MINOR PROPHETS ON MONDAY

Today, I started in Hosea and ended with Jonah.  Twenty chapters in the Minor Prophets are fairly easy to read in just thirty minutes.  Now allow me to comment on a few verses: 1) PASS IT ON-Joel 1:3  "Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation."  Here we see four generations of Christians telling their children about the LORD.  We (1) tell our children (2), who tell their children (3), who tell another generation (4).  Four generations!  It starts sometimes with us!  My Parents told me, I have told my children, and now my grand children are being told.  Praise God! Are you passing it on? 2) RESTORATION- Joel 2:24 says:  "And I will restore to you the years...."  God is telling Israel and repentance brings restoration.  God can restore the years that were lost!  Wow!  What a great God we have who is willing to do that, and able! 3) LONG SUFFERING- In the book of Amos, we see that eight different times, God says:  "For three transgressions of ________ and for four,..."  He names a city or country to which He now will judge, but the idea I want to share with you is this... God is long suffering!  He doesn't say for the first or second offense, but the third and for the fourth offense, He will bring His judgment.  Let us now forget that because God is patient and long suffering towards us is no indication that He will withhold His judgment in dealing with our sins.  We must repent to restore fellowship.... not relationship, but fellowship and blessing within the relationship!  4) HOW FAR CAN YOU GO?  Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh and cry against it, but he went to Joppa to get on a boat to Tarshish.  How far can you go when you start running from God?  Nineveh was in Iraq, two hundred miles above Babylon on the Tigris River.  Tarshish was at the bottom of Spain outside of the Mediterranean Sea!  The distance from Nineveh to Tarshish is almost 2,500 miles apart.  The travel time from Joppa to Tarshish would take many months to make and some commentators say about a year!  How far can you go?  When you start going from God, you will find that you will go farther than you ever thought possible.  So, the safe thing to do, is .... don't get in the boat!!  Don't start that journey away from God!  Stay close and obedient!  Have a blessed day!  Pastor Mike Mutchler