beset ourselves. It is obviously the duty of the authorities of the
Church to make provision for the training of those who are to be the future
ministers of the Gospel; and it is natural for those who have the honour of
the Church at heart to covet for her service the talents of the gifted.
Parents, too, will often be found cherishing an intense desire that the
choicest of their sons should become ministers. These wishes of superiors have
a legitimate influence in determining the choice of our life-work. The wishes
and prayers of pious parents are especially entitled to have very great
weight. Yet there is a danger of an outward influence of this kind being
substituted for genuine personal experience and an inward call. When, a
generation ago, in the rural parts of England, the church in many a parish was
looked upon as “a living,” to be allocated to a junior member of the family,
who was educated for the position as a matter of course, the custom, whatever
happy results it might produce in exceptional cases, was not fitted to fill
the pulpits of the land with men of prophetic character. The pious wishes of
parents, however beautiful they may be, require to be made absolutely
conditional on a vocation of a higher kind; otherwise we get a manufactured
ministry, without a message, in place of men in whom the spirit of inspiration
is stirring and who speak because they believe.
Having no message of their own, what were the false prophets to do? The best
they could do was to repeat and imitate what had been said by their
predecessors. It is with this Jeremiah reproaches them when he says, “Behold,
I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal My words everyone from
his neighbour.” The older prophets used to begin their utterances with the
phrase, “the burden of the Lord;” and Jeremiah complains that this had become
an odious cant term in the mouths of his contemporaries; and in the same way
Zechariah complains that in his day the great word “comfort,” which from the
lips of Isaiah had descended like dew from heaven on the parched hearts of the
people of God, had become a dry and hackneyed phrase in the mouths of false
prophets. How dangerous this habit of stealing the words of others might
become, when practical issues were involved, may be illustrated by a striking
example. The inviolability of Jerusalem had been a principle of the older
prophets, which was quite true for their times; and Isaiah had made use of it
for rousing his fellow-citizens from despair, when the army of Sennacherib
stood before the gates. But in Jeremiah's time the change of circumstances had
made it to be no longer true; and yet the false prophets kept on repeating it;
and no doubt they seemed both to themselves and others to be occupying a
strong position when, in opposing him, they could allege that they were
standing on the same ground as Isaiah. All the time, however, they were
betraying those who listened to them.
There is a sense in which the truth of God is unchangeable; it is like Himself
- the same yesterday and to-day and forever. But there is another sense in
which it is continually changing. Like the manna, it descends fresh every
morning, and, if it is kept till to-morrow, it breeds loathsome worms. Isaiah
describes the true prophet as one who has the tongue of the learner - not of
the learned, as the Authorised Version gives it - and whose ear is opened
every morning to hear the message of the new day. What was truth for yesterday
may be falsehood for to-day; and only he is a trustworthy interpreter of God
who is sensitive to the indications of present providence.
It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that the only form which false
prophecy can take is a dried-up orthodoxy, mumbling over the shibboleths of
yesterday. If he who stands forward as a speaker for God is out of touch with
God and has really no Divine message, he may make good the lack of a true
Divine word in many ways. The easiest way is, no doubt, to fall back on some
accepted word of yesterday; but he may also strike out on the path of
originality, announcing a gospel for to-morrow, constructed by his own fancy,
which has no Divine sanction. Neither orthodoxy nor heterodoxy is a guarantee:
the only guarantee is a humble mind living in the secret of the Lord.
I have mentioned that the prophets subsisted on the contributions of those to
whom their oracles were supposed to be valuable. There is, indeed, very little
information on this head; but they are accused of prophesying for bread, and
avarice and a greedy appetite for the good things of this life are reproaches
frequently cast at them. It is not likely that prophecy can ever have been a
paying profession, but it would appear to have been at least a means of
livelihood; and there are indications that those who enjoyed an exceptional
popularity may have occupied a high social standing. Ezekiel, whose
characterizations of the false prophets are remarkably striking, uses about
them a significant figure of speech. He says that, while a true prophet was
like a wall of fire to his country, standing in the breach when danger
threatened and defending it with his life, the false prophets were like foxes
that burrow among the ruins of fallen cities. What mattered it to them that
their country was degraded, if only they had found comfortable places for
themselves?
This also is a painful side of the subject. It is inevitable that the ministry
should become a means of livelihood, and yet it is fatal to pursue it with
this in view. It is the least lucrative of the professions, and yet, in the
pressure of modern life, it may tempt men to join it merely as a profession.
Even if it has been entered upon from higher motives, the attrition of
domestic necessities may dry up the nobler motives and convert the minister
into a hireling who thinks chiefly of his wages (4). The
commercial spirit is omnipotent in our day; and men who can buy everything for
money think that ministers are procurable in the same way. Thus they tempt men
away with bribes of money from work to which God has called them. I am far
from questioning the importance of the mission of the pulpit to the wealthier
classes; and we must have men of culture to preach to the cultivated. I would
no more think of setting up the poor against the rich, as the exclusive
objects of the Church's attention, than the rich against the poor. But perhaps
the most essential work of the Church at the present time is to win and to
hold the working classes. I should like to see ministers coveting work among
them; and let him who has learned to wield such an audience, where he can
speak with the freedom and force of nature, beware of being bribed away to a
position where he will be tamed and domesticated, and have his teeth drawn and
his claws cut.
So monotonous is the evil side of the false prophets that one longs for a
gleam of something good in them. Can they not at least be pitied? May they not
have been weak men, who were elevated to a position which proved too much for
them? The times were full of change and difficulty, and it required a clear
eye to see the indications of Providence. It is not every one who has the
genius of an Isaiah or the magnificent moral courage of a Jeremiah. Was it not
possible to take a milder view of the world than Jeremiah did, and yet be a
true man? May they not at least have been mistaken, when they ventured to emit
prophecies which history falsified?
Such sentiments easily arise in us; but they are driven back by what we read
of the personal character of these men. “Both prophet and priest,” says
Jeremiah, “are profane; yea, in My house have I found their wickedness, saith
the Lord.” “I have seen,” he says in God's name, “in the prophets of Jerusalem
an horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies.” Jeremiah's view of
them might be thought to be coloured by his own melancholy temperament; but
Isaiah's is not less severe: “The priest and the prophet,” he says, “have
erred through wine, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way
through strong drink.” And he gives this terrible picture of them: “His
watchmen are blind, they are ignorant; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot
bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which
can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all
look to their own way, every one to his gain from his quarter. Come ye, say
they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and
to-morrow shall be as this day and still more abundant.” The representation in
the other prophets are to the same effect. Zephaniah passes on the whole class
the sweeping judgment, that they are light and treacherous persons. But the
lowest deep is reached in Zechariah, who forsees a time, close at hand, when
the very name of prophet will be a byword, and the father and mother of anyone
who pretends to prophesy, will thrust him through, to deliver themselves from
the reproach of having any connection with him (5).
The influence of such a travesty of the sacred office as these passages
describe must have been deplorable; and without doubt it was one of the
principal causes of the overthrow of the Jewish State. Jeremiah says
expressly, that from the prophets profaneness had gone out over the whole
land. They who, from their position and profession, ought to have been an
example to their fellow-countrymen were the very reverse. They were the
companions of the profane and licentious in their revels, and they joined with
scorners in scoffing at those who led a strict and holy life. So God charges
them by the lips of Ezekiel: “Ye have made the hearts of the righteous sad,
whom I have not made sad, and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he
should not return from his wicked way.”
This is a terrible picture. Yet there have been epochs in the history of the
Christian, and even of the Protestant Church, when its features have been
reproduced with too faithful literality. Let us be thankful that we live in a
happier time; but lets us also remember the maxim, “Let him that thinketh he
standeth take heed lest he fall.” If a Church lose the Spirit of God, there is
no depth of corruption to which it may not rapidly descend; and a degraded
Church is the most potent factor of national decay.
Allow me to say, in closing, that I believe the question, what is to be the
type and the tone of the ministry in any generation, is decided in the
theological seminaries. What the students are there, the ministers of the
country will be by-and-by. And, while the discipline of the authorities and
the exhortations and examples of professors may do something, the tone of the
college is determined by the students themselves. The state of feeling in a
theological seminary ought to be such, that any man living a life inconsistent
with his future profession should feel thoroughly uncomfortable, and have the
conviction driven in upon his conscience every day, that the ministry is no
place for him.
EXCERPTED FROM: THE PREACHER AND HIS MODELS
THE YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING, 1891
