INTRODUCTION TO THE MINOR PROPHETS

Revelation 19:10

James A. Gunn

Preached on October 26, 2008

Copyright © James A. Gunn

All rights reserved

Used by permission.

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I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."  (Revelation 19:10)

If the Lord wills my next series of Bible expositions will be on the Minor Prophets.

Recently someone asked me how a preacher decides what to preach. Sad to say some preachers buy a book of sermon outlines and flip a coin late on Saturday night to receive the “leading of the Holy Spirit.”

As for me I am committed to expositional preaching. That means that I select a book in the Bible and systematically attempt to explain its meaning from Chapter One, verse one to the end of the book. That is probably the best method to ensure that we preach the whole counsel of God. In my 40 years of teaching I have systematically taught through the entire Bible three times in ten-year intervals.

An honest expositional preacher must go from verse to verse and he cannot just skip over some parts of the Bible when he is confronted with the reality that what the Bible teaches does not fit into his preconceived notions. The expositional preacher then, is always learning, always being corrected, and always being admonished to handle the Word of God without deceit.

Okay Jim, how do you select which book of the Bible to teach? Obviously you would not select a book that you have preached on in say the past ten years. Ten years, in my thinking, is enough of a span of time between preaching the same book because of the aging of the congregation; children grow up, and also us older folks can’t remember what was said anyway.

As I said that it occurred to me that most Baptist preachers do not have the problem of repetition because they do not stay with the same congregation for more than two years at the most. They change churches and start over in their repertoire of sermons. The average tenure of a southern Baptist preacher is 18 months. It is my belief that a call from a local congregation is a life-long commitment broken only by health or moral lapse.

Now, I do not claim special revelation; by that I mean that God does give me a sign or speak to me in a dream and say, “Jim, your next book will be whatever.” But I do believe that there is the guidance of the Holy Spirit from one series of messages to another.

Back in April of 2001 I was teaching Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew repeatedly says, “That it might be fulfilled.”

Matthew, of course, is referring to the OT Scriptures being fulfilled by the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth. So before I completed the series on Matthew I was thinking seriously about the Gospel message in the OT Scriptures and recalled how Paul opens the Book of Romans with “…the gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord….” [Romans 1:1-3]

Paul is saying that the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is not a New Testament innovation; it is simply the Old Testament explained.

Thus it seemed to me at that time that the Book of Romans should be my next book to expound upon. Turn to Romans Chapter 1 and then find Chapter 16; Paul begins and ends the Book of Romans by emphasizing that the Gospel of God was based on the OT Scriptures, especially the prophets.

Romans 1:1-2

Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God 2 which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures,

  

Romans 16:25-27

25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began

26 but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith — 27 to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.*

That series on Romans resulted in 100 sermons concluded in January 2004.

Paul declared that the Gospel he preached was based on the OT prophets who preached the Gospel of Christ.

How did the prophets preach the Gospel? In types and shadows; in events that providentially came into their lives that was typical of the Gospel; in words that hinted at but did not explicitly state all the aspects of the Gospel.

The Jews had said in John 7:52, disputing Nicodemus’ defense of Jesus “… no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.” But Jonah was from Galilee and it was Jonah’s three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish [a type] that Jesus said was the only sign that they would receive regarding His being Messiah. I have no doubt that Jesus was using irony when He gave Jonah as the type.

That is one of many examples of how Jesus used the OT Scriptures.

Jonah the prophet was a preacher of the Gospel and I brought six sermons on Jonah through March 2004.

What Jesus said about Jonah led me to John’s Gospel and 61 sermons that ended in June 2006. At the same time I was preaching John’s Gospel I was teaching John’s Epistles in our Sunday morning bible study. Well, since I had taught John’s Gospel and John’s Epistles what could I do but take up John’s Revelation of Jesus Christ. I confess that preaching the Revelation was the most difficult series of expositional preaching that I have ever attempted. My last message on The Revelation was #39 on September 21, 2008.

During the course of these series on books of the Bible I was impressed to develop a topical message on “What the Prophets Had to Say.” I am truly humbled that this message has been downloaded from Sermon Audio 264 times.

Along the same line of thought I preached “The Unity of the Scriptures” at the Lordship of Christ Conference at Dominion Baptist in October. You simply cannot understand the NT apart from the OT, thus “The Unity of the Scriptures.” 

So much for nostalgia; besides nostalgia is just not what it used to be.

What has this trip down “Memory Lane” to do with me selecting the Minor Prophets as my next series of messages?

Just this: My thoughts have been focused on the central message of the OT prophets.

With Brother Miles McKee’s permission I have included an excerpt from a message he preached to the 8th Annual All India Pastor's Conference: Salem, Tamil Nadu: 5000 pastors in attendance August 07, 2007.

Brother Miles McKee is to be one of our speakers for our Grace Bible Conference on November 20th.

This is an excellent introduction to, not only how the prophets, but how the entire Old Testament is about Christ and the redemption of His Church.

The Gospel in the Old Testament

“What is meant by calling the writings of Moses and the Prophets the "Old Testament?”  Do they not set forth the covenant of grace? The doctrine of justification by faith - does not Paul in his Epistle to the Romans prove it from Genesis and from the Psalms? Where is the doctrine of substitution and the vicarious sufferings of the Messiah set forth more clearly than in Leviticus and in the 53rd of Isaiah? The term "Old Testament" leads people to fancy it is an antiquated book; whereas, in many respects, it is newer than the New Testament, referring more fully to the age of glory and blessedness on the earth which is still before us.”

Adolph Saphir: Christ and Israel

The Gospel, according to Rom 1:2, is to be found and discovered in the writings of the Old Testament Prophets.  Space will not allow for a full exposition of this topic as page after page of the Old Testament can be clearly seen to be about Jesus.  He shows up in its pages in types, shadows and pictures. 

In fact, someone has rightly observed, “The Old Testament is a book about Jesus.” Others have pointed out that He appears in every book of the Bible.  Here is a suggested breakdown showing how He is pictured in each book;

Genesis: The Seed of the Woman

Exodus: The Passover Lamb

Leviticus: The High Priest

Numbers: The Pillar of Cloud and The pillar of Fire by night

Deuteronomy: The Prophet Like Moses and the Great Rock

Joshua: The Captain of The Lord of Hosts

Judges: The Judge And Lawgiver

Ruth: The Kinsman Redeemer

1 & 2 Samuel: The Trusted Prophet

1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles: The Reigning King

Ezra: The Lord of Heaven and Earth

Nehemiah: The Rebuilder of The Broken Walls

Esther: Mordecai

Job: The Daysman Mediator

Psalms: The Lord Our Shepherd

Proverbs & Ecclesiastes: The Wisdom of God

The Song of Solomon :The Lover & Bridegroom and the Chief among 10,000

Isaiah: The Suffering Servant, The Mighty God and The Prince of Peace

Jeremiah & Lamentations: The LORD our Righteousness and The Weeping Prophet

Ezekiel: The Wheel Turning and The Four faced man.

Daniel: The 4th Man in The Fiery Furnace

Hosea The Faithful Husband

Joel: The One Who Pours out His Spirit

Amos: The Restored Tabernacle of David

Obadiah: Deliverance

Jonah: The God of a Second Chance

Micah: The One who will be ruler in Israel

Nahum: The Publisher of Peace

Habakkuk: The Minister of God crying out For Revival

Zephaniah: The Restorer of God's Lost Heritage

Haggai: The Glory of the Latter House

Zechariah: The Fountain opened up for Sin and uncleanness

Malachi: The Son of Righteousness rising with healing in His wings

But He is more than that!  Jesus is the sum and substance of the Old Testament and any attempt to remove the Old Testament from its place of importance is to act like a man who tries to build a house without a foundation.  Without the Old Testament we are left with a deficient view of the Gospel and without the Christ of the Gospel we cannot understand the Old Testament.  It is the Old Testament which gives us multiple Gospel pictures in the Tabernacle, in the High Priest, in the Sacrifices, in the Angel of the Lord and in the shepherd king.  In the Old Testament we encounter Israel but in the New we encounter the very heart of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ. It has been rightly said that we cannot understand Israel without Christ and Christ without Israel. Like Israel, Jesus was the seed of Abraham, the seed of Isaac and the seed of Jacob.  He was Israel’s royalty being the seed of David.  Israel’s national history begins with being called out of Egypt.  Likewise the true Israel was called out of Egypt.  National Israel failed God in the Wilderness for 40 years; the true Israel triumphed as, for 40 days, He conquered all tests He encountered in the wilderness. Israel failed miserably at keeping the law.  Christ the embodiment of Israel kept it perfectly as He loved God with His whole heart.  In Israel the Father set apart a nation to reveal His Glory, they failed miserably: then, In Christ, the Father set apart a man to reveal that same glory---He triumphed gloriously!

Christ Jesus was the very heart of Israel; nonetheless they did not recognize Him. Yet their Scriptures had told clearly of his character and His work but still they rejected Him when He arrived. Paul the Apostle, as you know, was pre-eminently a Gospel preacher but consider this, when he preached the Gospel he preached exclusively from the Old Testament. Remember, the only Bible the early church enjoyed was the Old Testament as the New Testament books were then only in process of formation.  When Paul went to Thessalonica, for example, he preached on three sabbath days out of the Old Testament Scriptures, "Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus Whom I preach unto you is Christ." Then, on arrival at Berea he preached and, remember the response of the Berean’s?---- they tested his teaching by searching the Old Testament Scriptures to see whether or not the things Paul was saying about Christ Jesus were true.

If a man, therefore, claims to be a Gospel preacher yet can not establish the truth of his message from the Old Testament, you can mark it down, ---he is no Gospel preacher!  If, for example, a preacher says the Gospel is all about Baptism we must ask him to establish this from the Old Testament, a task to which no man is equal! Why, because baptism is not taught in the Old Testament.

The heart of the Gospel, however, is substitution and in the Old Testament there are seven prominent pictures of Jesus and His substitutionary sacrifice. In each instance innocent blood was sacrificially offered. Let’s look briefly at these seven pictures and see how they pre- figure and point towards the Lord Jesus Christ and His substitutionary death at Calvary”

At this point I cease quoting Miles and will not include the seven pictures of substitution in the OT that Brother Miles developed.

Many preachers today are focused on a future restoration of the nation of Israel based on certain of the OT prophecies. Quite honestly I do not find any support for a future nation of Israel in the NT. You must allow the OT to have precedence over the NT in order to have that interpretation. I will have more to say on this subject as we encounter these restoration prophecies in the Minor Prophets.

It is my belief that the primary message of all of the Old Testament prophets, both Major and Minor, was Christ. My aim and desire for this series of messages is to exalt Christ from the words of the prophets. 

At the birth of John the Baptist, Zacharias his father, prophesied regarding the role of his son John. In his prophecy Zacharias gives us the key to understanding all of the prophets.

Luke 1:67-75

67 Now his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying:

68 "Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,

For He has visited and redeemed His people,

69 And has raised up a horn of salvation for us

In the house of His servant David,

70 As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets,

Who have been since the world began,

71 That we should be saved from our enemies

And from the hand of all who hate us,

72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers

And to remember His holy covenant,

73 The oath which He swore to our father Abraham:

74 To grant us that we, Being delivered from the hand of our enemies,

Might serve Him without fear,

75 In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.

The primary message of the OT prophets was redemption in Christ.

Zacharias was prophesying about the Gospel that Abraham believed and that was spoken by the holy prophets from the beginning. Let’s read what Zacharias said  again with these thoughts in mind. 

Here is another insight into the burden of the OT prophets from my message:

“What the Prophets Had to Say.”

One of the most significant things that I learned about OT prophecy is from John L. Bray. Writing about prophecies of the restoration of national Israel:

“As to the Old Testament, I have already pointed out how that any promises made as to a restoration to the Land, were fulfilled when they returned from Babylon, etc., as recorded in the Bible, and that after that no more such promises were ever made. All the prophecies used by the Bible teachers today to try to prove a future or present restoration of Israel to Palestine, are prophecies made prior to their restoration as God promised in the past. And many of the prophecies included future fulfillment in the sense of spiritual blessing found in Christianity, couched in highly symbolical language that are best understood as God intended them to be.”

John L. Bray, “Israel in Bible Prophecy” [Page 54]

After I read that claim by Mr. Bray I was stunned at the simplicity of his point. Why were the post-exilic prophets silent as to a restroation? Simlpy because the restoration prophesied by the other prophets had already occurred.

So I read carefully through the prophets who prophesied before the return of the Jews from Babylon and the prophets who prophesied after the return of the Jews from Babylon and affirmed that Mr. Bray was exactly correct.

There are no prophecies of a restoration of national Israel after the return from Babylon. And there is not a word in the NT about a restoration of national Israel. Be careful with your NT prooftexts because you have to impose your preconceived notions on the NT in order to make it say what you think it does about a national restoration of Israel.

Prophets before the return to Jerusalem from Babylon from 870 to 540 B.C.: The Babylonian Captivity was 586-539 B.C.

Obadiah, Joel [Elijah & Elisha], Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, Nahum, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Daniel and Ezekiel.

Prophets after the return to Jerusalem from Babylon from 540 to 500 B.C.:

Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi have no prophecies of restoration.

And there is absolutely nothing about a restoration of national Israel in the NT!

My reason for stressing the absence of post-exilic and NT prophecies about a restoration of national Israel is that it minimizes what the prophets had to say about Christ and His Church.

One of the most important lessons on how to interpret the Book of Revelation is to see how John the Seer takes his symbols from Genesis, Exodus, and other OT writings; especially from Daniel and Ezekiel and several others of the OT prophets.

And then one verse in the Revelation really grabbed my attention:

  

I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

Revelation 19:10

Here in a phrase John gives to us the key to the understanding of the prophets.

For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

But John is not the only NT writer to comment on the primary meaning of the prophets. Paul writes in:

2 Corinthians 1:19-22

19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us — by me, Silvanus, and Timothy — was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes.

20 For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.

21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God,

22 who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

The “promises of God” are the prophecies. My burden is that you see more clearly that the OT is the basis for the Gospel and the promises or prophecies are primarily about Jesus Christ. For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen….

It is my prayer that I will be given the wisdom and understanding to search the Scriptures, viz. the OT Minor Prophets, and find the “testimony of Jesus.”

So my desire is to do more than a historical review of which prophet appeared on the scene when, who were the kings in Judah or in Israel, which group of tribes he preached to, and what was his main burden. Obviously we must have the setting of a particular prophet, but I plan to focus more on what was the prophet’s “testimony of Jesus.”

My focus then is going to be on how the New Testament affirms the words of the Minor Prophets and what each one had to say about Jesus.

After I was well along in preparing this “Introduction to the Minor Prophets” I discovered two more commentaries on the Minor Prophets that I had overlooked.

As I read the Preface to “The Minor Prophets” by James Montgomery Boice I was encouraged by his honesty. Writes Boice:

“… I decided to preach on the Minor Prophets. My motives were not very noble. I had recently completed a heavy load of writing, and I was looking for books that were not too long and which I could handle as I thought without an unusual amount of difficulty. I was not expecting much, but as I began to preach, the Minor Prophets came alive with such force (even with my little preparation) that I decided to stop the series until I would have time to study them more thoroughly ….” [Page 9]

Mr. Boice summarized that there were three things common to the Minor Prophets:

1) The Sovereignty of God;

2) The holiness of God;

and 3) the love of God for the Gentiles.

Now I as I said, while I do believe the Holy Spirit is guiding me to preach this series, my motive, like Mr. Boice’s was not very noble. After all the hard work I had done on The Revelation the Minor Prophets would be a much easier series to prepare for and preach. After all, they are fairly short books. Once more I was wrong; but not disappointed, to find that this series will require much more study time than I had anticipated at first.

This then is the first in a series of messages on the Minor Prophets and will be an “Introduction to the Minor Prophets.” The twelve Minor Prophets are called the “Minor Prophets” because the length of their writings is relatively short as compared to the so-called “Major Prophets”.

For example, Isaiah is divided into 66 chapters while Obadiah’s 21 verses will fit on a single page in most Bibles.

The Lord Jesus knew the Scriptures and

“… He found the place where it was written:

  

Luke 4:16-21

16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.

17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

18 "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,

Because He has anointed Me

To preach the gospel to the poor;

He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,*

To proclaim liberty to the captives

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD ."*

20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him.

21 And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

When the “delegate” of the synagogue in Nazareth handed Jesus the scroll of Isaiah, he did not say, “Read Chapter 61, verses 1 & 2.”

Jesus “found the place where it was written.”

For you edification: On Chapters and Verses:

— The several books of the Old and New Testaments were from an early time divided into chapters. The Pentateuch was divided by the ancient Hebrews into 54 parshioth or sections, one of which was read in the synagogue every Sabbath day (Acts 13:15). These sections were afterwards divided into 669 sidrim or orders of unequal length. The Prophets were divided in somewhat the same manner into haphtaroth or passages.

In the early Latin and Greek versions of the Bible, similar divisions of the several books were made. The New Testament books were also divided into portions of various lengths under different names, such as titles and heads or chapters.

In modern times this ancient example was imitated, and many attempts of the kind were made before the existing division into chapters was fixed. The Latin Bible published by Cardinal Hugo of St. Cher in A.D. 1240 A.D. is generally regarded as the first Bible that was divided into our present chapters, although it appears that some of the chapters were fixed as early as A.D. 1059 A.D.. This division into chapters came gradually to be adopted in the published editions of the Hebrew, with some few variations, and of the Greek Scriptures, and hence of other versions.

(from Easton's Bible Dictionary, PC Study Bible formatted electronic database Copyright © 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.) 

The reason I mention how the Lord Jesus “found the place where it was written” in the Scriptures is to point out that the Hebrew Bible kept all of the so-called Minor Prophets on one scroll. They were not even divided by space on the scroll.

From a commentary by John Philips:

“The prophecies of the twelve minor prophets are found in the second division of the Hebrew Bible (the first being “Law,” the second “Prophets,” and the third “Writings”). There they are treated as one book and given the title, “Book of the Twelve.”

“In all Hebrew manuscripts and printed Hebrew Bibles these prophecies appear in unbroken sequence. The Hebrew text of the “Book of the Twelve” is divided into twenty-one segments (called sedarim) for convenience in public reading, but the divisions were made without regard to where one prophecy ends and another begins. For instance the fourth reading begins with Hosea 14:7 and continues to Joel 2:26. The next reading begins with Joel 2:27 and ends with Amos 2:9.

“From earliest times, then, the twelve prophesies were regarded as one book and ultimately they were bound together in a single volume because they were so small. As separate scrolls some of them might otherwise have been lost.

“The internal arrangement of the twelve prophecies in out Bible is the same as that of the Hebrew Bible: the order roughly corresponds to the dates of the prophets. The “Book of the Twelve” spans the entire prophetic era from the early Assyrian period to the early Persian period.” (Exploring the Minor Prophets, John Phillips, Kregel, 1998)

We have the convenience of having the Minor Prophets named and separated into 12 separate books.

And we must not think that the writings of the Minor Prophets are of any lesser importance to an understanding of the Gospel. Isaiah 53 is God the Holy Spirit’s masterpiece of prophecy on the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Jonah’s “object lesson” in the belly of a great fish was the only sign that Jesus said would be given to “An evil and adulterous generation” [Matthew 12:39] that He is the Messiah.

It is incumbent on Bible teachers to search out the prophets and teach the real message of the prophecies. And what is the real message, Jim?

John the Apostle was the last prophet of God and he told us exactly what the real message of OT prophecy was!

I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

Revelation 19:10

Before we study a specific minor prophet let’s first take a look at the office or calling by God of prophet.

A prophet is a person who spoke for God and who communicated God’s message often with dire consequences to himself.

According to Peter, Samuel was the first of the order of prophet. There were many prophets before Samuel, e.g. Jude says the Enoch prophesied, but Samuel was the first in a continuous line of OT prophets from King Saul’s reign until the birth of John the Baptist.

  

Acts 3:17-26

17 "Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

18 But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.

19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,

20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before,* 

21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

22 For Moses truly said to the fathers, 'The LORD  your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. 

23 And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.'* 

24 Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold* these days.

25 You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'* 

26 To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities."

A prophet received his call or appointment directly from God.

Some prophets, like Jeremiah or John the Baptist, were called by God before birth.

Jeremiah

  

4 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying:

5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;

Before you were born I sanctified you;

I ordained you a prophet to the nations."

6 Then said I: "Ah, Lord GOD!

Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth."

7 But the LORD said to me:

"Do not say, 'I am a youth,'

For you shall go to all to whom I send you,

And whatever I command you, you shall speak.

8 Do not be afraid of their faces,

For I am with you to deliver you," says the LORD. Jeremiah 1:4-8

John the Baptist

13 But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.

14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.

15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.

16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.

17 He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, 'to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,'* and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." -Luke 1:13-17

The authority of the prophet came from God alone whose message they bore

Moses and Aaron

So the LORD said to Moses: “See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. 2 You shall speak all that I command you….”  Ex 7:1-2

Who can match the eloquence and brilliance of Isaiah, the depth of emotion and melancholy of Jeremiah, or the dramatic and dogged spirit of Ezekiel?

The prophet was to be unaffected by human bias and criticism. The call of the prophet required that he not be intimidated or threatened by his audience.

Ezekiel

6 "And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you dwell among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words or dismayed by their looks, though they are a rebellious house.

7 You shall speak My words to them, whether they hear or whether they refuse, for they are rebellious.

8 But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you."

9 Now when I looked, there was a hand stretched out to me; and behold, a scroll of a book was in it.

10 Then He spread it before me; and there was writing on the inside and on the outside, and written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe. (Ezek 2:6-10)

A prophet sometimes became quite dramatic and acted out his message. Isaiah went naked and barefoot for three years (Isa 20:2-3).

1 In the year that Tartan* came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it,

2 at the same time the LORD  spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, "Go, and remove the sackcloth from your body, and take your sandals off your feet." And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.

3 Then the LORD  said, "Just as My servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder against Egypt and Ethiopia,

4 so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians as prisoners and the Ethiopians as captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. -Isaiah 20:1-4

Ezekiel lay on his left side for 390 days and on his right side for 40 more.

See Ezekiel 4:1-8

Making themselves a spectacle, prophets not only aroused curiosity but also invited the scorn of their peers.

21 "Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the men of Anathoth who seek your life, saying, 'Do not prophesy in the name of the LORD, lest you die by our hand'

-Jeremiah 11:21

Except for God's call, prophets had no special qualifications. They appeared from all walks of life and classes of society. They included sheepbreeders and farmers like Amos (Amos 7:14) and Elisha (1 Kings 19:19) but also princes like Abraham (Gen 23:6) and priests like Ezekiel (Ezek 1:3).

Even women and children became prophets (1 Sam 3:19-20; 2 Kings 22:14). In rare circumstances, God used the hesitant or unruly to bear his message. Balaam prophesied (Num 22:6-24:24) the Lord's message but was actually an enemy of God (2 Peter 2:15-16; Rev 2:14).

King Saul certainly was not in fellowship with God when he prophesied.

1 Samuel 10:23-24

Some prophets were called for a lifetime; but sometimes prophets spoke briefly and no more.

24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the LORD, and he gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle. 25 Then the LORD CAME down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same upon the seventy elders; and it happened, when the Spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again. -Numbers 11:24-25

A prophet spoke with the authority of the Holy Spirit.

  

29 Then Moses said to him, "Are you zealous for my sake? Oh, that all the LORD's people were prophets and that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them!"

-Numbers 11:29

One trait characterized them all: a faithful proclamation of God's word and not their own (Jer 23:16; Ezek 13:2). Jesus’ reference to Himself as a prophet rests upon this standard of faithfully repeating Gods word to man.

  

49 For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. 

50 And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak." -John 12:49-50

The test of a prophet’s genuineness was the fulfillment of the prophecy.

  

20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.'

21 And if you say in your heart, 'How shall we know the word which the LORD  has not spoken?'

22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD , if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD  has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. -Deuteronomy 18:20-22

Whether a prophet's words were fulfilled within his lifetime or centuries later, they were fulfilled to the letter (1 Kings 13:3; 2 Kings 23:15-16).

 

3 And he gave a sign the same day, saying, "This is the sign which the LORD has spoken: Surely the altar shall split apart, and the ashes on it shall be poured out."

-1 Kings 13:3

Then in 2 Kings:

15 Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and crushed it to powder, and burned the wooden image.

16 As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were there on the mountain. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar, and defiled it according to the word of the LORD  which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. -2 Kings 23:15-16

The main role of the prophet was to bear God’s word for the purpose of teaching, reproving, correcting, and training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). Whether warning of impending danger or disclosing God’s will to the people, they were similar in function to the modern preacher in the church. Prophets were referred to as messengers of the Lord (Isa 44:26; Hag 1:13), servants of God (Amos 3:7), shepherds (Zech 11:4, 7; Jer 17:16), and watchmen (Isa 62:6).

God has used people in every age to fill the prophetic role of proclaiming His word. Noah was a "preacher of righteousness" to his generation (2 Peter 2:5).

Abraham was considered a prophet (Genesis 20:7).

So was his son Isaac (Ps 105:9, 14-15) and his grandson Jacob (Gen 49).

Moses was eulogized as the greatest prophet of all, due to his major accomplishments as well as his many writings (Deut 34:10-12). His successor, Joshua, received the commission to continue Moses’ work and so assumed the prophetic role also

(Deut 34:9; Josh 1:1, 5).

It is appropriate that the first prophet mentioned after Joshua is unnamed.

7 And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried out to the LORD  because of the Midianites,

8 that the LORD  sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, "Thus says the LORD  God of Israel: 'I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage;

9 and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land.

10 Also I said to you, "I am the LORD your God; do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell." But you have not obeyed My voice.'" -Judges 6:7-10

Prophets were to exalt God’s word and not seek their own glory. This unnamed prophet appeared in the time of Gideon when Israel was falling back into idolatry. Rather than speak of the future, he called Israel to remember the Lord who delivered them from Egypt.

The next prophet was Samuel, whose vocation was apparent to all from his youth (1 Sam 3:19-20). Samuel’s life was spent serving diligently as a judge (1 Sam 7:15), leading the army to victory (1 Sam 7:9-10), and establishing the religious and civil life of the nation (1 Sam 10:25). He both appointed (1 Sam 12:1) and recalled the first king of Israel (1 Sam 15:26-28). Samuel provided a model for other prophets to follow (1 Sam 19:20).

Four prophets appeared in the time of David, who himself demonstrated the traits of a prophet (2 Sam 23:2-3). They were Gad (1 Sam 22:5), Nathan (2 Sam 12:1-15), Zadok (2 Sam 15:27), and Heman (1 Chron 25:5).

Four prophets also appeared during the time of Jeroboam: Ahijah, a man of God, an old prophet, and Iddo the seer. Iddo apparently had visions, but he confined his revelations to writing (2 Chron 9:29; 12:15; 13:22).

A man of God confronted Jeroboam for his intrusion into the priestly office at the altar and prophesied the coming of Josiah by name (1 Kings 13:1-9); but his rival, the old prophet in Bethel, deceived him and brought about his death (1 Kings 13:11-32). Even though the old prophet lied, God revealed the death sentence of the man of God to him (1 Kings 13:21-23).

The prophet Shemaiah appeared to Solomon’s successor, Rehoboam, to stop him from attempting to reunite the country by force (2 Chron 11:2-4). The prophet Iddo recorded the acts of Abijah, the successor of Rehoboam (2 Chron 13:22), who himself raised a prophetic voice, although he was a wicked king (1 Kings 15:1-5). The king correctly anticipated victory over Jeroboam’s troops (2 Chron 13:12).

The next king, Asa, was promised God’s blessing by the prophet Azariah when the king was returning from his victory over Zerah, the Ethiopian (2 Chron 15:1-7). But Asa did not remain faithful, seeking help instead from the Syrians when Baasha threatened him. The prophet Hanani was imprisoned for rebuking Asa for not relying upon the Lord alone as in the earlier victory (2 Chron 16:7-10). The son of Hanani, Jehu, played a more prominent role than his father. He condemned the wickedness of Baasha and declared his dynasty would end (1 Kings 16:1-4).

Jehoshaphat was promised victory over the alliance of Moab, Ammon, and Edom by the prophet Jahaziel (2 Chron 20:14-17). God alone would supply the victory. After these two lessons about alliances, Jehoshaphat allied with Ahab's son, Ahaziah, in order to build a southern fleet. The prophet Eliezer proclaimed the alliance caused God to destroy the fleet (2 Chron 20:37).

Five prophets appeared during the reign of Ahab. These included the famous prophets ELIJAH and ELISHA. Elijah was the most unforgettable and dynamic of the Hebrew prophets. He dominated the scene under Ahab in 1 Kings 17-19 and 21, but his ministry continued until the reigns of Ahaziah (2 Kings 1) and Jehoram (2 Kings 2). His impact and eminence was compared with Moses, as their joint appearance with Christ in His transfiguration suggests (Matt 17:1-13). Elijah’s spectacular success over the prophets of Baal in the bringing of rain defies comparison. His volatile and dynamic temperament stands in stark contrast to Elisha, who realized that his quieter personality needed some help if he was to follow a prophet like Elijah. So he asked for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit (2 Kings 2:9).

Although he was called by Elijah in the reign of Ahab, Elisha really only succeeded him in the reign of Jehoram (2 Kings 2-9). Doubly blessed, Elisha performed 14 miracles to Elijah’s seven (2 Kings 13:21).

(Adapted from Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Copyright (c) 1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers)

So that you may prepare yourself for this series of messages I will give you the order of the Minor Prophets that I plan to follow. It would be convenient if I just followed the order in the Bible but I believe it will help us if we take them in their historical order. I freely acknowledge that there is disagreement among the scholars as to the historical order.

The order of the Minor Prophets in our Bible:

Hosea; Joel; Amos; Obadiah; Jonah; Micah; Nahum; Habakkuk; Zephaniah; Haggai; Zechariah; and Malachi.

The historical order of the Minor Prophets that I plan to follow:

Obadiah

845 B.C. -Judah

Joel

835 B.C. -Judah

Jonah  

782 B.C. -Israel and Nineveh

Hosea

760 B.C. -Israel

Amos

760 B.C. -Israel

Micah

735 B.C. -Judah

Nahum

650 B.C. -Judah

Zephaniah

640 B.C. -Judah

Habakkuk

609 B.C. -Judah

Haggai

520 B.C. -Judah

Zechariah

520 B.C. -Judah and Babylon

Malachi

433 B.C. -Judah

Charts of Bible Prophecy, H. Wayne House and Randall Price, pages 19 and 20.

A letter in the October 25, 2008 Birmingham News betrays the spiritual blindness of a great number of people today. The writer said that it would be okay to teach the Bible in school as long as you did not teach Christianity.

Teach the Bible but not Christianity

I do not see anything inherently wrong with studying the bible in public schools, if that is what actually takes place. When people talk about studying the Bible, they often mean teaching the Bible – condoning Christianity and “spreading the word.” These activities do not belong in a public school.

However, it would be enlightening for young people to discover what eminent scholars believe about the Bible: about who contributed to it and about how and why it became the powerful book it is. Why not examine other religious writings as well, and educate young people about religion in general?

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to take several electives in religious studies when I attended college. Religion is a powerful force and a powerful tool in our world today. A real education allows us to judge the truth on important issues for ourselves.”

Mary Maxwell, Montevallo

The Birmingham News, October 25, 2008

The writer of this letter has read the same Bible that you and I read and she is blinded to what the bible is really about. I do not scorn her but I fear that she is one of the ones our Lord is speaking about:

  

Matthew 11:25-30

25 At that time Jesus answered and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 

26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 

27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 

28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 

30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

So if the Lord wills we will next study Obadiah and see what he had to say about Christ. Read the Old Testament and be encouraged that Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ, is what the Word of God is really all about.

Amen

Introduction.pdf