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All right. Good evening. Good evening. It's good to be here with y'all. My name is John. If you don't know me, I'm the college minister here at Emmanuel Baptist Church. I would love to meet you if I don't know you. And if you haven't seen me up here before, that's because I'm not the regular guy.

Pastor Tom asked me to teach a couple Sunday evenings. He gave some excuse about wanting to spend time with grandkids, which is, I mean, it's okay, I guess. He's never used that before. No, it's a joy of mine to be here. Well, if you have your Bibles, you can go ahead and use them.

Start out by turning to Deuteronomy. We're going to be all over the place. And if you have fast fingers, you can try and turn where we turn. But I've tried to put a lot of those scriptures on the screen, too, so you can keep track there. This evening, I'm excited to take the opportunity to work through some biblical material that, to be honest with you, I have often neglected in my own personal studies.

And this is the minor prophets. Not sure that reference point, how familiar it is for y'all, but we'll talk about what the minor prophets are. But I want to start with a broader question. What comes to your mind when you hear the word prophecy or prophets? Let's make this interactive.

Anyone have anything they want to share? Truth. Yeah. Future. Future. Yeah. Foretelling. Anything negative? Judgment. Mm-hmm. Yep. Woe, woe, woe to Israel. Yeah. Yep, I hear you there. Difficult to understand. Yes, yes, I can relate to that. Difficult to understand. You know who else can relate to that?

Martin Luther. He said of the prophets, he said, they have a queer way of talking, like people who, instead of proceeding in an orderly manner, ramble off from one thing to the next so that you cannot make head or tail of them or see what they are getting at.

Friends, that's Martin Luther talking. He was brilliant. If he can't understand them, then what hope have I? And I know that feeling. I know the discouragement of kind of wading through some of this difficult prophecy and thinking, okay, so what is going on here? It's hard for me even just to understand the words themselves, you know, much less what they mean or how I can apply them to my life or what profit they have for me, no pun intended.

And I remember like going through my Bible reading plan as a young Christian and like counting down the days that I had left when I was in the prophecy section. Be like, okay, just get me to the Gospels. Like get me to the story of Jesus. I just got to speed read past this stuff.

And it really wasn't until later in my Christian life, much later. Where I actually began to read and embrace the message of the prophets and to think a little bit more critically about: okay, so I know it's in the Bible, and that's the good Christian answer. It's there, and it's useful, and I can't just ignore part of my Bible, but what really are they saying?

And is there something for me? Walter Kaiser, who's an Old Testament scholar, he has this to say of prophetic literature in the Bible. He says, The topic of prophecy all too frequently proceeds, or excuse me, produces one of two extremes in readers and interpreters: either a wholesale avoidance and apathy toward the subject, or the creation of a hobby horse.

Both responses are inadequate and in need of the balance that is presented in the biblical text. And I find this observation by Professor Kaiser to be true. It seems like there's either a tendency in us to either just kind of ignore it or speed through it, or there's kind of a tendency to obsess in it and just like really break it apart and start introducing meanings into the text.

And Professor Kaiser calls for balance. And that's what I'm going to try and attempt with this series: to present the minor prophets in a way that has balance. And so to do that, I decided I would take the time for one Sunday evening to just lay the foundation.

You know, why should we study prophecy? What is biblical prophecy? We'll frame it in kind of three questions. This will be our roadmap. What are prophets? Let's just start there. Let's get a baseline definition. Who are the minor prophets? We can go a little specific and talk about the men, the minor prophets.

And how should we read the minor prophets? Are there any interpretive methods that would be useful for us? And also, leading into that is application. What can the prophets teach us today? So let's start with the first question. What are prophets? All right. So, pop quiz. Everyone ready?

Everyone practiced their Bible trivia before you came? Who was the first prophet in the Bible according to Jesus? I know, tricky, tricky. All right, Luke 11:50 through 51, Jesus is talking about prophets who have been persecuted, and he's talking to the Pharisees. He says, so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation from the blood of Abel to Zechariah.

Abel, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You can stash that away for your next Bible Jeopardy session. Yeah, Abel is interesting. An interesting choice. I wouldn't have chosen that because, frankly, we don't get a lot of text about Abel. Genesis chapter 4. You just get one brief little synopsis.

However, we do like. Something about the term prophet here, at least how Jesus understood it. You know, a prophet is someone who speaks the words of God, and Abel is known for his righteousness. A prophet is someone who lives a godly life. But there's also an implied meaning behind Jesus' words, and that implied meaning is that there has historically been great opposition to prophets.

These are people who have been opposed. Why are prophets opposed? Well, because they declare truth, because they declare the words of God. And where the words of God exist, there's going to be opposition. There's going to be lies that counter-attack. Because people don't like what the word of God has to say.

Well, we move on through the biblical record. Actually, the first time the word prophet is used in the Old Testament is in reference to Abraham. This occurs in Genesis 20, verse 7. And it's kind of a strange occurrence. In Genesis 20, there's this guy named Abimelech. And if you know the story, Abraham actually tells a little white lie to Abimelech.

He says that his wife Sarah is actually his sister. So Abimelech marries her, and then he has to repent. And the Lord actually appears to Abimelech in a dream. And the Lord says to Abimelech that Abraham is a prophet. And he uses that word prophet. And he says, Therefore, ask Abraham to pray for you so that I might not visit this sin upon you.

And you learn something more about the word prophet. Here. You learn that a prophet is not just someone that God speaks to, but part of being a prophet is that you speak back to God. There's a two-way street going on here. This also hints that the word prophet is an office, it's a position that someone can be in.

And in this story, that was Abraham. He was the prophet. Only Abraham could pray on behalf of Abimelech in this situation. And so we've got to carry that with us as we think about biblical prophets from here forward. Now, I heard a few of you say Moses. Now, Moses is a great example.

He's kind of known as the prophet. He's the guy we go to when we want to study biblical prophecy. And why is that? Well, we know from Deuteronomy 34:10 that Moses spoke with God face to face. And that, again, is that idea of intercessor, of someone who stands in the gap.

And for Moses' case, he was standing in the gap between God, a holy, a righteous God, and a crooked and stiff-necked generation. And that was Moses' role in the nation of Israel. You remember when Israel was at Mount Sinai, the presence of God, the literal thundering presence of God, was up on the mountain.

And they were told, don't touch the mountain. You know, don't touch it, lest you be consumed. But who was the one who went back? And forth, up and down the mountain. Well, that was Moses. And that is representative of the role of prophet, the one to go back and forth, so to intercede for the people, to plead on behalf of the people.

You can read in Exodus 32, you know, Moses doing this, even though Israel sinned. You read in Deuteronomy, you know, as Moses is kind of giving his final sermons just right there before they cross the Jordan River, he talks about this office of prophet. And here you can turn, if you're going to turn anywhere tonight, turn to Deuteronomy 18.

We'll start here in verse 16, Deuteronomy 18:16. Actually, let's go a little bit further. Deuteronomy 18:18 says, I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

So, again, God is establishing this office of prophet, and it's not limited to just Moses. There will be prophets that come after Moses that fill this role, and that role is being a spokesman for God, God's word in his mouth. Now, you may ask the question: why doesn't God just speak directly to the nation of Israel?

Through a human intercessor? And that question is actually answered in verse 16. If you go back, you know, the people of Israel are crying out, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire, lest I die. Sounds dramatic, but that's the situation that's going on here.

That people feared the voice of the Lord. It is an awesome and terrible thing to behold the presence of God. And so the prophet is God's appointed conduit for divine revelation. You know, he is the one whom God handpicks to be in the presence of God, to receive the full brunt of direct revelation, and then to be able to carry it back to God's people and declare the words of God.

You could probably tell from this description that this is a huge responsibility. And it should never, ever, ever be taken lightly. Never, ever, ever. And if you read on Deuteronomy 18, you get this impression. He says, Whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. So again, Jesus, in Indicated that prophets were opposed. People persecuted the prophets throughout biblical history.

That's true. But we see here that there are also false prophets throughout biblical history. You know, it's kind of a special title, you know, to be the guy who declares the words of God. You can imagine the temptation to want to step into that title prematurely. And that happened all throughout biblical history.

2 Peter 2:1 says that this is still happening today. False prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who brought them. So, question. How were the Israelites supposed to discern between a true prophet of God and a false prophet of God?

How would they know the difference? Any thoughts from the crowd? Same chapter, verse 22. Same chapter, verse 22. Do you have it with you? Whatever what the prophets spoke in the name of Yahweh, the thing that does not take place and does not come about, that is the thing that Yahweh has not spoken yet.

Very good. Thank you. Verse 22, a prophet is authenticated by the truth of his message. Now that's the first test. And I think a great example of this is Samuel. So we're going to move a little bit forward in our biblical timeline to Samuel. Y'all can remember his story.

You know, he was a boy serving at the tabernacle of the Lord. And he is called to be a prophet. And then we read this about Samuel's calling in 1 Samuel 3.19. The text says, And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him. And here's the key phrase, and let none of his words fall to the ground.

Now that's a Hebrew idiom for everything he said came true. It accorded with reality. And then it goes on, verse 20, all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord. A prophet is authenticated by truth. And that means two things.

One, that means that if a prophecy is contrary to God's revelation that came before it, then that prophet is false. And it's fake news. Don't listen to it. Number two, if a prophecy does not accord with reality, if a prophet says, Hey, this is about to happen and it doesn't happen, or hey, this is happening in a foreign land and it's not happening in that foreign land, then that's also a false prophet.

It doesn't accord with truth. It's also fake news. A prophet's word never falls to the ground. That's the the implication of that. But there's something else. There's another way that prophets are authenticated. And that can also be found in the life of Samuel. Moving forward to 1 Samuel chapter 12, this is right after Samuel is talking about the consequences of Israel asking for a king.

And Samuel is critical of that request because Israel wants a king just like all the other nations, and it's a sinful request. And so Samuel is talking about the consequences. And just to kind of put the cherry on top, Samuel says something that's really interesting. After he makes this speech, he says in verse 17, Is it not wheat harvest today?

I will call upon the Lord that he may send thunder and rain, and you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord in asking yourselves for a king. So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day.

And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. Now, wheat harvest, that's significant because it's not supposed to rain during wheat harvest. And here is Samuel, you know, this guy who says, all right, it's going to rain. Boom, it rains. That would be what we would call a sign.

This is a sign and a wonder. It's supernatural. It's miraculous. And everyone can see it. That is a way that God authenticates his messengers. And he does that throughout Old Testament, New Testament. Another great example is Elijah. And we see this in 1 Kings chapter 17, where Elijah.

Elijah is staying with a widow, and the widow's only son dies, and Elijah actually is instrumental in a resurrection that takes place, and the son gets up and starts walking around again. And here's what the widow says. She says, Now I know that you are a man of God, and the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.

You see, there's a link between the sign that is being performed and the truth, the authenticity of the word that is being spoken. So prophets are authenticated by truth, and they're authenticated by signs and wonders. And the point of this is that God is the one who authenticates his prophets.

They don't authenticate themselves. It's not the other way around. Jesus even appeals to this. John 10, verse 38. Jesus says, do not believe, you know, if you don't believe me, then believe the works. Believe the signs that I am doing, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.

So why is this important? Well, it's important because we have guys today who wander around calling themselves prophets. You have Muhammad, you have Joseph Smith, you have David Quresh. You know, through history, we can see this happening and playing out in real time. If somebody claims to speak for the Lord, Then we better make sure that what they are saying is true and that they have some pretty impressive miracles up their sleeve to authenticate it.

Because if that isn't happening, then we need to have skepticism. We need to know that there are false prophets around. And if what they are saying is not in accord with the truth of God's word, then we need to be wary and we need to watch out. Just to maybe re-emphasize what's going on and why this is so significant.

We read in the book of Ephesians that the word of God is built on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles. The church is built on that foundation. And this is one of the claims that's going around today: you know, new apostles, new prophets that come speaking direct revelation from God.

And what that claim tries to validate is addition to Scripture. You know, something more, something other. And I think we need to really push back on this. We really need to push back. You know, Scripture is God-breathed. What we have is what we've got. The prophetic window has closed.

We read that in Revelation. But what is that saying? What I'm not saying is that we can't today sense the will of God. God through the Holy Spirit. We can. The Holy Spirit does speak to us in many different ways. It convicts us of sin. It illuminates scripture for us.

It also is to say that we can't be drawn to a specific passage in Scripture or have a verse that the Lord is directing us to share with someone. Those are also ways that the Lord speaks to us. But I just want to be crystal clear that this isn't to be confused with prophecy.

That is not prophecy. At least, that is not the way the Bible uses the word prophecy. The office of prophet should not be thrown around lightly. Prophets are set apart by God. It's not a career path. It's not something you can train for. And not just anyone can be a prophet or do the things that a prophet can do.

Bona fide prophets in Scripture are set apart by God. And three things, actually, that we can read. They are chosen by God, handpicked. They stand before the presence of God and they declare the words of God. There are three things. Every prophet, everyone we read in the Old Testament who has the word prophet in their title has these three things, chosen by God.

I think the most clear example of that is Jeremiah, when he is called before to do the ministry of a prophet, God says to him, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you, and I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Those who stand before God, you know, we have Moses, we talked about him, Isaiah, you have the famous scene in the throne room of heaven where the seraphim are crying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. And what does Isaiah do? He says, Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips, and I am among a people who are unclean.

And so, what does God do? Well, the seraphim flies to him, takes a coal from the altar, touches his mouth, and says, Behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for. See, God provided a way for Isaiah to stand in his presence and not be consumed.

And this is the only way that Isaiah could receive revelation from God. Not just words, not just audible words, but experience the presence of God and then declare that message to the people and intercede for them in the presence of God. And the last thing all prophets have in common is they declare the words of God through the Holy Spirit.

And we covered this already. Their word is truth because it's as if they are speaking the very words of God. Thus saith the Lord. We read that phrase a lot in biblical prophecy. 1 Peter 2:21 confirms this. You know, no one prophesied. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but man spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

I know that is a lengthy definition of prophecy, but I think it's good to trace this through the Bible. You make sure we're arriving at a good definition. And so let's kind of move on to the next question: who are the minor prophets? Who are the minor prophets?

Is it just the guys who couldn't make the major league, so they were just kind of put on the bench for a little bit? No. Here's another pop quiz for your Bible trivia: How many minor prophets were there? I think I heard it. Twelve. The answer is 12.

Whoop, howdy gigum, 12. That's right. Here they are: a list of minor prophets in the Old Testament. You can see them, be familiar with their names. Allow me to summarize them for you. Hosea pictures faithful love to man below from God above. In Joel, locusts strip the land, and then comes judgment from God's hand.

The plumb line shows in Amos' book the grim results when God forsook. The prophet Obadiah cried for God to deal with Edom's pride. In Jonah's book, a fish is sent to help the prophet preach repent. In Micah's book, Messiah's birth brings hope and justice on the earth. In Nahum's book, a stronghold's found that keeps the saint both safe and sound.

Habakkuk's prayer brings this reply, the just shall live by faith on high. In Zephaniah, lukewarm love results in judgment from above. The half-built temple spells disgrace, till Haggai thunders build with haste. In Zechariah's nightly dreams, God gives us messianic themes. In Malachi, the nation's sin prevents God's truth from coming in.

And so, with eager hearts, let's delve into these minor prophets' twelve. And that's the series. Good night, folks. I'm kidding. No, that's a little poem that I did not make up. It was presented to me by my seminary professor, and we both worked very hard to find a source and could not find it.

But it is a catchy way to remember what the prophets are teaching and to see from a 30,000-foot view what the minor prophets are all about. In it, you see variety. You see different messages. And this makes sense because the minor prophets didn't all prophesy at the same time.

They each have a different historical context from which they come. And they prophesy over several years. And it's important as we study the minor prophets that we are familiar with this historical context. And the great news for us is that we have it. We have at least the majority of them in Scripture.

We can go back. And we can read, okay, this prophet served under this king, so we can go to Kings and Chronicles, read what's happening in Israel and Judah, in the nations all around, and kind of pinpoint, okay, so this is what this prophet is saying. And that's very important for us as we study the minor prophets.

So let me return to the question: why are they called minor prophets? Is it because Zachariah was a wee little man? No. They are not minor in the sense of insignificant or less important. It has nothing to do with the content of the messages. Remember, all prophets are at the same level.

It has everything to do with scrolls. Think about it. A scroll is a piece of parchment that's rolled up. It has a certain length to it. And scrolls were expensive. And some prophets wrote a lot more words than other prophets. Isaiah is 66 chapters long. That can only fit on one scroll, and there's no leftover room.

And so as scripture was handed down, you have different scrolls. You have the scroll of Isaiah, you have the scroll of Ezekiel, but then you get to the minor prophets who didn't write as much. And then, because scrolls were so expensive, the Masoretes would put multiple writings on one scroll.

And thus we have a book in the Hebrew Bible called The Twelve. And the book The Twelve in our English Bible, that's the minor prophets. That's all these books of the Bible that we see up here. So that's just a brief history of the minor prophets. It's not that Isaiah was like the chief prophet and they all worked for Isaiah.

You know, these are men who prophesied at different times in biblical history. They're contemporaries with the kings and the people that we read in the biblical narrative. And it's good to study them. It's really good to study them. The point is there's nothing insignificant about them. They are chosen by God.

They stand before God. They declare the words of God, those three markers of a bona fide prophet. Let's talk about their message. Now, as we've seen, the message varies, which is expected, because different authors, different time periods, different audiences. Some were to Israel. Others were sent to Judah.

They also have very different styles of prophecy. You'll see that. For example, Habakkuk, it's more of a back-and-forth dialogue. Jonah is almost completely narrative. Hosea and Amos have object lessons that they do that are associated with the content of their message. But I think what's remarkable is not how different the minor prophets are.

I think what's remarkable is how consistent they are. Especially if we take the focus off of the spokesman and turn the focus on the God that the spokesman is speaking for. And here you see the themes of the minor prophets are one and the same. And a better question to ask other than who is the one who is the one who is the Who is the minor prophets?

Who are the minor prophets? Is who is God? You know, who is this Yahweh that they're speaking for? And here you see three themes. Oh, not that. Here you see three themes that the minor prophets bring to the forefront. God is sovereign, God is holy, and God is love.

I'll start with the first one. God is sovereign. This is to say that nothing in history happens except in accordance with God's will. Nations rise, nations fall, the Assyrians come in, and they conquer Israel. The Babylonians come in, and they conquer Judah. All of this is according to God's plan.

And prophets show us this over and over and over again. Second thing is the holiness of God. In the words of Rich Mullins, when he rolls up his sleeves, he ain't just putting on the writs. Our God is an awesome God. And frankly, I think this is why a lot of people sometimes neglect prophetic literature.

Because the holiness of God on full display has certain implications for the reader. It doesn't matter if it is Israel or Edom or Babylon. We get a lot of judgment in the prophets. About that. But behind that woe and behind that judgment stands a holy God that does not tolerate sin.

And friends, that is our God. That is the God we worship today. It's not the Old Testament version of that God. And to see him for who he is crystal clearly, we need to embrace the judgment that comes with Scripture, the judgment that comes with forsaking God's law and God's ways.

God's holiness is behind much, if not all, of the prophecies that we read in the minor prophets. And just consider this for a moment. R.C. Sproll in his book, Holiness, he makes the point, and I agree with him. He says, you know, God's holiness is how we know that we don't have a God of our own making.

God's holiness, if we were to make up a God, you know, sure, he would be good, he would be benevolent, he would be loving, but we wouldn't want a holy God. Why? Because that has certain implications for us. Because a holy God requires justice, and we fall short of that standard.

The last thing is, God is love. And you might think, hmm, does this conflict? Is there a contradiction here? Love is not incompatible with justice. And to prove it, this is why God sends prophets. If God was just a God of wrath and judgment, why would He send a messenger?

Why would He send a spokesman to preach repentance? No, it's an act of love that God has a human conduit for His message, that these words are written down for our instruction. You see this most vividly in the book of Jonah, right? The prophet Jonah preaches repent. In Nineveh, what do they do?

They repent, and God relents of the disaster that he had planned. God is love, God forestalls His just vengeance because He loves His people and He is faithful to His covenants. So that's the 12. This is where we are going for the next few Sundays that I will be up here.

Let me put it that way: this is our roadmap. For the next 12 Sunday evenings that I'm up here, we'll look at a different prophet. We'll examine a few things. The man himself, the prophet, will examine his audience and God's message to that audience, to the people of Israel.

And then, in that, we will examine God's message for us. And yes, I do believe that there is a message for us in the prophets. 2 Timothy 3:16, all scripture is breathed out by God, and it is profitable, it is useful for our teaching and rebuke, correction, training, and righteousness.

So, it's good to study these things, and I hope that we. Will be edified and challenged by the minor prophets. Let me end just by asking the question: now, how should we read the prophets? The minor prophets in particular. And let me maybe introduce this with a question for y'all.

How do we normally read the minor prophets? Like, what are some tendencies you've seen maybe in your own Bible studies or in group settings? Kind of how do we feel about reading through prophecy? I already mentioned that I think a tendency of my heart is to just kind of speed read through it.

Just kind of, okay, I got to get to the end, got to get to when Jesus comes, that's the good stuff, and all this is just in the way. So I know there's that tendency. I think there's even a part of my mind that's like, okay, I know it's good, but it's just so difficult, and I'm tired.

I don't really want to wrestle with the text right now. And so there's just kind of, I kind of tolerate the prophets. And I think there's another tendency to cherry-pick, to say, like, okay, I like this verse, but I don't like this verse. You know, I like Jeremiah 29, 11.

Everyone likes that verse, you know, but I don't like the part where Jeremiah is talking about Babylonians coming and conquering everyone. Yeah, don't want any of that. So, how should we read the prophets? Are there any tips or Tricks or just good things to remember as we're going through the prophets.

I think there are. And I have three kind of points here to walk through real quickly. One is to embrace the tension. Fully recognize that the prophets are difficult, they're hard to read, there's a lot of judgment, there's a lot of woe, there's a lot of strange images that are within the prophetic teachings.

And so there's kind of two levels to this. One is just we're not used to the Hebrew language. And the prophets were experts in the Hebrew language, and they weave word pictures in and out, and it's so incredibly cool and nuanced. And you feel sometimes like you have to be a scholar in Hebrew, you know, just to ingest the meaning.

And trust me, I know this. I'm taking Hebrew right now. It's a complicated language. And there's references to locations and cities and names of people. I think there's four different words for the nation of Assyria that are used interchangeably. And so there's just kind of the learning curve that's hard to get past.

And I encourage you to try. Try your best. And something that I do, it's just a practical tip, is take a few different colored pencils in your Bible and have one for places, one for people, and then just go through and mark them so that your eye is drawn to, okay, so here's a place.

Now I can go to a Bible atlas or I can look it up online and see, okay, where is this place? And that just helps me kind of walk. Through the history as I'm going through the prophets. So that's one way to embrace the tension. Another way to embrace the tension is kind of back to this point about the holiness of God.

You know, it is hard, and it's hard for a lot of people outside of the church to wrestle with the fact of a God of judgment. And we do need to wrestle with that fact. We need to include that in our idea of who God is. That's how God reveals Himself.

And so we can't just check it at the door. And so, as we as a church study the minor prophets, let's really examine this and embrace this. But let's remember that we would rather worship a God that doesn't fit neatly into our categories because that shows us that God is real.

He's not who we expect him to be. So that's one way to embrace that tension. Another way is just to actually read the text. You know, so many times we kind of shorthand and say, okay, God's a God of judgment, and then we use that to not go deep into the text.

And my encouragement is read it again. You know, check that predisposition at the door and read the text again. And I know, I can guarantee, because this has happened to me, that you will see the love of God, the compassion for his people all over the prophets. All over.

Habakkuk is just a recent example in my Bible say, I am loving the book of Habakkuk. I want to name it. My next baby Habakkuk. I love it so much. But I probably won't. Habakkuk 3, 12 through 13. This is an example of this. Talking about God. You marched through the earth in fury.

You threshed the nations in anger. But then he says, why? You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. And that is the message. That is the message. God is a God who loves his people, who is saving his people, even in the midst of just vengeance.

Embrace the history. What I mean by that is, how should we interpret prophecy? I think a lot of us are very quick to jump to symbolism, allegory. Okay, it's prophecy, therefore it must be confusing. Well, I want to encourage you, it doesn't have to be. How should we interpret prophecy?

I would submit grammatical, historical, just like the rest of Scripture. You might say, hmm, that's a problem because we have things like Revelation, and we know that there are symbols and images in Revelation, and we have to do a little gymnastics to figure out what everything means. And I say, okay, that's fair.

But don't let that be your default. Let your default be grammatical, historical. Remember, these guys are prophesying to a specific people at a specific time and place. And oftentimes, most of the time, the text will lead you when it is talking symbolically, allegorically. There is room for that in a grammatical historical hermeneutic.

When Isaiah says, all the trees will clap their hands, I don't think the trees are going to sprout hands and start clapping. So we know, we recognize that part of literal language includes things like hyperbole, it includes things like personification, and that's okay. But let's not jump to different meanings just because it's prophecy and therefore we can add our own symbols into the text.

The historical part of this is just recognizing that most of prophecy is not actually telling the future, even though we think that that's what prophecy means. Most of prophecy is just telling it how it is. You know, the prophet is declaring to the nation in front of them, okay, this is what you have done, and this is how God feels about it.

That would be what we call forthtelling, as opposed to foretelling. And so we read that too. You know, there's a historical root. And this for us is just an important reminder that the Bible is not about you, but it is for you. I'll say that again. The Bible is not about you, but it is for you.

Again, 2 Timothy 3.16, it is profitable for our instruction, but we are not the center of these prophetic revelations. And it's amazing when we kind of understand this, how the Bible comes alive when we treat it like actual history. It's amazing. It's not just self-help literature. And lastly, embrace the message.

And again, the message of the prophets, it teaches us three things. Who is God? It's the first thing. And God is holy, God is sovereign, God is love. But it also teaches us something else. Who is the problem? Well, we are. We are a wicked and idolatrous people, no less than the nation of Israel.

We have all transgressed. We have all fallen short of God's righteous moral standard. And the punishment for sin has not changed. The third thing, though, that the prophets teach us is who is the solution? And here, oh, we could turn to several passages of Scripture, but let me just draw out the one that Tom preached on this morning.

Paul, sitting in Rome, was talking about, you know, he is expounding upon Scripture. He's expounding upon the law and the prophets. And how does he expound upon them? Acts 28, 23, from morning till evening, he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets.

This is why. We study the prophets. One reason, a great reason, why we study the prophets is because they point us to Messiah, to the ultimate intercessor that stands in the gap so that a wicked people can commune with a holy God. That is the Messiah that we worship.

That is Jesus Christ. And because of that, the apostles in the New Testament directly quote the minor prophets 30 different times, direct quotations. And some scholars think that they implicitly refer to the minor prophets over 100 times. The New Testament is saturated with references back to the minor prophets because the minor prophets understood that they were prophesying about a coming Messiah.

Both the Messiah that came at the turn of the century, Jesus and his first coming, and when he comes again. The minor prophets, they covered that too. And so for us, talk about relevance. The people in Jesus' day didn't recognize him because they didn't understand the prophets. Who are we to think that we're any better?

Let us wrestle. Let us embrace these guys and their messages. Let us understand so that we recognize the Christ of Scripture. I mean, that's what this church is all about. It's on our wall out there. We love the Christ of Scripture. But how do we know we've got the right one?

We've got to be like Paul. We've got to go and verify that this is the Messiah that we've been waiting for, that we're hoping for. And so, with that, I hope that you are as excited as I am to begin studying the minor prophets. Please, if you have any questions or comments, come find me.

I would love to talk about it some more. But let us pray, and then you can be dismissed. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for appointing men to preach your word throughout history. And God, it is a very humbling thing, Lord, that you don't leave us high and dry when it comes to your revelation.

And so we can thank you, we can worship you, we can honor you because you are a God who is holy, holy, holy, and yet, and let you have atoned for our sins so that we can stand in your presence. So I pray, Lord, as we go forth from here, Lord, that truth would drive us on.

In Jesus' name, amen.