Audio Transcript:

Welcome to Missions on Point, the Propempo perspective on church and missions.

Welcome back to Missions on Point, this is episode 239. We are in the middle of a long series talking about preaching about missions, and we are working our way through scripture, considering the ways that every book of the Bible leads us to Christ and with the coming of Christ the radically transformed nature of the people of God as commissioned by Christ to go into all the world and form local bodies of disciples. Not every sermon should have missions as a main point, but they can all easily touch on the topic as we see how books of the Bible connect to the grand narrative of scripture. Today we are in the second of four weeks talking about the minor prophets.

One of the most important interpretive tools for studying the prophets is to know what the historical context is for that prophet. Almost all of the prophets can be placed into a time period for when they wrote their prophecy. Knowing the historical events that were going on at that time really helps to inform the message of the prophet. We can break down the prophets into three general time frames: pre-Assyrian exile, pre-Babylonian exile, and post-exile. And as you can tell from the way that I have broken them down here, the prophets are generally grouped with their relationship to the exiles of Israel and Judah. The prophets come just before the judgment of God, warning his people to repent of their sins because disaster is imminent. The pre-Assyrian exile prophets, like we saw last time, Amos, Hosea, and Micah, all are warning Israel in the north about their impending exile at the hands of Assyria.  The pre-Babylonian prophets that we will look at today, Nahum, Zephaniah, and Habakkuk all come about 25 to 75 years before the Fall of Jerusalem. Then there are three prophets that don’t really fit neatly into these groups, Jonah, Joel and Obadiah, and we will consider those three next week. And lastly, there are three prophets that clearly come after the return from exile and those are Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The point that we’re making here though is that a key help in understanding the message of the prophet is to understand his historical context, and taken collectively they have a major focus on the exile of the nation, and its meaning for the eternal promises of God. So, let’s now turn to consider our three books for today, Nahum, Zephaniah, and Habakkuk.

Nahum is an interesting prophet. He prophesied against Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. I remember Nahum prophesied against Nineveh, because they both start with the letter N. And he prophesied sometime in the middle of the 600s BC, after the Israelites in the north were exiled in 722. So, Assyria has conquered Israel. It doesn’t exist anymore. The only people left in the land are in Judah in the south. And even though this message is written to Assyria, Judah is a primary audience. And the message of judgment against Israel’s enemies is meant to be a comfort for God’s people. Nahum’s name even means comfort. So, the message of judgment against Nineveh is comforting for Judah.

We remember that Nahum is not the first prophet to preach to Nineveh. Jonah had preached there earlier, and we’ll consider Jonah next week. And it seems like after Jonah preached there that the people had some measure of repentance resulting in God staving off his judgment. However, it clearly was not a lasting repentance, and the Ninevites had gone back to their evil ways. So, Nahum proclaimed that God would have no more patience. Nahum’s message was a message of judgment for Nineveh, the enemy of God’s people, and, at the same time, a message of salvation for the people of God. God’s people can be assured that the enemy that seems to be winning will not be victorious forever. God defeats every enemy. We can say the same thing about the greatest enemy of all, death. And as we look at our lives, death seems to be winning. And when we see Jesus on the cross, it appears as if death was winning there too. But the good news of the gospel is the death of death. The enemy is defeated. Jesus is raised from the dead.

Nahum 1:2-3 says, “The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.” In chapter 2, the plunderer has been plundered. And God promises to restore the majesty of his people. In chapter 3, God is against Nineveh, and will bring shame upon them. They had seduced the nations of the world, like a prostitute. And the book ends with a song of mockery against Nineveh. They were evil to all the inhabitants of the earth, and God will end their wickedness. It’s interesting to note that throughout the book, this one foreign nation’s relationship to all the other nations of the earth is highlighted. The last words of the book are this, “Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria; your nobles slumber. Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them. There is no easing your hurt; your wound is grievous. All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?” The defeat of evil is good news to all. Think of the evangelistic power this has for those who live under oppressive governments, like North Korea, or the anarchy of Haiti. Praise the Lord that we have a Good Shepherd who does not sleep and is able to gather his sheep by defeating the evil that oppresses all mankind.

Next, we look at Zephaniah. He prophesied during the reign of Josiah in Judah.  He references the law a lot, but it is unclear whether he prophesied before or after Josiah’s reforms. It is possible that Zephaniah was a member of the royal family (he was possibly a cousin of King Josiah), and great-great-grandson of Hezekiah. He is a contemporary with Nahum, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah. And the main theme of his book is the Day of the Lord. It’s referenced as many as 17 times in this short 3 chapter book. The main idea is: The Day of the Lord is one of judgment against those who sin against God, and one of blessing for those who follow him. God will show himself just in both punishment and praise.

Zephaniah opens up with future judgment falling on the whole earth in the likeness of a de-creation. And yet, very quickly his attention shifts to judgment falling on Judah, to cut off their idolatry, and their idolatrous priests. While the Day of the Lord is whole earth-encompassing, there is a focus on Judah at the center of it. The Day of the Lord is a day of great wrath, distress, devastation, darkness, anguish and gloom. And in light of this, Zephaniah called Judah to repent. And yet Judah did not repent, and they appeared all the more eager to make all of their deeds corrupt. But this judgment is not just for Judah. God’s wrath would come upon the Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Cushites, and the Assyrians. So, it’s not clear to the original audience that there is a distinction in the prophesies made about the Day of the Lord. Would it be a day of judgment for Judah in the near future as they would be conquered and exiled? Or would it be a day of judgment for the whole earth and every nation facing the wrath of God? Because we know that prophecy is fulfilled progressively, typologically, and in stages, and because we have the privileged vantage point of looking back on history, we can say yes to both of those questions. There was an immediate near-term fulfillment of the Day of Lord for Judah in their own exile. But that day only pointed to a greater day yet to come at the end of time that would be for all nations of the earth. Judah thus serves as a warning to all other nations. If God would not spare his own people, then he will certainly not spare those whom he had not chosen. So, the call for repentance for all people is clear.

This book then ends with the promise of God’s blessing. Every people group in every generation is responsible for themselves. They must repent and call upon the Lord. No one is guaranteed blessing because of their status, or their heritage. Just because God had blessed a previous generation, does not mean he will spare the current one. There is no such thing as a second-generation child of God. And so, God calls all people to call upon his name and serve him today. And he will gather his people from all over the earth. The true people of God are those who are humble, lowly, just, truthful, courageous in doing good, and rejoicing in worship of God.

Finally, let’s consider the book of Habakkuk. This prophet is unique because he does not directly address the people of God. Instead, there is a conversation between the prophet and God. Habakkuk takes up a complaint against God because there are events in history that seem contrary to the purposes of God, yet, according to scripture, they are under the control of a wise and good God. Habakkuk lived in Jerusalem during the final years before its fall to Babylon, a time when its inhabitants and rulers were especially evil. Ultimately, Habakkuk responds in faith in chapter 3:17-18 saying, “Though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit be on the vines...yet I will rejoice in the LORD.” And that leads us to main idea of this book: The righteous live by faith in a just God who will save the righteous and judge evil.  And the verse that is probably the most famous because it is quoted in Romans, Galatians and Hebrews, is Habakkuk 2:4, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Habakkuk is structured with two cycles and then a prayer. The cycles have Habakkuk lamenting and then God responding, Habakkuk lamenting and then God responding. And he ends in a prayer of faith. In the first cycle, we have Habakkuk lamenting, “God, why don’t you do something about evil?” And God responds, “Habakkuk, I am doing something about evil.” Habakkuk laments the evil of the people of Judah. And God’s response to him shocks him. He tells him that the way he is going to deal with evil is to raise up Babylon to conquer Judah. So, Habakkuk is confused, and he laments again with the second cycle asking, “God, how can you use evil to judge the righteous?” And what Habakkuk means here is that the Babylonians were much worse than Judah. The kings and people of Judah were evil, but they were righteous in comparison, and they were God’s people, so it didn’t make sense to him that this far more wicked nation would be victorious over Judah. And God’s response to him in chapter 2 is, “Habakkuk, I will not overlook any evil, so trust me.” God would judge the Babylonians for their wickedness too.

And this is the hope of anyone who has faith in God, that God is the just judge over all the earth and that he will judge rightly. There will be no evil that goes overlooked. And we see here once again in God’s response, his concern for his global glory. God is not limited to just the people of Israel. He says this in Habakkuk 2:14, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” That hasn’t happened yet, and so the righteous live by faith. And this is the faith of the missionary. They must fix their hope on this promise that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will fill the earth, as people come to faith in God and his justice that he has displayed for all the world to see, by using a wicked and evil nation to pour out his wrath on his beloved chosen One. Habakkuk trusts the character of God and cries out to God, “in wrath, remember mercy.” And God has done that, on Jesus on the cross.

Thanks for joining us today on Missions on Point. We trust that you'll find more help and resources on our websites at Propempo.com and missioserve.org. We are so thankful for those who support us, enabling us to produce this podcast. Now to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.