Welcome to talk eleven of our series of twelve. Today we shall complete our coverage of Old Testament prophecy by looking into the twelve books of the minor prophets. These are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. These are the twenty eighth to the thirty ninth books of the Old Testament. Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament.

Unlike the books of the major prophets, which are in historical sequence, the twelve books of the minor prophets are spread out over a wide period of time. They are not set in time sequence of writing or historical coverage, each prophesied at a different time, to different kings and even to different nations. In the time we have, I can only give a tiny thumbnail sketch of each book. Please do study them for your own enrichment in Christ. So we begin with Hosea. 

Hosea prophesied from about 792 to 699 B.C., mostly to the northern kingdom about the same time as Isaiah in the south. His most prominent message was the spiritual adultery of the northern kingdom against God as her husband. Dramatically Hosea was to mirror this by taking a wife from prostitution, who had sons that were not his own to show that God disowned the nation for their sins. So we can see that God doesn't only send verbal messages through His prophets, he may indeed command them to act out in someway by actions that they do including things they do in their personal life, as a way of presenting His message to His people.

The next book is Joel. Joel proclaims a message in an unusual way. His message comes not from political or military affairs, but from a massive locust plague that was a sign of how God could destroy His unfaithful people unless they repented. Interestingly, the date of his ministry cannot be determined. But the nature of the message that God delivered through Joel was that he can raise a power, he can raise a nation or he can raise a force, in this case, a locust plague that He can use as His instrument of judgment against the disobedient. So in that way, it serves as a timeless warning against disobedience against God.

The next prophet is Amos. Amos was a sheep herder who was raised by God to be a prophet. This highlights a very significant point about God's prophets and God's prophecy, and that is, God Himself can choose anyone He wants and also mould and anoint the person to be a bearer of His message. So although Amos was a sheep herder by profession, God raised him up and gave him messages to declare to these people. Amos spoke to the northern kingdom in the time of Jeroboam, the second of God's requirement for justice.

He wanted his people to act by his justice in how they conducted their lives within the nation as well as in their personal lives. If they did not do that, they faced God's judgment and destruction.

The next prophetic book is Obadiah. Obadiah was sent by God with a message to Edom to warn of God's judgment. In a sense also, it was therefore a comfort to Judah the southern kingdom, that God would uphold them while He destroyed those who come against them or attacked them.

And it is noteworthy that Obadiah, as God's prophet, was not sent to prophesy to Judah directly, but was sent to prophesy to Edom, or Esau’s descendant, as God's message for them. Now the date of his ministry is also uncertain. It remains debated. But of course, his warning of God's judgment against Edom is a message that speaks loudly that any nation or people who sin faces God's judgment.

Then we come to Jonah. Jonah was a prophet sent by God to yet another kingdom that was not Israel or Jewish. Jonah was sent by God to Nineveh, which was the capital of the Assyrian empire, to call them to repentance. This was in the time of Jeroboam the second. Now because of Jonah’s and the Israel's hatred of the Assyrians, Jonah refused because he did not want God to forgive their sin if they repented. He wanted them destroyed, but God punished Jonah by having him swallowed by a fish for three days and nights. And after that experience he obeyed God. Now Nineveh did repent and God did not judge them.

So in that sense, Jonah was right, but that was God’s message to Jonah. And he showed that God dealt with other nations besides Israel. In other words, he's the God of all nations, not just Israel, and any nation that will repent of their sin. God also will forgive. Now in Jonah’s life, his being swallowed by a fish for three days and night became a foreshadowing of a sign that Christ would die and rise again after three days. In other words, Christ was dead for three days before he resurrected.

So in that way Jonah’s experience with the fish became a sign of what God would do through Christ. It showed that God is God of all, not just Israel. Then we come to Micah. Micah served from 752 to 699 B.C. from the reign of king Jotham to king Hezekiah of Judah, the southern kingdom. He warned that God would destroy Judah for its sin in the time of the Assyrian invasion. The Syria did take many cities from Judah, but God spared Jerusalem until the time of the Babylonian invasion.

Then we have the prophet Nahum. Prophet Nahum probably prophesied in the time of Josiah of Judah in 622 B.C., he declared God's judgment against Assyria. Now, unlike Jonah’s time where Assyria repented and God spared them, in this case, ‘in Nahum's time’, Assyria apparently did not repent and was destroyed in 609 B.C., so God in another way again demonstrated His power as God and sovereignhood over all human powers on earth.

Then we come to the prophet Habakkuk. Habakkuk prophesied in the time of the fall of Assyria and the rise of Babylon in Josiah’s time. Now, he sought to understand how God can use unjust people such as Assyria or Babylon to judge His people Judah. And he learned from God that God can and will use one nation to judge another, but He will judge each nation for its sin in His time. So God may use nations that are not righteous, but simply He uses them as His instrument of judgment against Judah when it was in sin. While on the other hand the nation that God use to judge other nation have to answer for their own sin. And in God's time and in God's way He will bring justice against those nations.

Then we come to Zephaniah. Zephaniah warned Judah in the same time period as Jeremiah of God's judgment against it. His message was relatively straightforward, that unless Judah repented, God's judgment would come. But if they repented, there was hope, because God was willing to pardon them. If anyone repents and turns back to God, God will pardon the repentant and turn them back to Himself to walk with Him.

Then we come to the final three prophets of the twelve minor prophets, Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi. There is a common time frame or related time frame to their prophecies. All three of them were prophets God raised in the period of the restoration. That is a period when God through Cyrus the first king of Persia commanded and supported the Jews to return to the Jerusalem to settle there and rebuild the temple. That was seventy years after Jerusalem’s and Judah’s exile that fulfilled Jeremiah’s prophecy.

And in the period when God brought his people back to the promise land, now they did not become their own kingdom again, but they did live in the promised land and rebuilt the temple. This was the historical period, in which God send this three prophets to prophesy to his people. Haggai prophesied in the time of Darius of Persia who supported Cyrus’ earlier decree for the Jews to resettle in Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. Haggai called those who return to resume the work in earnest after they had stopped doing so due to opposition and complacency, they had turned to building their own houses instead of the temple, God's house.

But in response to Haggai, the people returned to the work of building God's temple. Now Zechariah prophesied with Haggai at the same time and continued after him. He called those who returned to be true to the national covenant and gave many visions of the coming Messiah. So Haggai’s prophecy centered on rebuilding the temple. Zechariah’s prophecy at the same time as Haggai centred on the people to return to the covenant faithfulness with God, as a nation. And he gave many prophetic visions of how God would, in due time, through His Messiah, fulfil all His promises.

Then we come to the last prophet of the Old Testament, which is also the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi prophesied after the time of Haggai and Zechariah, when the people again became complacent after the temple was built. He rebuked them against withholding the tithe, against offering blemish sacrifices to God and many other sins. He called for upholding true worship and faithfulness to God.

And the point of this prophecy shows, however, that even after judgment and loss of the kingdom, and even after restoration, where God enabled them to rebuild the temple, this attitude of sinful neglect and disobedience remained a problem. And so the last prophet of the Old Testament was still calling the nation to come back to walk right with God. And in that way, all of the prophets and all of the Old Testament remain relevant for us, because we face the same dangers in our day and time that we ourselves may still turn away from God when we should be upholding Him with a life of faith and obedience. So our next talk, talk twelve is the final talk of this series. We shall look at the Old Testament through the perspective of God's covenants and show how the Old Testament is linked to the New Testament.

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