Today we’re exploring the old testament’s great final section: the Prophets. And we’ll begin with the greatest of them all, ISAIAH!
God gives us through Isaiah some of the greatest words in human literature. So much here is glorious and indispensable! Where else can we see the majesty of the living God as we do in sections like Isaiah 6:1-8 or Isaiah 40? How better to understand our rescue through the cross than via the astonishing prophecy of Isaiah 53? What more striking picture could there be of what the Spirit does than Isaiah 61:1-4; what more joyous celebration of God’s gracious restoration than chs 11& 12, or 35; what stronger challenge to social righteousness than ch58; what more wondrous description of the future God has prepared than 65:17-25?
What then will you get out of feeding on Isaiah? Well, first, a real vision of God’s greatness, `the Holy One of Israel`; our Maker and Creator, God who is unique, God who foretells and overrules history… (There’s a frequent, powerful emphasis on God’s foretelling as evidence for who He is, linked with His sovereignty; 43:8-13 for example.) There are practical implications too: we absorb what happens when people don’t take God seriously, and what it means to be part of the `remnant` (another big theme, especially in the first half) who do. And then: Isaiah has two halves with an interval made up of four chapters of history, in two of which Jerusalem is attacked by the unbelievably cruel Assyrians (see below on Nahum) whose viciously boastful records are in the British Museum (chs 36-39). Why just these four chapters? Why does this selection of events matter in particular, what lessons do they teach us that are so important? (I’ve tried to answer that in two posts in the Isaiah series in https://petelowmanresources.com/category/bible-introductions-2/the-prophets/ .)
And particularly in the second half, after it’s become clear that Israel’s longterm rebellion can only lead to captivity, another huge theme appears: God’s messianic Servant, obeying His will and fulfilling His purpose in the way Israel has failed to do. And then in ch53 we get a picture of the cross that is as clear, or clearer?,than anything in the new testament!
So as I say: so much here that is glorious and indispensable! Really with a book like Isaiah we shouldn’t go for the `greatest hits`, we should try to get the overall flow of where the book’s going, but… Anyway here are some `greatest hits` – `It’s all good, but read these and you’ll see what Isaiah has to offer`…
Isaiah 40
Isaiah 53
Isaiah 61:1-4
Isaiah 6:1-8
Isaiah 58
Isaiah 35
Isaiah 55:6-13
Isaiah 2:1-5
Isaiah 9:1-7
Isaiah 11:1-9 and chapter 12
Isaiah 43:1-13
Isaiah 52:7-10
Isaiah 65:17-25
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”, says God in ch55 – but here that gap is narrowing a little! So `As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth!”` (55:10-11). We find that to be true! Collectively also – lots of these passages can truly `water the earth` by enriching our church’s Sunday worship: 2:1-5, 11:6-8 & ch12, 43:1-4 and 11, 52:7-10, 65:17-25…
However: the more Isaiah preached this Word of God, the less people were actually going to listen (about which God had warned him, 6:8-11; positive popular response isn’t always the sign of the true prophet). God showed Isaiah that Israel were headed for captivity in Babylon (ch39). And then He does something remarkable, maybe while the coming of a really evil king, Manasseh, had prevented Isaiah having a public ministry: God apparently inspires Isaiah to equip Israel in chs40-66 with what they need for the experience of deep failure, captivity, exile, and repentance. (And that we may need for similar situations?) And yes, most wonderfully He reveals Christ His perfect Servant who succeeds gloriously where Israel has failed, takes away the sin-barrier – and as a result there will be total, wonderful restoration: 42:1-16, 52:13-53:6, 65:17-25… with His followers (us!) wonderfully involved in it, ch58, 61:1-4…!
THE BABYLON BOOKS
But those prophecies were not yet brought about in Isaiah’s lifetime. Indeed, not long afterwards the evil power of Babylon has triumphed; catastrophically, capturing Jerusalem, even destroying God’s temple. And there’s something major here, something fascinating going on right through the Bible that we may miss if we don’t look closely.
From as far back as Genesis 11 and 12 we see two longterm alternatives. On the one hand there’s the power of Babel/Babylon, the city built on human egoism, `reaching to the heavens’ by brute human strength, Gen 11:4; on the other, God’s people on their faith-full journey out to His promised heavenly `city that is to come’ (Heb 11:8-10,13-16, Heb 13:14, Gal 4:26, Col 3:1-3), starting with Abraham leaving the security of Babylonia at God’s calling (Gen 12:1-2, Acts 7:2-3). That’s Genesis. And this same opposition of alternatives shapes the last six chapters of the Bible too, in Revelation. On the one hand, we read there, `Come’ (17:1) and see the huge end-time religious-economic system opposed to God, the `great city’ (18:10) with its sins `piled up to heaven’ like Babel (18:5): Babylon, the Great Prostitute (17:5). On the other, `Come’ (21:9-11) and see the `holy city’ `coming down out of heaven’, New Jerusalem, God’s glorious Bride, the `city that is to come`. And all this presents a practical choice: Into which of these systems primarily am I pouring my life? (Please help me get my loyalty right, Father!)
There are profound depths here. But then: What on earth is going on when God’s holy city of Jerusalem is apparently abandoned by God and overthrown by Babylon? At least five Bible books – 2 Chronicles, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations and Ezekiel – can be seen as helping us understand why this can happen. (And Daniel, of course, will teach us how to live in Babylon, and to experience that ultimately God is sovereign even there.)
So, JEREMIAH. We might not want a whole year with this book; it’s probably another book best read at 3-4 chapters a day. But someone who has worked through Jeremiah with God’s Spirit has had burned into their soul the vital lessons that both sin and justice matter; that sin has results, that judgment is a reality, that God is a holy God we do not trifle with; and that this is why God’s people and God’s city were swallowed up by Babylon. (Again, the fear (awe) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom!) We need it! And then at its end there’s a vital reminder about what it means to be a genuine prophet: Jeremiah would not have been fit to preach his fiery denunciations unless (like Jesus) he could also weep over Jerusalem, as he does when judgment comes in the tiny, broken-hearted book called LAMENTATIONS. (See also the unashamedly honest back-and-forth of Jeremiah 20 for the pain of being a true prophet, of carrying a message like this; likewise 4:18-21 and 8:18-9:2. Jeremiah is a great source for understanding what being God’s spokesman can really involve. And let me recommend John Hercus’ More Pages From God’s Casebook as a brilliant old book helping us feel the experience of these great prophets.)
Then Jerusalem falls; Babylon demolishes its temple, takes its people into captivity. What do you do when everything goes wrong? The last quarter of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Esther teach us how to live when we have to live in exile, or even in Babylon; and to experience that God is reigning even there…
First then EZEKIEL. Ezekiel’s name means `God is strong` or `God strengthens`. But if God is strong, how are His people to recover that vital certainty when their city and temple have been destroyed? Reading it we can ask, how does God accomplish that through this book? We’ll notice it has a constant refrain (26 times in fact), `Then they will know that I am the Lord`. This revelation comes first through the vision of God’s glory that equips Ezekiel to be a prophet (1:1 through to 1:28, 2:3). But thereafter it does indeed come first through judgment (issues of God’s holiness so often come first in the old testament); this is the repeated theme of the first 24 chapters, deepening our sense of the same realities as Jeremiah, although with Ezekiel being in exile in Babylonia while Jeremiah is still in Judaea. This sustained message of judgment comes first for Israel, because here again God desires to make very clear to His people that sin matters, and sin is why this disaster has happened. But then there come several chapters prophesying judgment also on the surrounding nations, revealing equally that, whatever He has permitted to befall Jerusalem, He alone is the Sovereign Lord over the whole world. (And perhaps these passages might help us reflect on how long God will tolerate the sins of our own great powers today; and what will happen when He no longer does…)
But then the report reaches Ezekiel that Jerusalem has fallen; and this `strengthening` starts also to come through the certainty of remarkable restoration, from ch36 onwards. Indeed (see eg 39:28) `they will know that I am the Lord` because of the remarkable restoration of the whole of Israel, both those from the southern kingdom of Judah and also the long-lost northerners (37:15ff); because lsrael are still, at the end of the day, God’s chosen people, and as Paul says `God’s gifts and His call are [ultimately!] irrevocable` (Rom 11:28-29). This exemplifies a certainty that can be enormously `strengthening` for us too! And strikingly, the whole last quarter of Ezekiel is devoted to this `strengthening` revelation, and its sheer detail seems to me to necessitate our learning (besides what it says about God’s faithfulness!) that in the end-times God will make something wonderful of ethnic Israel; Jerusalem will be, as Jesus calls it, `the city of the Great King` (Matt 5:35, otherwise unfulfilled), and its Temple (the detailed theme of chapters 40 right through to 46) will be filled again (as at the end of Exodus) with God’s returning, overwhelming, physical, supernatural glory (43:1-5). (The closing verses of Zechariah 14 tell us how, after Christ’s return (14:3), Jerusalem will become the centre for worship of all the nations, as do Isaiah 2:2-4 and Jeremiah 3:17; the city will be renamed `The Lord Is There`, says Ezekiel’s closing verse.) In Romans 11:11-12 Paul says, astonishingly, that what God will do in this future time through restored ethnic Israel will bring `riches for the world`, blessing even greater (how can this be?) than the original spread of the gospel to the Gentiles! So this is the theme of the last quarter of Ezekiel’s prophecy; and surely, in their glorious redirection of human history, these things will show the world that He is indeed the Lord (cf Ezk 36:11)!) (For more on this see https://petelowmanresources.com/our-future3-so-how-does-ethnic-israel-fit-in/ and /our-future4-what-happens-after-jesus-returns-whats-this-about-the-millennium/ .)
But whatever we think about that, let me single out Ezekiel 47; I love this wonderful prophecy of life-giving water flooding out from God’s Temple in rejuvenating power, turning the dead places into habitats of abundant life! And perhaps we can link with this one last `strengthening` revelation we’ll note repeatedly in Ezekiel, that this book has more to say about God’s Spirit than any other in the old testament: for how better can `God’s strength` come, and what greater mental `strengthening` could there be for these shattered exiles, than grasping that God is going to put His very Spirit within them (and us too, Acts 2:16-17!), to `pour out My Spirit on Israel` (11:19, 36:26,27, 37:14, 39:29) – a privilege only bestowed in the past on a very occasional prophet or king! Surely too Ezekiel 47 offers a wonderful illustration of what Jesus says in John 7:38 about the Spirit as `streams of living water` flowing out of every believer; that is, of every component of us His `temple` (Eph 2:21-22), bringing life to the dead places right now! (Even if perhaps there will also be a very literal expression of this in Jerusalem in the end-time, as to me Ezekiel surely indicates!) So throughout this book we are shown, in Krish Kandiah’s phrase,`the God who puts wrong things right`…
Much there then to strengthen those living in exile (read Psalm 137 if you’ve forgotten how bad this was); and for us as exiles too, right now (Heb 11:13, 1 Peter 2:11)! But there is a lot more in these `Babylon books` that we need, and that God desires to show us. As we listen to God in Scripture we want to get a better grip on how we live for Him in the secular world, eg at work. And two further OT books tell us about people living for God in a highly secular situation: one is Daniel, and the other is Esther, whose story our Jewish friends celebrate in the joyful Purim celebration each year (with fancy dress and comic sketches, I’ve gathered, and the book’s public reading being interrupted by boos and hisses) – the nearest Jewish equivalent to Britain’s November 5!
Esther and Daniel 1-6 are both about people surviving and obeying God in exile, and finding in very practical, secular reality that the Lord is in control. And this despite all that has happened to Jerusalem and the apparently complete absence then of God’s caring involvement. For DANIEL’s opening is given over to recording this utter catastrophe. In 2 Samuel 6 someone touches God’s Ark and is immediately struck dead; in Daniel ‘s opening verses, in contrast, the Babylonians who destroy Jerusalem remove the Temple’s treasures and put them in the temple of their own god; and God does absolutely nothing. But then we start to see that still, very definitely, `The Lord rules`(4:17,25,26,32, 5:21,23). God’s way of training proves to be better than the hugely powerful emperor’s (ch1); God’s interpreter is better than the emperor’s (ch2); God, not the emperor, has the final authority (chs3,6); God set up the emperor and can replace him (ch4); and when Belshazzar dares to dishonours God’s house, effective judgment finally comes (ch5). So if God didn’t rescue Jerusalem, it wasn’t because He couldn’t (6:27). The Lord is sovereign, and again and again we see Him standing by those who choose to stand firm in faith. (So we’ll also find a lot to learn in Daniel about praise, which embodies that determined faith.)
God in Daniel is still, quite literally, the permanent (2:44,4:34,6:26,7:13-14) Lord over all lords (2:21,44,47). And this includes human powers far into the future, all the way to the end of history (chs 7-12); including even the rise and then failure of exceptionally evil ones (7:7,11, 11:31-32). This is a key lesson from the carefully-delineated predictions of future middle eastern politics in these prophetic chapters; what happens occurs, we are repeatedly told, at the times that God has `appointed` (8:19, 11:27,29,35,36, 12:7,11). So this is really practical – both a challenge to worship and also a motive for courageous faithfulness (chs3,12) when we too need to `live in Babylon`!
And one more thing about living in Babylon: Daniel is about people surviving and obeying God after catastrophe has come; and sometimes it does. But what does it mean for us to face apparent defeat? Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9 faces up to the real reasons for Jerusalem’s destruction; but his book also makes clear that such defeat isn’t always the result of sin, 7:21,25, 8:10,12, 12:7. Indeed, 9:26 speaks of when Messiah Himself `will be cut off and have nothing`. (Even though this too is an astounding example of God working His purpose out; because as God’s prophecies looks sovereignly ahead, 9:25-26 give us a remarkable prediction of the timing of Messiah’s entry into Jerusalem, and then His being `cut off` at the cross (9:25-26) – predictions the Jews of Jesus’ time were very interested in, even though they didn’t recognise the One they were about! For more on this see John Lennox’s superb book on Daniel Against The Flow, and briefly again this site’s post on ethnic Israel and the future mentioned above.) What has also struck me when preparing to preach this is how the inconclusive endings of the prophetic chapters 8, 9, and 12, and 11:34-35, are a call to faith and faithfulness; even when the pattern isn’t clear, God is still Lord over history, secular history, and over all the key players we too may face within it (2:21,44,47). In summary then: feeding worshipfully on this book will get all this into our heads, or rather, strengthen us to choose to believe and affirm: He is the Lord for us too!
Now if we read the book of ESTHER, we’ll find this training taken a stage deeper still. For in Daniel God reveals Himself through several dramatic miracles; in Esther there are none such, although (as it turns out) God is vitally at work. We looked at Esther two posts back, but it’s also highly relevant here as an `exile book`. It’s a curious book to have in the Bible, because God’s name doesn’t appear anywhere. And not only is God out of the picture (as we might think) in that sense; Esther is about someone surviving & still obeying God when He’s seemed completely inactive, in fact He’s done the opposite of what anyone would have wanted. Like Daniel, the book’s background is the catastrophe that came upon Jerusalem; and there’s more – God’s people (and the whole Messianic purpose) now come to the very edge of being wiped out through genocide. There’s more still: this book presents a godly woman who is forced (Esther 1:10-2:4, 2:8,14) into an alien and unbelievably degrading, sexist, and perilous situation; and it will be one where nothing `directly` supernatural ever happens. Yet as the history proceeds we’ll see, as in Daniel, in practical, secular reality, how despite all that has happened, and the apparent total absence of God’s caring control, He is actually still very active, and indeed is the permanent Sovereign over all kings. In His good time God sorts everything out, as we noted two posts back: through one woman’s prayer, fasting, and bravery, and through one `coincidence`, God’s silent overruling in giving Xerxes a stray thought at a crucial moment (6:1) when much prayer and fasting is going on. And through that tiny `coincidence` something happens that saves the entire Jewish nation, and is recorded for all humankind for the next 2500 years.
Noticeably, too, this deliverance results from a single good deed by Esther’s uncle Mordecai earlier on, that seemed at the time to have produced nothing good at all (6:3). Have we sometimes felt we’ve done good and it’s been completely wasted? Particularly at those times when God seems inactive? What is God saying to us about this through Esther? Be strong, be faithful, wait for the big picture – He’s still there? Can this be God’s Word for us about how we go on living for Him when He seems totally inactive and silent; how do we handle that?
Of course when that happens, when God seems totally silent, I do have to ask myself, is there any reason in me? The answer may well be No. Sometimes, God is being silent & inactive not because of any failing on my side but just for my longterm good, because lessons are learned & growth happens in the wilderness that can’t happen anywhere else – certainly not in heaven! Faith says that no experience with our loving God can be wasted, even when He seems to be most not there. But that can be hard to handle in faith (and in such situations we really need to support each other). Then again, I do still need to look into my heart and think: is there some reason for God’s silence that I should work on? Esther’s place in Scripture is right after Ezra and Nehemiah, about those Jews who went back in faith to Jerusalem to rebuild Palestine. That was hard, and they made mistakes; but eventually their faith led to Jerusalem and its temple being rebuilt. This book, in contrast, is about those Jews who didn’t go back to Palestine, staying behind in exile in the imperial capital. Might they in general have been people who deliberately chose the affluence and comfort of the godless emperor’s capital, rather than returning to the land God had given them to rebuild His temple, in the one place where He had clearly stated His presence would be in that era? Are these the ones whose hearts had gone a bit cold? Is it unsurprising, then, that in this book about them, God’s name is not mentioned, and His supernatural power seems absent?
Because in the end these folk who stayed behind finished up being more and more muted about their identity (2:10,20). I find this very challenging: which kind of person am I? And what this exile story tells me is how, in the end, I can’t get away with that: for these people too, the time arrived when dangerous faithfulness finally became essential. Again, maybe God will say to us, through this book: Practise being bold! Call on My Spirit’s strength within you, and then live out your Christian identity! Significantly, deliverance comes when Esther steps – very dangerously – beyond hiding her identity as one of God’s people (2:10, 20), and takes her chances in open confession of that identity. Somehow the courage comes from God, and she steps out: `If I perish I perish!` (4:16). And God comes through, with one tiny coincidence that changes history! God is the same today!
And lastly we have Mordecai’s famous words to her, with their fine combination of faith and action: `If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place; but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to [your work position, in a degrading, unfair, godless system, 4:11] for such a time as this?` (NIV as usual). May God show us His purposes for blessing us and others, through having put us in our present Monday to Friday situation, rather than in a different place…
In summary, then, both Esther and the narrative section of Daniel show us people surviving and obeying God in a very, very secular situation; and one where God seems to have stepped right back into inactivity. Genuine disaster has come upon God’s sinful people. But what Esther finds, sooner or later, and Daniel too, is the hugely joyful thing that, as they take their stand boldly in prayerful, obedient faith, God comes through. I suspect such things happen to most or all of us sometimes; sometimes through no fauIt of our own, just as Esther was in this situation through no fault of her own. And this book is teaching us: in the end you’ll be able to look back and see that God came through. It’s as we feed on the memory of what God’s Word says to us that He will get it into our heads: `If God is for us, who can be against us?`
So on the one hand let’s thank him: He came through for Esther; He will for us. And then on the other: because of that, He calls us like Esther to be willing to stand up for His glory and His kingdom. Let’s pray: This week Lord I want Your miraculous strength; empower me to be bold in living for You! By the strength of Your Spirit, who I know loves to partner with the weak things of this world to build Your glorious kingdom! Amen!
THE `MINOR` PROPHETS: WHAT DO WE DO WITH THESE?
Finally then, the minor prophets. `I’ve no idea what to do with these. And anyway I think they move around when I’m not looking!”
So shall we ignore them? Hardly! We would miss so much that is powerful. Again, most of these are probably best read 3-4 chapters at a time, to get the flow. First then we come to HOSEA: here’s the story of a prophet, a prophet `conformed to Christ` (Rom 8:29) in an astonishing, even grotesque way – told to marry a prostitute (1:2, 2:2-8, 1:6,8-9), because that’s just what God has done… The book goes emotionally back and forth, showing us how much God loves us, how much He’s hurt by us, the inevitability of judgment, and yet how in time (1:10, 11:7-8, 2:1,14-3:1, ch14) He still will adopt the orphans that have come out of sin… Serious issues!
Then AMOS is equally powerful for very different reasons: the forceful prophecies about justice in this book, both to pagan nations (1:3-2:3) and to Judah and Israel (eg 2:6-7,5:11-12, 8:5-6), were a crucial catalyst for the rediscovery of social concern in UK evangelicalism last century: the realization that God absolutely hates injustice, and is active in history dealing with it, and therefore we must be too. (Chapter 25 of Leviticus, of all possible books, was another basic catalyst.) And Amos is a massive challenge to God’s people when we’re affluent (6:4-7, 3:15), prosperous, complacent (6:1, 5:14); consistent in our religious ritual (4:4-5, 5:21-24), yet desperately uncaring about poverty and exploitation (4:1); and stopping our ears against God’s word through His prophets (2:12), fatally so (8:11-13,9:10). Maybe 40 years before their country collapsed, God gives Israel stark and (for us too!) memorable revelations of His greatness (4:12-13, 5:7-9, 5:18-19, 9:5-6), saying, Take me seriously before it’s too late. (`The lion has roared— who will not fear? The Sovereign Lord has spoken— who can but prophesy? (3:8))….
If we then move on to MICAH, we’ll experience God presenting a very similar set of issues. He seems to have been speaking through Isaiah in Jerusalem, Micah in the southern countryside, and probably Hosea and Amos in the north simultaneously. And Jeremiah 26:18-19 seems to imply it was Micah’s courageous public prophesying that triggered Hezekiah’s bringing Judah back to the ways of the Lord at the start of 2 Kings 18 and 2 Chron 29. Micah’s prophecies amount to just seven pages, probably best read in one sitting. The starting-point we’re called to grasp here is, as in Ezekiel 1, the glory of God (`Look! The Lord is coming from His dwelling place… The mountains melt beneath him, and the valleys split apart!` (1:3-4)). Then it’s in the light of that (`All this is because of Jacob’s transgression!` (1:5)) that we absorb the news of the coming judgment, judgment caused by the intolerable sins of (against this God) idolatry (1:7), and (against people) injustice and exploitation (2:1-2,9, 3:3, 6:8-13). We feel again the pain of the true prophet as he grasps the catastrophe being triggered by his people’s sin (`Because of this I will weep and wail… I will howl like a jackal!` (1:8)), and their refusal to hear God (2:6). (And if we’ve read Revelation, we’ll know that our own culture’s sins and rejection of God’s Word are precipitating similar judgment; Micah can help us grasp that, through this experiential parallel in the limited context of one nation.) And yet, despite all this – and as in Isaiah, in Ezekiel, in the closing verses of Amos and Obadiah – God’s purpose is still surely to bring about a glorious future (2:12-13, 4:1-8, 5:7, 7:18-19). Strikingly, and without much explanation, we suddenly find Micah prophesying Messiah’s incarnation in Bethlehem (5:2-5); and we know, as he could not, why that enigmatic revelation holds the key to this good future, and how it can possibly be that, as his closing verses say, a God of unstinting justice will nevertheless `have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot, and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea` (7:19). So Micah’s challenge is for us, as clearly as for the Israel of his own time: judgment is coming on his (and our) culture’s sin; yet (as Isaiah so often emphasised) there will be a `remnant` (2:12) that will see the era of enormous blessing; do they (and we) want to hear God and be part of that?
And if we want that message in briefer form it’s there a bit later in ZEPHANIAH, who broadens it out to an ultimate apocalypse facing all the sinful nations of humanity – but here too there is a `shelter` (2:3), a salvation plan (3:9), and a glorious future for the forgiven sinners (`my worshippers, my scattered people`; 3:9-20).
But we’ve jumped over JOEL, another particularly fascinating (and preachable!) book. Joel helps us see how God sometimes speaks through calamities. We shouldn’t assume that misfortune is the sign of God’s judgment: think of Job; or how, when the disciples asked Jesus (John 9) whether the blind man’s misfortunes were due to his own sins or his parents’, Jesus’ simply replied, `Neither’! But on the other hand, calamity does challenge us to ask whether there may be something God is saying to us; is there, possibly, some reason in us why our prayers are not being answered, why God’s loving power seems not to be operating in our situation? It may or may not be so. But the disaster in Joel’s time was of sufficient magnitude (1:2) as at least to raise that question. And Joel reveals that it is not an accident, the horde of locusts is one God has sent: `The Lord thunders at the head of His army’ (2:11). It is indeed a `day of the Lord’, in which God is revealing Himself, calling His people, `Return to me with all your heart’.
So for us as Joel’s readers, the important thing is to grasp the response God looks for in such a time (2:12-17). `Returning with all your hearts’ is not something superficial. This is a time when the Lord says, STOP! If we have neglected God, it is not to be repaired with a single, momentary, snatched prayer of repentance. God is not a God to be trifled with; in Joel’s comment in 2:14, `Who knows? He may turn and have pity’, there’s a reminder that God’s pardon is not to be presumed upon, that indeed it is a `dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God’ (Heb 10:31). God’s wrath is not something just to be casually deflected before we return to more important matters; He calls for our real attention. `”Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”‘ We may not be able to call up tears at will, but the fasting can be entered into as a sign of our seriousness with God. It is collective, deliberate, and takes precedence over everything else: `Gather the people… bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.’ This is serious; this is deliberately setting aside everything else to come before the living God. `Let the priests… weep between the temple porch and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord.”‘
To worship like this is to recognise the presence of God in the everyday; God present in holiness, in judgment, in mercy. And, in a further though strange way, Joel helps us grasp that every deep encounter with God actually partakes of the ultimate, and of the fundamental issues of history that will be laid bare in its End. In Joel we seem to see a phenomenon that can help us understand a number of paradoxical passages of Scripture. We might call it the `spiral’ nature of the biblical view of history: while history moves forward, there are certain patterns for us to recognize within it which prefigure the apocalyptic events to be made manifest in its climax, when everything will be black and white without shades of grey. The ultimate drama is in some manner re-enacted in different generations. Isn’t this implicit in the way Joel switches from the immediate `day of the Lord'(1:15), the invasion of the locusts, to (as it would seem) the `day of the Lord’ (3:1-2,12-17; Rev 14 quotes this) at the end of history, when (see Zechariah 14 and parts of Revelation) `all the nations’ will be united in assault against God’s people? It seems as if, in God’s prophetic eternity, individual times and places are not cut off from each other in the way we might take them to be. Rather, our every act of faithfulness, and every act of sin, is bound up with the ultimate clash of good and evil, and the confrontations and forces that the `apocalypse’ of Revelation is given us to `reveal’ clearly. By his own unusual means, Joel accomplishes the vital task (as any prophetic preaching must) of helping his readers see their contemporary challenges, and need for repentance, in the light of the fundamental issues of the End. God’s judgment in the everyday and the end-time are, through the prophetic perception, intimately united…
But what is God’s purpose in all this? We see it in the end-point of Joel in 3:17: `Then you will know that I, the Lord your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill’, says God. The question of 2:17 – `Why should they say among the peoples, “Where is their God?”‘ – is to be answered irrefutably; and the book’s triumphant closing verse announces, `”Their blood-guilt, which I have not pardoned, I will pardon”. The Lord dwells in Zion!’ On the basis of divine forgiveness (where surely the new testament gospel hovers on the horizon), of God having dealt with our sin and guilt (3:21), His presence is promised to His people. And this is the end-point of other prophetic books too, as we’ve seen: the restoration of the glory, the tangible presence of God, among His people. The closing section of Ezekiel, for example, leads up to its final verse: `And the name of the city from that time on will be: The Lord is there!‘ (48:35). And the glory of the new testament Church is that we have that prophetic dream fulfilled, and we together are a `holy temple… a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit‘ (Eph 2:20-22)!
So when we ask the vital question, What in Joel does the new testament indicate is crucially important?- we are pointed directly towards this fulfilment. On the day of Pentecost Peter reminded the wondering crowds of Joel 2:28-32 saying, `This is what was spoken by the prophet.’ `And afterwards’, declares the Lord through Joel 2, `I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.’ We can see why this was such a staggering prophecy, and why, indeed, Paul could on at least one occasion present its fulfilment as the purpose of the whole drama of salvation: `He redeemed us in order that… by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit’ (Gal 3:14). Throughout the thousands or tens of thousands of years of human history, God’s Spirit had occasionally, in grace, lighted on a prophet here, a seer there, a king there. It was an incredible privilege (`Do not take your Holy Spirit from me’, pleads David in Psalm 51). But now the incredible occurs. God’s Spirit will be poured out on every individual (us!!); young men and women too will be indwelt by the Spirit as if they were the most senior of high priests. And instead of the presence of God being limited to that holiest of places in the temple’s heart, approachable once a year only through an extended ritual of atonement, now, astonishingly, our `blood-guilt will be pardoned’, and the glory of the Lord will come in power to anyone who calls on His Name. It is an amazing vision: the miracle of the Spirit coming to us fulfils, more than they probably dared to dream, the longing of the old testament prophets that God’s glory should dwell among His people….
So Joel 2:11 speaks to us. Let’s take situations of trouble as possibly God’s challenge to search our hearts (Psa 139:23); He wants us to grieve seriously over sin (1:13-14), to deal seriously with sin – because He has so much, so unimaginably much, glory that He wants to share with us!
THE `MINOR` PROPHETS (2)
What else? Let’s not miss JONAH, the story of the reluctant missionary. Now there seems to be a `problem with Jonah` – but what is it? It’s not, can we really believe that people are sometimes swallowed by enormous fishes; there’s nothing in Jonah to suggest this was anything but a totally unique act of God to train His prophet. Rather, the question is: is God really the kind of God who breaks into history, “preparing” a fish, orchestrating events, for the sake of one prophet’s education? — a God who values natural laws less than our spiritual maturity? Is the ‘problem with Jonah’ that we have been brainwashed into preferring a distant God, a safely predictable God, not a God who interrupts historical and natural processes with such glorious and majestic abandon?!
But Jonah is one of two very short books, along with NAHUM, about God’s action in history, specifically about God judging Assyria. The Assyrians were indeed, as Nahum 3:19 says, `endlessly cruel`, and also occult-dominated (Nahum 3:4, and see what’s in the British Museum). Nahum isn’t exaggerating. Historian Tom Holland writes, `The Assyrian genius was for intimidation…. To be an individual, in Assyrian art, is to be a victim. The vast friezes that adorned Ashurbanipal’s palaces… are not designed to foster any sense of pathos. Quite the opposite: they exist to amplify the portrayal of a host of tortures. Rebels are put to the rack, or forced to grind the bones of their fathers, or have their tongues cut out so they will be unable to scream as they are flayed. Vultures feast on the eyes of the dead. Above all, there are heads. Soldiers cut them off. Officials gather them in piles. Prisoners carry them slung round their necks.` Ashurnasirpal II boasted, `I flayed as many nobles as had rebelled against me [and] draped their skins over the pile [of corpses]… With their blood I dyed the mountain red like red wool… I cut off the heads of their fighters [and] built [therewith] a tower before their city. I burnt their adolescent boys [and] girls… I captured many troops alive: I cut off of some their arms [and] hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears, [and] extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops… I hung their heads on trees around the city.` (Just this is pictured in the stone carvings in the British Museum.) `Torture, pain, cruelty [the Assyrians] loved`, writes Hercus. `…Taking captive hostages from one conquered city, they would tie them in naked strings with iron bits forced into their mouths, and lead them to the gates at the next town to be attacked. And there, before the terrified gaze of the citizens peering over the walls, these miserable wretches would be hoisted up as human pennants on great Assyrian stakes thrust through the midriff. And as the victims writhed in their death throes the Assyrian spokesman would bellow his demand for surrender.` (Just as in Isaiah 36.)
So NAHUM, we might say, is the `norm` (like Amos, or Obadiah): a declaration of how God judges evil, rescues His people, and destroys the strongholds of Satan: all in good time. And this judgment on evil follows naturally from a revelation of the overwhelming holy greatness of God, which is (again like Ezekiel or Micah) the starting-point of this book. (`The Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath… His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of His feet… The mountains quake before Him and the hills melt away…. The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble! He cares for those who trust in Him; but with an overwhelming flood He will make an end of Nineveh` (1:2-8). ..
And yet life is complex and, whether we like it or not, the living God’s ways are complex. We need to read Nahum alongside Jonah – the reluctant missionary who (as Jeff Lucas says) `got himself a front row seat outside the city to have a good view of the fire and brimstone he hoped would rain on these pagans`; and then he is utterly horrified (and `fervently prayed for death`, says Lucas) when, instead of the judgment Nineveh so utterly deserves, God is outrageously gracious, because repentance has occurred; even in a culture with such vicious, demonically-inspired leaders… God must be God! (By the way there is archaeological evidence of a ruler of Nineveh who seems perhaps, uniquely, to have turned to monotheism around this time.) I wonder what Jonah and Nahum would have said to each other?!
But we also need to read Nahum alongside the more complex vision of HABAKKUK. If there is one `minor prophet` that I personally feel we need to know, it’s this one. The American IFES student movement InterVarsity created a multimedia show (50 minutes long, with two dozen automated slide projectors) presenting God’s challenge to today’s society, and the book they chose to base it on was Habakkuk. (The team spent a year with Habakkuk’s three chapters before producing the show.) Here’s what may focus our minds about Habakkuk: `The righteous shall live by faith’ are words at the very heart of our gospel, quoted on three crucial new testament occasions. But it’s as we read Habakkuk, from which they’re quoted (2:4), that we see the surprising context in which God first spoke them, and learn how to go on living by that faith/faithfulness (the Hebrew word conveys both) in a bleak time; how to keep going when (as with Job?) God’s plans seem all too different to ours…
Habakkuk writes precisely when God does not step in to judge a horrendously wicked (1:14-17, 2:8,17, 3:13) invader. (Now that judgment has actually come, Habakkuk unlike Jeremiah doesn’t bring up the sins that had preoccupied Amos and Micah and caused this judgment.) He has heard God say 1:5-6 – `Be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe… I am raising up the Babylonians` – but he can hardly believe it: in 1:12 he – shall we say, whimpers – `My God, my Holy One, we will not die?… Your eyes are too pure to look on evil… Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?` That would make sense; well then, `I will look to see what He will say to me` (2:1)…
So what then is God’s revelatory answer (2:2-3)? As with Job, it is clearly absolutely okay for God’s people to bring to Him their desperate questions; and as with Job 38-41 (and after Hab 2:4-19 where God makes very clear that He is aware of Babylon’s wickedness, and that it will be brought to an end), God’s full answer is 2:20-3:15, one of the most powerful portrayals of His greatness in the Bible. Take God and His greatness seriously, Habakkuk is being told (and we too); He can most surely deal with Babylon, but at the same time His thoughts are far greater than our thoughts; and we will `live` if we can hold on to that in faithfulness…
And if Habakkuk (or we ourselves) has really absorbed this, then he (or we) has reached a really key point in the life of faith: `Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines; though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food; though there are no sheep in the sheepfold and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.` And then he says: `The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to tread on the heights` (the book’s closing verses, 3:17-19). `The heights`: being able to trust God, to live by faith/faithfulness in the very toughest of times: this is how God brings Habakkuk there…
THE LAST THREE `MINOR` PROPHETS
These `minor` books have yet more for us. In time God’s judgment on evil and injustice does certainly come. Assyria’s repentance is shortlived and it falls to destruction; then successor empire Babylon falls too; and another empire, the Persian Empire, takes over, and sends the Jews back home from exile. So how do you rebuild after complete disaster? God used two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, to transform Israel in their discouragement. (Read them along with Ezra and Nehemiah; eg Ezra 4:24/5:1 happens at the same time as Haggai 1:1 and Zechariah 1:1.) And their most vital messages, which as both Ezra and Haggai make clear reinspired the Israelites, are recorded here for us.
We’ve been hearing about the middle eastern powers of Assyria and Babylon; ZECHARIAH is set during the Persian Empire, but it takes the flow of history right through to the end times, of which chapter 14 is one of Scripture’s clearest descriptions. And paradoxically so, because it’s an extraordinary, hallucinatory book, which sometimes transitions from theme to theme like post-symbolist poetry. I myself find the early part of this book (I am unashamed to say; because God’s thoughts really are greater than our thoughts!) probably the most opaque part of the Bible (Jerome called it `that most obscure book`). (For example: what’s going on with the – evidently important – horses in chapter 1 and 6? Or that evil woman who gets pushed down into a basket and carted off to ruined Babylon by two more women – with wings – in chapter 5?) And I hope nobody will be offended by this, but for me Zechariah 4 is both a powerful message but also perhaps the funniest chapter we get in the Bible, one surely describing cross-cultural miscommunication of a kind many missionaries will recognize. In it an angel has a marvellous message to give, one we frequently quote: Zerubbabel is rebuilding the temple against very serious opposition (see Ezra 4), and the angel’s encouraging message is that this will surely be achieved, but not by Zerubbabel’s might, nor by power, but by God’s Holy Spirit (v6). (Haggai 2:1-5 has the same vital message: `My Spirit remains among you. Do not fear!`) Yes! But alas, all his hearer seems interested in is to ask repeatedly what the olive trees are that he’s seen in this vision. And there comes a point when the angel (who hasn’t given a very clear response earlier when Zechariah answers No to `Do you not know what these are?`, having a more important message to convey) finally says, perhaps wearily, `Do you not know what these are?` `No, my lord`, says Zechariah a bit sadly – after all this is the third time he has asked. Worth dramatizing perhaps… But then that v6 is one of the greatest and most memorable promises of these twelve books…
So here we have a book with which it’s certainly worth using a commentary, to get some idea of the interpretative possibilities. But, as with Revelation (which reuses parts of Zechariah, bringing them into rather clearer focus: eg the horses, the olive trees, the Babylon woman (Rev chs 5,11,17)), the way ahead for us is to feed on what seems clear in this book, and leave what remains stubbornly unclear for future visits. And four things at least will feed us: first, Zechariah’s contribution to our grasp of Israel’s history, with his prophetic encouragements to Israel, and especially to Zerubbabel and Joshua who are leading Israel into rebirth (and yes, Joshua is the Hebrew for Jesus, and in 6:12 he’s called `the Branch`, Jesus’ title in Isaiah 11:1; Zec 3:8 describes him as a man `symbolic of things to come`). Secondly, not just 4:6 but particularly chapter 7 – `Was it really for Me that you fasted?` – is very memorably challenging!
Then thirdly the first half’s culmination, 8:20-23, and especially the final chapter, tell us a lot about the end of history, when the Lord Himself will descend from heaven onto the Mount of Olives (14:4), just as Acts 1:11 had promised, and thereafter `be King over the whole earth` (14:9). And fourthly, what is fascinating, and almost unique, is how under God’s inspiration, and with extremely sharp transitions, Zechariah intersperses promises of future blessing with prophecies of Messiah, the future Shepherd (compare ch11 to John 10:11-13); of the King who comes riding on a donkey (9:9 cf Matt 21:2), but ends up betrayed (11:13) and murdered (`”Awake, o sword… against the man who is close to me”, declares the Lord Almighty` (13:7); Jesus quotes the rest of this verse during the Last Supper in Matthew 26:31); the Messiah the Jews will one day realise, because of God’s outpouring of a `spirit of grace`, is `the one they have pierced; and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child` (12:10). Zechariah switches without warning between these things and his prophecies of future blessing; because, of course, they do actually belong together; the one is the only possible basis for the other…
Still: not perhaps the first old testament book for a new believer to be steered towards; but wow…! It is probably just as well that Zechariah’s teammate HAGGAI seems to have been a very different personality type; anyway his book is much simpler. And living in the 21st century – in the British church anyway – we really don’t want to miss God’s challenge here to His materialistic people’s priorities (see eg 1:5-6,9, 2:14): `Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your panelled houses, while this house [the temple] remains a ruin?` (1:3-4). The words of these two prophets, Ezra 5 tells us, were what transformed the fortunes of Israel, mobilizing them afresh: hearing God say, Take me seriously; put me first; and then, then, you’ll find that in other parts of your life things will start to go right (1:5-11, 2:15-29). And we see something else too: that for the power to transform their priorities, they – and we – need to hold fast to the reality of how things will be in the End; of what will truly last and won’t, what truly deserves our efforts and doesn’t (2:6-7, 20-23; words reminiscent of 2 Peter 3, `The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?`)
It’s not hard for us to envisage how to apply all this to ourselves, is it…!
Well, there are too many other great things to fit in here… But our old testament finishes with MALACHI, the minor prophet I find myself coming back to most often to illuminate the NT. By now the work of Zerubbabel, Joshua, Haggai and Zechariah is done; the Jerusalem temple has been rebuilt; but life for the Jews now is just as a minor part of the Persian empire (1:8). The divine kingdom of David and Solomon is a distant memory; and indeed prophecy is closing up (for 450 years till the new testament begins). It may seem that God is completely inactive (1:2, 2:17, 3:14-15,18). But when we think like that we forget what God has in fact done (3:6); the Jews were (to my knowledge) the only people to survive being transported into exile en masse by the Babylonians, and they were back in their land with their temple rebuilt where they could worship the living God. But we can so easily forget God’s goodness in the past when we are struggling with Him not doing what we want in the present… And there can come a mentality that questions God, not humbly like Habakkuk did, but in a spirit of cynicism and arrogance, blaming God for the absent glory (3:14-15, 2:17, 1:2). Do we recognize our own hearts’ questions here?
So then practically: what are the issues God flags up if we desire renewal in such a time of (we may feel) God’s apparent silence? How (assuming it’s what we want) do we restore both the sense of deep relationship with God as our Father, and the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom(1:6)? Going through Malachi with these questions will help us see how to take God seriously, and renew our relationship as sons and daughters with Him. It is very interesting what the issues are that God raises, and indeed we may recognize them easily.
God’s starting-point here in Malachi is to remind us of his love. And something in our hearts may even respond negatively to this, 1:2. But it’s the first thing we need to grasp. (Compare Rev 3:19.) Then the next is remembering our destiny. Edom (1:2-5) had a catastrophic collective destiny (Obadiah emphasises this too), because of God’s justice, and their continual rebellion against Him. That can be true of each of us. God’s wrath is coming indeed (it came at Calvary). Yet as Cornish poet Jack Clemo says, we each have a tragic destiny, but we need not fulfil it! For this, however, there needs to be serious repentance. In contrast God speaks to Levi, the priestly tribe chosen by Him for a glorious destiny (2:4-5). But not all the Levites and priests had lived as befitted that destiny. They, and we, have to `set our heart to honour` God if we are actually to live in the destiny He has designed for us, and us for (2:1-9). And as expressions of this `setting our hearts` we find at least six practical issues that we must check could be arising in us, in a time when we may feel God is silent:
- Growing materialism, combining with just going through the motions in our worship (1:6-14; this is so worth reading, particularly as we make applications from our own church life!);
- Carelessness about holiness in relationships, manifested especially in intermarriage with the `daughter of a foreign God` (2:11-12; a huge issue in Nehemiah too), and also in casualness about divorce (2:13-16);
- Carelessness about injustice, towards workers, the weak, the immigrant (3:5);
- Materialism surfacing also in carelessness about our giving, which is actually `robbing God` (3:6-12 – here we find God’s famous promise about the blessings unlocked by tithing, that we simply can’t out-give Him!);
- Carelessness about parent/offspring relationships (4:6);
- And underlying all these, carelessness about sin, as distinct from commitment to honouring the Lord by taking sin seriously (4:4) – the presence or absence, again, of the `fear of the Lord` (3:16).
Do we recognize our own hearts’ questions in the questions Malachi records from his audience? Then we need to think very seriously through the issues he flags up. Feeding on Malachi will help us take God seriously and find renewal. Let’s pray!!
And as we do so, let’s note that in this time of God’s apparent inactivity Malachi has a lot to say about the Lord coming. And yet, nothing happened for 450 years. But the Lord most certainly did come. (So it will be with us: He `will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him` (Heb 9:28)!) And one last crucial thing about that `coming`: the closing two verses of Malachi, indeed of our entire old testament, summarize the OT problem – that the Lord coming to us (that is, not being inactive at all) might, in view of our sins, be a very `great and dreadful day` when `I will come and strike the land with a curse`. But this problem is exactly what, two pages later, the new testament resolves… For indeed God does come, `God with us` (Matt 1:23); but `You are to give him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins` (Matt 1:21); so that His coming brings, not a curse, but ultimately stupendous blessing…
HALLELUJAH!
THE WAYS FORWARD
So how do we tackle an unfamiliar Bible book? Some final suggestions …
- Decide that you want to know God, that you want to know His Word as a whole. And that, therefore, you’ll set aside some time to study it in depth. (Our academic studies, or our ongoing business retraining, are important, and demand time: the results of our Bible study will be even more permanent and far-reaching!)
- Read it, turning what you read into prayer, and into worship. And reread it! In quantity, at least to begin with – three or four chapters a day. (At that rate we get through, say, 1 Kings in a week.) After getting a feel for the overall flow of the book, go back and study it in smaller sections and more detail.
- If you can, write a one-page summary of the book; note down its general direction of thought, its main divisions and sections, and the themes and issues that are highlighted or repeated in each. (And maybe: how does the new testament quote and use it?)
- As you read, ask yourself, and ask God: Why is this passage in the Bible? What does it emphasize? (What did it mean most for its original readers? What permanent principles does it present to me now?)
- Ask questions: What does this teach me about You, Lord? about Your salvation? about how I grow in You? So, about repentance and deepening discipleship, and about faith? About people? Is there a sin for me to avoid, a promise to claim, a command to obey, an example to follow?
- Some books are tougher than others. But reading them is investing in God’s food towards when you do finally `get it` – at worst, the fifth time you read it through it will make sense!! But discuss the difficult passages with friends. Read books like IVP’s excellent The Bible Speaks Today series.
- Take notes of your discoveries; use them as fuel for worship, and file them for reuse. Keep adding the insights you get from sermons, books or Bible studies on the same passages. Keep exploring! And share (or preach!) what you’ve learned, with friends, and learn from them too; set an example – make your church a channel of life through which `The Word of God increased and spread’ (Acts 12:24)…
Feeding on God’s Word like this will give us strength to live faithfully, radically, for Him in the challenging decades to come. It will make us people who genuinely `know their God’. And as we speak of God to others, they will sense He is not a stranger to us; that we’ve glimpsed His glory as we’ve studied His Word. So life flows out into the world!
PS: In IFES we have watched many people `turned on’ to a new vision of the Bible through the `manuscript method’ pioneered by Paul Byer and others in InterVarsity-USA. We’ll have a post about this on this site soon, but: Ideally this method involves a group using wide-margin, double-spaced manuscripts of Bible books without chapter or verse divisions, which can be annotated freely. At any rate, the idea is for participants to note for themselves the book’s apparent sections and subsections, based on changes of setting, theme, etc; then, to observe the `Who? What? Where?’ of each section, and to highlight in different colours signs of the passage’s `flow of thought’ – connections and contrasts (`Therefore’, `But’ etc), cause and effect, progressions, themes and words emphasised by repetition. Group members are also encouraged to record their questions and look out for things that appear strange or puzzling, and to observe the emotional and imaginative responses the passage evokes in them. Discoveries are then shared and discussed; finally, connections are made between the different sections and the book’s overall themes, and applications drawn out and turned into prayer. This has proved enormously fruitful in many cultures. Some aspects may sound difficult until it is watched in practice, but many churches have found it very valuable; indeed Byer and Eric Miller have seen it work fruitfully among ordinary village people in the Indian subcontinent.
