This Spring’s Bible Study for the women of CCEA delved into the messages God gave the Minor Prophets, Hosea, Jonah, Habakkuk and Malachi. What have I seen in this study? I have seen an Amazing God displayed through His Amazing Love!
Our study, taught by Connie Grosse, was called “BE AMAZED: RESTORING AN ATTITUDE OF WONDER AND WORSHIP.” Little did Connie know how God would use this portion of Scripture to bolster our faith—and confidence in our faith! Sometimes God gives word pictures in Scripture with the intent we may see more clearly what He is saying. I believe God has inserted us into one of those “word pictures” today that we may understand even more how much we need our hearts to be right with Him.
In some ways, I feel I have had a taste of living in the days of Habakkuk and Malachi. The same issues of their nation showing no honor or regard to a holy God and seeing the results of lawlessness and evil rising in its place are playing out before our eyes in the world today. We have lost so much of our normal routines, first with the virus threat and now with riots—lawlessness, violence, and looting—in our streets day after day. Curfews have been ordered in many cities, only to be blatantly ignored. Personally, I am thankful for a President who upholds the Constitution and the rights of the people. I am most grateful for God’s blessing of a President who expresses faith in God during this time, and isn’t afraid to show it or support people of faith. I pray God leads and strengthens our President—and all people of faith—as we face the grip of national social and emotional unrest. I pray God enables our nation to survive these deep divisions as our Presidential elections come later in this year. Our nation needs a return to God more than ever.
Yet, studying these Minor Prophets has only steadied my faith more in WHO my God is. He brings correcting judgment and He withholds His blessings that we may repent with sincere hearts and return to Him, for it is His ways that lead, protect, and give us an eternal hope for the future. I am resting and restored in His love, His grace, His mercy, and His promises given to those who trust in Him. I know Whose I am! I know the One who holds all my days in His hand! One day He Will judge the evil, the proud and arrogant, and all the wickedness we see in this world. He has shown, through His Word we have studied, the way He will judge those who persecute and inflict their wickedness upon others. We worship the all-victorious God of the universe—the God of all Creation—and He will, in the last days, right the wrongs and restore His Kingdom. Our future is secure in our never-changing God!
As I looked once again at each of the Minor Prophet books we studied, I found God’s amazing love the same, but each highlighted a bit differently. In Hosea, God’s love is shown to me as His Redeeming Love—a love that seeks out His own in restoration. In reading verses 1-9 in Chapter 14, God speaks to His nation, “Israel, return to the LORD your God for you have stumbled in your iniquity.” Charles Spurgeon commented on verse one: “Behold the judge, instead of putting on the black cap to pronounce doom of death, stretches out His hands to the condemned and, in tones of pity, cries, ‘Israel return!’” Verse two: ”Take words of repentance with you and return to the LORD.” Verse four: “I will heal their apostacy: I will freely love them for my anger will have turned from him. Hosea’s final verse, says.
“Let whoever is wise, understand these things and whoever is insightful, recognize them. For the ways of the LORD are right, and the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.” Hosea 14:9
Oh, may we be among those who are insightful and understand these things of God that we would be the righteous who choose to walk in them that we may not stumble!
In Jonah, I saw God’s love shown as Love For All. Jonah was sent to the wicked Assyrian Capital, Ninevah, that they might humble themselves and repent that God would not destroy them. God reached out His saving grace to these citizens and they indeed repented and did not receive the punishment they deserved. The last verse of Jonah speaks to me of God’s heart to all:
“But may I not care about the great city of Ninevah, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?” Jonah 4:11
God’s amazing love shown to include the Gentile with the Jew for His salvation!
In Habakkuk, I saw the Correcting Love of a holy and righteous God.
“The LORD answered me; write down this vision; clearly inscribe it on tablets so one may easily read it. For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it testifies about the end and it will not lie. Though it delays, wait for it, since it will certainly come and not be late.” Habakkuk 2:2-3
On these verses, Charles Spurgeon wrote, “In order to separate the precious from the vile, God used the winnowing fan of affliction so that the chaff might be blown away and the pure wheat remain.” In verse 4 we read how the righteous are to live: “The righteous one will live by His faith.” Again, Spurgeon wrote: “This is what living by faith meant—a faith that does without anything—a faith that can take nothing and be content with it because it finds everything in God—faith under the worst conceivable conditions. This is how the just are to live.” And this is how Habakkuk set that example down in Scripture:
“Yet, I will celebrate in the LORD; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation! The LORD my Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like those of a deer and enables me to walk on mountain heights!” Habakkuk 3:18-19
May we, too, learn the importance of walking by faith and not by our sight. May our feet also become like those of a deer!”
In Malachi I saw God’s Unchanging Love for an unrepentant people.
“Because I, the LORD, have not changed, you descendants of Jacob have not been destroyed.” Malachi 3:6
In the beginning of Malachi, God speaks to His people and reminds them of His love for them—“I have loved you”. Their response to God was: “How have You loved us”? I think of the amazing love of our amazing God—Holy, Righteous, God of all Creation, the God Most High—willing to lean down and answer these insolent, prideful, even challenging questions from His people that they would see their need to repent. Who are we that God would do this? We are His creation, made in His image, the ones for whom He would send His Son to die on the cross of Calvary so we could have our sins forgiven and a right relationship with our Creator God restored! His love is so great for His people. We were worth dying for! Think about that and praise Him as our Kinsmen Redeemer! His love endures and it is unchanging from one generation to the next.
In Malachi 3:8 we read the people were robbing God by withholding their tithes and offerings and they wondered why they received no blessings from Him. In verse 10, God spoke to them:
“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.”
We are called to obey God’s commandments first and then to trust Him with the results. We are told in Malachi 3:16-18 that God takes notice of those who fear Him. In the midst of all that is sinful and wrong with this nation, there is a faithful remnant who fear God! He gives attention to them and a book of remembrance has been written before Him for those who give praise to His name and revere Him. We read their future is secure as they are called His own possession—His special treasure—and that God will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. May we also prove to be His faithful remnant!
The choice is before us this day. Choose God or let your love grow cold and deny Him. In Matthew we read:
“And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:12-13
Increased lawlessness will come upon us as the Day of the LORD approaches and with it will also come a recognizable distinction between the righteous and the wicked. We will find ourselves on one side or the other—there is no middle ground.
Choose this day whom you will serve, said Joshua. Will we be found with those who serve the Lord or those who make the choice to not serve Him?
Oh, may we be counted among those who choose to live by faith—trusting and resting in God’s amazing love—because we truly serve an amazing God! May our wonder and worship be restored and kindled afresh from this day forward for whatever lies before us. May we forever be amazed by our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ! His love is truly AMAZING and worthy of all praise!
“In peace I will lie down and sleep, for You alone Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Psalm 4:8
By Pat Tingwall