Well we are in Hour 12 of "Learn the Bible in
24 Hours", in which we're going to take a quick survey of 12 so-called Minor Prophets. And we, of course, are in the post … the
exile and post-exile time period and we're going to focus in here on these 12 and try
to put them in perspective for you. We have Hosea who spoke to the Northern
Kingdom. That's confusing because Hosea came from the
south, but God commissions him, as you’ll see to take a message to Jeroboam the second
in the northern kingdom. And Hosea’s book is going to be very important
because I see a real parallel between his situation and our own. Amos is also from the south going against
the Northern Kingdom to take his messages. Obadiah is in the time of Jehoiakim.
But his message really goes to the Edomites and so forth. Jonah is preaching to the Assyrian Empire
prior to them finally taking over the northern kingdom. So you need to understand that Jonah’s reluctance
to go there was because he was a patriot. He knew they were the traditional enemy of
Israel and we’ll deal with that when we get there. And Micah is in the times of Ahaz, roughly
contemporaneous with Isaiah. Nahum is about a century after Jonah,
but again to the Assyrians. So we … and then we have Habakkuk ... See, it’s confusing because the order that
they're in, in your Bible, are not chronological, nor are they clustered by the people to whom
they were speaking. And so the order is what it is. So we have Zephaniah who’s well
before Jeremiah, between Isaiah and Jeremiah. And Haggai is one that speaks to the rebuilding
of the temple in the days of Ezra. And Zachariah is in the days of Nehemiah,
just prior to the end, much, he says much about the second coming of Jesus Christ. And
then we have Malachi who closes the Old Testament period. Following Malachi are 400 years sometimes
called the "silent years" between the Old and the New Testaments, but they’re not really
silent because as I've mentioned before, they are detailed for you in the 11th chapter of
Daniel. They are written down in advance in large
measure. But let's get to Hosea. His focus is the apostasy of the Northern
Kingdom. And he was to the Northern Kingdom what Jeremiah
was to the Southern Kingdom in a sense. And from Jeroboam the Second to the Assyrian
invasion is approximately 50 years. Between the death of Jeroboam the Second
and the Assyrian Invasion, while Hezekiah still ruled in Judah, he murdered the son
of Jehu, which ends the Jehu Dynasty. Then Shallum slays Zachariah, who only last 6 months
and then Menahem slays Shallum and Pekah kills Pekahiah, the Son of Menahem. And then Hosea ...
a bad guy by the name of Hoshea slays Pekah. So you’ve got just murder after murder
after murder. Dynasty after dynasty after dynasty continuing. So you’ve got what? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. There’s 6 or 7 dynasties right here in this
profile. Golden calves are of course erected at Bethel
and Dan. They’re originally just symbols, but they,
of course, lead to nature worship and child sacrifice and so forth. Just as we are today. Same thing happening. They sacrificed their children on idols
of bronze. We've found a way to sacrifice children in
the most holy place of all, the womb of the mother. The book of Hosea. The first few chapters are prologue, where he takes an adulterous wife and through whom he has
3 children that God names prophetically, has them named prophetically. His focus of his book is national sin, that
it's intolerable, that it will be punished. That's basically his theme. But she, her
first child is named Jezreel, which means either scattered or sown of God. It's ... these are homonyms really. In other words, words that sound alike, but
mean different things. God will either scatter or God will sow in
a constructive sense. And the house, the reigning house of Israel
succeeded to the throne through blood of Jezreel. It was the sight of Jehu’s ruthless
massacre of the House of Ahab and Jezreel. That's in Second Kings as we talked about
it there, and in the future, it would be the scene of Israel's ultimate military demise. And Jezreel is the plain of Esdraelon. It's 10 miles in breadth from the Mediterranean
and Mount Carmel roughly to the Jordan, from the Gallilee to the mountains of Ephron. And it was the great battlefield of Gideon
you may recall. It became a symbol of national disgrace and defeat as it had been after Saul’s death. And, of course, it's also proximate to the battle
of Armageddon, so it's a very key site. But many … The 2 children are named Lo-ammi
and Lo-ruhamah. Lo means no in Hebrew. Lo-ruhamah mean unloved, and the other one
is not my people. So God has Hosea name these 2 children
to represent a prophetic message. Speaking of Israel. You're unloved and you're not my people. This is God's way of getting their attention. The good news, so I don't leave you with that,
before it's over, God will say, "then will I say to them which were not my people,
thou art my people and they shall say thou art my God." So that'll be repaired before it's over. They will become Ruhamah and Ammi rather than
Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi. And ... but Hosea’s message is one we really
want to understand. No other messenger gives so complete an outline
of the ways God deals with His earthly people. God suffers when His people are unfaithful
to Him. It's astonishing to realize that the creator
of the universe can suffer, can be grieved. You know people say He’s the Holy, you think
of the Father and the Son, what about the Holy Spirit? We kind of think of the Holy Spirit as sort
of a, a force or something. No, it’s a person. The Holy Spirit loves you. How do I know that? Because He's grieved. You can grieve the Holy Spirit. These, these personages have feelings. God suffers when His people aren’t faithful
to Him, but God cannot condone sin. That's one of the restraints on His nature. God will never cease to love His own and consequently
He seeks to win back those that have forsaken Him. That's the message that comes through. That
God cannot condone sin, but He does seek to win back those that will … that have
forsaken Him. Now the Northern King, we need to understand
the Northern Kingdom to understand where we stand. The Northern Kingdom under Jeroboam the second was one of the most prosperous periods in their history. Their standing army had recovered all the
territory previously lost. They enjoyed unparalleled material prosperity. Many of them had 2 homes and so forth. If you read through the text, you’ll recognize
they're very, very prosperous. From their very point of view, it was the
best of times. God's indictment, He has Hosea from the south,
go up there to give them His indictment. Accuses them, they had exchanged their loyalty
to their heritage for pagan worship. Boy, that makes me uncomfortable. Aren’t we doing the same thing? The results in the Northern Kingdom was the
lowest ebb of immorality they'd ever seen. Widespread adultery, social injustice, violent
crime, religious hypocrisy, political rebellion, selfish arrogance, spiritual ingratitude,
that's the whole ball of wax. The worst it was had ever been. So this is their predicament. It was the best of times in their eyes, but
it was the worst of times in God's eyes. You can't help but remind of the opening line
of Charles Dickens’ famous novel, "Tale of 2 Cities." Best of times, at the same time, it was the
worst of times, all how you look at it. Hosea's message is to let them understand how
it looks to God. Although a loving and caring God had provided
their abundance and prosperity, their sin, disloyalty and abandonment of Him will force
Him to vindicate His justice with judgment. Oh boy. Thus, God is going to use their enemies as
His instrument of judgment. Shortly, they will be history, and shortly
they were. Not long after Hosea’s message, the Assyrian
Empire wiped out the Northern Kingdom. God used the Assyrians. These are sinful people, but God uses hated
instruments to accomplish His purposes. "Hear the word of the Lord, ye children
of Israel, for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land because there
is no love, no truth, no intimate knowledge of God in the land." This verse summarizes the situation in the Northern
Kingdom that ... in God's eyes. It also provides the backbone verse for my
wife's ministry. She published a trilogy of books that have
become classics in each of these areas. "The Way of Agape", that's understanding God's
love. "Be Ye Transformed", understanding God's truth
and "Faith in the Night Seasons", which is understanding God's intimate knowledge. So this, this became her trilogy and
it has been taught all over the world. So you check that out if you’re interested. But the question about Hosea that I have to
insert here, "Is there a parallel to America?" You know, our stock indexes are unprecedented
highs in general. The people are buying their third and fourth
cars. Almost every home has a computer. It's hard to find anyone without a belt with a phone hanging on it. And fuel costs less than the water we drink. Think about it. You buy a bottled water, it's more expensive
than your gas. But anyway we would, generally many people
would argue it's the best of times. It's the best of times in our sight. I wonder how it looks to God. Homosexuality is just an alternative lifestyle. We murder babies that are socially inconvenient. We change marriage partners like a fashion
statement. We’ve abandoned the sanctity of commitments
in all of our relationships, not just marriages and business. It used to be on Wall Street "my word is my
bond". Today it’s, “So sue me.” Even if you're an accountant, if you're one
of the referees. God rebuked Israel for their brutality, their
murder, and their warfare. We've had Waco, Columbine High School and
so on. New York City has recorded more crimes than
England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark
combined. One city and more than half a dozen countries. Immorality and deceit have also come to characterize
the highest offices of our land. Our politics have condoned and covered up
more murders than we dare list. Our public enterprises have been prostituted
for the convenience of the elite. Our media unabashedly promoted, knowingly
promoted falsehoods to try to topple a sitting president during wartime. Our entertainment industry celebrates adultery,
fornication, violence, aberrant sexual practices, and every imaginable form of evil. They, they contrive things to make a market. They celebrate these things. Just ... We’ve become the primary exporters
of all that God abhors. When you see a movie star abroad bashing America,
realize how profitab- he or she, their profitability hangs on the foreign movie rights. Think about it. Follow the money. So from God's point of view, you could argue
it’s the worst of times. Hosea’s message to the Northern Kingdom
was although a loving and caring God had provided their abundance in prosperity, so ours, their
sin, disloyalty and abandonment of Him will do what? Force Him to vindicate His justice with judgment. Thomas Jefferson said it. “I tremble when I recall that God is just
and that His justice will not sleep forever.” And so Hosea’s message was God is going
to use their enemies as His instrument of judgment, and shortly they would be history. I wonder if that's true of us. The great mystery I run ... when I travel across
the country, the question I get most often asked, why hasn't God judged America? Billy Graham summarized it several decades
ago by saying, “If God doesn't judge America, He’s going to have to apologize to Sodom
and Gomorrah.” That's a good summary. And I think I can ... I think Genesis 12
verses 2 and 3 is they key to our umbrella. Let’s change the subject a little bit, get
back to Hosea. There’s a ... There is a dictum you learn
in seminaries that gets over emphasized. So many of these things are true but can be
over ... over shackle us. You'll hear many competent scholars tell you
that every verse has to be taken within context. It's context, context, context. And that's certainly true to a point, and
yet there are some very provocative lessons as we learn from the scripture. In Matthew chapter 2 verse 15 it says,
“And was there until the death of Herod ...” This is when Joseph and Mary go down
to Egypt with the baby because Herod would kill all the babies in Bethlehem. "And was there until the death
of Herod that might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the Lord by the prophet saying,
'Out of Egypt have I called My Son.'” So Matthew is saying that phrase, he's quoting
from Hosea, is referring to Jesus Christ. “Out of Egypt of I’ve called ...” That’s
why they're down there so, so it fulfills this prophecy. “Out of Egypt I've called my son.” Well, that sounds pretty good until you get
go into Hosea, here's where he was ... He's quoting from Hosea 11. “When Israel was a child, then I loved him
and called my son out of Egypt.” What it's talking about in Hosea 11 is the
nation Israel. Yet, Matthew is applying it Messianically. I'm not saying Matthew is wrong. Obviously, he knows what he's doing, but it’s
teaching us a lesson. There are places where you're dealing here
with a double reference. The context of Hosea 11, wouldn't... You never dreamed that it was Messianic. It’s talking about the nation Israel. But Matthew perceived in that a prophecy that
was also true of the Messiah, because the Messiah was called out of Egypt, and Jesus
was. He fulfilled that specification. There's all kinds of specifications that Jesus
complied with that many people aren't even aware of. This is ... But the lesson here is to recognize
when we talk … when you want to talk about context, the ultimate context is the whole
counsel of God. The whole counsel of God, not just the local
verse itself. Now, there is a period called the "Time of
Jacob's Trouble" we talked about earlier, and what has to happen there. In Hosea 5 verse 15, there's a very key verse
to reflect on. The last verse of Hosea 5 where God says,
“I will go and return to my place.” Well, for God to say that He must have left
His place in order to return, right? So it's obviously alluding to Jesus Christ. “I will go and return to my place, till
...” There's that one of those magic words again, “Till they acknowledge their offense.” That's singular and specific. There's a specific offense they need to acknowledge,
namely the rejection of their Messiah. “I will go and return to my place, till
they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.” The word sometimes translated early can mean
earnestly, intensely. But the purpose of the tribulation is
to drive them to the wall, to acknowledge their offense of having rejected Jesus. When they do ... When they acknowledge it
and repent of it, He will return in power and set up their kingdom. That's what's going to be in ... Of Daniel
12 that Jesus quotes from to name it The Great Tribulation is from Daniel 12 verse 1. “At that time shall Michael stand up, the
great prince which standeth for the children of thy people, and there shall be a time of
trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time, and at that
time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” So Israel will be delivered. This is a commitment in Daniel 12 to Israel,
and so it ties to the Hosea 5:15 passage. There's another thing to learn from Hosea
in Chapter 12 verse 10, where God through Hosea says, “I have also spoken by the prophets,
and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets.” Use similitudes, huh? What are the similitudes? Well, these are rhetorical devices. They’re allegories. They’re analogies. They’re metaphors, they’re similes, similitudes,
types. These are all different kinds of figures of
speech. I have listed here just a half a dozen of
them. There's actually 200 different kinds of figures
of speech cataloged in the appendix to our "Cosmic Codes" book. But just understand that God does use, the Holy
Spirit does use rhetorical devices, and Hosea 12:10 is your authority. God uses similitudes and all the rest of these. Well the "Lion of the tribe of Judah,”
That's a simile. “The Good Shepherd.” That's a simile. “The lily of the valley.” “A root out of a dry ground" we saw. "The fruitful branch.” “He is without form or comeliness yet altogether
lovely.” These are, in effect, the employment of similes. There are also things called types. These are more ambitious kinds of things. The Ark of the Covenant is a type of Jesus
Christ. You need to understand why. Study it and find out why. The sacrifices on the brazen altar are anticipatory
of Jesus Christ. The Mercy Seat in the sanctuary, the propitiation
of Jesus Christ. The water from the rock. 1st Corinthians 10:4 Paul tells us that the
water from the rock was Christ. The rock that followed them was Christ and
twice to get water from the Rock. There’s a whole study around that. The manna from the sky. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus says. “I am the living water.” These are all types of him. The brazen serpent lifted up makes no, no
sense in Numbers 21 when you run into it there, and yet Jesus explains it to you when you
get to John 3. “As Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness,
so shall the Son of Man be lifted up.” It's a type, an anticipatory type. The Akeda we study is the ultimate type. The Passover lamb, and, of course, the scapegoat. These are just examples. There are books that catalog types in the
Bible. There are hundreds of them. Some very overt, some very subtle. Well, let's get to the Book of Joel. We’ll shift now. We’ve got 12 to get through here. He's alarmed by an invasion of a plague
of locusts. He talks a lot about that, and it's God’s
appeal, “Turn ye to me and I will restore” basically is the message of Joel. The day of the Lord is a key phrase in the
book of ... in the Book of Joel. The day of YodHehVavHeh as a rabbi might
pronounce it or Yahweh if you will or whatever. And End of the present age and the unprecedented
plagues that are associated with it. He says a lot about the army of Locusts. Locusts from the north. That’s strange because they usually come
from the south. He says, “They're like horsemen.” That's interesting. “They're like chariots. They're like men of war.” I wonder why they're compared to real ones
interestingly enough. “My great army,” Amos and Revelation use
that same term. A very key thing to understand, the locusts
have no king according to Proverbs 27 verse 30. That’s going to give us a discovery here
when we get to the book of Amos. But one of the quotes from Joel is that Peter
takes has been widely misunderstood, because in Acts chapter 2 when the gift of the Holy
Spirit is given to the church, church is born in effect. Some people thought they had drunk
too much liquor or something because they were all babbling in different tongues and
so on. Peter quotes from Joel in a speech. He says,” For these are not drunken, as
ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet
Joel.” And then Peter quotes from Joel chapter 2
in Acts chapter 2. He says,” And it shall come to pass in the
last days, sayeth God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall
dream dreams. And on my servants and on my handmaidens I
will pour out in those days of my Spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and
signs in the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and
the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Now, Joel’s language is pretty extreme and
yet Peter is quoting Joel as explaining what happened in Acts 2. And some people are confused by that, because
gee, where is the vapor, and smoke, and when is the, you know the earth … These wonders
in heaven and earth and so forth, and the moon turned to blood et cetera. What he his saying is, this outpouring of
the Holy Spirit is started in Acts 2. It will continue in various forms right up
until the day of the Lord formally. And so this is a quote from Joel, and,
it ties the period that we are in since Acts chapter 2, as the bridge to the
big climax, which is right on the horizon. That’s coming. These things … just as certain as it
happened in Acts 2, it’s going to happen. It just hasn’t happened yet. You follow me? Joel’s expression
encompasses the entire period. Let’s go to Amos. He was a rustic from Judea, but he also was
a prophet to the Northern Kingdom. He’s from Tekoa, which is south of Bethlehem,
so he’s from the southern area, from the wilderness of Judea. This is where David had his refuge from Saul
and so forth. He’s a layman. He’s a man of the fields. He’s not a trained prophet and yet he is
sent up there to Bethel, the center of calf worship and all of that. So Amos is a tough dude. He, of course, focuses on the ultimate rule
of David, which is not a popular message up there. He mentions the judgement against what he
calls burdens, 8 burdens, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab. He takes the gentiles first. He goes right around their world and takes
against them, but then he turns. See bear in mind he’s talking to the North. So he goes through all their enemies first,
oh they're applauding, yeah, yeah, let’s get those guys. Goes through Gaza,Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and
Moab. Then he talks about Judah, the place he came
from, his own, the Southern Kingdom. Yeah, there’s still … But then he gets
to Israel, that’s his target. He has 3 sermons, and 5 visions, and ... along the way he makes a number of interesting comments. One … Amos 3:7 says, "Surely the Lord GOD will
do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” That’s quite a statement. That means that everything God is doing you
will find in the scripture. Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but that
which he reveals to his servants the prophets. And so they’re worthy of serious study. But there’s also a discovery I want to share
with you, that I think has some lessons in it. In Amos chapter 7 verse 1, your English Bible
is translated from Masoretic text and it reads as follows, “Thus hath the Lord GOD showed
unto me, and behold he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the
latter growth, and lo it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.” Really? What does that mean? I have no idea. (Laughter). The more you study that, the less sense it
makes. What on earth is going on here? Well, this is … There’s an interesting
aspect here. I, I was studying this for some other reasons
one night and I chose to … I looked it up in the Septuagint. It turns out one little, slight little mark
in the Hebrew changes the whole complexion of the verse. In the Septuagint, this is translated as follows
from the Greek version, “The Lord has shown me and behold a swarm of locusts were coming,
and behold one of the young devastating locusts was Gog the king.” Well, this blew me away, because for many
years I have been troubled by Ezekiel 38, because we have this Gog and Magog thing. Magog is the people. We know who they are. Gog is obviously a title of a leader, but
it’s very unlike the Holy Spirit to introduce a major person without some kind of preamble,
some kind of linkage. And there are no linkages to Gog that we could
find, earlier you know. But here in Amos 7:1, we discover that Gog
is the king of the locusts. Now that’s pretty strange because we know
from Proverbs 30 verse 27, the locusts have no king. It’s talking about real locusts, natural
locusts. The word locust here is being used idiomatically. These locusts have a king and Gog is the king. Now we know … These swarm of locusts were
coming and behold one of the young devastating locusts was Gog the king. In Amos 7:1 it’s talking about a herd of
demons. Gog is the king of demons or at least a large
group of them. Well that explains a lot of things. Then we get to Ezekiel 38, Gog and Magog. Gog is a demon leader enticing all this to
go on. That also explains why after the millennium,
after a thousand years reign of Jesus Christ, there again is a Gog Magog battle. Many people get confused. They see Gog and Magog in Revelation they
think that … They try to tie it to Ezekiel 38. No, they are very, totally different circumstances. Magog is a people, and it may be used idiomatically
of everybody rebelling at that time. Gog is a demon title. So you can understand how a demon can survive
the thousand years. It’s not a person. It’s a title of a demon king. Anyway, we pick that up by just comparing
verse with, verse with verse, so okay. We see in Revelation 9 verse 3 and 11 says,
“There came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth and unto them was given power as
the scorpions of the earth have power.” And then down at verse 11 it says,” And
they had a king over them, which is the king, the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name
in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon,” which
means destroyer basically. But see here again, and when you study Revelation
9, you realize that these locusts are not locusts as we think of them. They're demons, because locusts have no king
according to Proverbs 30:27. Okay, let’s get on to Obadiah. He’s from the Southern Kingdom. He argues against the enemies of Israel, the
destruction of Edom which is traditional. Remember Esau and Edom? We through all that in Genesis. And Esau means red, Mount Seir is south of the Dead Sea and to the ... all the way to the Gulf of Aqaba. And Bozrah or
Petra, or Sela is their capital. They were fierce, cruel, proud and profane. They always cheered for Israel’s enemies. If they weren't a direct enemy themselves, they
would help Israel’s enemies. They are the traditional enemy of Israel. And Numbers 20 really hammers that. They always had an active alliance with whoever
was trying to destroy Israel. So Obadiah takes after them. They’re sentenced, of course, to be poetic
justice. They’ll be extinct and indeed they are. The
Nabataeans, Arab tribe is where … If you visit Petra you’ll see you know
their tombs and all of that stuff. So see, Edom had indulged in treachery and
Edom would perish through treachery. And see 5 years after they helped burn ...
raze Jerusalem, that is burn it down, they felt the yoke of Babylon. There upon the Nabataeans, the Arabian tribe
that occupied Petra, that was their capital. And then later in about 312 BC, I’m thinking
it is one of the generals of Alexander the Great, crushed these people and despoiled
Petra. And later the remaining Edomites sustained
crushing defeats from Judas Maccabeus and the Maccabean revolt in the Hasmonean period. And Josephus tells us that still later
Alexander Jannaeus completed their ruin. They became absorbed in the desert tribes. Origen in the third century AD spoke of them
as a people whose name and language had perished. So Obadiah’s prophesy had been fulfilled. Edom had seized a chance to rob Judah, but Edom
would be robbed. And Edom indulged in violence, and Edom would perish by slaughter. Edom sought utter destruction of Israel and
they would be utterly destroyed. And it has been. Edom sought to dispossess Jerusalem and Edom
would be dispossessed by the remnant. Now Edom also is a geographic location. Edom, Ammon and Moab are what we would call
today Jordan in terms of geography, but not in terms of a continuing a culture or anything
like that. So Edom would be possessed by the remnant. Okay. So we have Esau and Jacob in contrast
to the natural man. We talked about this when we were in Genesis. You know, that Esau is always the red horse,
the red dragon etcetera. Edom is a form of Adam or Adomah, the flesh,
so pride, defiance, ambition, hatred, violence, cruelty, self-deception. They are a type in effect of all nations that
are hostile to God. Now Ishmael and Isaac is the same - self-life
versus spiritual life, all the way through the scripture. Whether it’s Cane and Abel, or whether it’s Ishmael and Isaac, it’s always the natural man, the flesh versus the spirit. And so we’ve developed that as we go through
it slowly, but. Let’s turn to the book of Jonah. This well-known
story. The storm. Why did he flee? Why did Jonah not want to go to Nineveh? And this business of the fish, did that really
happen in chapter 2? And the city, why Nineveh? What’s going on there? Why is that an issue? And why do we have chapter 4? You know it’s a great little book with 3
chapters. Chapter 4 is a weird one. Mainly Jonah is up there pouting. I knew You’d save those people. No. The reluctant prophet. There’s a warning to Nineveh long before.
Later years of Joash and earlier years of Jeroboam the Second. Nineveh was actually a quadrangle of cities
about 60 miles in circumference. 350 miles, square miles, walls 100 feet
high, 1500 foot, 1500 towers, 200 feet high. Chariots 3 abreast could have races on
the wall. Over a million population, which is large
in (chuckles) in those days. Now is the story of Jonah and the fish true
or not? Well, Jesus Himself authenticates it. He speaks of that in Matthew 12 and 16. The fish and also the repentance of Nineveh. So He puts a ribbon on the whole thing. And, of course, there, it didn’t- there’re
also historical clues. There have been people that have survived
being swallowed by a whale. They’ve been documented. I won’t go through all that here, but it’s
worth getting into. See Jonah was a patriot. The one reason he didn’t want to go, he
didn’t want Nineveh to be spared. He knew that Nineveh was an enemy of Israel. Isaiah had written prophecies about it back
in chapter 7 of Isaiah. Hosea had written prophecies about it. Amos had gotten prophecies about it. And so he didn’t
want Nineveh spared. He wanted them to be judged by God. God wants him to go there and tell them to
repent. Now I won’t go through Jonah’s prayer
but when you read his prayer, you can build the case that he actually died in the fish
and came back to life. It’s a technicality perhaps, but there are
scholars that believe he actually … That would complete the model with Jesus Christ
who died and was resurrected and he uses Jonah as a sign. Now whether he literally died or came close
to death, that’s probably a technicality, but there are scholars that would argue that
he actually did die. But let’s get to the real issue. Nineveh was the pagan capital of the world. They were 40 days ... God had decreed ... they were
going to be wiped out in 40 days. They were 40 days from ground zero and Jonah
was the reluctant prophet. He didn’t want to go there. Till God explained it to him more clearly
(chuckles) and he finally ends up going there. When he goes there, he doesn’t give them
a market research user friendly message. He goes through town and says "40 days and
you get yours!" Isn’t that an appealing message? He was hoping they’d be wiped out. He was doing what God ... God told him to warn
them. He told them, “Okay, 40 days guys and comes
destruction.” And you know there are 10 miracles
in the book of Jonah, but the greatest one was not the fish thing. The greatest miracle in the Old Testament
is what? The repentance of Nineveh. There are 10 miracles. The storm, the selection of Jonah’s guilty,
the sudden subsiding of the storm, the great fish. The fish was at the right place at the right
time. The preservation of Jonah through the fish,
the ejection safe and sound on dry land. How many whales throw up somebody on the dry
land? That’s pretty interesting. Then there’s the whole business of the gourd,
the worms and the east wind that comes in chapter 4. But the main, the biggest miracle of them all
is the repentance of the entire city of Nine- Nineveh. In 40 days. Can any nation do anything in 40 days? You’re got to be kidding. But the king repented on spec. He didn’t go through the town like John
the Baptist, repent or else this is going to happen. Hey, this is going to happen. The king reasoned that just maybe if we change
our ways, God may change His mind. So they did. And so did God. But it astonishes me that the king
would so that on spec. And the sign of Jonah, remember the
Pharisees were seeking a sign. See the story of this bleached prophet. He probably ... they speculate
because the digestive juices. He probably was bleached white. He probably was a real sight. Walking through town. Especially when you understand who they worshiped. They worshiped Dagon the fish god. Now, this is of course a sign of Jonah. Jesus identifies Himself with it. The death and burial of Jesus Christ is modeled
here as a type. Jonah is also a prophet to the Gentiles. That’s interesting. Gentiles. There are a trio of prophets at the end of
the Northern Kingdom. Elisha dies and is buried. Jonah dies and goes to Sheol and comes up
uncorrupted and Elijah ascends into heaven. That’s all kind of interesting. And Jonah foreshadows Israel’s history. So there’s also a type you can study on
your own the story of Jonah in terms of Israel. He was disobedient to the heavenly commission. He was out of his own land. He had a precarious refuge among the Gentiles
as aboard the ship. Everywhere he was a source of trouble. Yet he was still, nevertheless witnessing
to the true God. He was cast out by the Gentiles. He's miraculously
preserved amid their calamities. He calls on YodHehVavHeh at the last part
of it. On the third day, interestingly enough, there
it is again, we find him… you can study these stories and see how they are not only
true historically on the one hand, but they also model prophetically some other issues. That’s called a type. Let’s go on to Micah. Eminent judgement was declared by Micah. The Assyrians will strike at Egypt. See Judah had foolishly relied on Egypt. The Assyrians are going to come through and
wipe E- ... and strike at Egypt by going through their backyard. So they’ll march right through Micah’s
neighborhood. On the, and so… but the ultimate blessing
will be, is promised. The incarnation is alluded to here, very key
verse that you’re all familiar with. And the key truth of all this is that the
ruler is yet to come. And the present repentance is pleaded and,
and he talks a little bit about the last days. But the, one of the verses that everybody
knows from Micah, because ... Micah 5:2. "But thou Bethlehem Ephrathah, though thou be
little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is
to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." We can spend a week on this verse. There’s all kinds of things hidden in this
verse. The fact that He was pre-existent that
His goings forth had been from eternal, eternity past and so forth, that He’s going to come
forth to rule Jerusalem and Israel. That’s kind of interesting. But this is pri- the primary point here is, it
mentions the birthplace of Jesus Christ. Which is linked to the house of
David through the book of Ruth. But in any case the birthplace of the Messiah. And when the Magi visit Herod, drive
him to panic and say "where is he that’s born the king of the Jews?" His scribes dig out this verse to identify
the town and indeed you know the story from the book of Mathew. There’s also an oft-quoted verse in Micah 6:8. You’ll find it hanging in many homes. "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God." That says it all. Many people look at this as a perfect precis
summary of God’s requirements. "To do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly
before thy God." Very good. Let’s go to Nahum. In the gospel of John, it says no prophet
come out of Galilee. Remember that? Who, whoever heard of the prophets coming
out of Galilee? Whoever said that hadn’t read their Old Testament,
because there are 2 prophets at least. Jonah was out of the Galilee and so was Nahum
and both of them are out of Galilee and both of them to the ... to Nineveh, to the Assyrians. This is about a century after Jonah. Again they need repentance. Nahum goes there with the message. They don’t accept it, so they get wiped
out. So we have the Doom of Nineveh, the world’s
greatest city in those days. Capernaum. You've all heard of Capernaum. It’s Kaphar Nahum. That’s the village of Nahum. That’s where he came from. Its main message is that Yehovah will not acquit
the wicked. It objectifies for all peoples, for
all time, the governmental method of God with Gentile nations. God will forgive sin that’s repented of. He will not condone sin persisted in. That says it all. God will forgive sin repented of. Not just confessed, but repented of. And He will not condone sin persisted in. That same God rules the world today. That’s why it’s important. That's why these lessons
have historical context, they have prophetic context and they also have personal application. Every one of them. So in the book of Nahum it talks about Nineveh’s
Doom is declared, described and deserved and the decisive test of the predicament and its
fulfillment. (Laughs). It certainly was fulfilled. Do you realize that in the field of archeology,
for centuries they didn’t even believe that Nineveh existed. There was no evidence of it. Alexander went over it and didn’t even know
it was there. It was buried. Not even lost. It was buried. It was 1849 that scholars made history by
discovering Nineveh and digging it up. It’s all in Ira- you know the place that’s
called today Iraq, but it’s ... Nineveh really was buried. Let’s go to Habakkuk. He’s agonized. He’s perplexed because of the ostensible
silence, inactivity and apparent unconcern of God. He, from the way he sees it, he
doesn’t understand what’s going on and why God would use a people even more wicked
than Judah themselves? He’s talking about God is going to use the
Babylonians to wipe out Judah. The Babylonians are worse than Judah. He’s struggling with good and evil and
so forth. But in this perplexity about God’s apparent
silence and the strangeness of God’s apparent ways, he brings up some very,
very interesting things. We’re going to go to verse 4 in a minute. "The just shall live by faith." And he’s going to focus on rest in
the day of tribulation. But this is interesting. Many people don’t realize how important
Habakkuk 2:4 is. The just shall live by faith. This was the catch word that led to the reformation. A guy by the name of Martin Luther was a very, very
diligent committed scholar and just totally disturbed by his own sin. He was really obsessed with his sinfulness. And he went through all the trappings of the
medieval church, all the things that they did in those days to deal with that and, and
it was getting worse and worse until a monk said, look at Habakkuk 2:4. And he looked at this verse, "the just shall
live by faith", and that caused him to wake up and to realize that you can't, no matter
what you do in the flesh, it's not going to work. That you live by faith, not by abusing yourself
and penance or tithing or going to services regularly. All those things are of the flesh. "The just shall live by faith". And when he realized what that meant, he tried
to post some corrections in the denomination that he was part of, all they did was excommunicate
him. And that led to the whole reformation, but that was the whole byword of the
reformation. It's interesting that it was all anticipated
by the Apostle Paul. He writes a trilogy of epistles on this verse. "The just shall live by faith". Who are the just? Paul's definitive statement of Christian doctrine
called The Book of Romans quotes this verse as the key verse and explains justification,
which is by faith alone. Well, how should the just live? How should they live? The book of Galatians is Paul's answer to
that one. The just shall live … how should they live? Galatians 3:11 quotes this verse as the cornerstone
to the book of Galatians, how the just shall live. And the just shall live by faith. The great faith chapter, Hebrews 11 is ... on how the just shall live, by faith. So it's interesting that these 3 Epistles,
Romans, Galatians and Hebrews are a trilogy explaining, amplifying the homiletics if you
will behind, and the theology behind Habakkuk 2:4. And some say well, that doesn't prove that
Paul wrote Hebrews. Well, if Paul didn't write Hebrews, it's even a greater miracle that these different
writers architected a trilogy without their knowledge. But it could … stranger things
have happened. Let's get to the book of Zephaniah. We’re getting down to the wire here. He talks about the wrath coming upon Judah
and the wrath upon all nations. He takes it from west to east, Philistia,
Moab and Ammon, and then south to north, Ethiopia and Assyria. And after the wrath there’ll be healing,
conversion of the Gentile nations, and restoration, the restoration of the covenant people. Zephaniah also includes, by the way, a little
prediction that when Israel returns to the land, they'll speak pure Hebrew. Now that's astonishing because they were out
of the land for a good part of 2,000 years and when they returned to the land, Hebrew
was re-emerged as the … language. Many language experts said they never can revive a dead
language. Well, if Zephaniah was walking down Duseldorph
Street, he could read the menus, because it's Hebrew he would understand. But ... The Minor Prophets. We went through 12. We’re going to go through a couple more
here yet, but Hosea went to the Northern Kingdom, so did Amos. Joel, Micah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai,
Zechariah, Malachi, to the Southern Kingdom, and then we have, of course, Obadiah to Edom,
Jonah and Nahum to the Assyrians. So that’s the quick spread
of the Minor Prophets. Again, they're not in chronological order
nor are they clustered by who they are addressing, but that's the way they are. These last 3, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi
are prophets post-exile. In other words, they prophesied after the
nation came back from Babylon. Haggai is burdened with the rebuilding of
the temple. Zechariah and Malachi in the days of Nehemiah. Haggai has a message to arouse and support
and confirm and assure, all having to do with the trauma going about trying to build the
temple. Many lessons in Haggai are just about our own
personal walk, but his focus is rebuilding of the temple. And the problem that he faces that prophecy
had become a narcotic. What I mean by that, is that they knew that they were prophetically ... had arrived. They’re rebuilding the Temple, so they kick
back. God's going to do this. And there's an analogy in a sense, many people,
you know, who are pre-trib, the rapture is coming and we're under grace, and so
they just kick back and are not busy about God's work. That's, in that sense, some of these
views can become self limiting. So this gave way to hopeless inevitability. And that's one of the problems with Calvinism. People ... we’re predestined to be saved so
okay, it's your problem. You know, Calvinists often aren't very energetic
about evangelistic crusades because everything’s predestined, right? You know there's an attitude that can come
out of some of these views that's not constructive and leads to indifference and it can come
from several points. Any of these views, however valid
they may be, can still give excuse to inaction. We need to remember that without Him we can’t
of course, but without us, He won't. We need to understand that prayer is God's
way of enlisting us in what He wants to do, putting burdens on us that we’ll roll up
our sleeves and accomplish what He's after. And so that's really what ... Now a couple of other things that you might
find interesting in Haggai. Just to give you a few highlights here. Haggai 2:15, it says "now I pray you consider
from this day upward, from before a stone was laid upon stone in the temple of the Lord." In other words he’s talking about the beginning. "Consider now from this day and upward, from
the 4 and 20th day of the 9th month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord’s
temple was laid, consider it." That’s in Haggai 2:15 and 18. The 4 and 20th day of the 9th month, pick
that up. In Ezekiel 24 it says "and again in the 9th
year, in the 10th month, in the 10th day of the month, the word of the Lord came unto
me saying Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even this same day, the king of
Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day." So that's the trigger. The other one's the consummation. Let's take a look at this, the 9th year, the
10th month, 10th day of the month. This is dated from Second Kings 25 and Jeremiah
52, but here's the net of it is. At the very time the Babylonian army was surrounding
Jerusalem, Ezekiel, in Babylon, hundreds of miles away was writing that down. The 10th day of Tebeth 589 BC. He’s documenting it for God's purposes. Later on when they're finally released and
Haggai … You know, they were starting to build the temple, Haggai nails down the
date that this Desolation of Jerusalem ended - the 24th day of Kislev. Well, that's kind of interesting because the
interval between these 2 dates is 2,500 … 25,200 days. The interval is 25,200 days. That's 70 years of 360 days each to the very
day of the 70 years that Jeremiah had predicted. To the day. To the day. You never use the word approximate and God
in the same sentence, I’m thinking. Zechariah. Early prophecies about when the
Temple was being built, the later prophecies after they are built, and then a lot about the
second coming. He has all kinds of visions. We can't go through all of them. Some of them are quite enigmatic. Some are quite, very colorful. There’s 4 horses, 4 horns, 4 smiths and
there's a measuring line. Then there's crowning of Joshua the priest. That’s in … Not Joshua. It’s a different Joshua. Obviously, he’s a priest, but crowning a
priest is Messianic. Only Christ is both a priest and a king. And then the one about the golden lampstand, the
flying roll, the woman in the ephah holds the key I believe, to the mysteries about Babylon. We’ll be talking about that when we get
to Revelation and we talk about mystery of Babylon and the rest of it. And the 4 chariots
and so forth. But there's a couple here I think that's kind
of interesting. Here’s a prediction, Zechariah 12:2 and
3 you want to be aware of. God says to Zechariah, "behold I'll make Jerusalem
a cup of trembling to all the people round about. In that day, I’ll make Jerusalem a burdensome
stone for all people. All that burden themselves with it shall be
torn in pieces. Though all the people of the earth be gathered together
against it." You know that's actually ridiculous. That may have made sense 2,500 years ago,
in the days of Zechariah, that Jerusalem be a big issues, but here's a city that has no
natural resources, has no rivers, doesn't even have a harbor. It's no longer on critical caravan routes. There’s no reason for Jerusalem to be relevant
to anyone except for religious reasons and I thought the world is areligious. Well, not so, huh? A cup of trembling to all nations? That's ostensibly absurd on the one hand, and
yes, the reality this very night. As we have this discussion this evening, the
late lights are burning in every capital of every country on every ... that are
internationally relevant, struggling as to what position to take regarding the issue
of Jerusalem. How interesting that is, that the entire world
is struggling over this very issue. The fallacy of the piece process. Notice how I spell piece, P-I-E-C-E. It's built on a false premise. It's built … The peace process is based
on the premise that reducing the size of Israel will bring peace. No, it's … the enemies of Israel made
it very clear. It's not the size of Israel that's the issue. It’s the existence of Israel. They're insisting that Israel give up what
they cannot give up. This whole process assures an armed conflict,
in fact probably nuclear. That's exactly what we see shaping up on our
near horizon. That's exactly what the Bible lays out. How interesting it is. And we can go through all the background of this
in briefings on this and we also try to monitor this for those of you that stay current with
our subscriptions. Either our weekly newsletter on the Internet,
which is free or our journal that comes out monthly, but let's move on. Zechariah 14 is a very famous passage. We all have heard it one time or another,
I'm sure. “Then shall the Lord go forth and fight
against those nations as when He fought in the day of battle.” Woops, wait a minute. When did the Lord fight in the day of battle? Like I mentioned one, Joshua 5, the battle
of Jericho. It wasn't Joshua despite the song. Check it out, but He's going to fight again
and He says, “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is
before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof
toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley. Half of the mountain shall remove toward the
north and half of it toward the south.” There is a fault line under the Mount of Olives
that's waiting for the pressure of a foot. His. Interesting, interesting, very tangible, very
real, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Looks like Christ is going to rule in our
hearts. Gee, I sure hope so, but that’s not what
he’s talking about here. He’s talking about physically coming back
and taking over. Indeed He will. There's another verse that's interesting in
a number of ways here, “And I will pour upon the House of David and upon the inhabitants
of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications and they shall look upon me whom they pierced.” Woo “And they shall mourn for him is one
mourneth for his only son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness
for his firstborn." "I'll pour upon the House of David and upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace of supplications. And they shall look upon me whom they have
pierced.” Here's a prediction again of crucifixion. We find it in Psalm 22. We find it all through the Old Testament. Here again we find that He's going to have
His piercings as emblems just as He did before Thomas, "handle Me and see." But there's something else about this thing
that I think is even more provocative. If you look carefully at this in
the Hebrew, you'll discover there's an untranslated word. There's a little Aleph and a Tau between the
me and whom. If it was trans- ... It's untranslated. Now, the Aleph and Tau when it's connected
with a makef to a verb, it implies the direct object of a verb. That little Aleph and a Tau has 4 different
uses, and one of them is as a indefinite pronoun, second person masculine singular. It's called a hypocatastasis in the Greek. Or putting them underneath, a hidden
but declarative implied metaphor expressing a superlative degree of resemblance, interestingly
enough. And ... But there's no makef on this one,
so it's not the direct object of a verb. Another way to read this would be, “They
shall look up on me the Aleph and the Tau whom they’ve pierced. The Aleph and Tau is the Hebrew equivalent
of the Alpha and the Omega. “They shall look upon me the Aleph and Tau
whom they pierced.” We find that same thing in Genesis 1, by the
way. “That in the beginning, B'rashit bara Elohim,”
and there's an Aleph and a Tau there that can be, might be an illusion to none other
than the One who is first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, Jesus Christ. There's one other thing in ... Another little
tidbit in Zechariah we’ll throw out here. It’s the only physical description of the
Antichrist I can find in the Bible. Here he’s called the "idol shepherd", not
idle like lazy, idol like false worship. “Woe unto the idol shepherd that leaveth
the flock. The sword shall be upon his arm and upon his
right eye. His arm shall be cleaned dried up, and
his right eye shall be utterly darkened.” That’s all it says. That's the end of that chapter.
It goes on to other subjects. One of these little tidbits. This leader, this false leader, false shepherd,
apparently has got an arm that's useless and a right eye that is lost. And you wonder if that's a physical description
that leads to taking an identity with him. If you swear allegiance to him, you take his
mark on your forehead or on your wrist as an identity of allegiance to him. Which if
you do that, is a forever barrier to being saved. Much of what the Book of Revelation deals
with are people who will have this jeopardy of being ... Having an allegiance with him. No man will be able to buy sell or have a
job without his number, but I wonder if this is ... Anyway, that's for what it's worth,
one of the little tidbits. Let's go to the last book in the Old Testament,
Malachi. I can sometimes say Malachi, the Italian book
but I'm kidding, of course. This is the final message to a disobedient
people. The ceasing of prophecy with Malachi might
account for the segmenting of the initial week of Gabriel’s prophecy of 70 weeks. In other words, it was 7 weeks and 3 score
and 2 weeks, and one of the conjectures, why is it broken up that way? They’re adjacent, so it doesn’t matter,
but it may be that that is the issue here. But in any case ... You know, it's interesting, when Jesus has
His temptations by Satan, He makes the point you never tempt God. All through the scripture you can find admonitions
that you never put God to the test, and that's certainly ... You don't test God. You don't dare Him. That's ... But there is an exception. And this exception is fascinating. There is a dare that God gives you. God dares you in a very peculiar way. In fact He proposes it here. What He proposes here is the solution to every
financial problem. Wow. We’ve got to take a look at this. In Malachi 3:10 God says, “Bring ye all
the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now
herewith, sayeth the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour
you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” God is daring you to put Him to the test. He says, “Prove me now herewith.” This is an astonishing verse, that the God
of the universe would put Himself in a box. He’s saying if you do this, call My bluff. I dare you to tithe because if you do, I will
open the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing and not be room enough to receive
it. And you can find many, many people who will
swear to this, but that doesn't matter. You need to find out for yourself. You need to find out for yourself. What an interesting dare. “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse,
that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, sayeth the Lord of
hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall
not be room enough to receive it.” Quite a commitment. “Prove me now herewith.” Well, we have the "silent years" between the
testaments, deserves some quick comments. We talked about Antiochus Epiphanes in 167
BC, the Abomination of Desolation. A historical event that is very important
to understand because Jesus makes allusion to it as a trigger of when to le-... when to
split out of Jerusalem. That event by Antiochus Epiphanes, of course,
led to the Maccabean revolt in 165 BC that ... which led to the rule of the Hasmoneans, and
that was subsequently followed by the Roman conquest, appointing Herod the king. And that, you know, closes the 400 years of
silence for Malachi until an angel visits Zechariah with an announcement. You need to understand now we've just finished
the Old Testament. The Old Testament is incomplete. It has unexplained ceremonies, all kinds of
sacrificial rituals that need to be explained. It has unachieved purposes. There are all kinds of covenants yet to be
fulfilled. There are unappeased longings. The Old Testament is full of those. And unfulfilled prophecies. There are 300 prophecies that
were fulfilled in Jesus Christ's first coming. For every one of those, there's at least 7
at ... Well over 2000, somewhere between 2000 or 3000, details, about His Second Coming, and
they will be fulfilled. Jesus challenges you, “Search the scriptures
for in them you think you have eternal life and they are they which testify of me.” And when He says scriptures here, He is really
talking about the Old Testament. In John 5, that's what they had in their hands
was the Septuagint. “Search them for you think, in them you
think you have eternal life. They are they which testify of me,” He says. Well, in the subsequent sections in Hour 13 we’ll go through the Messianic Thread. We’ll talk about the Messianic Thread in
total. We’ll also demonstrate how sure can we be
of these things. Lord Kelvin says, “You really don't know
much about something until you can measure it.” Okay, can we measure our confidence? We’ll go into that in Hour 13. Hour 14, we'll talk about the New Testament,
where it came from, how it was put together. Many people ... I think Christians are willfully
ignorant of that. And in Hour 15 we’ll take the Gospels. We’ll actually go ... in 1 hour, we’ll put
all 4 Gospels together and trace a reconciliation of the whole package geographically. So with that, let's stand for a closing
word of prayer. Well, Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for the privilege You've given
us to be able to meet, without hassle, without persecution, without interference. We realize that that's a unique blessing. Father, we just pray that You'd help us take advantage
of these days. Help us to discover the treasures You’ve
hidden here for us. And above all things, Father, we pray that
You’d illuminate that path before us, that through Your Holy Spirit and Your word, You
would make it ever more clear what You would have of each of us in the days that remain,
as we seek to be more fruitful stewards of the opportunities You’ve brought before
us. And as we commit ourselves without any reservation
into Your hands in the name of Yeshua our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
