God tried to reach the people of northern Israel around 740 BC before they fell to the Assyrian invasion in 723-721 BC. God sent them prophets with a message. But, Israel was so lost
in pseudo-philosophies and false truths they could not correctly evaluate God’s prophets and
the men inspired by the Holy Spirit. In scripture a fool was a stupid man who rebelled against
the truth of God, and so, lived a corrupt life. A “maniac” is a crazy man who has lost his mind.
Jeremiah was called a madman in Jeremiah 29:26-27:
“You should put any madman who acts like a prophet into the stocks and neck-irons. So why have you not reprimanded Jeremiah from Anathoth, who poses as a prophet among you?”
The captains of General Jehu’s military forces called the prophet that Elisha sent to anointed Jehu a
madman in 2 Kings 9:11 and the Jews said that Jesus was possessed by a demon in John 10:20.
The same thing is true and proclaimed in the New Testament in the spring of 55 AD by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament:
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing…but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles…The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” - 1 Cor. 1:18, 23; 2:14
Governor Festus called Paul mad in Acts 26:24:
“You are out of your mind, Paul! Your great learning is driving you insane.”
People who misjudge true prophets of God as fools and madmen (or, who misjudge false prophets and heretical teachers as wise men led by the Holy Spirit) have two problems according to Hosea:
1) Personal sin or iniquity
2) Great hostility or hatred toward the Truth and against the men who clearly and accurately demand that the Truth of the Word of God be manifest in the daily personal character of individuals and on the national stage of a society as a whole.
Personal sin and hatred of Truth in doctrine and application will cloud and confuse people’s
ability to rightly judge a true man of God. Likewise, the same sin and hostility to the Truth will
cause people to embrace a false prophet, a deviant teacher or a man posing as a biblical pastor.
Yet, in all this, the prophet is God's watchmen and a voice warning of coming destruction.
It is a sad and hopeless tragedy when the man warning the public of disaster is mocked
and discredited as being insane, while people flock to the selfish leaders who promote
complacency and the status quo that will surely enhance the speed and severity of the disaster. |
