learning to love the prophets · the new testament books are filled with quotations from the old...

Learning to Love the Prophets

Robert J. Koester

Cover illustrations: Lars Justinen; GoodSalt, Inc.Art Director: Karen KnutsonDesign Team: Diane Cook, Pamela Dunn

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLYBIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973,1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reservedworldwide.

All rights reserved. This publication may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced,translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or inpart, except for brief quotations, without prior written approval from the publisher.

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Published 2016Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-8100-2698-8ISBN 978-0-8100-2699-5 (e-book)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

PART I: FINDING FLOWERS IN THE DESERT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

ONEThe Old Testament Desert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

TWOIsaiah’s Flower Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

THREEFlowers in the Most Rugged Part of the Desert . . . . . . . . . . 46

FOURFlowers at the Edge of the Desert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

PART II: THE FLOWERS IN BLOOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

FIVEIn the Last Days, for All People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

SIXSymbolism, Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

SEVENJesus’ Glorious Rule Now and in Eternity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

EIGHTLooking Through New Testament Knotholes . . . . . . . . . . . 122

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INTRODUCTION

This book was written to help you enjoy reading the Old Testa-ment prophets. A tall order? Perhaps. After all, when was the lasttime you read the book of Habakkuk or Zechariah or tackled all 52chapters of Jeremiah? No, I’m not talking about a Bible study atchurch where you have a teacher to serve as your guide, but on yourown, with no help.

This book is not meant to prepare you for a thorough under-standing of the Old Testament prophets. Rather, it is meant to helpyou pick up your Bible and read the Old Testament prophets with apurpose in mind—other than to see how many chapters you can getthrough without giving up, that is.

In a nutshell, this book is designed to help you see the gospel inthe prophets. We will use a picture: flowers in the desert.

You may or may not live in a desert climate, but if you do, youwill understand the meaning of flowers in the desert. There are manyvarieties of desert, but all of them share one thing: lack of water.Deserts in lower elevations are generally made up of grays andbrowns with low plants that can survive on little water. Deserts inhigher elevations have more greenery—often short pine trees that onclose inspection seem to be half dead. They remain green onlybecause they can shut down some of their limbs during the manydry years they must endure.

It is a harsh environment. You can walk for miles and see onlythe toughest brown shrubs resting on sand or shallow soil coveredwith lichens to keep them from blowing away. Depending on whereyou are, the desert can be relatively flat or decorated with walls ofrock, strange looking formations, and dry washes that cut into thedesert floor. But it lacks the green grasses, tall pine trees, hardwoodforests, and lush grazing land of the North.

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Flowers in the Desert

One day my wife and I were walking a dry wash and had gone acouple miles when we passed a lone hiker—the only other personwe saw that day. He said, “Did you see the cactus?” We hadn’t. Onour way out, we saw that the hiker had written “cactus” in the sandwith an arrow pointing up the hillside. We looked and there was ablob of red. It was a single, blossoming cactus with maybe 20 flowerson it. It was gorgeous. We examined it and took some pictures. Aswe walked away, we looked back at it, how it was set in the contextof the bushes, sand, and rock walls. It was a flower in the desert, athing of beauty in the harsh desert climate.

Walking through the Old Testament prophetical books—andhere we are referring to the prophetical books in the technical sense,from Isaiah through Malachi—is like walking through a desert.Much of the prophetical landscape is desert climate. It is made upof warnings, judgments, and prophecies of God’s wrath on sin andunbelief. These sections have their own type of beauty, a starkbeauty, beautiful only to those who have learned to appreciate it.And I hope that in this book you will learn to appreciate thatbeauty too.

As you read the prophets’ books, you run across a flower ormaybe a little patch of flowers or, in a few places, an entire garden.These are gospel flowers—sections of the prophets’ writings thatare notably different from what lies around them. Searching for thesegospel flowers in the desert is what makes reading the prophets sointeresting. It keeps you going from chapter to chapter, never know-ing what lies around the next corner. Finding these flowers in thedesert is what makes reading the Old Testament prophets a joy. Youmight find yourself reading through the judgment sections ratherquickly but then slowing down when you find a flower, savoring itsbeauty as you probe its meaning. You find yourself relating the some-times unfamiliar words of the prophets with the more familiar wordsof the gospels or your favorite New Testament epistle.

This book is divided into two parts. Here’s what you will bereading about in each of the sections:Part I: Finding Flowers in the DesertThe joy of finding flowers in the desert is the subject of part

one. In this section we will explore several of the prophetical books

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INTRODUCTION

and look for gospel flowers. We will also talk about the words ofjudgment on wickedness and rebellion and, as much as we can, learnto see the stark beauty found there.Part II: The Flowers in BloomThe New Testament writers knew they were living in the days

of the Messiah prophesied by the Old Testament prophets. The NewTestament books are filled with quotations from the Old Testamentprophets. The New Testament writers taught that the gospel of thekingdom they preached had been foreseen in the Old Testament. Inthis section we will look back on the Old Testament prophetsthrough their eyes and gain a richer appreciation for the blessingsthey foretold.

May the Lord bless your trek through the prophets as you searchfor flowers in the desert.

FINDING FLOWERSIN THE DESERT

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THE OLD TESTAMENT DESERT

The Desert in Which the Prophets LivedJeremiah 44:4-6—“Again and again I sent my servants theprophets, who said, ‘Do not do this detestable thing that I hate!’ Butthey did not listen or pay attention; they did not turn from theirwickedness or stop burning incense to other gods. Therefore, my fierceanger was poured out; it raged against the towns of Judah andthe streets of Jerusalem and made them the desolate ruins theyare today.”

Hosea 2:2-5a,8-13—“Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for sheis not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adul-terous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between herbreasts. Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as onthe day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into aparched land, and slay her with thirst. I will not show my love toher children, because they are the children of adultery. Their motherhas been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She has notacknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wineand oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold—which they usedfor Baal. Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, andmy new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and mylinen, intended to cover her nakedness. So now I will expose herlewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of myhands. I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her NewMoons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed feasts. I will ruin hervines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers;I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. Iwill punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she deckedherself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me sheforgot,” declares the LORD.

God had chosen a man named Abraham to be the one throughwhom he would send a Savior. God promised to make Abraham into

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Flowers in the Desert, Part I: Finding Flowers in the Desert

a great nation and to settle his descendants in a rich and fertile land,the land of Canaan. The land of Canaan was strategically located inthe center of the major nations of the day. From there the childrenof Abraham were to be a shining light, drawing the people of theworld to observe how God blesses those he loves.

God wanted the Promised Land to be a blessing, a well-watered,rich, and beautiful land. God wanted to bless his people with pro-tection against enemies, provide rainfall when needed, and give themopportunities to thrive in this land. He wanted to be the center ofthe people’s existence. God fulfilled his promise to Abraham’s descen-dants by giving them a leader, Moses, who delivered them from slav-ery in Egypt and led them through the wilderness of Sinai to theboundary of the Promised Land. He prepared them to conquer theland and live there under God’s blessings. Here is how Moses pic-tured the future of God’s people if they did not turn away from him:

Deuteronomy 28:3-8,10-12—You will be blessed in the cityand blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed,and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calvesof your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and yourkneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come inand blessed when you go out. The LORD will grant that the enemieswho rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come atyou from one direction but flee from you in seven. The LORD willsend a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your handto. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the nameof the LORD, and they will fear you. The LORD will grant you abun-dant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your live-stock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to yourforefathers to give you. The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouseof his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all thework of your hands.

But God’s people did not follow his will. So God stripped theirland of many of the blessings he had bestowed on it and substitutedthe opposite. After the death of Moses’ successor, Joshua, enemiesinvaded the land. Crops failed. Disease and hunger were the norm.

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The surrounding nations ridiculed the God of Israel and boastedabout the power of their own gods.

The history of the Old Testament is largely made up of storiesof the Israelites’ rebellion and of God’s judgment on them. Through-out the Old Testament we find accounts of men and women wholoved the Lord and served him. We even find times when God blessedthe obedience of the Israelites, for example, during the reigns ofDavid and Solomon. But for the most part, the beautiful garden thatshould have been their home had become a desert.

If they continued to reject his laws and spurn his blessings, Godwould remove them from the land altogether. Moses warnedthe people:

Deuteronomy 28:63-67—Just as it pleased the LORD to makeyou prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin anddestroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering topossess. Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from oneend of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—godsof wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for thesole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind,eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in con-stant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of yourlife. In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in theevening, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the terror that willfill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.

As that time approached and the Lord saw that his people weresoon to reach the limits of his patience, he sent prophets with last-ditch warnings. At that point the message of the prophets was notso much “this might happen” but “this is what will happen.”

The prophets wrote books filled with judgment on the Israelitesbecause of their wickedness. And they also spoke God’s word ofjudgment on the nations living around the Israelites on account oftheir own wickedness, idolatry, and hatred toward God’s people.

The books of the prophets should have been filled with instruc-tion about God’s will for willing people, with encouragement basedon God’s promises to Abraham, and with panoramic views of how

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God would use the witness of the Israelites to bless all nations. Butthe books of the prophets became as much a wilderness of words aswas the wilderness in which the Israelites lived because of God’s judg-ment on their sins.

The prophetical books are found at the end of our Old Testa-ment. They begin with Isaiah and end with Malachi, the last bookin the Old Testament. There are 17 in all. If you are unfamiliar withthem, consider paging through them now. You will find four longbooks. Nestled among them is a short book called Lamentations,written by the prophet Jeremiah. Then you will find 12 shorterbooks, each ranging from a single chapter to more than a dozen chap-ters. This is the section of Scripture we will focus on in this book.There are other prophets—Moses, Samuel, David, Elijah, and Elisha,for example. They also wrote or spoke words of prophecy. But wewill not cover their writings, only the 16 whose books we find in theOld Testament. These prophets all wrote in a similar context and,with a few exceptions, their books bear a similar look and feel.

The Stark Beauty of the DesertWe started this book with the promise that we would find flow-

ers in the desert of the prophetical books. Before we turn our atten-tion to the flowers, we will think about the desert itself. Those whohave explored a real desert know that even without flowers there is acertain beauty to it. Given the features that make up a desert—therocks, sand, seemingly barren soil, brown shrubs, and dry washes—it is hard to understand how it can be considered beautiful. But it is.It has what we might call a stark beauty.

The same is true for the desert land of the prophetical books.Before we start looking for flowers, we should explore the desert ofGod’s judgment on sin. There is a stark beauty to be found in thesesurroundings; and if we understand them properly, we will appreciatethis beauty on its own terms.

So what is the source of the stark beauty we see in the propheticalbooks? A good place to begin is with the words of Moses we quotedearlier. Moses prophesied that if the Israelites forsook the Lord, he

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would send them into exile. Notice how he put that threat: “Just as itpleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so itwill please him to ruin and destroy you” (Deuteronomy 28:63). Itwould please the Lord to bless the Israelites. That we can easily under-stand. But it would also please him to punish them if they becamewicked. That is harder to understand.

The NIV 1984 translation of the word “please” is perhapstoo mild. The Hebrew word expresses a much stronger sense of joyover something. The English Standard Version (ESV) and the NewRevised Standard Version (NRSV) translate the word “take delightin.” The word is also used in Jeremiah 32:41, “I will rejoice in doingthem good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, withall my heart and all my soul” (ESV), and in Isaiah 62:5, “As ayoung man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you,and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoiceover you” (ESV).

Doesn’t this contradict what Ezekiel the prophet wrote: “Do Itake any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the SovereignLORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways andlive?” (Ezekiel 18:23). But there is no contradiction. He wants everysinner to repent in order to avoid his judgment on them. But whena sinner does not repent, God is not torn about bringing his pun -ishment, indeed, he will do it with rejoicing.

This is hard for sinners like us to accept. We are much morecomfortable thinking that God is somehow forced against his willto judge sinners. Or we would like to consider most people some-where in between deserving God’s blessing and deserving his judg-ment. But Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me, and hewho does not gather with me scatters” (Matthew 12:30). In the par-able of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46), Jesus does notrejoice in taking the sheep to heaven and begrudgingly send the goatsinto eternal punishment. With all of his heart he called the latter torepentance, but they rejected him. When an unrepentant sinner’s timeof grace is over, God rejoices to pronounce eternal judgment on thatperson. This is a stark truth, something that we will likely not under-stand fully until we stand before God and see him face-to-face in allhis glory.

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But if we do not accept this truth, we will find no beauty inthe desert of the prophets’ writings. Rather, we will find only anugly landscape created by a God who is cruel at heart.

God’s Judgment Against Israel Was RighteousIsaiah 5:1-7—My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicestvines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well.Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge betweenme and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyardthan I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did ityield only bad? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to myvineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I willbreak down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a waste-land, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will growthere. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.” The vineyard ofthe LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah arethe garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

Jeremiah 2:5,7—This is what the LORD says: “What fault didyour fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followedworthless idols and became worthless themselves. I brought you into afertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiledmy land and made my inheritance detestable.”

Ezekiel 8:6 ESV—He said to me, “Son of man, do you see whatthey are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are com-mitting here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will seestill greater abominations.”

Ezekiel 14:23 ESV—You shall know that I have not done withoutcause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord GOD.

We need to accept the fact that God’s judgment is just even whenwe cannot see the reason for it. But in the cases of the Israelites and

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the nations around Israel, the prophets made it quite clear why theLord was judging them.

First, there was nothing more God could have done for theIsraelites. He gave their forefathers promises and fulfilled every oneof them. He gave them a wonderful land of their own in which tolive, and in his Word he gave them detailed instructions for their lives.Every step they took as his people reminded them of their need forforgiveness, provided purification for sin, and pointed them to theSavior who would once and for all remove the guilt of their sin. Theywere a vineyard carefully planted and pruned by the Lord, ready toproduce good fruit. This was for God’s glory, for their own spiritualgood, and to put God’s power and love on display to the nations ofthe world. Yet the Israelites took all the blessings God gave them andthrew these blessings back into his face.

Ezekiel 23:5-10—“Oholah [Israel] engaged in prostitution whileshe was still mine; and she lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians—warriors clothed in blue, governors and commanders, all of them hand-some young men, and mounted horsemen. She gave herself as a prostituteto all the elite of the Assyrians and defiled herself with all the idols ofeveryone she lusted after. She did not give up the prostitution she beganin Egypt, when during her youth men slept with her, caressed her virginbosom and poured out their lust upon her. Therefore I handed her overto her lovers, the Assyrians, for whom she lusted. They stripped her naked,took away her sons and daughters and killed her with the sword. Shebecame a byword among women, and punishment was inflicted on her.”

Given how greatly the Lord had blessed them, the level to whichthe Israelites sank in their depravity was amazing. The prophets thor-oughly describe the depth to which God’s people had fallen and pointout God’s justice in punishing them.

The Israelites’ rulers oppressed the poor among them. Theirprophets and priests were more interested in popularity and moneythan in the truth. Their worship life degenerated into a mere obser-vance of externals, so bad that God cried out through Isaiah, “Stopbringing meaningless offerings!” (Isaiah 1:13).

As soon as the Israelites entered Canaan they began worshipingthe idols of the nations that God had driven out before them. The

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Israelites also felt the lure of foreign powers and lusted after theirstrength instead of relying on the Lord to protect and care for them.God repeatedly accused them of spiritual idolatry in forsaking himand in seeking out other lovers among the nations. Through Jeremiah,God called his people “a wild donkey . . . sniffing the wind in hercraving.” During the mating season, the female donkey became theaggressor and no one could “restrain her.” “Any males that pursueher need not tire themselves” ( Jeremiah 2:24).

The way in which the nations practiced their idol worship wasparticularly disgusting. They practiced fornication and adultery toinduce their false gods to make them and their land fertile. TheLord asked his people: “Why should I forgive you? Your childrenhave forsaken me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I suppliedall their needs, yet they committed adultery and thronged to thehouses of prostitutes” ( Jeremiah 5:7). The nations practiced childsacrifice, and God’s people adopted that custom: “They have builtthe high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings toBaal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it entermy mind” ( Jeremiah 19:5). If anyone thinks that God jumped thegun or was too harsh with his people, the Israelites, or with thenations around them, that last sin should remove any doubt aboutthe righteousness of God’s punishment.

Ezekiel 13:2-5,17-19—“Son of man, prophesy against theprophets of Israel who are now prophesying. Say to those who prophesyout of their own imagination: ‘Hear the word of the LORD! This iswhat the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the foolish prophets who followtheir own spirit and have seen nothing! Your prophets, O Israel, arelike jackals among ruins. You have not gone up to the breaks in thewall to repair it for the house of Israel so that it will stand firm inthe battle on the day of the LORD.’ Now, son of man, set your faceagainst the daughters of your people who prophesy out of their ownimagination. Prophesy against them and say, ‘This is what the SovereignLORD says: Woe to the women who sew magic charms on all theirwrists and make veils of various lengths for their heads in order toensnare people. Will you ensnare the lives of my people but preserveyour own? You have profaned me among my people for a few handfuls

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of barley and scraps of bread. By lying to my people, who listen tolies, you have killed those who should not have died and have sparedthose who should not live.’ ”The Israelites allowed their ears to be tickled by false prophets.

Some false prophets led the people into idol worship. Others claimedto be the Lord’s spokesmen, but they made up prophecies that ledthe people away from God’s Word.

The false prophets earned their living off their lies. The peoplewere easy prey. They were people “who listen to lies” and were willingto pay for them as long as the message was good. Often the falseprophets assured the people that God would protect them from theirenemies—pious-sounding words but words that kept the people fromrepenting of their sins. As a result of these lies, when the “day of theLORD” came, the people could not stand against their enemies becausetheir spiritual walls were in complete disrepair. The false prophetscaused the innocent to die at the hands of Israel’s enemies while jus-tifying the actions of those who should have been judged worthy ofdeath under God’s law. Worst of all, the false prophets continuallystopped up the springs of God’s Word spoken by the true prophetsand created a drought of God’s Word in the land. In the end, the falseprophets separated the people from their God.

God’s Warnings Went UnheededAmos 4:6-12—“I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lackof bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me,” declares theLORD. “I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still threemonths away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another.One field had rain; another had none and dried up. People staggeredfrom town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet youhave not returned to me,” declares the LORD. “Many times I struckyour gardens and vineyards, I struck them with blight and mildew.Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned tome,” declares the LORD. “I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt.I killed your young men with the sword, along with your capturedhorses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps, yet youhave not returned to me,” declares the LORD. “I overthrew some of

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you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burningstick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me,” declaresthe LORD. “Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and becauseI will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel.”

There is no “in between” category between a person who shouldbe judged innocent and one who should be judged guilty. But therewas a wide “in between” time separating when the Israelites couldhave come under God’s judgment and when God finally brought iton them. Throughout their history he repeatedly called on them torepent—first with words, then with natural disasters and hardship,and finally by sending foreign powers against them. God repeatedlydelivered them—they were “like a burning stick snatched from thefire”—yet even this made no more than a temporary impression onthe Israelites. By the time he finally judged the Israelites, God hadshown them unbelievable patience.

God’s Honor Among the Nations Was at Stake

Isaiah 45:20-22—“Ignorant are those who carry about idols ofwood, who pray to gods that cannot save. Declare what is to be, presentit—let them take counsel together. Who foretold this long ago, whodeclared it from the distant past? Was it not I, the LORD? And thereis no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is nonebut me. Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I amGod, and there is no other.”

Jeremiah 40:1-4—[The commander of the Babylonian guard]had found Jeremiah bound in chains among all the captives fromJerusalem and Judah who were being carried into exile to Babylon.When the commander of the guard found Jeremiah, he said to him,“The LORD your God decreed this disaster for this place. And nowthe LORD has brought it about; he has done just as he said he would.All this happened because you people sinned against the LORD and didnot obey him. But today I am freeing you from the chains on yourwrists. Come with me to Babylon, if you like, and I will look after

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you; but if you do not want to, then don’t come. Look, the whole coun-try lies before you; go wherever you please.”

Another aspect of the stark beauty of the prophets was theirattention to preserving God’s honor. This was often a catch-22 forthe Lord. If he punished the Israelites for their sins, the surroundingnations would misunderstand and accuse God of being weak or lessthan loving toward his people. Was God not worth serving? Was thedownfall of the Israelites a sign that the idols of the nations weremore powerful than God?

God had faced this issue soon after he had delivered his peoplefrom Egypt. The Israelites turned from him, fashioned an idol inthe form of a calf, and began worshiping it. God threatened theirdestruction, but their leader, Moses, pleaded with God on theirbehalf. One of Moses’ arguments was this: If you destroy theIsraelites, the nations who watched you miraculously deliver yourpeople, and perhaps even turned to you because of it, will concludethat you are not powerful enough or loving enough to completeyour plans for them. From our perspective, his argument led Godto relent and not punish his people.

This problem was lurking in all the predictions that said Godwould punish his people for their sins. He did not want to give thenations of the world the right to think of him as a capricious Godor merely as the God of Israel who could not stand against the godsof the Assyrians or Babylonians. God wanted the Gentiles to turnto the Lord and be saved through the promised Savior. God’s pun-ishment on the Israelites would lead the Gentiles to the wrong con-clusion about God’s love and power.

God never wanted the nations of the world to boast that theirgods were more powerful than he and that this was the reason fortheir victory over Israel. Occasionally you find historical accountsnestled in the prophets. They are there for a reason. At the end ofthe first part of Isaiah, for example, we are told the story of howGod vindicated himself in the face of Assyria’s claims of absolutepower. Assyria had destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel andhad taken the people into captivity. The Assyrians were moving southand trying to soften up the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The Assyr-

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ian general stood outside the walls of Jerusalem and read a letter tothe people. Among other things, he made this boast: “Say toHezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceiveyou when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king ofAssyria.’ Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my fore-fathers deliver them—the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and thepeople of Eden who were in Tel Assar?” (Isaiah 37:10,12). Then inanswer to Hezekiah’s prayer, the Lord vindicated himself in the faceof this arrogance and put to death 185,000 Assyrian troops sta-tioned outside Jerusalem.

At heart, the books of Jonah and Nahum deal with God’shonor. Years before the Assyrians marched on Israel, the Assyrianswere ready for God’s judgment on their wickedness and the Lordwas about to destroy them. Yet he wanted to spare them to be hisagent of judgment on the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He couldnot allow the world to blaspheme him as it watched his people wal-low in sin. To preserve Assyria as his tool of judgment, he sent theprophet Jonah to turn the Assyrians from their sin. Jonah’s preach-ing was successful, even though Jonah would have liked to seeAssyria destroyed.

The Assyrians did their work as God intended. Yet they did it inpride and arrogance, as we just read. Later, God sent the prophetNahum to rebuke Assyria for its pride and to reveal that God wouldjudge them. In Nahum’s book there are no flowers, except for a couplereferences to how God would bless his people. But for the Assyrians,who compared their own idols to God, there were to be no blessings:“The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for thosewho trust in him, but with an overwhelming flood he will make anend of Nineveh; he will pursue his foes into darkness” (Nahum 1:7,8).The sort of arrogant message that boasted about the gods of Assyria,which the Assyrian general read to the people on Jerusalem’s wall,would never be delivered again: “ ‘I am against you,’ declares the LORDAlmighty. ‘I will burn up your chariots in smoke, and the sword willdevour your young lions. I will leave you no prey on the earth. Thevoices of your messengers will no longer be heard’ ” (Nahum 2:13).

Not only were the idols of the nations powerless against Godbut they also could not predict the future. In the second part of his

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book, chapters 40–66, Isaiah revealed that the tribe of Judah wouldbe taken into captivity in Babylon. He also revealed that after a timeof exile, the Lord would use the ruler of the next world kingdom,the Persians, to allow the people of Judah to return to their home-land. In that context God vindicated himself against the idols andpointed out how blind they were. In the quotation at the beginningof this section, the Lord pointed out that he alone foretold eventsthat lay far in the future. There was no one like him who always didthe right thing in regard to his promises and who would save hispeople, the Israelites.

As you read Ezekiel, watch for this recurring phrase: “Then youwill know that I am the LORD” (7:4). This phrase, or a minor variationof it, occurs some 27 times in this book. The Israelites to whomEzekiel spoke were living in captivity in Babylon. Over the years, manyin Judah had refused to believe that God would bring judgment onthe people of Judah and Jerusalem. After all, they were God’s peopleand this was his city. They thought God’s promises toward them wouldbe fulfilled in spite of their rebellion. Even after the first wave of exileshad been transported into Babylon, they could not believe that Godwould carry out the threats he leveled on them through the prophets.It was not God who exiled them, they thought, but the foreign worldpower of Babylon. God would come to their aid!

Ezekiel, who was living with the exiles already taken into Baby-lon, told the exiles what they could expect in the days leading up tothe final destruction of Jerusalem. And because of Ezekiel’s predic-tions, the exiles realized that, indeed, God had brought this on them.“Then you will know that it is I the LORD who strikes the blow”(Ezekiel 7:9). He, and not some foreign power, was in control of allthings. He would vindicate himself and the prophets who had spo-ken on his behalf.

God’s motive for vindicating himself was not selfish pride. Hewas not concerned primarily about himself, as if he absolutely neededpeople to honor him or he could not exist in all his glory. Rather, hewas concerned about the people of the world. God did not intendthat his people live in isolation and that they guard the truth for theirown sake. He wanted them to be a light for the nations so otherswould come to faith and worship him. “There is none but me. Turn

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to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, andthere is no other” (Isaiah 45:21,22).

The Israelites’ idolatry undermined that purpose. Their idolatryand God’s need to chasten them made it inevitable that the nations,and even God’s people, would likely misinterpret God’s nature andthe sacred role he had given to the Israelites through his plan of sal-vation. So he had to send prophets whose writings present a correctinterpretation to all the nations of why he was punishing his people.In the second reading at the beginning of this section, we hear thestory of the Babylonian commander who had heard Jeremiah’sprophecy about how God was going to use the Babylonians to dohis work. The commander came to realize that God, and not theBabylonians, was the cause of Jerusalem’s downfall. It seems that thisman had come to faith in the true God of Israel, and he retained hisfaith in God even when it seemed as if Babylon’s idols were morepowerful. He knew that he, a commander in Babylon’s powerful army,was a mere servant of the true God.

God’s Punishment on Sin Is Part of His GloryDaniel 2:44—“In the time of those kings, the God of heaven willset up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left toanother people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to anend, but it will itself endure forever.”

Micah 5:2-6,9-15—“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though youare small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me onewho will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, fromancient times.” Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time whenshe who is in labor gives birth and the rest of his brothers return tojoin the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strengthof the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. Andthey will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends ofthe earth. And he will be their peace. When the Assyrian invades ourland and marches through our fortresses, we will raise against himseven shepherds, even eight leaders of men. They will rule the land ofAssyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod with drawn sword. He

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will deliver us from the Assyrian when he invades our land andmarches into our borders. Your hand will be lifted up in triumph overyour enemies, and all your foes will be destroyed. “In that day,” declaresthe LORD, “I will destroy your horses from among you and demolishyour chariots. I will destroy the cities of your land and tear down allyour strongholds. I will destroy your witchcraft and you will no longercast spells. I will destroy your carved images and your sacred stonesfrom among you; you will no longer bow down to the work of yourhands. I will uproot from among you your Asherah poles and demolishyour cities. I will take vengeance in anger and wrath upon the nationsthat have not obeyed me.”

The above quotations are two flowers found in the desert ofGod’s judgment over sin. Daniel tells us about the kingdom that Godwill establish in the future, which is the kingdom you and I are priv-ileged to be a part of. It will be an eternal kingdom that will replacethe temporary kingdoms of the world. Of course, this is the king-dom Jesus would establish through his life, death, and resurrection.Micah foretells that Israel’s king would be born in Bethlehem. Jesuswould “shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD” and “hisgreatness will reach to the ends of the earth.” What is more, “he willbe their peace.”

In these kingdom passages, it is clear that the peace of Jesus’ king-dom would not come—nor does it come today—without a struggleagainst the demonic forces of evil in the spiritual realms, nor wouldit come without a hard fight against earthly kingdoms that refuse toyield to him. But God’s glory will prevail, and in the end he will punishall who take their stand against him and live in sin.

In the next chapters we will watch God’s glory bloom in com-passion, grace, patience, love, faithfulness, and forgiveness. But wewill also see the glory of God’s judgment over sin. God showedMoses his glory on Mount Sinai and described his glory in wordsof love. But he concluded his description like this: “Yet he does notleave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their chil-dren for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation”(Exodus 34:7). That part of God’s glory is predominant in theprophets’ writings. God will punish all who sin, whether they are


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found among his chosen people or in the nations around them livingin idolatry. He will carry out his judgment using warfare or disastersor through the total destruction of the world when he comes again.

So when you walk through the desert and don’t find anythingthat stands out as a message of grace and mercy, learn to appreciatethe scenery nevertheless. It is a description of the glory of God’srighteousness in judging sin, whether that sin is found within hischurch or in those who oppress and persecute his church. Read theprophets’ words with sorrow over the thoroughness and intensity ofGod’s judgment. But read them with an appreciation for what Godis doing. These are your enemies too, who want to take away the truthyou believe, rob you of the privilege of telling others that they areforgiven in Christ, and keep you out of heaven. God in his glory willnot let that happen.

ConclusionWhen you read the prophets, much of your journey will be

through pure desert—the desert of God’s description of the sins ofthe Israelites, his complaint over their unfaithfulness, and his angerover their idolatry. You will hear the graphic details of the desertwasteland the Israelites had created for themselves. You will hear ora-cles against the Israelites and against the nations located aroundthem—one after another with brutal thoroughness. And in somecases, these sections will go on for many pages. Your patience willlikely be tested.

But as you walk through these desert sections, look around you.Appreciate the beauty you see. It is the beauty of the fact that God—the God you have come to know and love in Christ—will not bemocked. Nor will his purposes and plans be thwarted. The powersof unbelief will not succeed. Idols will not take his place. When allis said and done, we realize that God is the Lord over the earth andthat he shapes the course of history and determines the destiny ofthose who stand against him.

Your walk in the desert will also help you to appreciate the flow-ers God has placed there. Against the stark background of sin and

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judgment, into which all human beings sink by nature, you will seeflowers spring up without warning and you will realize that theseflowers are flowers of pure grace, planted there by God.

The Major and Minor Prophets(The books are listed in the order they appear in the

following chapters of this book. The dates are approximate.)

Chapter TwoIsaiah—739–685 B.C.Micah—737–690 B.C.Obadiah—845 B.C.Joel—835 B.C.Jonah—782 B.C. and Nahum—650 B.C.Amos—760 B.C.Hosea—760–720 B.C.

Chapter ThreeJeremiah—627–580 B.C.Ezekiel—593–570 B.C.Daniel—606–530 B.C.Habakkuk—609 B.C.Zephaniah—640 B.C.

Chapter FourHaggai—520 B.C.Zechariah—520–518 B.C.Malachi—433 B.C.

learning to love the prophets · the new testament books are filled with quotations from the old...

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