Bible Survey - Minor prophets II
Vern Peterman · Jul 27, 2014
Bible Survey, No. 30
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492643553954

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Last week, one of the minor prophets we talked about was Jonah. And there was something announced this last week I want to touch on here. Remember we had the geography of the prophet Jonah. He went, you know, headed west or tried to. And after the great fish put him on dry land, he did go to Nineveh. Well, that's modern Mosul, we pointed out. And see this Nabi Yunus, this is the tomb of the prophet Jonah. And we showed at that point in time some of the reconstructed walls.

See, they had to reconstruct them because the Babylonians took everything apart. That was their pattern. That's what they did in Jerusalem, right? The Babylonians took everything apart. And so here's broken down walls that you see, and then the reconstructed walls in places.

What happened just earlier this month, biblical prophet Jonah's grave dug up by some radical Sunnis. And something we'll touch on is there's Sunni and Shia, those are the two main Muslim groups, and there are radicals in each. Islam is not unified, very much divided. As a matter of fact, the Sunnis and the Shia will treat the other group just as badly as they'll treat Jews or Christians. Yes. Is that the group that kidnapped the girls? I don't know which group kidnapped the girls, but I'll show you a map in a little bit that might help us decipher that. I thought I saw that. Yeah, yeah. Let's see here.

So you have the Sunni and Shia sects. The Shia makes up just 10 to 15% of all Muslims and are concentrated in Iran, and we'll see a map of that. You know where they're concentrated and we say concentrated it tends to be that's where they're a majority versus minority Then there's the Sunni Don't believe the leaders have to be from the dynasty based on Ali in other words It's this is a family feud kind of thing, right? And they elect their leadership based on merit and devout Islamic principles not based on family line so Here is a map of the Shia and Sunni sects and what you see is the Shia is this more darker area and so it's in Iran and then here in Afghanistan. So Afghanistan is divided between Sunni and Shia.

They have that conflict and then Iraq has an area that is Shia. as well. And there's a few other little spots. What I see, you're asking about Nigeria, that looks like Sunni. And most of Africa is predominantly Sunni. So looking in this area here, you get up a little closer, Mosul is in an area that's Sunni, but it's not all Sunni, there are some Shia. And so what this group has been doing is going in and tearing out things like, here's this grave of the prophet Jonah, and they're also attacking Christian churches and Shia groups. So at any rate, it's pretty nasty, yes. So nobody could even make a cartoon about them. Yes, that's right. And see, they care nothing for history. They'll just go in, you know, something has historical significance, but they don't like it. They'll just tear it up. They don't care a bit.

And at least the people, the local people who previously had control, including the police there at Mosul, They said it's almost certain that that's the burial place of the Prophet Jonah, for whatever that's worth. So, we're going to go to this, which we talked about last week, because there were questions about the campaign of Armageddon.

And we won't be able to go into it in immense detail, but you've got it on the front of your handout here. And so what we have here are the eight stages of Armageddon. And you've got the references, primary references, it's not exhaustive. First is the Assembling of the Allies of the Antichrist, and that is what you see in number one, which is up in the upper left. That's the port of what is now called Haifa, and that valley. that leads up to it there is Megiddo. So Valley of Megiddo is Harmageddon is the way it's carried over into the Greek.

And it has nothing to do with Bruce Willis. Just so you know. And then the destruction of Babylon. And Stan was asking about that. It appears to be a divine destruction. Primarily, it doesn't talk about who necessarily carries it out. And then you have the fall of Jerusalem. So there's an attack on Jerusalem. Jerusalem falls. And then you have the armies of the Antichrist chase the remnant Jewish population down south to Basra and or Petra in that region.

So they retreat in there. Why would that region be a good retreat area? Yeah? I've never been there, but the pictures and stuff show that it's really almost inaccessible. Yeah, in other words... You have planes and stuff. Right. Deep ravines. You can't take, you know, tanks, vehicles into a lot of those ravines. So, deep ravines, many of them. And, I mean, they're tall, like, you know, way up. So it's easier to hide in there and tougher to get vehicles in and out.

Yes. Yes. No. Oh, this is Revelation 17 and 18. Chapter 17 and 18. And it's it's it describes the destruction of it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's all just human armies. Right? It's not an attack on the Jews. No. However, there is a fair population of Jews there. Still. Still a fair population of Jews. I went to engineering school with one. So is all this stuff more than just an attack on the Jews? It ultimately aims towards attacking the Jews. That's the ultimate aim. And that's what you see is that after dealing with Babylon, it moves on to everything's about Israel.

And then you have the national regeneration of Israel, and multiple references to that, including in Romans 11, 25-27, all Israel will be saved. And then the second coming of Christ, and there are more references than what you see here, but that certainly touches on it.

The battle from Basra ends at the Valley of Jehoshaphat. That's the valley between the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem. And that's the place where Antichrist is slain by Messiah, by Christ. And then finally, the victory is sent upon the Mount of Olives, referenced in several different places including Matthew and Revelation. So that's the quick look at those eight stages. One of the things that's cool, look at how much of the eight stages of Armageddon come from the not-so-minor prophets.

Every one of the stages is prophesied by at least one of the minor prophets, and in several cases you've got two or three of them. Also, the inspiration of scripture, these men rarely knew each other. Time and distance prevented that, and yet you have great confluence between the different ones, sometimes separated by centuries, still writing an agreement. Sometimes separated by centuries, and other times separated by distances. So anyway, this is the quick summary. We can't afford to take lots of time with it. But this is the campaign of Armageddon, I think is probably the best way to put it.

It's initiated at Har-Megiddo, the valley of Megiddo. Alright, so let's take a look at page two where we start with the second group here of the twelve minor prophets, so-called. and this is Nahum now something to look at with Nahum is he prophesies from Judah about Nineveh and a century before Jonah had gone to Nineveh and preached repentance or destruction will come to them and he'd gone there and actually his prophetic ministry was to Nineveh here a century later Nahum is not preaching, you know, hey, if you'll repent, you know, you can turn this around. He's preaching from Judah against Nineveh and saying they're done. They're done. And in fact, that was what happened. He prophesied destruction for Nineveh and Nineveh was taken out. It was a hundred years after. Yeah, it was a hundred years after. So just a point of comparison, it would be as if, just to take the United States, here's 1914, right? And then now a century later, here in 2014, it's too late. There's not even any, you know, if you'll repent, you'll be saved. No, it's just dictated. They're going. Right? They're going. Yeah. I haven't seen this anywhere or read it anywhere.

Somebody asked me several times if Jonah was swallowed by a whale. It was probably in the Mediterranean Sea, right? Yeah, and actually it says a great fish. So it isn't specifically a whale, but yeah. So anyway, he would have been caught up on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

Yes. That's quite a ways from Nineveh. Do you have any idea? He may have gotten there after... Oh, it is quite a ways. Let's look at the map. I don't want to get too distracted here because we've got a lot to cover. But yeah, I mean it's going to take time for him to get there. Yeah, it's going to take time for him to get there and he might have looked pretty funny too. Imagine he shows up at Nineveh and here's this guy that really looks odd. You look like you've been inside of a fish for days. Oh yes, oh yeah, yeah. Basically the route, because he came back here and we aren't exactly sure where, but this route here would have been a real common route with major roads, major international roads.

Okay, so here is a key verse in Nahum after prophesying the destruction of Nineveh. And he starts off with, you know, it's decreed, it's not, you know, you guys be careful because, you know, if you don't, this is going to happen. He just said, it is going to happen. Here's Nahum 115, Behold on the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace. Celebrate your feasts, O Judah, pay your vows, for never again will the wicked one, Assyria, pass through you. He is cut off completely. So that would be a key verse and actually somewhat of a comfort.

Because who's going to take out Nineveh and the Assyrians? The Babylonians, right? So yeah, you're not going to have Assyria, but you're going to have Babylon. So anyway. All right. So this is Nahum. Let's take a look on page three where we have Habakkuk. Habakkuk is one with some great passages. We'll take a look at it shortly. They're quoted there at the bottom.

The situation with Habakkuk, he is in Judah and prophesying against Judah. That's one thing that, you think about it, if you're a prophet in a country like Judah, and you're prophesying difficulties and destruction and things like that, One of the perceptions that people might have is that you're somehow unpatriotic. And that was what a lot of the prophets faced when they would, for their own people, you know, we're in Jerusalem and it's got the temple and this is the place and you're telling us it's all coming down. So this is part of the problem that the prophets would face is when they were telling about destruction of the very country that they were in, especially Judah that had the temple. They were treated very badly and looked upon as unpatriotic.

Alright, so here's Habakkuk. He's got here kind of two sections. The first couple of chapters, he talks about what God is doing and the difficulties that Judah is about to face. The last chapter of it, however, ends up being a chapter of praise. So let's look at the verses at the bottom.

Habakkuk 2.4, Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him, but the righteous will live by his faith. And this is what the Apostle Paul quotes, the righteous will live by faith. And then Habakkuk 3 16 through 19 is quoted next, I heard and my inward parts trembled at the sound my lips quivered decay enters my bones and in my place I tremble because I must wait quietly for the days of distress for the people to arise who will invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olives should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the stock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord.

I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength. He has made my feet like hinds feet, and makes me walk on high places. for the choir director on my stringed instruments. It appears that this is a musical piece. And it's to be done on stringed instruments.

That is one reason why it's been suggested, not certain, but been suggested, that Habakkuk was not only a prophet, but a priest who served in the musical ministry at the temple. The tradition, and this is written centuries later, so it may or may not reflect the actual situation, is that they had these harps called githara, where we get our word guitar, right? They had these harps that they would play, and these were the stringed instruments that were used in the temple worship. Okay, so there's Habakkuk. I say not only a prophet, but possibly a priest, and that's why the very last line here is just kind of Here's who leads this performance and it's done on stringed instruments, done with stringed instruments.

Isn't that something? Okay, so let's turn from page 3 to 4 and that will take us to Zephaniah. Zephaniah is not long, again only three chapters, but it is potent. It is potent. It also is against looking about Judah. And it's written a little bit earlier, before the Babylonians are coming into power. So it's still under Assyria. And it's written to motivate repentance.

It talks about, down in the Zephaniah, at a glance, look at the line there, it says, day of wrath on topic right day of wrath and then following that in chapter 3 verse 9 to the end day of joy day of wrath day of joy and then under that judgment on Judah and restoration for Judah so real interesting the pattern that you see there let's look at Zephaniah 3 14 through 20 which is at the bottom of the page there Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion.

Shout in triumph, O Israel. Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away his judgments against you, has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst." When is this talking about? The future, the coming millennial kingdom, okay? Taken away, cleared all the enemies out of the way, right? The King of Israel, who's that? But notice, it says the King of Israel, the Lord, and that capital L-O-R-D means that's Yahweh. So guess who Christ is? Deity, right? He's Deity.

And it's in your midst. In your midst. You will fear disaster no more. not afraid of disaster anymore this is again talking about the coming millennial kingdom in that day and that was one of the one of the ways that the prophets would talk about a future day in that day and that they don't necessarily mean day like a single day they talk about day more of as a figure of speech of a time period just like we'll say well in my day and age right so he's using in that way do not be afraid oh Zion, Zion we're gonna see again in the main passage in Hebrews. Do not be afraid, O Zion, do not let your hands fall limp. The Lord, and notice here again, it's Yahweh, the Lord, Yahweh, your God, is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

Yes? Did any of these prophecies come about? Yes, some did. In his case, what you would see is there were near-term prophecies, and then they would make longer-term prophecies. In some cases, the near-term prophecy was fulfilled in days or even hours.

Let's take, for instance, Isaiah. Isaiah is encouraging Hezekiah, as a court prophet, he is encouraging Hezekiah to trust the Lord. And the Lord takes out the Assyrians, 185,000 of them, and that's how the Lord answered prayer. Isaiah didn't tell Hezekiah, this is how it's going to be fulfilled. He just says, trust the Lord. And the Lord took care of it. Trust the Lord. But you ask a very good question.

There was often a near term and then a longer term fulfillment. And many of them prophesied things that still haven't happened yet, but we expect will happen in the future. Randy? So they died with everybody they could name. Sometimes, but basically what they prophesied was very unpopular, and by the time it was fulfilled, there wasn't too much to do about it, right?

Yeah, Randy? of the law is that it's a profit. It's a false profit. So I think the Lord would probably do something to certify those short-term gains. It may not necessarily bring them down. But here is a proven, put forth by God, profit. I'm sure that the writings may just reflect a piece of what the Lord did. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

The litmus test of a prophet is does what he prophesies come true? And so frequently they would have short-term prophecies. It may not even be all of them that we have, but they would frequently have short-term prophecies so that they would satisfy the test that this is truly a prophet and not just somebody who says something and is actually a false prophet. It's interesting that The predictions almost always have a near-term judgment aspect. Yes, yeah. I was just looking as you were talking about this, the first part of chapter 3, woe to Jesus! She has not obeyed God's voice. She has not received correction. She has not trusted the Lord. She has not drawn near to her God.

America, wake up! Yes, yes. Okay, here is chapter, excuse me, page 5. This is Haggai. Haggai was one of those that Nancy and I had known each other for about a year and I volunteered to do some Bible studies with her. And this is one of the books that I took her to.

It's second only to Obadiah in brevity. Obadiah is just, you know, got less than a couple dozen verses in one chapter so it's short so it's quite brief however the situation is this the Jews had come back to Jerusalem from their exile, where the Babylonians had taken them away and now a number of them came back to Jerusalem out of exile, they began rebuilding the temple but were greatly discouraged by the residents.

And so Haggai and Zechariah at around the same time, so they were contemporaries. Haggai and Zechariah were brought up by the Lord to encourage the rebuilding of the temple, get her done, right? And so that's what Haggai is pointed towards. So they must reorder their priorities, because what they were doing is they were discouraged from rebuilding the temple, and so they were just fixing up their own houses. And he's saying, you know, yeah, you're doing a great job, you know, fixing up your house, but the house of the Lord isn't done, you know, and so get back at it, right?

This is, this is, let me take a look here. Oh, what you see, that's actually a little bit later, a little bit later. But what's interesting is while I made the general statement that it's hard to date some of the minor prophets, This is one exception. Look at the bottom of the chart where it says time. It gives the exact day. September 1st, 520 B.C., October 21st, 520 B.C., December 24th, Christmas Eve, 520 B.C. So it's very specific as to the date in contrast to a lot of the minor prophets who don't have a reference. In this case, we have exactly the day that certain portions were given.

And this is before Nehemiah, because remember Nehemiah was coming in to rebuild the walls, right? And so first to get the temple done and then get the walls done was the sequence. Now, what we have here, Haggai 2.9 has an interesting thing that says, the latter glory of this house Which house are you talking about? The temple, right? The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. How could the latter glory of this second temple be greater than the former? Why? How could it be greater? Who's going to walk in it? The Messiah is going to come into this building.

Now, it was upgraded under Herod. It was upgraded, but they upgraded it as a temple still in use. And that's why, especially the inner parts of the temple actually had to be done by the priests themselves. You couldn't have just regular workmen coming in to the inner part of the temple. And so what happened is they trained the priests to work on that part of it, because it was a temple still in use. because they were still doing sacrifices and everything that the law required all during that time.

So it was begun about 19 BC, they began planning it a year before that, about 20 BC, and it wasn't done until about 63 AD. So all during the time of Christ on the earth, all during His ministry, and before, and after, it was being worked on. And when they finally finished it, they laid off 18,000 people.

And there was a riot. But that's why it says the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former. Certainly it will be upgraded, but also Christ would walk in it. Christ would walk in it. And let's ask this question. Did Christ care about the temple? Did Christ care about the temple?

Okay, now you say twice, what are you referring to? Well, he came in and tipped over the tables. He tipped over the tables, right? And just, boom, I don't care whose money is whose, you're going to have to figure that out. Okay, tipped over the tables, drove out the animals, right? Drive them out. A house of worship is not a place of commerce. Not a place of commerce. And can you imagine what mayhem was there. Here are people trying to come into this temple and all around you got animals and cages and people making chains and all that stuff. It was the courtyard around the inner temple.

But yeah, Christ did care and he cleansed it twice. We have a record of those two times, right? When he came by with his disciples and they talked about the glory of the temple, he said, don't get so involved with that. This temple is going to be wiped out. On the one hand, he was zealous for the temple. On the other hand, he let them know this thing is going to be torn down.

This is just a earthly representation. Yes. Ultimately, think about it. He would cleanse the temple. and show care and be zealous for the temple when ultimately is it the reality or the illustration? It's the illustration. So what he was trying to preserve was, look, this is an illustration of that which is the reality. And I am going to minister up there in the reality in a very short time from now. I'm going to minister up in the reality, so don't mess up the illustration. Don't mess up the illustration. Yes?

I don't want to get too hung up on it, but just say that the latter glory would be greater than the former. It's almost like saying that God will be greater than God, because when the temple was completed under Solomon, the glory of the Lord filled the temple. God said, I will make this my dwelling place. It goes a little deeper than just these words. Yes. Think about it.

What's different about Christ walking in it from there being just simply a spiritual presence? He was in the manifestation of man. I mean, if you're talking about a relationship, God does have a relationship with people, but it's spiritual. Here, Christ had a relationship, not only spiritual, but physical, and also a teaching relationship with his people.

So, I think that's great. from the standpoint of man. Okay, so this is Haggai. They did complete the temple, at least as it was. So that was about 515 B.C. when they completed the temple. And now we'll turn, let's see, that's five. to six which will be Zechariah who is the contemporary of Haggai and also encouraging with the temple doing so in a different way doing so in a different way and so here's Zechariah who writes a longer book quite a bit longer than Haggai he has prophecy and and hope and I think just fascinating book. So he first prophesies while building the temple and then after building the temple he comes up with some additional things. So, but very interestingly he prophesies things about both Christ's first coming and Christ's second coming in this book.

So Zechariah 9.9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you. He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, even a colt, the foal of a donkey."

What's that talking about? Yeah, what we call Palm Sunday, this is the Palm Sunday entrance, even to the point where this is referenced in the New Testament as this is the fulfillment of that. So it's clear that it's connected. Now we have Zechariah 12, 8 through 10. In that day, now remember the in that day means what? This is an expanse of time in the future, right?

In that day, the Lord Yahweh, God, will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God. How is that? How is the house of David will be like God? Like the angel of the Lord.

When we talk about a house in biblical terms, What does that word mean? It isn't talking about two-by-fours and nails and sheetrock. It talks about those of that lineage and family, right? That's what it means. So if you talk about the house of Jacob, it's the lineage of Jacob. If we talk about the house of David, it's the lineage of David, right? So the lineage of David, if you were to put that in there, will be like God. How's that? How does that happen?

Like the angel of the Lord. Now who was the angel of the Lord? The pre-incarnate Son of God is the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord is the one who shows up and talks to Moses through the burning bush. The angel of the Lord is the one who comes and talks to Hagar, believe it or not. And so we have multiple instances where it's clear that the person who talks to the angel of the Lord will say that they have seen God. So here, it is amazing, the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them. It will be the Son of God.

And in that day, here's again in that day, I will set about to destroy all the nations, that's the ethnos in the Greek, the Gentiles, that come against Jerusalem. I will pour out on the house of David, that is the lineage of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication, so that they will look upon me whom they have pierced.

Wow! That's cool. And they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. They are not going to be apathetic about this. Right? They're not going to be apathetic about this. And now Zechariah 14, 1 through 5, and I have this spilling over into the next page here.

Behold, a day is coming, for the Lord, when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you, for I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle." and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle." Now, who's going to fight against the nations? The Lord, right?

And who will that be? It is Yahweh who will fight against the nations, okay? the ethnos is when he fights on the day of battle and that day his feet will stand. Now wait a minute, does Yahweh have feet? Does Yahweh have feet? The Messiah, the Son of God does, right? So, and that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives which is in front of Jerusalem on the east and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley.

And by the way, I had a geologist friend some years ago who checked this out and there is an earthquake vault runs just right through there. Okay. You will flee by the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel. Yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Isaiah, king of Judah. That's Isaiah's uncle.

Then the Lord, my God, will come and all the holy ones with him. Jesus, the Messiah, is deity. And who are all the holy ones? This will be everything from the angels to the saints will come with Him, including you and me. The Holy One is with Him. And by the way, will we have to fight in that battle? We will not. Why? The Lord will take care of it. Bang! We will be there to witness, there to accompany, but the Lord will take care of it entirely Himself. He won't delegate.

Okay, you take out this wing over here, and you take over and attack that flank, etc. I would have to study that, because I don't know the answer offhand. Because it does give, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azael, so I'd have to take a look at the geography there and check on that. I don't know the answer offhand. Yeah, you may be onto something, but I'd have to study it and see if it doesn't confirm that or point to something else.

Yes. Yes. So that reference then would also include Zechariah, right? Zechariah 12? Yes. Sometimes Zechariah 12-14 is called the Little Apocalypse because it actually dovetails with portions of the Book of Revelation. Okay, so let's move on to Malachi, the last one. So here is Malachi, a prophet in the days of Nehemiah. So you're asking about the time of Nehemiah. Here's the guy. So here's Malachi in the days of Nehemiah. He predicts judgment on Judah. Because there were a lot of things that were going badly, spiritually and morally speaking. Things were going badly. So this was after the time of the ministry of what Nehemiah focuses on, but still contemporary.

So what you see there, has in that Malachi at a glance, talks about the love of God for the nation and the care of God, but then what you see starting in Malachi 1.6, starting with the sins of the priests, here they are serving in the temple that has been completed, right? They're serving in the temple that's been completed roughly a century earlier, and what he has to tell them is the priests are polluted. Here these guys are the ones who are carrying out all the sacrifices in this newly built temple and the priests are polluted and this is what they're doing wrong. And then the sins of the people and this is what's going on.

So there's a lot of moral and spiritual degradation that was taking place. And then the promise of the nations is the last part of the book of Malachi. A book of remembrance, the coming of Christ and the coming of Elijah are prophesied there. Those are things future to Malachi.

Malachi 4.2 is kind of a key verse, a promise there, but for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness, and that's son S-U-N, will rise with healing in its wings and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.

Anybody seen calves from the stall skipping about? I've seen it all where they go and they run and they kick their feet up and it really is cool to see. I mean, it really is kind of amazing. But yeah, when the calves run from the stall, that's what they do. They go skipping and they throw their legs up and it's truly kind of like they're rejoicing, you know.

So he has kind of two word pictures. One is the Sun of Righteousness and then with healing, right? So look at, you got the Sun, which is astronomical body, right? And then with healing in its wings, so there's wings, which is now you've got a bird-like illustration, and you go back and forth and skip about like calves from the stall. So he shifts the metaphors, right? Shifts the metaphors here. And what's that talking about? What's that talking about? Yes, with healing in its wings.

So this is three different illustrations to tell them about the messianic days to come. God's going to make things right. You guys are doing terribly, but God's going to make things right. So this is an illustration of messianic times in the book of Malachi. The wicked lay in the ashes under soldier feet on the day that I do this. So it's part of the purpose. Okay, so the priests were supposed to be taking care of sin, which they weren't doing appropriately, and so Christ would be coming to do that in his death on the cross. But more preferably, God will do that when he takes away the sin of Jacob in the Millennium Kingdom, correct?

So there's actually two times its XP. Now, looking at these minor prophets, I just am amazed as I look at them. They have an assortment. You can say some things in common among them. So there's things in common, but there's also quite a bit of variety in what they talk about, what they address. But one of the patterns you see is they would prophesy bad things, and then frequently, then prophesy good things. A few questions for you. Question one, why would God send prophets to people who won't listen? Why bother sending prophets to people that he knows won't listen?

Yes? Well, he said to Ramus that he would tell his people of events that were happening. So, irregardless of whether they're going to listen or not, he's still going to tell them. Yeah. Okay. Yes? Also, it illustrates that when God judges, He's doing it righteously because Thus, thus, and thus. Just like in Malachi, it says you've offered the lame and the sick and the blind as sacrifices to me. Go offer them to your governor to see if he accepts them. I like the little bit of sarcasm.

Isn't it a message to us too that we should present the gospel? Because people are resistant does not necessarily mean that we just give up and keep our mouth shut. We may have to look more carefully for how it's done or when or certain circumstances, but I think that is one message. It isn't necessarily the reception that determines what we say and how we say it.

Likewise, what you said, they cannot say, but nobody ever told me. Right? But no one ever told me. It's sort of like we as parents raise teenagers who know everything and don't listen very carefully because they think it won't happen to them or they know better. And somehow in the next 10, 20, 30 years their perspective changes just like as we get over and over. We see things differently than our mid-life time. Let's ask this question.

If God delivers messages to people who won't listen, isn't that being rather inefficient? Why wouldn't God be more efficient and only deliver messages to those who will listen? It's all throughout scripture how hard a man is. Yeah. There are few listeners. Yeah. Yes. So if you're going for efficiency, you've got the wrong audience. Yeah. How many people listen to Noah? This many. Zip. None. Nada. Right? Nobody listened to the guy.

And how long did he preach? Was it 40 years? Longer than that. He preached for over a century. Zero response. Does that mean that Noah was blowing it? He just saved his breath? No. He was called a preacher of righteousness. He preached for 120 years and zero response from that. That did not mean that he wasn't supposed to do it.

And here's another application of this. Did Christ die for the sins of the whole world or only those who would believe? for the whole world, is what the Bible says. And he died for the sins of the whole world, that's very inefficient. God does not put a priority on efficiency. And one of the reasons is because of his grace. Does he have a deficiency or a limitation on his grace? He does not. As a matter of fact, Ephesians 2, 7, the riches, wealth of His grace. And that is why He does not have to be efficient because His grace is unlimited.

So He will send messages to people who won't listen. He will have Christ die for people that will not believe. Yes? His character is also faithful. Faithfulness. It means that he's consistent in pointing out grace. Yes. His faithfulness has nothing to do with our receptiveness in any way. Yeah. And that faithfulness is when the atheist or the agnostic says, oh I don't know if I can believe in this God, and they describe God in some corny way, or oh he's just a rather good God, or he's a good nation.

There is a character of God that is infinite and so much broader than your painting. And we have thousands of years of time, or a thousand years of time of writing. that shows, despite the blind and hard-hearted people in this room, the loving and gracious and faithful and loving and gracious Lord over them?

Well, it also shows the the importance that he puts on free will and the fact that a man is able to choose. The question is, it also indicates in scripture that many times the spirit or God or somebody moves to change a person's viewpoint or how they believe. And I think it says in Hebrews that you're drawn.

How does that relate to self-will? I mean, that's probably more of a question you want to get into at this point, but this all centers around free will, right? Man's ability... Yeah. And the question of free will is one that's, you know, we could take more time on that. But one of the things I think to ponder is Christ did this very same thing. He spoke to the Jewish leaders. This is John chapter 8.

He spoke to the Jewish leaders and he says, unless you believe, you will die in your sins. And that end is an identification truth, isn't it? You will die in them. You will die in your sins unless you believe. Did those Jewish leaders end up believing? Nope. They didn't. But he still presented that unless you believe, you'll die in your sins. He could have just said, well you guys aren't going to listen, so I'm just not even going to tell you.

Just like when he was saying about the character of God. is looking for a relationship, not obedience because of fear of retribution. And throughout history, particularly in the Middle Ages, the church was preaching hellfire and damnation. And it was fear of judgment, not love of God, that was the usual presentation.

And we are so fortunate to be under a gospel of grace. Yes, right, and to come to really realize grace and not just some mixture of law and grace. This is Zechariah on page 6. They will look upon me whom they have pierced and they will mourn for him. Were they mourning because they realized that they crucified Christ? Why are they mourning?

One of the things, we don't have time to go into it now, but one of the things is Israel now is largely an agnostic atheist population. The vast majority, agnostic atheist. Then there's a small minority, less than 10% of observant Jews and an even smaller minority of Christians. But what's going to happen is you'll have a national regeneration of Israel.

It's talked about there on that first page. And so a part of it will be just a realization. This is the Messiah. This is the Savior. I didn't even believe in a God, but this is the one. And I just thought that was all mythology. But I now realize it's reality. We've got to stop and pray. We've got people waiting at the window here. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for the amazing message of these 12 minor prophets. And thank you, Lord, for your most amazing grace, made quite evident here, even in these books, preaching judgment. And we just give you thanks. In Jesus' name, amen.