Who Was the Last Prophet in the Bible?

Who was the last prophet in the Bible? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, it's Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question. Here's our number.

We'll be taking your calls for the next 25 minutes or so, so now's the time to call. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites, and of course, you can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. And first up today, Adriel, here's an email from one of our regular listeners, and she says this. This sounds very harsh, yet I know it's a very real thought for many people going through difficult times.

But my heart knows God is a good, loving Father who wants me to grow in my relationship with Him and become more like Christ. It just so happens that this morning, for our family devotions, I was reading with our kids in the book of Job, in Job chapters 6 and 7. And if you're familiar with the book of Job, this is where Job is responding to one of his friends. And of course, Job had experienced immense suffering. I mean, it's just a terrible example of one horrible thing happening right after another. You read chapter 1, and Job just gets a series of bad news. People come to him, and one group of bad news, and then somebody else comes before the guy's even done speaking.

Another piece of bad news, and he's devastated. And in chapter 6, he says, And it's so bad that he, I mean, he literally just wants to die. He's suffering so immensely, he says in verse 8, In fact, in chapter 7, it's almost as if he says in verses 13 and following, God, you're picking on me. It feels like you're picking on me, like you're cruel.

And friend, that's what you're feeling right now. Just walking through a very difficult time with a loved one, with a family member, and now feeling this in yourself, this battle with lymphoma, and wondering, God, what exactly are you doing? Now, it's interesting, because when you get to the end of the book of Job, the answer that the Lord gives to Job is not like God explains to Job, well, here's exactly what I was doing in your suffering specifically. God's answer to Job at the very end of the book is very much like, Job, I am the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth.

And we know that the Lord was merciful to him. But still, it's interesting because James, in his epistle, has this comment about Job. In James 5, verse 11, he says, Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. I think in seasons like this, like the one that you're going through, we do need that steadfastness to continue to say, okay, God, I feel very much like you're against me. This is how Job felt in chapter 7, chapter 6 and 7. I feel very much like you're against me, Lord.

I'm not sure. I don't know what you're doing. But I'm going to cling to the hope of your word and the promises that you've made to me in your word. And what God has not promised us is perfect health. But He has promised us, He has promised you, His everlasting love. And He has promised to cause all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. In other words, we don't understand why God allows a certain type of suffering in our lives or a series of events.

It's just like, man, it seems like one thing after another. God, I don't understand what it is that you're trying to do to me right now. But we can say this as the people of God. I don't know what you're doing, Lord, but I do know what you've said.

And you said this in your message. I do know that the Lord is good, and yet it's hard not to feel like He's crushing me right now or He's being cruel. And this is where faith comes in. We have to say, Lord, you are able somehow in and through these circumstances to work for my good, for my sanctification.

And that is what you've promised me. And our temptation in situations like this, in seasons like this, is to look at our circumstances and to question God's love, to question God's goodness. I think what the Lord would have us to do is to look away from our suffering, as hard as it is, and to look up to Him and to the cross of His dear Son, Jesus, where He has exhibited loud and clear to us, to you, I love you. I've given my Son for you to put away your sins, to deal with your greatest need, to give you the hope of the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.

You can trust me. And we need to trust the Lord during these times. I think also of what the Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 8. And again, because especially for us when we're going through terrible suffering, you know, that's the temptation is, God, what are you doing? Why does it feel like you're being so cruel to me? It doesn't feel like you love me at all.

Why are you treating me this way? You remember what the Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 8, verses 31 and following? What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who is raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

In other words, Jesus is praying for you. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword as it is written?

For your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. And Paul says, no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. In other words, our suffering now, in this present evil age, we feel the effects of the fall and of sin, our bodies break down and deteriorate.

Our suffering here and now is not an indication of the fact that God doesn't love us. We may lose many things in this present evil age, but one thing you will not lose is the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord. And so may that love hold you and may you hold on to that love and continue to trust the Lord with steadfastness, saying, God, You are good.

You've provided for me. I don't know exactly what You're doing right now, but I'm going to trust You, and I'm going to trust that You're using this somehow to make me more like Your Son, Jesus. Of course, that doesn't mean that we don't pray for healing and for restoration and for strength of body and soul, and so let's take a moment now to do that, to go before the Lord and to pray for this friend who's reached out and is going through this trial right now. Our Father in heaven, we come before You. God, we thank You that You've opened the gates of heaven for us through Your Son, Jesus Christ, and that we can boldly approach Your throne of grace to ask for mercy and to find help in our time of need, and we pray for our friend now in this time of need, that You would be with them, that You would fill them with Your Spirit. We pray for healing, healing, Lord, physical healing even, Lord God, that You would raise them up and strengthen them, that You would give wisdom and grace to doctors, that, Lord, You would do what only You can do, Lord, in bringing healing and in bringing that peace that passes all understanding through Your Son, Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Some wonderful words of comfort there, Adriel, in a very difficult situation, so thank you for that. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, doctrine, theology, or something in your church life that maybe you're confused about or concerned about, we'd love to hear from you. Here's our phone number.

It's 833-THE-CORE. Our phone lines will be open for the next 15 minutes or so, 833-843-2673. Let's go to Miguel, who's calling in from Nebraska. Miguel, what's your question for Adriel? Hi, Pastor Adriel.

Thanks for all the good advice that you do. My question to you is, I noticed that this week is Passover, and the question that popped up in my mind is, why do we celebrate Easter on March instead of today? Hey, Miguel, great question. Well, of course, you know, different Christian traditions celebrate Pascha or Easter at different times. Of course, the Eastern Orthodox churches are going to be celebrating it at a later time than churches in the West, like the Roman Catholic Church and other Western churches. But it doesn't necessarily, when we think about the celebration of Easter, quote-unquote, right?

So a couple of things. One, there is nothing in Scripture that says that we have to pick one day out of the year and it needs to be tied to the Jewish Passover in order for us to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. In fact, every single Lord's Day is supposed to remind us of the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. That's why we worship on Sunday instead of on Saturday, the Sabbath day. We worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, because that was the day on which Jesus rose from the dead. And so historically, you know, early on in the church, Christians did begin to celebrate once a year, the Paschal event, you know, the fact that Christ has risen from the dead.

I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. We had a wonderful celebration, Easter celebration, as a church. It's a great opportunity, I think, to evangelize and to share the gospel with people who are visiting and are willing to go to church, you know, on Easter or on Christmas, as some do. But I would say we don't need to make up too big of a deal. Sadly, this is one of the things that has led to church splits in the history of the church, you know, the proper day for celebrating Easter.

And I think sometimes we just get really worked up about those kinds of things when in reality, it's not the specific day upon which we celebrate it that is so important. What's important is the fact that Christ indeed is risen from the dead, that because He's risen from the dead, we have the hope of the resurrection and the life of the world to come. Our sins have been put away. We're no longer in our sins. This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. And so, man, that's what we need to focus on when it comes to thinking about Easter. And of course, even though there's so much imagery related to Christ's death and the resurrection when we think about the Jewish Passover celebration, you know, we're not talking about the exact same thing.

Those festivals, those old covenant festivals, are no longer for us, binding for us, as the people of God under the new covenant. And so that's what I would say, Miguel. God bless you, and God fill your heart with joy as we continue to rejoice in the, quote-unquote, Easter season, as many churches are doing. God bless.

Thanks, Miguel. Appreciate your call, and appreciate you being a listener to CORE Christianity. We'd love to hear from you if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life. You know, so many of us struggle with our prayer lives. We really want to be praying on a regular basis, but sometimes we're not really sure how to do it, or we get distracted. And Adriel has written a wonderful new book on prayer, which just became available in the last couple of weeks. Yeah, the book is called Praying with Jesus, Getting to the Heart of the Lord's Prayer. And my prayer has been that this book would be an encouragement for many, and especially for those of us who do struggle to cultivate a steady habit of prayer, praying every day as the Lord calls us to.

You know, it's one of those things that for many of us we just don't make time to pray, or we feel like our prayer lives are struggling or they're weak, or we don't know how to. And so my hope with this book is that you will be encouraged to pray, equipped to pray, and that you would, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, commune with God in prayer like never before. And so I hope that you get a hold of this book that I've written, Praying with Jesus, Getting to the Heart of the Lord's Prayer. You can get that book, Praying with Jesus, for a donation of $25 or more by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Again, that's corechristianity.com forward slash offers, and look for Adriel's brand new book called Praying with Jesus. Well, we do receive voicemails here at CORE Christianity, and here's one that came in from one of our listeners named Marion. Hi, this is Marion. Thank you so much for your program. It's a wonderful blessing. I've been thinking about Philip's daughters, and I'm wondering what it meant that they prophesied, and when did prophecy end, or who was the last person that we could call a biblical prophet? Thank you. Marion, thanks for calling in.

I love this question. With regard to biblical prophecy, now, of course, there were prophets in the Old Testament. Men and women, actually, there were female prophets in the Old Testament, and they had this very specific calling or role.

They would come alongside of the people of God, in particular the kings in Israel, and call them to be faithful to God's covenant. And there is a sense, I would say, in which John the Baptist was the last of those old covenant prophets or prosecutors. Sometimes people refer to the prophets of the Old Testament as old covenant prosecutors because they would prosecute the terms of God's covenant, calling Israel to be faithful to the Lord. And Jesus makes this very interesting comment in the Gospel of Luke. In Luke 16, verse 16, he says, The law and the prophets were until John.

Since then, the good news of the kingdom of God is preached. So he talks about the law and the prophets, that is, the old covenant, we might say, being summed up all the way up until John, and then now you have the dawn of a new era with the coming of Christ and the inauguration of the new covenant. So I don't think you have prophets. We don't have prophets today like Israel had in the Old Testament because they had a specific calling.

They were called to come alongside of the nation of Israel, in particular. But in the New Testament, you do have examples of prophets. And what's interesting about this is this is rooted in a prophecy that Joel the prophet made in Joel chapter 2, where he foresaw a day when the Spirit of God was going to be poured out on the entire church, on all flesh, men and women, young and old. It's this democratization of the Holy Spirit, whereas in the Old Testament it seemed like only some people had the Spirit, you know, the priests and the prophets and the kings. You know, the average person wasn't filled with the Holy Spirit.

Well, Joel foresees a day where the whole church is filled, sealed with the Holy Spirit, and that day has come upon us. It's what was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. And as a result, you had prophets in the New Testament, even in places like you mentioned, Acts chapter 21, where Philip has these daughters who are described as prophets. And what I would say about them in particular is they were gifted by God. They had this revelatory gift. Oftentimes they were able to foretell things that would happen in the book of Acts. There are famines that are foretold and so forth.

Sometimes it was particular insight into a person's life. You see this in places like 1 Corinthians chapter 14. And so this was a gift of the Holy Spirit, a miraculous revelatory gift, that was operational in the time of the New Testament church. Of course, there's a debate about whether or not there are still prophets today walking around, if God is still ordinarily giving that gift.

And I personally don't think so. I think that those gifts were a part of the foundation or the building up of the church at this early stage, and that ordinarily God isn't giving those gifts in the same way today, those miraculous sign gifts. And so if you're asking, well, who was the last prophet?

Well, I think in one sense, John the Baptist, in the sense of those Old Covenant prosecutors. But you do see, again, examples of people who prophesied and had the gift of prophecy in the New Testament. And God can do whatever he wants. Our God is a miracle-working God. God can work in extraordinary ways today. So I'm not saying that he can't. I'm just saying, ordinarily speaking, we don't expect you go to church and there's, oh, there's Bob or Cindy, the church prophet, and they're letting us know how we should stock up for the upcoming famine, that kind of a thing.

God could if he wanted, but I think ordinarily that's not how he works. The way he ordinarily works is through his word, through faithful Bible teaching, through growing together as a community of faith with the body of Christ. And so that's where we're committed as Christians and as local churches.

That's where we should be committed. We need to regain an understanding of the importance of the Word of God and to grow in it. And so, Marian, thank you for that wonderful question, and may the Lord be with you and bless you.

Good word. Thanks for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are still open, 833-843-2673.

That's 833-THE-CORE. And if you get our voicemail, feel free to leave us your question. Let us know where you're calling from. Let's go to Melanie in Indiana. Melanie, what's your question for Adriel?

Hello. Yeah, I've been trying to read my Bible and see what he's saying to me specifically. I've come to Matthew 7, 21 to 23, and I feel that as believers we're not supposed to be scared or what have you, but that one is sort of iffy. Melanie, I love that you're reading the Scriptures and wanting to hear what God has to say to you.

Continue doing that. May the Lord bless you as you open up His Word. And this passage is one that has, I mean, I think many people have said it, but that feels kind of iffy, as you said. I like the way you put that.

But it is a sobering warning. Jesus says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

Now, there's a little bit of a play on words here. They're saying, Lord, Lord. This was kind of an ancient profession of faith. Throughout the New Testament, it talks about the importance of confessing Jesus as Lord. It was this confession that we made that the people of God have historically made. And then Jesus says, I will declare to them. And that word declare means to confess. They're confessing Jesus as Lord, but Jesus is confessing to them. I don't know you.

We don't know each other. And I think that's the key there is that people can point to things that they do, works that they do, even mighty things that they claim to be doing for Jesus, and yet not have a personal relationship with Christ. And here specifically, I think Jesus is calling out religious hypocrisy, and that's what he's doing throughout the Sermon on the Mount.

And so there is a warning for all of us. It's one thing to just say, Jesus is Lord. Oh yeah, I go to church, and I mean, I really live kind of however I want, but I say Jesus is Lord. I can kind of go through the motions of Christianity. It's one thing to do that, and it's another thing to truly trust in Christ and to have a personal relationship with Jesus. And so I don't think that this passage, certainly it shouldn't lead us to despair.

It is a warning. It does, I think, call us to say, hey, am I trusting in Christ, or do I just have that sort of lip service that I give to God where I have this confession. I'm a Christian, but it's a nominal Christianity.

I'm a Christian in name only. I don't really believe in Jesus. And there specifically, when he says, I never knew you, that word know speaks of intimacy, a personal relationship. Throughout the Bible, the word know isn't just used with regard to head knowledge. It's not like Jesus is saying, oh, I didn't know you existed. I didn't know you were a person. No, he's omniscient.

He knows all things. He's talking about that personal relationship, that love, that true and genuine faith, and for all of the things that these people had, these miraculous works that they claimed to be doing, many great wonders. Haven't we done that in your name, Jesus? Jesus can say to them, no, we actually don't know each other. And so there's a difference between being in proximity to the things of Jesus, being around the gospel, if you will, and truly believing it, and confessing Christ, not just with your lips, but believing in your heart, as Paul says in Romans 10, that God raised him from the dead. And so, brothers and sisters, there's an encouragement for us, not to strike fear into your hearts, you know, and make you despair, but to encourage you. God wants to know you. Jesus wants a personal relationship with you through faith in him, whereby you receive the forgiveness of all your sins. Receive it. Copyright © 2020, New Thinking Allowed Foundation