Chapter 12—Minor Prophets, Major Message
Old Testament prophets are often dismissed as being purveyors of gloom and doom, but no one describes God’s judgments better. Holy prophets, raised up in times of apostasy when religion has become perverse, proclaim God’s growing wrath, testify of coming destruction, and relentlessly urge people to repent. Many prophets testified of the spiritual degeneration of Israel and its latter day counterpart. Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah valiantly condemned sin. Amos, Hosea, Micah, Malachi, and others offered bold testimony, rebuke, and warning that have alarming parallels today. All urged an immediate return to God.
The ‘minor prophets’ produced brief but often overlooked records that simply leave us without excuse. Their repetitive message should cause anyone (especially a covenant people and nation) to truly consider their own spiritual condition. All divinely commissioned servants must declare this message, for it is the only and final message delivered before destruction is made sure.
Admonitions of Amos
During the days of Amos, Israel reached its greatest achievements then rapidly began its continued and dramatic decline. Both economically and politically, Israel had risen to great influence and power. Leaders “had become rich, haughty, and proud” while the “middle classes were rapidly disappearing. The rich were creating large estates by foreclosing mortgages on small landowners and taking their properties. Rents and food prices were exorbitant and served to bring greater economic distress upon the lower classes. The poor were oppressed on every hand. Slums and squalor had developed. The governments were filled with the graft and corruption of self-seeking politicians. Family life had degenerated.”
With insatiable appetites for power or possessions, “they have sold the innocent and the poor for silver in order that they might acquire an inheritance . . . and pervert the cause of the needy.” They “have not observed his statutes. Their deceptions after which their fathers went have led them astray.” Although professed believers offered sacrifice, paid tithes, and acknowledged the Sabbath, little evidence of Israel’s inner conversion existed. Spiritual gifts vanished and miracles ceased because they were not “cleansed every whit from his iniquity” (3 Nephi 8:1), but religious devotion still continued.
[Amos describes] how zealously the people of Israel went on pilgrimage to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Beersheba, those places of sacred associations; with what superabundant diligence they offered sacrifices and paid tithes. They would rather do too much than too little, so that they even burnt upon the altar a portion of the leavened loaves, although none but unleavened bread was allowed to be offered; and lastly, how in their pure zeal for multiplying the works of piety, they so completely mistook their nature.This also happened in historic Christianity. Professed believers no longer sought counsel directly from God, having greater allegiance to their leaders. Though they possess ‘the law of the Lord,’ they created their own policies instead.
[Worship included] external rites and ceremonies [but] more zeal and diligence were employed in multiplying and regulating these outward marks of a superstitious devotion than in correcting the vices and follies of men, in enlightening their understandings and forming their hearts.Prophets, priests, and people repeatedly failed to recognize God’s messengers because they did not come through their hierarchy. Religious ritual had replaced inward conviction and pure, heartfelt worship. But ritual can remain when priesthood power is removed, it easily escapes their notice.
Angered by his rebuke, Bethel’s priest falsely accused Amos of conspiring against their leader and brought him before the king. He was not to “prophesy not again anymore at Bethel” (Amos 7:13), the city with the “temple of the kingdom” (NIV). They thought of Amos as a bothersome shepherd without authority, but they failed to realize that God called him to deliver an urgent and ominous warning.
Rejecting those whom God sends is history’s pattern so God “will take away [their] power” (Amos 3:11, Net Bible) and “strength.” Without His power, “the altars of Bethel and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall,” and many temples “shall have an end” (Amos 3:14–15). Once tied to glorious Bethel, meaning ‘house of God,’ rebellious Israel was now more closely tied to Bethaven, ‘house of iniquity’ or ‘house of nothing.’ A house of God becomes a house of iniquity when covenants are not honored.
Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return . . . No man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Every one turned to his course . . . but my people know not the judgment of the Lord . . . What wisdom is in them? . . . The things that I have given them shall pass away. (Jeremiah 8:5–7, 9, 13)Early apostolic fathers also grieved as they saw “the church running full speed in the wrong direction.” “Rebellious children” slide backward by following their own ways, continuing in unbelief, refusing to change (Isaiah 30:1). They are “like a heifer which they teach to plow but it does not learn. She loves to follow her own desires.” A heifer should provide milk to all who depend on her, a symbol of “the first principles of the oracles of God” (Hebrews 5:12). If “the sincere milk of the word” is watered down, people cannot be nourished to “grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2), so God condemns all priests who do not feed truth to those in their care.
Hear this word, ye kine [heifers] of Bashan that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink. The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness that, lo, the days shall come upon you that he will take you away with hooks and your posterity. (Amos 4:1–2)According to Jerome, kine represent indulgent “rulers of Israel, and all the leading men of the ten tribes who spent their time in pleasure and robbery.” Others say kine refer to women who live in luxurious wantonness, in direct contrast to the virtuous woman who “stretcheth out her hand to the poor” (Proverbs 31:20). A targum defines kine of Bashan as all “who are rich in possessions in the city.” Bashan, meaning smooth, describes the words they want to hear: “Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits” (Isaiah 30:10). The “word which they craved was not one of spiritual instruction” so their glory will depart.
Amos warns against spiritual complacency. “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion and trust in the mountain of Samaria” (Amos 6:1), which represents a chief nation that fails to fulfill its responsibilities. They believe that they are Zion, but they are far from it. We are asked, “What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria?” (Micah 1:5).
Samaria was a “land full of adulterers” and wickedness, a stronghold of King Ahab’s house. Its greatest sin was failing to preserve His gospel. Samaria means to preserve, guard, or stay awake. They did not guard against encroachments, observe ordinances as revealed, or awaken to truth. Their religion had no godliness, although it had ritual. They appeared religious and went to the temple, but there was no change in their heart or conduct. Absorbed in their own world, they “care nothing about the ruin of [their] nation” (Amos 6:6, NLT). They lied, cheated, sought gain, lived “by deceit,” and wished away the Sabbath, being anxious to work and make money instead (Amos 8:5–6). God grieves.
I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they . . . caused my people Israel to err. (Jeremiah 23:13)In Amos’s vision, the Lord stood on a wall with a plumbline in His hand to measure the straightness of what was built. He had given them a “mighty wall which shall not sway,” but, because of their carelessness, they did not hold to truth. Though originally straight and exact, any degree of variance causes a crooked wall and a nation of error. Who then could proclaim His truth among so much perversion? Certainly not ‘prophets’ whose eyes are shut in “deep sleep,” who “do not know how to carry out the law.”
This is the setting for God’s promise to not leave His holy prophets without foreknowledge of the secret. “Shall there be an evil in a city and the Lord hath not known it? Surely the Lord God will do nothing until he revealeth the secret unto his servants the prophets” (JST Amos 3:6–7). “The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him” (Psalm 25:14, NASB). “He teaches them His covenant” (NLT).
Judgments come after God reveals knowledge to His chosen messengers who raise a voice of warning.
God revealed to Noah that He would bring the deluge, and to Abraham and Lot that He would destroy the cities of the plain, and to Joseph the seven years’ famine in Egypt, and to Moses its plagues, and to Moses and Joshua all the chastisements of His people, and to Jonah the destruction of Nineveh, that they who heard of the coming punishment might either avoid it by repentance, or, if they should despise it, might be more justly punished.
And so now, the Lord is about to reveal through Amos, His servant and prophet, what He willeth to do to [His people], that forsaking their idols and turning to Him, they might be freed from the impending peril; which is of the great mercy of God. He foretelleth evil to come that He may not be compelled to inflict it. For He who forewarneth willeth not to punish sinners.John the Revelator was given “scrolls written with the finger of truth and inscribed in them . . . the iniquities and sins of men and the miseries that are to come on the earth . . . What men are to suffer in the last times.”
Like other true prophets, Amos came to possess secret knowledge of God’s workings and judgments, even secrets of raz nihyeh, the divine ‘mystery of becoming’ with its knowledge of “all the ways of truth and all the roots of iniquity.” That lawlessness is already at work is “the mystery of iniquity,” but the wicked do not recognize their apostasy and believe they are safely on the path.
A mystery, raz, is at the centre of the so-called Isaiah Apocalypse (Isaiah 24:1–23), which describes the collapse of a wicked land before the Lord comes in judgment to establish His kingdom . . . The Righteous One says, ‘My mystery is for me and my leaders,’ even those ‘leaders belonging to the Righteous One’ who would restore [what has been] ruined . . . restoring the ancient priests and the mystery which they were keeping.“This great mystery” includes knowing how God gathers those who “harden not their hearts” (D&C 29:7). Hard hearts prevent us from having knowledge of our own sins and that which is revealed by the great ‘I am,’
that they might know the difference between good and evil, and between falsehood and truth, and that they might understand the mysteries of transgression with all their wisdom. But they did not know the mystery of that which was coming into being, and the former things they did not consider. Nor did they know what shall befall them.Many believe “evil shall not overtake nor prevent us” from receiving our expected blessings (Amos 9:10), but a sifting will come. “We think we are secure . . . [but] it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an enemy to the people of God. Look out for the great sieve, for there will be a great sifting time, and many will fall.”
Like others before him, Amos’s warnings went unheeded. Though they professed to believe, they did not remember God so Amos grieved, “The end is come upon my people” (Amos 8:2).
Exhortations from Hosea
Through Hosea’s use of marriage imagery, God decried the apostasy of “inhabitants of the idolatrous city who continue to sin.” “She is not my wife, neither am I her husband. Let her therefore put away her whoredoms . . . and adulteries” (Hosea 2:2). An adulterous wife is not fully committed. She represents broken covenants and wandering hearts that leave the true God to worship another. Loving the world turned Israel into a harlot, a symbol of unfaithfulness. She “played the harlot” shamefully and “follows after her lovers,” believing they will provide for her. In this she begot “strange children” (Hosea 2:5, 7; 5:7). God “will not have mercy on her children, for they are children who go astray . . . after false prophets.”
The covenant marriage falls apart “because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea 4:1). Knowing of God is not the same as knowing God. Without knowledge we are dumb, a word Isaiah uses to describe watchmen who do not protect sacred things and take it lightly.
His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain. (Isaiah 56:10–11)The NLT reads, “The leaders of my people—the Lord’s watchmen, his shepherds—are blind and ignorant. They are like silent watchdogs that give no warning when danger comes.”
“People that doth not understand shall fall . . . in the day and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night . . . I will change their glory into shame” because they “set their heart on their iniquity” (Hosea 4:14, 5, 7–8) and “do not consider in their hearts that all their wickedness is revealed before me . . . Return to my law and I will have pity on your congregations.” A “spirit of error has misled them, and they have gone astray from the worship of their God” so rebuke comes. If they do not humble themselves “in my worship,” He will not hear their prayers.
Cursed be the man who enters this Covenant while walking among the idols of his heart, who sets up before himself his stumbling-block of sin so that he may backslide!They “slideth back as a backsliding heifer . . . They have committed whoredom continually” (Hosea 4:16, 18). Though He calls, “none at all would exalt Him . . . My people are bent to backsliding from me” (Hosea 11:7). They ‘are not my people’ unless they repent.
“I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is whoredom in Ephraim, Israel is defiled . . . Ephraim is joined to idols” (Hosea 6:10, 4:17). Ephraim was to become “a multitude of nations” but eternal rewards always depend on righteousness. Although he received blessings of the firstborn above Manasseh, Ephraim troubled God. Although “planted in a pleasant place . . . Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer” (Hosea 9:13). Their priests “devised murder” (Moses 6:28) through abominations that lead people astray. Remember, we murder souls by leading people into error. “The people of the house of Ephraim have gone astray . . . [and] defiled themselves. Their deeds do not allow them to return to the worship of their God, for the spirit of error has led them astray and they have not sought instruction from the Lord.” In spite of zealous dedication to ritual, they “abandoned my worship . . . [and are] addicted to idolatry.” “The prophet is become a snare of ruin” and enmity “is in the house of his God” (Hosea 9:8, Douay-Rheims).
Ephraimites in particular will be “crushed and broken by my judgment” (Hosea 5:11, NLT) because they “pursue worthless idols” (NET Bible) and “follow man’s command” (NASB). They “abandon the covenant which the Lord had made between them and himself so that they should observe and perform all his commands, ordinances, and all his laws without deviating to the left or right.” Forsaking the divine calendar, rampant “sexual impurity, contamination, and their detestable actions” (Jubilees 23:16, 12) justify the consequences.
Their hearts have waxed hard, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes cannot see afar off. And for these many generations, ever since the day that I created them, have they gone astray, and have denied me, and have sought their own counsels in the dark; and in their own abominations have they devised murder, and have not kept the commandments which I gave unto their father Adam . . . They have brought upon themselves death; and a hell I have prepared for them, if they repent not. (Moses 6:27–29)According to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ephraim is equated with ‘seekers of smooth things,’ as were the Pharisees. Those who “seek smooth things [and] walk in lies and falsehood” will be exposed. They lust and long for things of this world, “set up kings, but not by me,” and worship gold and silver instead of becoming God’s treasure (Hosea 8:4).
God gave them “the great things of my law but they were counted as a strange thing” (Hosea 8:12). Ephraim “hath mixed himself among the people . . . Strangers devour his strength, yet he does not know it” (Hosea 7:8–9). “For the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house” and “they shall bear no fruit” (Hosea 9:15–16). They “plowed wickedness . . . reaped iniquity [and] have eaten the fruit of lies” (Hosea 10:13). Having “deeply corrupted themselves” and forgotten their Maker, Ephraim “made many altars to sin” and “buildeth temples” but “the Lord accepteth them not.” What they built “shall be broken in pieces” because “it is not [of] God” (Hosea 9:9, 8:11, 13–14, 5–6). Ephraim “exalted himself” but “the glory thereof . . . is departed” (Hosea 13:1, 10:5).
Their continual unfaithfulness saddens God. “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? . . . Mine heart is turned within me” (Hosea 11:8). “Ye are lost, ye have no salvation.” “Judgment is toward you . . . None shall rescue.” They will “not dwell in the Lord’s land” (Hosea 5:1, 14, 9:3). Because they built a kingdom of the world, “thou hast destroyed thyself” (Hosea 13:9).
Only after the unfaithful wife is destitute “shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now” (Hosea 2:7). When they begin to remember the Lord again, “they will not find him; he has withdrawn himself from them” (Hosea 5:6, NIV). God must withdraw His spirit, glory, and priesthood from the unholy. (D&C 124:28).
Joseph noted the same for latter-day Ephraim. When “the quorum of elders had not observed the order which I had given them . . . [and] had a teacher of their own . . . This caused the spirit of the Lord to withdraw.” God will find another people willing to be faithful, a people worthy of a covenant relationship, a people who desire to know Him.
Hearts set on the world will harden, so Hosea urged us to change our course. “Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord till He come and rain righteousness upon you” (Hosea 10:12). “Come and let us return unto the Lord . . . and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6:1–3).
Only then “Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found” (Hosea 14:8). Then will the Lord
betroth thee unto me forever . . . in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord . . . [who will say,] Thou art my people and they shall say, Thou art my God. (Hosea 2:19–20, 23)
Hard Words from Habakkuk
Habakkuk knew his people were ripe for destruction because “the law is slacked and justice doth never go forth; for the wicked doth compass about the righteous” (Habakkuk 1:4). As a true watchman, he was awake and aware. “I will stand upon my watch, and set myself upon the tower, and will watch to see” (Habakkuk 2:1), but what he saw saddened him. The moral decay was tangible—people oppressed and exploited each other and perverse law destroyed government, family, spiritual gifts, and social institutions. With so much strife and contention, God’s spirit could not dwell there.
Greed, covetousness, exalting themselves, hypocrisy, false worship, idolatry, forgetting God, violence, and believing error justify the coming wrath (Habakkuk 2:5–20). When the wicked’s prosperity endured longer than anticipated, Habakkuk asked, “How long?” (Habakkuk 1:2). God answered him with a vision: “Write the vision and make it plain on tables, that he may run that reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it because it will surely come” (Habakkuk 2:2–3).
From the beginning of time . . . the triumph of the wicked has been short lived and the joy of the godless has been only temporary. (Job 20:4–5, NLT)Though ripe for destruction, people did “not believe, though it be told” them (Habakkuk 1:5). “They have denied the Lord and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword or famine” (Jeremiah 5:12, ERV).
Throughout history, many refused to believe that their prospering cities or country could be destroyed. “They have spoken wrongly against the precepts of righteousness” so “the wrath of God shall be kindled against” them (Hosea 3:4). The cleansing will come fast and furious at the hands of oppressive foreigners, raised up to humble a proud nation who forgot God. This ruthless and fierce army is swift to destroy. The Lord “ordained them for judgment and . . . established them for correction” (Habakkuk 1:12).
These conquerors should not believe their righteousness lets them overtake this land. “Because of the wickedness of” those on the land, “the Lord drives them out from before you . . . Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for” the tyrannical invaders also “are a stiff-necked people” (Deuteronomy 9:5–6), a law unto themselves. These brutal, godless conquerors serve His purpose to destroy the ungodly but will eventually meet their own demise, having also refused the Lord.
Micah’s Missive
The choice nation’s downfall was also prophesied by Micah. The Lord will “witness against you . . . from his holy temple” and “tread upon the high places” because “treasures of wickedness” are found among His people. “My people is risen up as an enemy” (Micah 1:2–4, 6:10, 2:8). They “devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds . . . because it is in the power of their hand” (Micah 2:1), or “they carry it out because it is in their power to do it” (NIV).
The leaders and “prophets follow an evil course and use their power unjustly” (Jeremiah 23:10, NIV). “Their way of life has become evil and their power is not rightly used” (HCSB). Their prophet leaders do not believe they depart from His way but “there is no spirit of prophecy from the Lord in them.”
If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee . . . he shall even be the prophet of this people. (Micah 2:11)“They go astray after false prophets who prophesy to them by a spirit of deceit . . . The people of this generation shall be exiled to a land of falsehoods.” Believing error robs “them of their inheritance” (Micah 2:2, NIV) to receive His spirit. God cannot sustain priests who “make my people err” (Micah 3:5) even if the people sustain them. The faithful “discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not” (Malachi 3:18).
Micah prophesied of leaders and ‘prophets’ who walk in error. They claim to be prophets or seers but they have not known or seen the Lord. Prophecy involves experiential knowledge of Christ, for “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10). “No man is a minister of Jesus Christ without being a prophet” so if prophecy ceases, we cannot minister His gospel. People remain in darkness and confusion when revelation ceases and understanding diminishes. False prophets and teachers with their “damnable heresies . . . bring upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1).
Micah testified, “I am filled with the [‘power,’ NIV] of the spirit of prophecy from the Lord, and with the judgment of truth and might, to declare to Jacob his crimes and to Israel his sins. Hear this, you leaders, [who] corrupt the ways of justice and pervert all that is right, who build their houses in Zion with shed blood and Jerusalem with deceit.”
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi boldly testified of the nation’s degenerate spiritual condition. After their deaths the Spirit fully departed from the land. “The keys, the kingdom, the power, the glory had departed from the Jews” until John the Baptist, 400 years later. But were they aware the keys and kingdom had departed? For centuries the Jews continued their religious observances while awaiting the Messiah. But Judaism, like later Christianity, was no longer the same religion God had once revealed. His gospel requires revelation, spiritual gifts, holy rites, and prophecy—all of which disappeared or became corrupt.
There is not a man who has good works. I desire the good. The pious have vanished from the land; there is none upright among men.Therefore “the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh. Now shall be their” time of confusion (Micah 7:2, 4). “God shall reward them according to all their abominations.”
To watch from the tower is a major responsibility of the priesthood. “I have made thee a watchman . . . Therefore hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me” (Ezekiel 3:17). Lulled by a false sense of economic and spiritual security, latter-day watchmen do not watch, being distracted by false traditions and worldly pursuits. These ‘watchers’ are at variance with each other, busy managing financial dealings and counseling among themselves.
It is a timeless warning: “Beware lest resting at ease as being God’s chosen ones, we fall asleep in our sins” (Barnabas 4:13). “He that watches not for me shall be cut off, . . . sent away, and shall not inherit the land” (D&C 45:44, 64:35). Failing to sound the alarm, “the day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come” (Micah 7:4, ESV). “Your judgment day is coming swiftly now. Your time of punishment is here, a time of confusion” (NLT).
For footnotes and references, click HERE.