MINOR PROPHETS

It's Sunday!  Yeah!  I love Sundays!  I'm excited about teaching and preaching God's Word.  Today, I'm in Micah through Zachariah.  Here are a few thoughts: 1) MICAH- Micah is written during the last kings of Judah.  The captivity has not taken place yet.  Micah is warning of coming judgment, and one of the verses that most stick out to me is Micah 2:7  ".. do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?"  The answer is yes!  God's Word does work and bless those who seek to obey the Word of the LORD.  2) WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE? Micah 6:8 asks this question, and then answers it.  "He hath shown thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"  These three things:  do justly; love mercy; walk humbly.  These are surely Christian attributes and Christ like attributes that all of us ought to seek out and live.  Let us start filling our lives with that which the LORD requires of us! 3) NAHUM- Nahum is about the judgment on Nineveh.  Perhaps during the same time that Jonah was to go and preach against that great city.  Chapter three calls Nineveh a bloody city.  It was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, and it was known to be a very bloody, fierce people, who hung the skins of their enemies upon their walls.  It was a wicked, wicked, war like, nation that knew no mercy.  But... God judged them.  Today, the town of Mosul, Iraq is the same city!  (This is the most dangerous city in Iraq, but they also have just been granted a license for a Christian radio station last year.  The mayor is a Muslim, but said he reads in the Bible everyday and wants to learn about Christianity.  Wow! 4) MAKE IT PLAIN- Habakkuk 2:2, says:  "And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it."  God wants His preaching and teaching to be plain to understand, so that the people have the appropriate response to His Word. Sometimes I have heard preaching and wondered:  What is he saying?  Where is he going?  Because I did not understand the preaching.  It was not clear, it was not plain to understand.  We need to be plain in preaching what God's Word says.  People may not like it, but they should understand it. 5) HEAVENLY SHAKE DOWN-Haggai 2:6-7  "For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;  7  And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts."  This sounds very much like we see in:  Hebrews 12:26-27  "Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.  27  And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." The idea is that when the LORD shakes everything up, only what is founded on Him will remain.  I'm so glad that our lives are founded upon Him! Well, more to write, but time is gone!  Have a great day in Church today.  God has been so good to us at Grand View, if you get the chance, come and see us.  May God bless!   Pastor Mike Mutchler