Minor #30

Truth:
1. The revelation in this Zephaniah is very simple and concerns two matters -- Jehovah's judgment and His salvation.
2. The name Zephaniah in Hebrew means "Jah hides" or "Jah treasures," probably signifying to be hidden by Jehovah as His treasure in the day of His anger.  In the day of God's anger, we need to be the treasure hidden in Him.
3. Jehovah's salvation to Israel is for Christ to be the King of Israel.

Life experience/Application:
1. God's judgment is first on Israel and then on the nations, but His salvation is first to the Gentile s and then to Israel.
2. To change a people's language is to change their culture because culture is wrapped up with language.  The original language of any people is dirty and impure.  When a person's language has become pure, this indicates that a person has been thoroughly saved.

Minor #29

Truth:
1. The earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah.

2. Habakkuk expresses his natural concept, without much revelation of Christ.  Even Habakkuk's concept of trusting in Jehovah during a time of need was natural.

3. 

Life experience/Application:
1. When Paul was short of food, he did not "trust" in the Lord in the way Habakkuk did; rather, he took the opportunity to fast.  Instead of trying to keep the law, he lived Christ.

2. We will see that the crucial matter is not trusting but realizing that we are in Christ and that Christ is in us.

3. Praise You, Lord.  You are one with me.  Regardless of how weak and poor I am, I am in You and You are in me.

Minor #28

Truth:
1. Christ is the linking factor in the books of Micah, Jonah, and Habakkuk, and the Bible is the divine revelation given by God's speaking through man.

2. Christ is the eternal One' His origin is in eternity.

3. Whereas the entire Bible is the divine revelation, it is the kernel, the intrinsic part, that is good for eating and drinking to nourish us.

Life experience/Application:
1. By faith we have received the salvation that was prepared, completed, and consummated by Christ's coming forth, and as a result we now are believers constituting the Body of Christ.

2. We have seen His origin, birth, death, and resurrection.  We have also seen that through His going forth after His resurrection, God's complete salvation has come to us and that we have received it by faith.

3. We need to see that Christ, the eternal One, has gone forth in His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection and that His going forth is continuing today as more believers are added to Him.

4. Before believing we were outside of Christ; we were in Adam.  But one day we were transferred out of Adam and into Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God.

5. The Spirit is the all-inclusive One indwelling us, moving in us, anointing us, and mingling with us.

6. In order to see Christ in reality 150 psalms, but to enjoy Christ, to feed on Christ, we need to come to the revelation of Christ in the Psalms.

Minor #27

Truth:
1. The name Habakkuk in Hebrew means "embracing" or "clinging to," signifying that we need to seek God by embracing Him or clinging to Him.  

2. The subject of Habakkuk's ministry is the righteous judgement of God first on Israel by the Chaldeans and then on the Chaldeans by the nations.

3. The central thought of Habakkuk is this: the righteous God will judge both the evil Israel and the violent Chaldeans, and only the righteous one shall live by his faith, that all the earth may know the glory of Jehovah and be silent before Jehovah, who is in His holy temple, and that His seeker may sing to Him in prayer, in lauding, and in trusting in Him.

4. The unique way for sinners to obtain God's eternal salvation is to believe in God's embodiment, Christ, that they may become righteous and be justified to have life and live.

Life experience/Application:
1. God saves us by coming to us.  In order to be saved by God, we must be embraced by God and we must cling to Him.

Minor #26

Truth:
1. Whereas Jonah brought, or extended, God's salvation to Nineveh, Nahum brought God's judgment upon that sinful city.
2. In Nahum, we see both the fact and the cause of God's judgment on Nineveh.
3. Nahum means "comfort" and "avenge," signifying that Jehovah God comforts His elect, Israel, and avenges Israel of her enemy, Nineveh.
4. The cities of Babel and Nineveh were built by Nimrod and became the capitals of the nations of Babylon and Assyria.
5. The destruction of Nineveh is for the restoration of the excellency of Israel.
6. Gods wonderful preserving act was carried out by the locusts.  God used one kind of locusts to deal with another kind of locust in order to preserve Israel.

Minor #25

Truth:
1. Ch. 7 is about observation and expectation.  His observation involved a close study and examination of the condition and situation of God's people.  His expectation was related to his attempt to find something with which he could encourage himself.

2. Micah's praise here is centered not on the virtues of God's elect people but on God's attributes.  Such a praise is very comforting.

Life experience/Application:
1. Because contending is a matter of fighting by speaking, it is not pleasant for anyone involved.

2. From Micah's experience we should learn not to look at ourselves.  I will look for Jehovah; / I will wait for the God of my salvation.

Minor #24

Truth:
1. When Micah and the other prophets spoke concerning Christ, they were touching great things.  However, when they turned from Christ to their own observations regarding the condition and situation of God's people, they became small.

2. Both Micah and Amos observed that the people used one measure for buying and a different measure for selling and that their weights and balances were deceitful.

3. Christ is all-inclusive because He will be the Ruler, the Shepherd, and the peace of Israel, and He will also bring forth the seven shepherds and the eight princes.

Life experience/Application:
1. If we have an opinion or concept, that opinion or concept must be Christ.  We should have no heart to express our opinion.  

Minor #23

Truth:

1. The eating and drinking will be a kind of worship to God.
2. To work during those yearly feasts would have been an insult to God.  The people were only to rest, eat, drink, and enjoy their life before God.  Their eating and drinking were their worship to God.  According to the New Testament, at the Lord's table on the first day of the week, we put aside our work, we rest in the Lord, and we eat and drink Christ to enjoy Him and to let Him enjoy our satisfaction.
3. Christ's coming forth will be consummated when He throws Antichrist and the false prophet into the lake of fire, when Satan is cast into the abyss, and when Christ sets up His throne to reign as King.

Life experience/Application:

1. As our Ruler, He keeps us; as our Shepherd, He nourishes and cherishes us; and as our peace, He controls our environment so that we may enjoy Him.

Minor #22

Truth:
1. Micah means "Who is like Jah?"

2. The term Israel is used for two matters: the whole race of Israel and the northern kingdom of Israel.

3. In restoration, the sun's shining seven times brighter indicates that the produce of the earth will be 7 times richer than it is today.

4. In the age of restoration, "the mountains will drop down fresh win, / And the hills will flow with milk."

5. In the restoration there will be no merchants, no money, no buying and selling, no police stations, and no law courts.  Christ will be there as the source of the rich supply, as the inner law of life, and as everything for us to enjoy.

Minor #21

Truth:
1. Jonah in Hebrew means "dove".
2. Jonah was a prophet who turned from Israel to the Gentiles.  In this he was a type of Christ, who turned from Israel to the Gentiles.
3. Christ is revealed also in the type of Jonah's staying in the great fish three days and three nights.  This typifies Christ's staying in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

Life experience/Application:

1. God is not only the God of the Jews but also the God of all the nations.  Because the Jews responded to God wrongly, the Gentiles, not the Jews, became the first to enjoy God in His salvation.

Minor #20

Truth:
1. Obadiah means "the servant of Jehovah."

2. The victory of the Maccabees was a type of the victory Israel will gain immediately before the age of restoration.

Minor #19

Truth:
1. The "high places" were the places where Israel worshipped the idols on the mountains.
2. This prophecy in Amos indicates that one day Christ will come back to be the real David.  When Christ comes back, in His last appearing He will be the real David to restore His kingdom and His royal family.  That will be the millennial kingdom, in which all the nations will be called by the name of Jehovah, that is, all the nations will belong to God.

Life experience/Application:

1. Our lacking of the word of Jehovah is a kind of punishment from Jehovah.

2. In ancient times it was hard to separate the royal family from the kingdom.

Minor #18

Truth:
1. The first reproof to Israel was due to Israel's not being one with God and that Bethel had become a place for the worship of idols.
2. The second reproof to Israel was because they oppressed the poor, crushed the needy, and indulged themselves in pleasures.
3. The third reproof was the strongest of the three.  The leaders did not care for justice and righteousness and did not care for the people according to the law of God.  They hated him who reproved in the gate, the place where the leading ones exercised judgment, and they abhorred the one who spoke with integrity.  They took a forced gift from the poor.  Instead of making noise and singing songs, they should exercise justice and practice righteousness.
4. In the midst of such a situation, God has done something marvelous.  He came to be incarnated as a man, and He lived on earth to set up a model of how to have the divine life expressed in humanity, of how to have the divine attributes expressed in the human virtues.

Life experience/Application:

Minor #17

Truth:
1. The book of Amos also covers the chastisement of Israel and the punishment upon the nations to bring in the manifestation of Christ, issuing in the restoration, which consummates in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth.
2. Amos in Hebrew mans "burden bearer."
3. The subject of the book of Amos is Jehovah's judgments on Israel and the surrounding nations, with the issue of restoration.
4. Jehovah's judgment on Judah was due to their rejecting the law of Jehovah and not keeping His statues and due to their following their fathers to lie.

Life experience/Application:

Minor #16

Truth:
1. In our study of the Minor Prophets, we have emphasized four points: God's chastisement of Israel, God's punishment upon the nations, the manifestation of Christ, and the restoration of all things.
2. God's history is of two portions -- the history of God with man in the OT and the history of God in man in the NT.
3. Regarding the history of God in man, the incarnation of Christ accomplished two things.  First, the incarnation brought God into man.  Second, the incarnation made God one with man.  As a result of the incarnation, there was a wonderful person -- a person who is the mingling of God with man.

4. The NJ is a marvelous sign demonstrating how God is in man and is one with man.

Life experience/Application:
1. God wants to come into man and to be one with man.  Man, however, does not take God's way but insists on his own way.  This insistence has caused, and continues to cause, great failure.

2. God created us with the intention to gain us so that He could come into us and be one with us.  However, either we do not care for God or we care for God according to our own way.

Minor #15

Truth:
1. It was through the consuming locusts and the suffering Israel that God could fulfill His economy to have an expression.
2. The church is part of the divine history, the intrinsic history of the divine mystery within the outward, human history.

Life experience/Application:
1. If we would know the divine history that takes place within the human history, we first need to realize that the Triune God is eternal.
2. If our living is in the world, we are living in the human history. But if we are living in the church, we are living in the divine history. In the church life, God's history is our history.

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.