There was a time in Israel when no prophets spoke for God. During those long years after the Exile, prophecy seemed dead. There were no prophets and none were expected. All the people could do was to look back for comfort to the times when God had sent an Amos, an Hosea, an Ezekiel. Those were the good old days, when the word of the Lord was heard in the land. But now they were gone ... and the long wait for the messenger of the Lord had begun.

Our problem is quite different, it seems. We may be living in a time when the word of the Lord is restrained. But there is a "prophet" on every street corner. They are everywhere.

We live in a time ridden with "prophets." There is a real over-supply problem, prophet-wise: all of them claim to speak the real truth, of the real religion, on behalf o…