Friday, February 24, 2017

The Day of the Lord

Last week we began our new series in the Minor Prophets. We were looking at the Book of Obadiah and the danger that pride presents in the life of the believer. We also briefly touched on a common theme throughout many of the prophets, and that is the “Day of the Lord.” This week as we begin our study of the book of Joel we are again confronted with this topic. The book of Joel is wrought with imagery of a judgment so full and so complete that none had ever seen the likes. If there had been mass media in Joel’s day, the headlines would read “LOCUSTS INVADE THE LAND! NATION FACES CRITICAL ECONOMIC CRISIS! No Relief in Sight…”  

When I was in college years ago, I took a class on how to write my sermons and Bible study lessons, the metaphor we used was Hook, Book, Look, Took. Well, Joel has the people on the hook here.  Everyone was concerned about this economic catastrophe that was taking place…

 I love what the Bible Expositor’s Commentary has to say: “Joel wanted the people of Judah to understand what God was saying to them through the plague and the drought. In our own times, the nations of the world are experiencing severe droughts and famines, frightening epidemics, unexpected earthquakes, devastating floods, and other "natural disasters," all of which have greatly affected the national and global economy; yet very few people have asked, "What is God saying to us?" Joel wrote his book so the people would know what God was saying through these critical events.” (Wiersbe, 2003)


As we prepare each in our own way for the “Day of the Lord” may we bring glory and honor to God!
I hope that you will join us on Sunday as Pastor Craig leads us through the study of the Book of Joel!




Warren Wiersbe, Bible Exposition Commentary – Be Amazed (Hosea, Joel), (Colorado Springs, CO: Victor, 2003), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 334.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Minor Doesn't Mean Less Than...

An Introduction to the Minor Prophets
Many might ask why do we need to Study the Old Testament? What value is there to be found in these ancient antiquated writings of men before the first advent of Christ?

I would counter with the argument that while we today are no longer under the Old Testament as a system of justification that the Old Testament is of great value for us today for several reasons. First, the Old Testament was written for our learning, it is a source of comfort and hope for us today. Paul in Romans 15:4 states “For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures.” (HCSB, 2010)

The Old Testament was also written for our admonition so that we might learn from other’s mistakes and avoid them. (1 Corinthians 10:11) “Now these things happened to them as examples, and they were written as a warning to us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.”(HCSB, 2010)

Finally, as with all scripture inspired by God, the Old Testament is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:14-17 HCSB, 2010)
This holds especially true with regard to the writings referred to as the Minor Prophets.

My hope and prayer are that this post will serve a two-fold goal, first that it wets your appetite for studying these minor prophets and second that it will serve as your reference guide as we journey through the next months studying the proclaimed coming of Christ and his Gospel in these Old Testament books.

So, what are the Minor Prophets? Well, the short answer is that they are a collection of twelve books that make up the final part of the Old Testament. From Hosea to Malachi we have an eclectic collection of men from different walks of life, many of them overlapping, but each with a critical message from God.

If you are willing to take the time to study these books you will find your life enriched as you expand your knowledge and understanding of God’s holiness, righteousness, justice, and mercy. You will also grow in your understanding of God’s dealings with men.

As we prepare for our exploration of these writings, let’s spend some time answering some critical questions which will allow us to digest God’s word each week as we study.

So, we’ve looked briefly at WHAT the Minor Prophets are, but a slightly more pressing question is WHO were the prophets?

The Old Covenant had different voices in which it was recorded, five different types of instructors. You have Moses, the Lawgiver (Nehemiah 8:1,14; 9:13-14; John 1:17; 7:19). You also have the priests, these were those who administrated the law (Leviticus 10:8-11; Hosea 4:6; Ezekiel 22:26; Malachi 2:7) (Ellis, 1991). There were the wise men, who gave counsel (2 Samuel 14:1-24; 20:16-22). The psalmists, poets who were known as the "sweet singers" of Israel (Ellis, 1991) (2 Samuel 23:1; 1 Chronicles 6:33). And finally, there were the prophets, these were the communicators of the Word of God.

Literally, a prophet is a spokesman for someone else. The word prophet according to the Hebrew dictionary literally means “to boil up like a fountain.” Thus, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, a prophet being a spokesman for God (2 Peter 1:21) was given a message to be relayed, and they had no other option but to proclaim it! (Jeremiah 20:7-9). The prophets were primarily "forth-tellers," though sometimes they were "fore-tellers" in that God's word often pertained to future events. By the way, the fulfillment of these prophecies is a strong proof of inspiration!

There are a few other designations which define the role of a prophet. In 1 Samuel 9:9 they were called “seers.” 1 Kings 17:18 and 1 Samuel 9:6 they were referred to a “man of God.” They were known as a “servant of God” in 1 Kings 18:36 and 1 Chronicles 6:49. The prophet served as God’s “messenger” in Isaiah 42:19 and in Ezekiel 3:17; 33:7 they were assigned the role of “watchman.”
The prophets of the Old Testament were men, but they were also servants of God, men who were divinely appointed and inspired to proclaim the message they were given. There were times which the message applied to the then present day, as they served as watchmen of the people of God. There were still other times, God’s message pertained to the future, and as such, they were “seers” of things to come.

It is important to note that there are different classifications of prophets in that you have “oral” and “literary” prophets.

The oral prophets were those such as Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 17; 2 Kings 2), Nathan (2 Samuel 12), Gad (2 Samuel 24:11), and Ahijah (1 Kings 11:29) who left no writings bearing their names.
Which leaves the “literary” prophets. These were those who left books bearing their names. The literary prophets are subdivided into Major and Minor Prophets. This traces back to Augustine (Ellis, 1991). The distinction between the major and minor pertains only to the length of the books.
The "major prophets" include the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel. The "minor prophets" consist of twelve books in all, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

Another important thing to note is that in considering the “literary” prophets is that when you look at the table of contents in your Bible the order of the books is not chronological. For the sake of establishing a sound basis in our Biblical understanding, we are going to move through them chronologically rather than as they are found in the Biblical Canon.

Now, any time you begin to assign dates to things in scripture you open yourself to controversy. Thus, for the purposes of this guide and the purpose of our preaching series, we will stay within the estimates agreed upon by most conservative scholars.

The dates for breakdown are extracted from The Bible Exposition Commentary (Wiersbe, 2002):

NINTH CENTURY (EARLY ASSYRIAN PERIOD)
      1. Obadiah (ca. 845 B.C)
      2. Joel (ca 830 B.C.)
      3. Jonah (790-750 B.C.)
      -- These three prophets were active during the period known as "The Divided Kingdom" in Israel's history. The empire of Assyria was just beginning to make its presence known in Israel.

EIGHTH CENTURY (ASSYRIAN PERIOD)
      1. Amos (755 B.C.)
      2. Hosea (750-725 B.C.)
      3. Isaiah (740-700 B.C.)
      4. Micah (735-700 B.C.)
      -- In 722 B.C., we know the northern kingdom of Israel was taken into Assyrian captivity. These four prophets were tasked with proclaiming God's message as the nation was being threatened from the north.

SEVENTH CENTURY (CHALDEAN PERIOD)
      1. Jeremiah (626-586 B.C.)
      2. Zephaniah (630-625 B.C.)
      3. Nahum (625-612 B.C.)
      4. Habakkuk (625-605 B.C.)
      -- The Assyrians were eventually defeated by the Babylonians; these four prophets served as God's messengers during the period the Babylonian empire threatened the kingdom of Judah.

SIXTH CENTURY (THE EXILE)
      1. Ezekiel (593-570 B.C.)
      2. Daniel (605-536 B.C.)
      -- Like many of their countrymen, these prophets were taken into Babylonian captivity; from Babylon, they served as God's messengers to both captives and kings

SIXTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES (POST-EXILIC PERIOD)
      1. Haggai (520 B.C.)
      2. Zechariah (520-518 B.C.)
      3. Malachi (ca. 440 B.C.)
      -- Following the return from Babylonian captivity, God used Haggai and Zechariah to encourage the people to rebuild the temple.  Sixty to eighty years later, Malachi was used as an instrument to bring about reform in the priesthood during the period of Ezra and Nehemiah which we studied last year in more depth. 



So, we’ve seen the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, let’s take a few moments in closing and examine our basis for understanding the message of the prophets.

In studying the prophets, there are three things in which you need to keep in mind.

     1. You must always seek to understand the political, social and religious conditions of the times. Any interpretation must consider how the message was relevant for the people to whom the prophet spoke. We often see the secondary fulfillment of prophecy in the New Testament, but this must be understood in context and should only be understood as applied by inspired writers of the New Testament. We must guard against making interpretations that are purely speculative. Also, any application to recent events must be carefully harmonized in light of the New Testament.

      2. You must also consider God's relationship to the nations of the day other than Israel and Judah. The writings of the prophets often revealed how God would direct their destiny and also how he judged them. Considering this can also provide insight as to how Christ rules the nations today (Matthew 28:18; Revelation 1:5; 2:26;27).

      3. The final thing you must look for is any teaching regarding the Messiah and His coming kingdom (Acts 26:6-7; 28:20). While the primary mission of most of the prophets was to facilitate the repentance of  God’s people from idolatry and wickedness many left a message of hope for the future, pointing to the advent of the Messiah who would ultimately arrive and establish a kingdom which stands for eternity.

The final thing I want to address with this post is six of the major themes that are developed by the Minor Prophets in their writings. We see them consistently throughout scripture and further elaborated by the New Testament writers, but the Prophets provide a unique perspective which benefits our study.  

      1. The holiness of God - God is absolutely pure, absolutely righteous, and absolutely just; he is unnecessarily merciful, amazingly tender, perfectly loving, and forever patient.

      2. The sovereignty of God – Simply, He rules the universe and is above all.

      3. The immutability of God's Word (I heard a great sermon by Dr. Al Mohler on the immutability (or unchanging nature) of God at the Jax Pastor’s Conference, so when we look at this theme in a few weeks I will share it with you!

      4. The wretchedness of sin, we tend in today’s culture to whitewash sin, but the truth is God abhors sin, and will not tolerate, overlook, nor excuse it. Graciously he is willing to forgive those who humbly repent.

      5. Repentance and righteousness are the clarion call of the prophets. God’s punishment for the wicked is severe, but his mercy is great in loving-kindness upon the righteous who approach the throne with a broken spirit and contrite heart of true repentance.

      6. The worship due to God -  We don’t worship for ourselves we worship. The prophets outline for us and remind us that the proper reverence, awe, and respect for God will inevitably cause one to praise Him and give thanks for His wonderful grace and mercy!

So, why do we study the minor prophets? Because in them we learn about the nature of God, His holiness, justice, righteousness, and mercy. We learn of the workings of God, as He deals with the nations, bringing judgment upon the guilty. Ultimately this can help us in our relationship with God today, giving us a comfort and hope to face the future, recognizing that God is in ultimate control.
I hope that you are as excited about this series as I am!

See you Sunday as we start with Obediah – be sure to read it and be ready!

References

(2015). Retrieved from Bible History Online: http://www.bible-history.com
BibleGateway. (n.d.). Retrieved 09 24, 2015, from http://biblegateway.com
Ellis, E. E. (1991). The Old Testament in Early Christianity. Germany.
HCSB. (2010). Holman Christian Standard Bible. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers.
Keathley, H. (2004, May 19). Bible.org. Retrieved 09 2015, from https://bible.org/article/jacob

Wiersbe, W. (2002). The Bible Exposition Commentary. David C Cook.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Two Opposing Boasts

This week as we close our journey through the book of Galatians we see a critical contrast. We see two very different boasts. We have the boasts of the flesh and the boasts of the cross. Throughout his Epistle, Paul has been encouraging the churches not to cave into the primal desires of the flesh. The Judaizers brought a compelling argument, but their motivation was flawed. They sought to boast in the flesh for two reasons, first to avoid persecution for the cross of Christ (v12) and second to boast in the flesh of the Gentiles (v13) which boils down to pride. Those boasting in the flesh were trying to avoid a fight, and to put it in modern terms they were trying to brag about their numbers. In doing this however as we have seen elsewhere in Galatians (2:11-14) they were inconsistent. You see they were focused solely on the externals, but we know that God doesn’t favor us because of externals he has favor on us as his children because of what is on the inside.

                In contrast, we see the boasts of the cross. This was the boast of Paul. This boast stands against the reasoning of the day, and Paul knew it. 1 Corinthians 1:18 tells us “for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved.”  You see the cross for the Jewish people was a curse (Deut 21:23; Gal 3:13). Yet it is in this cursed cross which we are set free, and it is in this cursed cross in which Paul boasts. This was no easy task. It required a change in priorities for Paul. Circumcision, once important to him, has now become irrelevant (Gal 1:11-17) the only thing that matters now is the fact that he is now a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17; Ep. 4:20-24). Paul has gone from boasting about himself and his accomplishments to boasting in the transforming power of Christ.

We need to be ever cautious that we don’t imitate the Judaizers. When we are faced with being ridiculed for our faith, do we accept for what it is a blessing? James 1 reminds us that trials lead to endurance which in turn leads to maturity in the faith, completeness. The threat of persecution and ridicule did not keep Christ from the cross nor should it dampen our passion for serving. We must also check our pride at the door. This simple human emotion has been the downfall of so many throughout the generations. Are we seeking to impress others with our accomplishments just for the sake of popularity?

 What do you boast in today? Do you boast in yourself, in the things that you have done to earn favor with God? Or do you boast in the righteousness of God, in the power of the cross of Christ?

(Galatians 6:11-18) “Look at what large letters I use as I write to you in my own handwriting. Those who want to make a good impression in the flesh are the ones who would compel you to be circumcised—but only to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even the circumcised don’t keep the law themselves; however, they want you to be circumcised in order to boast about your flesh. But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through the cross, and I to the world. For both circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing; what matters instead is a new creation. May peace come to all those who follow this standard, and mercy to the Israel of God!

From now on, let no one cause me trouble, because I bear on my body scars for the cause of Jesus. Brothers, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.”

Friday, February 03, 2017

Sowing Well


So, I wrote about reaping what you sowed a couple of weeks ago, but we never made it that far on Sunday morning. This week we are back on that passage, so I wanted to refresh our thoughts on the subject and go into greater detail on a verse that I had previously glanced over but hadn’t paid much attention.

The more I've studied this passage, the more uncomfortable I am preaching on it. Not because it is some complicated theological topic or a divisive doctrine but because of the right contextual subject matter of it. Read the passage and see for yourself:

The one who is taught the message must share all his good things with the teacher. Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap, because the one who sows to his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So we must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, we must work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith. (HCSB Gal_6:6-10)

It would be real easy just to breeze right past verse six. I mean really easy. Verse 7 is such a great proverbial truth and is so easy to preach, but we can't leave out verse 6.

"The one who is taught the message must share all his good things with the teacher." (HCSB Gal_6:6)

I have to say I read this verse over and over and checked commentary after commentary just be sure because I couldn't believe what Paul was saying but sure enough, he was telling the churches in Galatia to pay their pastors. Now sure there are other lessons you could glean from this passage, but that is the verbiage that Paul uses.

Now to be clear Paul wasn't advocating six figure salaries for the elders/pastors of the church. Don’t miss Paul's primary concern in this passage; he is talking about money, but his concern isn’t the money
.
What was Paul’s burden? The furtherance of the gospel. Paul knew that the God-ordained means for accomplishing this was the steady proclamation of the Word of God by faithful teachers. But these teachers would be greatly hindered if they could not take care of their daily responsibilities. He knew they would have to make their rent payment or buy feed for their donkey. Therefore, Paul is recognizing that by caring for the needs of the teacher, the church says in effect, "We want the Word of God taught faithfully and effectively, so we will help support you."

This excerpt from the Bible Exposition Commentary explains it like this:

“We must realize the spiritual principle that lies behind this precept. God does not command believers to give simply that pastors and teachers (and missionaries, Phil. 4:10-19) might have their material needs met, but that the givers might get a greater blessing (Gal. 6:7-8). The basic principle of sowing and reaping is found throughout the entire Bible. God has ordained that we reap what we sow. Were it not for this law, the whole principle of "cause and effect" would fail. The farmer who sows wheat can expect to reap wheat. If it were otherwise, there would be chaos in our world.

But God has also told us to be careful where we sow, and it is this principle that Paul deals with here. He looks on our material possessions as seed, and he sees two possible kinds of soil: the flesh and the Spirit. We can use our material goods to promote the flesh, or to promote the things of the Spirit. But once we have finished sowing, we cannot change the harvest.

Money sown to the flesh will bring a harvest of corruption (see Gal. 5:19-21). That money is gone and can never be reclaimed.

Money sown to the Spirit (such as sharing with those who teach the Word) will produce life, and in that harvest will be seeds that can be planted again for another harvest, and on and on into eternity. If every believer only looked on his material wealth as seed, and planted it properly, there would be no lack in the work of the Lord. Sad to say, much seed is wasted on carnal things and can never bring glory to God.” (Wiersbe 2003)

To whoever might actually read this, please heed Paul’s plea and care for those who teach, not out of obligation or tradition, but because you love the Word of God and want to see it spread to the ends of the earth.

What are you sowing?

See you Sunday!



Bibliography
HCSB. 2010. Holman Christian Standard Bible. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers.

Wiersbe, Warren. 2003. Bible Exposition Commentary – Be Free (Galatians). WORDsearch CROSS e-book. Colorado Springs, CO