Minor #14

Truth:
1. The consuming factor involving the nations in 4 stages and the suffering factor involving Israel have been present for a major part of human history.
2. God's purpose in allowing Israel to suffer under the locusts was to bring forth a couple, Mary and Joseph, so that God could be born in man, of man, and out of man to become no longer only God but a God-man.  The suffering factor was the factor to consummate the divine incarnation; the suffering of the Jews was the factor to produce the incarnation.

Life experience/Application:

1. In a very real sense, all the locusts are working for us.  The millions of locusts swarming on earth today are serving us so that we may be here for the manifestation of Christ.

Minor #13

Truth:
1. The four kinds of locusts denote the four sections of the entire human government on earth signified by the great human image in Daniel 2.
2.

Life experience/Application:
1. Today three things are taking place on earth: the consuming by the Roman locusts, the suffering of Israel, and the manifestation of Christ.  We are joined to the manifestation of Christ.  The line of the manifestation of Christ will eventually bring us into the fuller manifestation of Christ in the age of restoration.
2. We need to see that today we, the believers in Christ, are in the Body of Christ.  Our goal is to enlarge the manifestation of Christ intrinsically.

Minor #12

Truth:
1. Israel lost both the ground and the materials to offer the meal offering to feed God and the drink offering to cheer God.
2. The pouring out of the Spirit was fulfilled as a foretaste on the day of Pentecost and as a full taste before the great tribulation for the salvation and regeneration of many of the returned Israelites.
3. Christ came through incarnation.  Eventually, He died and was resurrected, and, in a sense, He went away.  But by the outpouring of the Spirit He came back to be manifested.
4. There are 3 outpourings of the Holy Spirit: first, the outpouring on the day of Pentecost; second, the outpouring before the great tribulation upon the Jews; and third, the outpouring upon the besieged Jews, who will have no way to escape the persecution of Antichrist. 
5. Joel 3:19-21a tells us that the nations will be punished, Israel will be restored, and Christ will be manifested.

Minor #11

Truth:
1. The book of Joel contains 3 main points.  First, it is the plague of 4 kinds of locusts.  Second, it is the outpouring of the consummated Spirit.  Third, it is the restoration not only of Israel but of the entire universe.

2. The nation is likened to one of locust in 4 stages, the great human image in four sections, the four beasts (lion, bear, leopard, and one who is the totality of the first three), and 4 horns.
3. The Bible covers 4 things: God's chastisement on His elect people, God's punishment of the nations, the manifestation of Christ, and the restoration.
4. The Spirit is the consummated Christ for the manifestation of Christ.

Minor #10

Truth:
1. Joel means Jehovah is God.











2. The stone in Daniel 2 signifies not merely the individual Christ but also the corporate Christ.  The corporate Christ will come as a stone cut without hands and will smite the human government into pieces.
3. At the end of the great tribulation, the political Babylon the Great, the revived Roman Empire, will be destroyed by the Lord.
4. Al the judgments of the day of the Lord, including all the calamities, plagues, and woes, have a goal, and this goal is to bring gin the manifestation of Christ.

Minor #9

Truth:
1. Apart from Christ we cannot be sons of God.  Our sonship is altogether in Christ, by Christ, and with Christ.
2. In addition to His being the unique, only begotten Son of God from eternity, Christ, after incarnation and through resurrection, was begotten of God in His humanity and through resurrection, was begotten of God in His humanity to become the Son of God in another sense, in the sense of being the firstborn Son of God.
3. The cords in the cords of a man have different segments, each involves Christ's humanity in His incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
4. The love of God, the divine love, comes to us through Christ's humanity.


Life experience/Application:
1. God's everlasting love, His unchanging, subduing love, is altogether in Christ, with Christ, by Christ, and for Christ.  Apart from Christ, God's everlasting love could not be prevailing.  God's unchanging love is prevailing because it is a love in Christ, by Christ, and for Christ.
2. Sometimes we may want to eat too much or eat in hast, but God wants us to eat slowly and gently with patience and endurance.