If we wish to know what a prophet is, we may, first of all, take the names given to the prophets in the Bible. Then, again, we may remember who were the prophets. And then we may take their writings, the records of their deeds, the history that tells of their fortunes. What are the names given to a prophet in the Old Testament? The first and holiest is "a man of God"—"the man of God." All that that tells us is that in a peculiar sense the prophet belonged to God. The next name is "the servant of God." That tells us that he belonged to God in the sense of serving God, doing things for God. Then he is called "the ambassador, or the messenger, of God." That tells you that he served God by bringing messages from God. Then he is called an interpreter. That tells you that it was to men he took God's message, and that he had to make it understood by them. The next thing that we come to is a "seer," connected with the word "watchman," a spier or seer. It means one who saw what other men could not see, who saw into God's mind, who saw God, who saw what God was about. It tells us how he got to know his message, how he learnt it; it was by insight, seeing into the hidden, underlying purposes of God. Then the last name of all is what we translate "prophet," and it literally means a man who bubbles up and runs over, whose heart gushes out, in the sense of being poured into, that what is poured in comes out of him. It tells us that he pours out what he has learnt, to other men; and it adds this shade of meaning (the very form of the Hebrew word does so), that he is, as it were, spoken through; it does not end with himself, nor does it take its rise with himself, but it comes into him like a flood, and it overflows; he cannot help himself; he is possessed, he is pressed; he is compelled to utter what his God tells him. The names of a prophet, therefore, tell us this; this is his function; he, beyond other men, has to do with God, belongs to God; he belongs to God in being God's servant; he is God's servant in being God's messenger; he is God's messenger in bringing things to men that God wants men to know; he learns what he has to tell men by seeing it himself, by knowing it, understanding it, feeling it, and then he utters it by a resistless compulsion and impulse, the fire burning in his heart, a pressure being put on him to tell what God has taught him. Already you have got the thought of a man with a grandeur, a greatness, a significance, and a meaning immensely above what you think of when you think of a man who can tell you where an axe which has been lost is to be found, or whether a sick person will die or live, or whether a town is going to be destroyed or not. What you have is a living, breathing, warming channel of communication between the great God in heaven and the human hearts of men on earth.