Wagner: ‘Minor Prophets of the past, major problems of the present’

My latest book, “Micah, Nahum, the Turning of the Hourglass”, just went live on Amazon. We have been studying through the Minor Prophets in my adult Sunday school class for several months now, and I am producing these study books as we go. It, and to a slightly lesser extent, the Major Prophets, is a section of Scripture that is often overlooked, and much to our detriment, especially considering one of the heated, current debates of the day.

I am thinking of the rampant antisemitism that seems to be growing into a gargantuan monster with each passing moment.

The Bible is laid out in groupings. Genesis through Deuteronomy are the Books of the Law. Joshua through Esther are the Historical Books. Job through The Song of Solomon are the Poetical Books. Isaiah through Daniel are the Major Prophets, and Hosea through Malachi are the Minor Prophets.

The twelve Minor Prophets ministered from approximately 823 BC to 400 BC, with Jonah being the first chronologically, and Malachi being the last. So, they ministered roughly from the time of Jeroboam II up through the fall of Judah to Babylon, and then went on until the three returns from exile had taken place, the wall and Temple were rebuilt, and the Silent Years began. Put in terms of the historical books of the Bible, if you opened your Bible and put your thumb in 2 Kings 14, that is roughly where the ministry of the Minor Prophets began, and if you then flipped ahead to the book of Esther and put your index finger there, the Minor Prophets mostly ministered in the time period of those pages you would be holding between your index finger and thumb, as did the Major Prophets.

Their content, both Major and Minor prophets, mostly concerns the nation and people of Israel, the flesh-and-blood descendants of Abraham, and a few people along the way who joined them through marriage and proselytization. As such, they provide a vital window into the set of questions at hand: is Israel really still Israel, and has God forever abandoned her and set her aside?

Micah began to answer that question early on. His prophecy was that, in the near term, Israel was going to fall to Assyria. And she did; a devastating, crippling fall to one of the most savage nations of the ancient world. People who fell to Assyria did not recover or return. Israel, though, was to be a remarkable exception. In Micah 2:12, God said, “I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men.”

Not a tribe would be lost. And this, while it applied partially to days just barely future to Micah, applied much farther down the line as well; all the way to the last days, in fact. The next verse speaks both of God and of a coming king, and Hosea, a contemporary, gave that king a name:

Micah 2:13 The breaker [God, the one who breaks their bonds] is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them.

Hosea 3:5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.

This, then, is the thousand-year Millennial Reign of Christ being spoken of, where their greatest human king will rule once again as an undershepherd to their Messiah and Lord. All of the prophets, all of Scripture, gives testimony to this full preservation and redemption of the Jewish people. Paul, in Romans 11:26, said, “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.”

Has God gotten so angry with the Jews that He has forever set them aside? In Zephaniah 2:1, God called them “O undesired nation.” That is pretty harsh. And yet, nine verses later, He called himself their God and promised to destroy Moab and Ammon for coming against them.

Jeremiah 31:35-37 says, “Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.”

Simply put, if you want to know if the Jews of today are actually the flesh-and-blood descendants of Abraham, or if that people ceased to exist because God was so angry with them, and some masqueraders have taken their place, go outside and see if the sun is still in the sky during the day, and the stars and moon still in the sky by night. If they are, then God has preserved his people even to our day, and still loves them