Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Prophetic Books: God’s Word of Judgment, Hope, and Restoration

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The Prophetic Books: God’s Word of Judgment, Hope, and Restoration · Reformed Thinking

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You walk into a modern courtroom right and you expect this very
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clinical precision. Oh, absolutely.
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Very dry. Yeah, you sign a contract.
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The stipulations are laid out in this dry black and white text.
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And if you violate the terms, well, a judge points at
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paragraph 4, subsection B and just hands down the fine, right?
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The the language is totally sterile.
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It is designed to remove emotion and ambiguity.
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But then you step into the world of the ancient Hebrew prophets,
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and that sterile courtroom is just.
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Completely gone. The legal landscape there is
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wild. You walk in expecting a lawyer
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in a suit, and instead the prosecutor stands up and starts
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singing a funeral dirge or smashing a clay pot on the
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floor. Or reciting A vivid poem about a
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ruined vineyard. Yes, it is intense.
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Welcome to reformed thinking. This is a custom tailored deep
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dive designed specifically for you, the listener.
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We take a stack of source material, extract the critical
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insights, and present them in a way that respects your time but
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does not cut corners on theology.
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Today we are opening up the prophetic books of the Hebrew
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Scriptures. We are relying heavily on Bruce
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Kewalke's Old Covenant theology. And our mission here is to
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reframe how we view these ancient figures.
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The cartoonish idea of prophets gazing into crystal balls to
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predict modern news headlines. While that has to go.
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It really does. They were prosecuting attorneys
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for God's covenant. They were enforcing the terms of
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the law while pointing to the absolute necessity of the grace
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of the coming Messiah. To set our framework right from
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the start, we operate from a Protestant Reformed perspective.
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We adhere to the Westminster Confession.
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Right. And throughout this discussion,
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you will see how these ancient texts demonstrate God's absolute
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sovereignty over human history. They expose the total inability
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of human beings to keep the law on their own, and they reveal
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the unifying covenant of grace that finds its perfect
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fulfillment in Jesus Christ. This theological grounding is
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vital because without it, well, the prophetic books look like a
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chaotic mess of doom and gloom. They really do.
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But when you apply the grammatico historical method of
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interpretation, a very clear structure emerges.
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Let me stop you there, because the grammatico historical method
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sounds like a term pulled straight from a seminary
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syllabus. It is fair, it is quite
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academic. For anyone listening who just
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wants to understand their Bible better, let's break that down.
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My assumption is that it means reading the text the way the
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original author and original audience would have understood
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it, rather than imposing our modern sensibilities onto it.
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That is a highly accurate summary.
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The grammatico historical method means you study the grammar,
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meeting the actual words and literary genres being used.
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OK, that makes sense. And you study the history, so
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the cultural and geopolitical context of the ancient Near
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East. So you read an ancient Hebrew
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legal document like an ancient Hebrew legal document, not like
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a 21st century newspaper. Spot on.
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When you apply that method to the prophets, you realize their
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primary form of communication was the Oracle.
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An Oracle being a direct message from God.
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Yes, and form critics have identified 3 specific kinds of
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oracles that make up these books.
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Oracles of Judgement, oracles of repentance, and oracles of
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salvation. OK, let's unpack this because if
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they are not predicting the future, what are they doing?
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They are prosecuting a broken covenant.
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But why is their message written in such highly emotional, poetic
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language? I mean, if God wants to say you
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broke the rules, why wrap it in a poem?
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This. Is a good question.
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I would think a straightforward legal injunction would be way
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more efficient. Because a straightforward legal
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injunction does not capture the reality of the offense, the
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poetry forces the listener to feel the weight of the broken
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relationship. Oh, I see.
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It hits the heart, not just the head, right?
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These oracles do not occur in a vacuum.
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They are tied directly to Israel's covenants.
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Think about the structure of a suzerain vassal treaty in the
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ancient Near East. A suzerain being a great king,
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right? Yes, a great king makes a treaty
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with a lesser king. There are stipulations,
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blessings for obedience and severe curses for rebellion.
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So the judgement Oracle stemmed directly from the conditional
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Mosaic covenant. Absolutely.
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If the nation violates the law, they agreed to it.
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Mount Sinai. God's integrity guarantees his
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punishment. The prophets are simply reading
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the riot act that was already written in Deuteronomy centuries
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earlier. That makes total sense of the
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Judgement oracles, but I am trying reconcile this with the
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Salvation oracles. How so?
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Well, if the people have already broken the conditional Mosaic
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covenant and the curses are raining down as promised, how
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does a prophet legally promise salvation?
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That is the big question. It feels like a contradiction.
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Once the contract is broken and the penalty is applied, where
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does the hope come from? The hope comes from the fact
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that God operates with multiple covenants, and that is where the
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genius of His redemptive plan shines through.
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So there is a backup plan. Not a backup plan, but a greater
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promise. The salvation oracles do not
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rely on the conditional Mosaic covenant.
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They stem from the unconditional Abrahamic and Davidic covenants.
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Oh, right, because in those agreements God made a unilateral
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promise. He swore by his own name to
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provide a seed, a land, and a king whose throne would last
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forever. And those promises did not
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depend on Israel's perfect performance.
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Not at all. So even when Israel fails
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totally under the Mosaic Law, God's prior unconditional
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promises guarantee that salvation will arise.
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If you are listening to this and wondering how this applies to
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your own view of history, well, it mirrors the Westminster
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Confessions teaching on Providence perfectly.
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It really does. God is not reacting to random
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events, scrambling to fix things when Israel messes up.
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He guides the course of history through his covenant fidelity.
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It is not a moral chance driving the rise and fall of these
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ancient empires, no. God is sovereignly orchestrating
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these geopolitical movements to uphold His covenants, punish
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rebellion, and establish His Kingdom.
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This brings us to the Doctor of the Remnant, which is a crucial
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concept for understanding the Prophets.
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It is vital even when nominal physical Israel fails completely
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and faces the curses of the covenant.
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God guarantees the survival of a faithful remnant.
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He preserves them by grace alone.
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This ensures His unconditional promises never fail.
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Human infidelity does not get the final word.
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God's fidelity does. As the source material notes,
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God cannot deny himself. He will always preserve a people
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for his own name. Having established that legal
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and theological framework, we really need to look at what
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specific crimes the prophets are prosecuting.
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Right, we have to get into the details.
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We need to move from the theological abstraction of
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covenant breaking to the gritty, ugly reality of Israel's actual
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sins on the ground. When you read the sources, it is
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striking. I noticed the prophets never
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separate Sunday morning worship from Monday morning business
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practices. They are absolutely relentless
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in linking 2 specific crimes together, the spiritual crime of
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idolatry and the practical crime of social injustice.
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Those two things are the root and the fruit, yes.
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When you fracture the covenant by worshipping other gods, you
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inevitably adopt the moral framework of those false gods.
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And Pagan deities in the ancient Near East were often capricious,
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demanding and cruel. So if you worship a cruel God,
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you will build a cruel society. Idolatry always leads to an
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exploitative, oppressive social system.
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A concrete example of this from the text is the story of
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Naboth's vineyard. That was a perfect illustration.
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You have King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.
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They have embraced the depraved worship of Canaanite deities
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like Bell. And Ahab wants a piece of land
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owned by a small local farmer named Naboth.
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But according to the law of Moses, Naboth cannot sell it.
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The land belongs to God, and it was given to Naboth's family by
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secret lot. Selling it would be a
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theological violation. It was not just real estate to
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him. So what do the wealthy elite do?
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They use bribery. They corrupt the local
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magistrates. They get the religious leaders
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to look the other way. And they orchestrate A
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conspiracy to have Nabos murdered under the guise of a
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legal trial just so they can steal his inheritance.
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It is a systemic weaponization of the legal system against the
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vulnerable. The prophets describe the rich,
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adding field to field until there is no space left in the
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land. Magistrates take bribes to rule
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in favor of land grabs. It creates a society based on
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absolute wickedness. The wealthy take advantage of
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droughts or hard times to loan money to the poor at exorbitant
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interest rates. When the small farmers default,
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they are forced into indentured servitude, losing their land and
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their freedom. The analogy that comes to mind
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is corporate monopolies cannibalizing smaller
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businesses, but with a much darker twist.
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Imagine a massive corporation using its unlimited capital to
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buy the judges, change the zoning laws, crush the local mom
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and pop stores. And buy up all the real estate
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until they own the entire town and everyone works for them for
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pennies. The prophets literally describe
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these ancient elites as cannibalizing the poor.
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They say the wealthy are chopping up the people like meat
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for the pot. It is graphic.
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They are eating God's people alive.
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And this behavior is a direct calculated violation of the
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system outlined in Leviticus 25. The jubilee was designed to
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ensure social equality and prevent this specific type of
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generational poverty. How it work was simple in
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theory. Every 50 years land was supposed
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to be returned to its original family and all debts were to be
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cancelled. The jubilee was also meant to be
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a sabbatical year for the land itself, a time for the soil to
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lie fallow and rest, trusting God to provide enough food from
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the previous harvest. But the greedy elite ignored the
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jubilee. They refused to give the land
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its Sabbath rest because they were too obsessed with
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maximizing their crop yields and their profit margins.
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This brings us to an incredible mathematical detail in the text.
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Oh yes, when Jeremiah prophesied that the Babylonian exile will
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last 70 years, I always assumed that was just a round Number
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signifying a long time. It is highly specific math.
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The 70 years represent the amount of time needed for the
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land to catch up on the Sabbath rest that the elite had stolen
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over the centuries. God enforces the Sabbath himself
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by forcibly removing the people from the land.
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Think about the massive theological weight of that.
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The nation refused to rest because of greed, so God evicts
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them and the land finally gets its peace.
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But even in that severe judgment, there is grace.
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The exile is restricted to those 70 years.
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God's last word to his people is freedom.
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If you. Look at the whole scope of
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Scripture. You see John the Baptist and
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Jesus picking up this exact prophetic mantle centuries
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later. Jesus walks into the temple,
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sees the religious elite exploiting the poor through the
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money changing tables and calls it a den of robbers.
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He is quoting the prophet Jeremiah.
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There he is diagnosing the same social cannibalism.
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Both John the Baptist and Jesus issue a severe warning.
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Physical descent from Abraham offers zero protection from
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God's judgement. John tells the religious leaders
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that the axe is already at the root of the tree.
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Just as the ancient prophets warned that membership in the
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physical nation of Israel would not save them from the
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Babylonians. Jesus warns his generation that
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their lineage will not save them from the coming destruction of
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Jerusalem if they reject the Messiah.
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God demands true covenant fidelity, which requires both
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correct worship and justice. So we have this intense, crystal
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clear message about justice, idolatry and covenant fidelity.
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But I want to address the elephant in the room for anyone
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who has tried to read these books straight through.
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It's not easy reading. If the message is so clear, why
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are the prophetic books notoriously difficult to get
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through? You start reading Isaiah or
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Jeremiah and it feels like a dizzying labyrinth.
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That frustration is completely normal.
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Even Martin Luther complained about it.
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Really. Luther struggled with it.
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He did, he said. The prophets have a queer way of
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yes. Second, these distinct oracles
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were recorded and arranged into a single scroll, often by the
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prophets disciples, but without clear editorial transitions
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between them. And the third stage. 3rd The
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books were canonized for the Covenant community.
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I think of it like scrolling through an unsorted folder
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photographs on a smartphone. That is a great analogy.
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When you read a modern book, you expect it to be a seamlessly
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edited movie with a clear beginning, middle and end and
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smooth transitions between scenes.
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But reading a prophetic book is like looking at hundreds of
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separate snapshots. You might have a photo of a
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birthday party and the very next swipe is a photo of a flat tire
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in the rain. To understand the book, you have
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to isolate the individual snapshots, the separate oracles.
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You do that by looking for sudden shifts in mood, subject
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matter, or rhetoric. You have to ask where does this
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specific poem start and stop? That is a very helpful way to
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visualize the text, and understanding that structure
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helps us appreciate the implied audience.
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While the immediate historical audience was ancient Israel or
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Judah, the final canonized form of these books is aimed at the
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broader people of God throughout history.
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The Apostle Peter explicitly validates this in his first
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epistle. He does.
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He says it was revealed to the prophets that they were not
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serving themselves, but they were ministering to you, the
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future believer reading those texts today.
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The Holy Spirit oversaw the compilation of these books for
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the instruction of the Church. Let's transition from the
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mechanics of the books to the actual history they address.
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We need to look at the theological and geopolitical
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threats that force these prophets to speak up.
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The first major crisis is the rise of the Neo Assyrian Empire.
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These guys were terrifying. They were not just an opposing
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army, they were a meat grinder of civilization.
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They were an invincible mercenary force funded by the
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tribute they violently extracted from conquered nations.
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They were famous for flaying their enemies alive and building
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pyramids out of skulls. Into that terrifying reality,
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God calls Jonah. We all know the story of the
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fish, but what is fascinating here is the biting irony of the
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book. Jonah is sent to Nineveh, the
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capital of this brutal Assyrian empire.
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He hates them, and for good historical reasons.
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But when he finally delivers his tiny, reluctant sermon, the
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entire wicked city repents, and God shows them mercy.
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Which is a massive indictment of Israel's hard heartedness.
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God is showing his people. Look at these brutal Pagan
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Gentiles. I sent them one reluctant
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prophet with A5 word sermon and they put on sackcloth and ashes.
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I have sent you prophets for centuries and you ignore them.
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It highlights God's absolute sovereignty in extending mercy
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to whomever He chooses, which we know from the Apostle Paul was
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designed to rouse Israel to jealousy.
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While Jonah goes to Nineveh, Hosea is called to minister in
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the northern Kingdom of Israel. And God asks Hosea to do
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something shocking. He commands him to enact a
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living parable by marrying a prostitute named Gomer.
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The prophets often use these enacted object lessons, like
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street theater, essentially to make invisible spiritual
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realities painfully visible to the public.
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The stages of Hosea's relationship are striking
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marriage, Gomer's repeated infidelity, their estrangement,
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and Jose's incredibly painful decision to buy her back out of
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slavery and restore. Her It visualizes Israel's
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spiritual adultery. It is heartbreaking.
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The psychological toll on Hosea must have been immense.
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And it redefines what the Bible means by knowing God.
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When Hosea complaints that there is no knowledge of God in the
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land, he does not mean the people are failing A theology
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exam. He is talking about covenant
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intimacy. He's using the language of a
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marriage bed. They have given their intimacy
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to false gods. Operating in that same northern
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Kingdom is Amos. He prophesized during the reign
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of Jeroboam 2. Superficially, this was a time
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of immense peace and economic prosperity for Israel.
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The borders were secure and trade was booming.
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But Amos exposes the paradox. The outward wealth is masking
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severe moral rot. The rich are sleeping on beds
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inlaid with ivory while trampling on the heads of the
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poor. Amos is incredibly intense.
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He receives 5 distinct visions showing God's delayed but
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certain wrath. He sees a swarm of locusts, A
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devastating fire. A Plumb line held against a
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crooked wall to show how far Israel has leaned away from
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righteousness. A basket of overripe summer food
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representing a nation rotting from the inside out.
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And finally, a terrifying vision of the temple itself collapsing
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on the heads of the worshippers. True to the covenantal framework
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we established earlier, Amos does not end with a collapsed
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temple and total destruction. The book concludes with the
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promise of rebuilding David's fallen tent.
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It is a salvation Oracle promising that the line of the
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true king will be restored. We see the apostle James quote
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this specific promise in Acts 15, applying it to the inclusion
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of the Gentiles into the church. God's redemptive plan moves
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forward. If we look at the southern
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Kingdom of Judah during this same Assyrian crisis, we find
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Isaiah and Micah. A key moment for Isaiah is his
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confrontation with King Ahaz. The political situation is dire.
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Israel in Syria are threatening to invade Judah to force them
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into an anti Syrian coalition. Ahaz is terrified.
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Isaiah tells the king to trust God and ask for a sign, but Ahaz
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refuses under a cloak of false piety, claiming he does not want
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to test the Lord. Ahaz has already decided to
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submit to Assyria instead of trusting God, so Isaiah gives
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him a sign anyway. The virgin birth of a child.
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We have to look closely at the details of that sign.
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In Isaiah Chapter 7, Isaiah says this child will eat curds and
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honey. Now that sounds like a delicacy
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to us, but in the ancient Near East, that is the diet of the
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poor. It is the diet of those living
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in a devastated land where the agriculture has been destroyed
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by invading armies. It stands in sharp contrast to
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the wealthy elite who are inflamed with wine and
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completely ignoring sound theology.
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This child will live among the afflicted, yet he will know to
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choose right over wrong. It is a striking prophecy of the
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Incarnation. Isaiah also uses a chilling
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nickname for Jerusalem, Ariel, which translates to Burning
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Hearth. It signifies that the city
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itself will become a place of sacrifice.
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Instead of offering sacrifices on the altar to atone for their
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fins, the city and its corrupt leaders will become the
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sacrifice on the massive altar of God's justice.
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As the Assyrian Empire begins to weaken centuries later, we
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encounter Zephaniah and Nahum. Nahum delivers a devastating
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judgment against Nineveh, declaring that their injury is
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fatal and irreversible. God's patience with the brutal
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Assyrian Empire has run out and they will be wiped off the map.
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What catches my attention in Zephaniah is his use of the word
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perhaps. Yes, Zephaniah tells the people
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to seek righteousness and humility, saying perhaps you
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will be hidden on the day of the Lord's anger.
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If God is sovereign, why use a word that implies uncertainty?
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That, perhaps, is critical for a Reformed understanding of grace.
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It does not mean God is confused or unsure of his own plans.
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It preserves the absolute sovereignty of God against human
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presumption. The people believe that
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performing the right religious rituals would manipulate God
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into saving them. Zephaniah says no, you cannot
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force God's hand. Salvation is entirely dependent
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on His sovereign grace. Alongside that, Zephaniah paints
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a terrifying picture of the coming judgement, describing it
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as a total undoing of creation, reversing the days of Noah.
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The fish, the birds, the beasts and humanity will be swept away.
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The judgement is cosmic. So Assyria eventually falls, but
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the geopolitical relief is incredibly short lived because a
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new, heavier hammer arrives on the world stage.
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Babylon. We are transitioning into the
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exilic period. The theological crisis here is
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massive. The prophets now have to handle
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the unthinkable, the actual physical destruction of the holy
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city of Jerusalem and the Temple of God.
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This brings us to Jeremiah, whose ministry spans the final
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days of Judah before the Babylonians arrive.
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Jeremiah's message is extremely unpopular.
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He is viewed as a traitor to the state.
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He enacts another physical object lesson by walking around
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Jerusalem wearing a wooden yoke. He tells the king and the people
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that they must submit to the yoke of the king of Babylon,
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because God has appointed Babylon as His instrument of
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discipline. To fight Babylon is to fight
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God. You can imagine how well that
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went over. The false prophet Hananiah steps
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up, takes the wooden yoke off Jeremiah's neck, and breaks it
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in front of the crowd. Hananiah promises that God will
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break the power of Babylon within two years and return all
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the stolen temple vessels. It is a very appealing,
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positive, patriotic message. The problem is, it is a complete
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lie. Jeremiah returns and says you
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broke a wooden yoke, but God is replacing it with a yoke of
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iron. The judgement is inescapable.
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What is truly radical about Jeremiah is his theological
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shift once the exile actually begins.
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In chapter 29 he writes a letter to the Exiles who have already
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been taken to Babylon. For centuries, their entire
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theology was tied to the physical geography of the
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Promised Land. If they were outside the land,
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they believed they were outside the presence of God.
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But Jeremiah commands them to build houses, plant gardens, and
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seek the peace of the Pagan city.
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That must have sounded like to them.
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Settle down in Babylon. Pray for the success of our
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captors. Yes, because Jeremiah is
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revealing a massive shift in redemptive history.
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The presence of God and the existence of the covenant
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community are no longer tied exclusively to the physical land
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of Canaan. God can sustain his people in
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the wilderness, and he can sustain them in the heart of
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Pagan Babylon. The Kingdom of God is not
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restricted by national borders. In the midst of all this
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physical destruction, Jeremiah delivers the greatest hope of
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all, the promise of the New Covenant in chapter 31.
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He prophecies a day when the broken external Mosaic law will
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be replaced. God says I will put my law
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within them and I will write it on their hearts.
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This is the ultimate reformed view of regeneration.
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The external law could point out sin, but it could not change the
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human heart. In the New Covenant, God grants
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His people the ability to obey through the working of the Holy
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Spirit. He does for us what we are
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totally unable to do for ourselves.
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While Jeremiah is ministering to the remnant left in the rubble
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of Jerusalem, Ezekiel is ministering to the captives
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already taken to Babylon. And there is a very specific
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date in Ezekiel's book where everything pivots January 19th,
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586 BC. That is the exact day a fugitive
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arrives from Jerusalem and announces the city has fallen.
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The. Temple is gone.
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The moment the news arrives, Ezekiel's message shifts
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instantly. Up to that point, he was
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preaching severe judgment, trying to convince the Exiles
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that Jerusalem would indeed fall.
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Once it happens, the curses of the law have been fully
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executed, the punishment has fallen.
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Ezekiel pivots to glorious consolation.
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The unilateral promises of grace step forward to rebuild the
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people. Ezekiel starts receiving these
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incredible visions, including his famous vision of a new
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massive temple. But the source material notes
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something crucial about this temple.
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The dimensions are highly contrived.
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Idealized and mathematically perfectly symmetrical.
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It features a river flowing out of it that defies the actual
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topography of the region, growing deeper and wider without
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any tributary streams feeding into it.
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The. Contrived math and impossible
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geography tell us we should not expect a literal physical
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building project in the Middle East.
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This is a spiritual reality. In its canonical context, this
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idealized temple points directly to the Church.
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Christ is the true temple, the cornerstone, and His people are
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being built into a spiritual dwelling place for God, with the
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life giving water of the Holy Spirit flowing out to the
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nations. Meanwhile, the second section of
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of Isaiah, chapters 40 through 55, is delivering jaw-dropping
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specific predictions to these exiles.
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He named Cyrus the Persian before Cyrus even exists on the
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world stage. He predicts that Cyrus will dry
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up rivers and March through open gates to defeat Babylon.
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History confirms this perfectly. The Greek historian Herodotus
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records that the Persians literally diverted the Euphrates
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River, which flowed under the walls of Babylon.
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And they marched their army straight up the dry riverbed,
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entering through gates that have been carelessly left open during
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a festival. Cyrus is an amazing historical
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figure, but he is just a political savior the.
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True theological weight of Second Isaiah rests in the four
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suffering Servant Songs which climax in Isaiah 53.
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If you want to understand the Reformed doctrine of penal
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substitutionary atonement, you look at Isaiah 53.
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The prophet details the mechanics of how God will deal
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with the sin of his people. I want to read a piece of that
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text because it is so explicit. He was pierced for our
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transgressions. He was crushed for our
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iniquities. The punishment that brought us
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peace was on him. You see the clear transfer of
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guilt. The punishment meant for the
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covenant breaker is placed onto the shoulders of the innocent
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servant. The servant takes the place of
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the guilty sheep. He bears the wrath of God for
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their sin. He makes his grave with the
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wicked. But then he prolongs his days, a
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clear prophecy of both his substitutionary death and his
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physical resurrection. The servant secures the
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salvation that the people could never earn.
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He achieves justification for many by bearing their
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iniquities. So Cyrus conquers Babylon,
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issues a decree, and the Jewish exiles are finally allowed to
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return home. The exile ends, the punishment
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is over, but the narrative transition here is
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heartbreaking. The return is incredibly
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disappointing. They get back to the land and
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the glory of the New Covenant. The grand visions of Ezekiel's
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temple and Isaiah's new creation do not seem to have
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materialized. The reality on the ground in
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Judea is grim. The returnees are surrounded by
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hostile neighbors. They are economically depressed
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and they fall into spiritual apathy.
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The grand expectations crash into the harsh reality of trying
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to farm ruined land. This is the context for the post
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Exilic prophets Haggai and Zechariah.
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Hagai sets the scene perfectly. The people are complaining about
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the economy. They're planting crops but
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harvesting little. They are putting wages into bags
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with holes in them. Inflation is destroying their
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savings and they are using this poverty as an excuse to leave
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God's temple in ruins while they secure timber to build nice
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paneled houses for themselves. They argue that it is just not
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the right time to prioritize God's Kingdom.
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Haggai diagnosis. Their economic frustration as a
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direct result of their misplaced priorities.
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They are seeking their own comfort first rather than
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seeking the Kingdom of God. He challenges them to rebuild
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the temple. God does not need a physical
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house, but the rebuilding of the temple signifies their
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submission to God's rule and their act of hope in his
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promises. Their physical poverty is a
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reflection of their spiritual poverty.
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To encourage them in this massive rebuilding effort,
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Zechariah receives breathtaking rapid fire visions that point
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directly to the coming Christ. He sees the future king riding
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into Jerusalem and not on a War Horse surrounded by an army, but
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lowly and riding on a donkey. He prophecies a day when the
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people will look upon God himself whom they have pierced,
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and they will mourn for Him. He predicts the striking of the
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shepherd which will cause the sheep to scatter.
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Every single one of those specific images is explicitly
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claimed by Jesus and the Gospel writers during the events of the
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crucifixion. Zechariah is handing the early
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church the exact theological vocabulary they will need to
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understand the death of the Messiah.
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The pierced God, the stroke shepherd, the humble king
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Zechariah sees it all centuries before it happens.
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Further along in the post exilic period we hit Malachi and the
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final chapters of Isaiah, often called Third Isaiah.
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The temple has been rebuilt, but the hearts of the people are
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still corrupt. Malachi confronts a cynical
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priesthood that is offering a sham liturgy.
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They are bringing diseased, blind animals for sacrifice,
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things they would never dare offer to their human governor as
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a tax payment. And acting like God should be
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pleased with their leftovers. Malachi makes it clear that God
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despises their worship. A revitalized liturgy is
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impossible without a revitalized morality.
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Because the people are still failing to keep the covenant,
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Malachi promises that God will send a messenger and Elijah to
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prepare the way for the Lord Himself.
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Who will come like a refining fire to purify the priesthood
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and the people? 3rd Isaiah looks past all this
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immediate depressing reality of the Persian sub province of
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Judah. He looks all the way to a
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totally new creation. He prophesized new heavens and a
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new earth where the sun and the moon are obsolete because the
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dazzling light of God's own glory will illuminate
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everything. He promises a reality where
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weeping and crying will be heard no more.
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With that grand cosmic vision and Malachi's promise of a
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forerunner, we hit a historical wall.
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The prophetic texts end. What happens after Malachi?
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Absolute silence. For roughly 400 years, a period
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documented by historians like Josephus and the authors of the
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Maccabees, the prophetic voice ceases in Israel.
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The heavens go quiet. There are no new oracles, no new
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visions, no new prophets walking the streets.
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Of Jerusalem. That is a massive shift in how
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the people interact with God. Ezra the Scribe institutes a new
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paradigm. Instead of going to a living
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prophet to inquire of the Lord, the community transitions to the
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rigorous study, reading, and exegesis of the written Word.
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The Canon is closed for the time being.
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Synagogues begin to form as places of instruction.
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And the people are forced to wait, relying on the text they
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have been given. They wait and they wait.
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Generation after generation. They suffer under the Greeks,
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They suffer under the Romans. Until finally, the historical
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narrative is shattered by the sudden arrival of a Wildman in
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the Judean desert. John the Baptist steps out of
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the wilderness dressed in camel's hair, eating locusts and
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wild honey. He breaks the 400 year silence.
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He is the promised Elijah of Malachi, the voice crying in the
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wilderness of Isaiah, pointing his finger directly at Jesus of
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Nazareth and declaring, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away
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the sin of the world. The narrative cohesion of that
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moment is staggering. It really pulls it all together.
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Let's synthesize what we have covered in this massive sweep of
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history. We started by tearing down the
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fortune teller myth. Right.
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The prophets were the prosecuting attorneys of the
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Mosaic Law. They exposed the total inability
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of human beings to achieve righteousness on their own.
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Proving that a system based on human performance will always
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result in idolatry and social cruelty.
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But they were also the heralds of the covenant of grace.
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They promised a divine substitute.
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A suffering servant who would absorb the curse, and a
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resurrected remnant preserved entirely by God's sovereign
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mercy. They show us that God's justice
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is terrifyingly real, but his grace is stubbornly persistent.
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He will not allow human sin to derail His cosmic redemptive
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purposes. He will accomplish salvation
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through His Messiah. If you are listening to this
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right now, I want to leave you with a final provocative thought
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to Mull over. Something that builds on
31:07
everything we have discussed about how these prosecuting
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attorneys operated. We saw that the ancient prophets
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repeatedly measured the theological health of God's
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people, not by the beauty of their worship services.
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Nor the precision of their songs or the wealth of their temple.
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They measured it by how their economic and legal systems
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treated the poorest and most vulnerable among them.
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The widow, the orphan, the immigrant.
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If a prophet like Amos or Micah were to walk into our modern
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covenant communities today to conduct a divine audit.
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Would they be looking at our liturgy on Sunday morning?
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Or would they be asking to see our bank statements?
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Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into the source
31:45
material. We will see you next time on
31:47
reformed thinking.