impotence of an alliance of small jealous nations against the great power of Babylon, and the futility of dependence upon Egyptian aid, had been shown again and again in history. However difficult the problem appeared to Zedekiah's court, it is plain now, and was plain then, on which side was the lover of truth and its upholder at whatever personal peril.

Jesus develops this idea, and has given us in a few sayings the final credentials which we may ask of any prophet, and by which we may determine the validity of any prophetic utterance. "Beware of the false prophets," He said, showing that He had this very problem in mind," which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them. . . . Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. ... Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”1

One might be unable to distinguish the grape-vine from the thorn-bush, but every man knows the difference between grapes and thorns, and the fruit determines the vine which bears it. If grapes are borne, then the plant is a grape-vine, and no miracle could prove it a thorn-bush. If the produce was thorns, then no sign, high as heaven or deep as sheol, could prove that the plant which bore it was a grape-vine. That was the principle of His answer to His troubled forerunner. He staked the Baptist's faith upon the fruit of the tree. "Go your way and tell John the things which ye do hear and see: the 1 Matt. vii. 15 ff.

blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling in Me."1

Yet this test is not devoid of difficulty. It cannot always be of immediate application; man is impatient to pull up the tares at once, and finds it hard to wait until the harvest days clearly reveal the difference between the wheat and the weeds. Оссаsionally it is important to have the knowledge at once, though more often than we realise it is the path of wisdom to allow full liberty to the suspected prophet. The fuller chance he has to bear fruit, the sooner his real character will be revealed. The world rids itself of false prophets quickly, when once their falseness is convincingly shown. The Church would have freed herself from heretical prophets more completely if, instead of putting them in jail, she had hired a hall for them.

Jesus offers another test, however, which is of immediate application. It was given for the benefit of those who were perplexed about their relations to Him. Was He a good man, as some declared, or did He deceive the people, as others alleged? Should one follow His word loyally, or join those who were already beginning to hound Him to death ?2

To those who were thus troubled, Jesus offers

1 Matt. xi. 4 ff.

2 A wiser course than the latter was indeed open, as suggested later by Gamaliel about the Apostles (Acts v. 34 ff.). But to the average Jew there were but two sides, for God or against Him, and the choice could not wait.

this help: "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from Myself."1

Here is a test of prophecy which lies wholly in the hearer. There is a quality in him, provided his heart is in the right place, which makes him a capable judge of the Divine in another. There is a truth in his own heart which answers to the truth in another's heart. To be a judge of the truth, it is a prerequisite that one be a lover of the truth.

These two tests of Jesus are the final ones. The latter we are in need of applying all the time. This would have saved Ahab from the terrible death to which he was led by heeding the false voice of his subservient seers; it would have saved Ahaz from his costly alliance with Assyria; it would have saved Zedekiah from the fatal policy which he adopted as the result of the specious counsels of Hananiah. Every one of these kings desired to do his own will, and would have had his God confirm that, even as many a Christian's version of the Lord's Prayer would properly be "my will be done on earth as God's is done in heaven."

The first test, that of the fruits, has been relentlessly applied, and has separated the Hananiahs from the Jeremiahs. As early as the making of the Greek version the fruits were known, and Hananiah and others of his ilk were called by a name which their contemporaries could scarcely give them-false prophets. Every prophet of the present must know that he must face both tests. If he is a true prophet

John vii. 17.

he will know it himself, and need have no fear of the derisive cries which may beset him; for in the end even the world will judge him by his fruits. Many a prophet has been denounced in his day as a bramble-bush who, when the test of the harvest could be applied, was shown to be the choicest vine, because he had brought forth the choicest fruit.1

1 See Isa. liii.

CHAPTER VII

THE WRITINGS OF THE PROPHETS

OR the knowledge of the prophets who pre

FOR

ceded Amos, we are limited to such information as we find incorporated in the history of Israel and Judah. The historians chose such portions of prophetic biography as were most serviceable in throwing light upon the religious history of the people. The excerpts, usually mere fragments, fail to satisfy one who would gladly know more of such men as Nathan, Gad, Iddo, Ahijah, Shemaiah, and Micaiah. The selected portions are apparently taken bodily from lives of the prophets. These lives, however, are not autobiographies; the prophets did not write their own histories. Yet there is evidence that these early seers used the pen as well as the voice.

The Chronicler names as sources of his information a long list of prophetic histories. We find the following so mentioned: the Words of Samuel the Seer, the Words of Nathan the Prophet, the Words of Gad the Seer;1 the Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, the Vision of Iddo the Seer; 2 the Words of Shemaiah the Prophet and Iddo the Seer; A Midrash of the Prophet Iddo; the Words of Jehu the son of Hanani; the Acts of Uzziah written by Isaiah the

3

2 Chron. xx. 34.

138

3 2 Chron. xii. 15.