What is the core message of the Minor Prophets?

As a resume of all we have the twelve Minor Prophets, as they are called, a Deuteronomy to the whole. They are twelve, the number of Government, and divided into four threes. Hosea, God's pleadings with His people. Amos, God's warnings of His people. Micah, God's recovery of His people through Christ. Joel, judgments on enemies of Israel. Obadiah, judgment on Edom. Jonah, Nineveh spared. Nahum, the Assyrian's pride rebuked. Habakkuk, faith's resource. Zephaniah, God in the midst of His people. Haggai, the Lord's house. Zechariah, final deliverance. Malachi, everything must wait for the Sun-rise.

In these (except Jonah, and, in a certain sense, Daniel) we find the action of the Spirit of God in the midst of His people, to maintain the authority and character of their original calling, testify against their departure from it, and reveal Messiah as establishing them in blessing on a new footing - sustaining thus the faith of the godly during the departure of the mass, and denouncing judgment on those who persevere in unfaithfulness.

That leaves us the twelve minor prophets grouped together as one as we shall see later on. They are the summary of all God's ways; — as in Deuteronomy — the principles and ways of the divine government. Let us touch on a few prominent points in each of these — drawing a little water from wells of inexhaustible fulness.

Does the group of the so-called Minor Prophets differ from all the other component parts of Holy scripture? or is each of them characterised by its own special aim, and a peculiar contribution to the sum of divine revelation? Let us examine them, however briefly, one by one, though in time they were gathered for convenience into a single volume by the Jews.

In our study of the Minor Prophets we have sought to find Him whom our souls love. To Him they one and all bear witness (Acts 10:43). If we know Him in a deeper and fuller way through the pages of the New Testament, and if a closer relationship with Himself is ours than that which the prophets set forth as existing between Him and the chosen and beloved nation, yet it is Himself, the same blessed One, whom we contemplate in the writings that have been before us.

Like the other minor prophets, judgment is announced first, followed by exhortations to repentance, with the promises of glory for the remnant of His people when the day of Jehovah is passed and the Lord is King over all the earth. He proclaims the judgment to come for the whole earth, as well as upon Judah and Jerusalem, and then gives a fuller description of the day in which that judgment is to be executed, the still future day of Jehovah. As we have seen, Obadiah and Joel are the earliest prophets, and both announced the day of Jehovah. The last of the prophets before the captivity bears his additional testimony to the same day, describing it as a day of wrath, of trouble and distress. This is the first chapter.

AMOS, after having threatened judgment that should be executed upon different nations of Canaan, declares that the patience of God will no longer bear with the iniquity of Israel, but he sets forth also (as do all the prophets) the return and blessing of Israel, adding that they shall never more be rooted out of their land.

AMOS rehearses the ways of God not only with Israel, but with the neighbouring nations; then takes up Israel specifically — not on broad grounds of a moral kind only, but of peculiar favour; points out their guilt of refusing His testimony, which should none the less be verified in the judgment of the mass, and in the deliverance of the righteous few, and promises in the end the rearing up again of the fallen tabernacle of David and the renewed blessing of Israel.

Gives the patience of God's dealings and ways, which he rehearses in connection with the precise pointing out of the iniquity of Israel's ways; but marking out the punishment of bordering nations on the same ground of definite moral evil. He notices the rejection of a testimony against the evil, and declares the sure, infallible, unescapable judgment of Jehovah on the whole people, the righteous remnant being as certainly saved; closing with the promise of building up the tabernacle of David, as head of the nation, and blessing the people.

All through Amos you find that solemn declaration of judgment upon both Judah and Israel, and more than that upon Edom, and Moab, and Ammon, and all the nations that are connected with Israel, and who occupy their territory in the last days. We have not time to dwell upon this, but you find that he is very similar to Hosea, except as I say, the element of infinite tenderness is not there, but rather the declaration of their sin and departure from God.