Bible Survey Minor Prophets

We're going to conclude our last session of the day, friends, with our continued Bible survey. We're going to be in the Minor Prophets and the first five books of the Minor Prophets, beginning with the book of Hosea, the central message of Hosea. It's a love story about a broken heart.

The heart belongs to God. His heart is broken over his people, Israel, who have committed spiritual adultery with foreign gods. The northern kingdom of Israel had fallen into corrupt morality and intolerable sin to the point of impending calamity.

God says in chapter 8 and verse 1, set the trumpet to your mouth. God compares his strained people to children of harlotry, like a stubborn calf, a cake unturned or half-baked, a treacherous or deceitful bow, and a vessel in which there is no pleasure. This message of backsliding Israel, the ten-tribe nation represented by Ephraim, is played out through the prophet Hosea in the form of his own marriage to a harlot, a gomer.

This adulterous union breaks the heart of Hosea, who displays unusual patience towards his wayward wife, even buying her back from slavery. The faithful, long-suffering prophet is a picture of God, whose holy heart has been broken by an adulterous generation who have departed from him, forgotten him, ceased obeying him. Even though the book of Hosea is about judgment upon a sin and disobedient people, it's also a book about hope.

Each chapter ends with a promise of restoration from God to the backsliding people of God. And the central events are, God commands Hosea to go take a wife of harlotry. The idolatry of the people through their bail worship is symbolized through the wayfaring wife, who Hosea has to buy back from slavery.

And the apostasy of Israel breaks God's heart, yet he maintains a continuing love for her. God promises Israel she will be restored at last. That's seen in chapter 14.

The central figures, friends, are Hosea, Gomer, their children, and the people of Israel. And the central verse can be found in chapter 14 and verse 4 regarding judgment for sin. Excuse me, this is verse 8 and 7. They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

And the promise of restoration is found in chapter 14 verse 4. I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely. And the central application for us today, friends, is this.

It's found in chapter 4 and verse 7. The more they increased, the more they sinned against me. This should be a wake-up call to every believer today to not rely on self and wealth and health, but to rely only upon God. We are to maintain a vital love relationship with him.

This is done in daily communication with him through our prayer life. This way we avoid the grave accusation from him. None among them calls upon me.

We must examine what idols are standing between us and our faithful creator, who loved us so much that he sent his dear son Jesus to restore us again to full fellowship with him. Well, let's look at the next book, which is Joel. And the central message of Joel, friends, is this.

Joel depicts a picture of a land laid waste by divine judgment. The instrument of judgment comes in the form of a swarming horde of locusts, which devour all plant life encountered in their destructive path. Fields are wasted and their grain is ruined.

The plague's dricken land is under judgment for the sins of the southern kingdom, Judah. There's a call for national repentance found in chapter 1 and verse 15 for the day the Lord is at hand. Historical accounts of locust invasions are alarming and eye-opening.

The destructive locusts are compared to a marching army leaving the wasteland from their furious march. The awfulness of a locust plague was a terrifying sight, accompanied by horrifying sounds of chomping and loud buzzing. There is divine purpose behind the locust army, and that is a deep desire in the heart of God for his people to repent and return to him.

This is seen in chapter 2 and verses 12 through 13. Now, therefore, says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Surrender your hearts and not your garments.

Return to the Lord your God. The prophet Joel has a dual purpose in prophecy. Number one, announcing present judgment, and number two, announcing future blessings which will come at the end times.

God will sit in future judgment on all nations. This is seen in chapter 3 and verse 12, and there is the Pentecostal promise seen in the book of Acts where God's spirit is poured out, and it shall come to pass afterward. I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and the divine presence will once again dwell with his restored people.

The day of the Lord points to an eschatological day which precipitates the Lord's return, and then the millennium. The central events in Joel are Joel's prophecy speaks of the severe drought and an invasion of locusts, which he sees as punishment for the sins of the people of Judah. Chapter 1 and verse 7 says, he has laid waste my vine.

The central figures are Joel, the people of Judah, and the locusts, and the central verses can be found in chapter 2 and verse 1. Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain, which is a call to repentance. And chapter 2 and verse 12, now therefore says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart. And the central application, friends, for today's Christians found in chapter 2 and verse 13, surrender your hearts and not your garments, return to the Lord your God.

This is a call for us today to return to God in personal, corporate, and national revival. Much of this burden rests with ministers, for we find that it is the priests, the representatives of God, who must lead the people in revival and repentance. Let the priests, who minister to the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar.

Let them say, spare your people, O Lord. God is calling his bride from her dressing room, and he is calling her to prepare herself for the returning bridegroom. Well, let's look at the book of Amos, friends.

The Bible survey on Amos is this, its central message. Amos is a book of judgment. The besetting sins of Israel, the northern kingdom, are dual indeed, comprising that they compromise with paganism and refusing to accept correction.

We see remedial judgments come upon them from the hand of God. The nation had become fat with prosperity. You cows had bashed them and hearted in heart.

I blasted you with blight and mildew when your gardens increased, your vineyards, your fig trees, and your olive trees. The locusts devoured them, yet you have not returned to me, saith the Lord. The people were prosperous, unrepentant, and indifferent to the things of God.

All previous calls of warning and chastising judgments had fallen on deaf ears. God is astounded at their lack of repentance for all he had done for them, and you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning, yet you have not returned to me. Amos cries of common retribution for the surrounding nations as he gathers his audience in Bethel, the seat of Israel's golden calf worship.

But as his message of common judgment is inclusive of Israel, then he is railed on by the local religious authorities. Then Amaziah said to Amos, go you seer, flee to the land of Judah. God has warned, chastised, and begged his people to forsake the Baal system of idolatry accompanied by its perverted rites, and now he uses the voice of his prophet Amos to tell them how weary he is of them.

Behold, I am weighed down by you as a cart full of sheaves is weighed down. The nation is dulled to spiritual things by materialism as well, who lie on beds of ivory, eat the lambs from the flock. God sets a plumb line in the midst of his backsliding people, found in chapter 7 and verse 8, and he compares their spiritual rottenness to a basket of summer fruit ripe in the sun, ready to perish.

But the most terrifying words of the Most High are found in chapter 8 and verse 11, that I will send a famine in the land of hearing the words of the Lord. The central events are Amos the rustic sheepherder and farmer of sycamore fruit as he goes to the big city of Bethel to proclaim God's judgment upon his wayfaring people. Amos is bold, brave, and burdened.

The people are happy in their sins, fat on their couches, and reluctant to accept correction. The central figures are Amos, Amaziah, and Jeroboam II. And the central verse, friends, is found in chapter 3 and verse 2, therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

And the central application for us today is this. Today's Christian believer is a picture of satiated Israel in rebellion against God, and it's a fine portrait of America and the church in America today. The people of God are fat, lazy, self-indulgent, and preoccupied with self.

God is no longer on the throne of the average churchgoer's heart. Sadly, we too have been warned, chastised, and begged. We too are like a basket of summer fruit rotten in the sun and unaware of impending holy judgment.

Even our church pulpits would rather give honor to Amaziah who would not disrupt the sacred assembly of self-amusement and would cast out just as vehemently a prophet like Amos with the same words, go you seer, God forgive us. Now we're going to look at the next book here, friends, in Obadiah and look at a Bible survey in its central message. Obadiah tells of the common destruction of Edom as descendants of Esau, Jacob's twin brother.

The Edomites were rock dwellers who had been railing against the Israelites for years out of envy and hatred to the descendants of Jacob for the stealing of the birthright. The rock city of Petra, the capital of Seir, was where these cave dwellers felt secure in their guarded heights and their pride was elevated to even higher heights. These Edomites had gloated over the violence done to the children of Judah.

They had robbed Judah, sought their destruction, and as Israel was being pillaged by her enemies, the Edomites gloated and even entered the gates of the city and partook of the spoils of the city. This little book of Obadiah is the shortest book in the Old Testament, yet it contains one of the Bible's most breathtaking messages to mankind and that is of poetic justice. The prideful and callous hearts of the Edomites had cruelly mistreated the lineage of Jacob.

Now their day of divine judgment was coming and it was coming in the exact manner in which their wicked behavior had exhibited itself. They were to be judged by God with the exactitude of poetic justice. Look at verse 15, as you have done it, it should be done to you.

The penalty meted out to them would be the exact sort which they had meted out to the children of Judah. How often we have heard of a murderer who gets away with the brutal crime only to be killed later in like manner. Poetic justice should be a warning to all who think they can outsmart God.

Obadiah's stern message of divine judgment warns clearly of utter destruction for the self-reliant Edomites, yet the book ends with a promise for Israel of the Lord's protective preservation of the remnant who will repossess the land which God had given them. And the central events are these, friends. God's messenger Obadiah proclaims a common judgment on the people of Edom.

The judgment shall be in the form of the same behavior they have exhibited to the children of Jacob. They'll be greatly despised. Their hidden treasure shall be taken.

Shame will cover them. The security of their fortified habitation shall be taken away. God will judge them as he will of all the nations on that future day, for the day of the Lord upon all the nations is near.

The central figures are Obadiah and the Edomites, and the central verses can be found in verse 10. For violence against your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you and you shall be cut off forever. And verse 15, the poetic justice verse, as you have done, it should be done to you.

Your reprisal shall return upon your own head. And the central application for us today, friends, is this. Today's Christian is that God will undergird and sovereignly care for his people.

He will bring judgment upon those that oppose his own. We can rest aware of his tender care for us. We can fear aware of his poetic justice that awaits those who oppose him.

Let this be a warning to all sinners who think they can fool God. And we're going to end our Bible survey today, friends, with the book of Jonah. This little familiar book has some powerful truths as we study its survey and its central message.

Jonah is a historical account attested to by Jesus in chapter 12 of Matthew and verses 39 to 40, and one which speaks loudly on God's heart toward mankind in his mercy. The reluctant prophet flees from the divine command to cry warnings to the great city of Nineveh. Jonah books a passage on a boat going in the opposite direction of his preaching engagement because he does not want God to deliver the Assyrian people.

Nineveh is their capital for their wickedness and brutality toward their captives was legendary. Jonah feared the Assyrians would overtake his nation, and the last thing he desired was for them to be spared. He wanted them destroyed.

As the story unfolds, we see Jonah's anger toward them and God's compassion for them. The heart of the Most High is tender toward repenting people of any age, and this message speaks volumes to us today, friends. Jonah learns a hard lesson that in his disobedience he cannot outrun God.

He also learns that even though God has a special tender love for his chosen people of Israel, he also cares of other nations as well. God's heart is not prejudiced like that of man's. Jonah's disobedience lands him in the belly of a whale in the midst of the ocean.

His self-reliance is broken, and he prays with a contrite heart. The preserving vehicle of grace, the whale, keeps Jonah from drowning and delivers him safely upon the dry land. Jonah then keeps his preaching engagement and delivers the message with force as he is a physical sign.

His skin is white. It's bleached like parchment from the bleaching of the whale's belly, and undoubtedly the people of the great city learn of the mighty deliverance of the prophet, so they all stand behind him in crowds and follow him into the gates of the city. The Ninevites that there is indeed a God who judge and delivers.

The king and people repent, and God spares the city, much to the dismay of the poor prophet who seeks refuge on the eastern side of the city and makes himself a shelter from the heat of the day. Then God prepares three things as an object lesson for his downcast servant. God prepares a gourd, a worm, and a wind.

The gourd soothes, the worm chews, and the wind blew. Jonah falls apart and wants to die. It is when we are at the end of ourselves that God comes in with his truths and deliverance.

We see the divine compassion displayed in verses 10 and 11. The central events are the call, the run, the storm, the fish, the prayer, the obedience, the repentance, the stay, the gourd, the worm, and the wind, and the compassion. Central figures are Jonah, those on the boat, and the people of Nineveh.

The central verse, friends, is found in chapter 2 and verse 9. Salvation is of the Lord, and the central application for us today is this. The key application for today's Christian is we cannot outrun God either. He sees our works.

He knows our hearts. His desire for us to proclaim his gospel message to the nations, yet we too, like Jonah, disobey. We too can have the heart of God and pity those in spiritual darkness and proclaim the good news to a sin-soaked world no worse than Nineveh.

Well, that's our ending for our Bible survey of the minor prophets and its first five chapters. We'll pick this up at our next session.