BOM-BITES Episode #686 – Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah Overview – powered by Happy Scribe
Hello, my friends. Derek from bombsocks. Back with another week of bomb bites where we feast upon the words of Christ. And as always, we do it one bite at a time. So we’re doing the books of Nahum, Habakk and Zephaniah this week.
I know as you hear that, you’re saying, Yay, so exciting. And I’ll freely admit to you, these are three books that I have never found. Ton of good stuff in there. In fact, I remember if I’ve ever taught these in seminary, if I’ve ever taught these in seminary back in the day, it was usually with some kind of a crazy worksheet or activity where a couple of cool things were just brought up and that was about it. Maybe 1015 minutes for all three books.
So I will freely admit to you, when I saw these books coming up, I was like, oh, he’ll be interesting to see what I can squeeze out of this. But the cool thing about that is it has caused me to really dig deep, study these books in ways that I have never studied them before. And there’s some great stuff in here, and I will start with what is in the come follow me as a little bit of an introduction because I think it really sets the pace for this. Reading the Old Testament often means reading prophecies about destruction, which is why one of the times I wasn’t excited about this. The Lord frequently called prophets to warn the wicked that his judgments were upon them.
The ministries of Nahum, Habakk and Zephaniah are good examples in dreadful detail. And it’s true dreadful detail. These prophets foretold the downfall of cities that at the time seemed strong and powerful. Nineveh, Babylon, and even Jerusalem. But that was thousands of years ago.
Great question here. Why is that valuable to read these prophecies today? Which again, that’s kind of been my mindset up to this point. Even though those prideful, wicked cities were destroyed, pride and wickedness persist in today’s world. We can sometimes feel surrounded by the evils that were condemned by the ancient prophets.
We may even detect traces of them in our own hearts. These Old Testament prophecies reveal how the Lord feels about pride and wickedness. And they teach that we can turn away from these evils. Perhaps that’s one reason why we still read these ancient prophecies today. Nahem, Habakkuk and Zephaniah and the others weren’t just prophets of doom, they were prophets of deliverance.
Now, again, as I’ve read these before, it just does it seems like there’s so much gloom and doom. When you start looking at some of the chapter headings, you’re just like, I’m not very excited about studying these things, but it’s kind of like when you are looking at the news versus watching general conference. Like you look at the news stories and this world is filled with gloom and doom and destruction, and you’re just like, Why am I here? This is not a fun place to live in. But when you focus on General Conference, and I don’t know about you guys, when I watch General Conference, I don’t get that same vibe.
I don’t get the vibe of gloom and destruction. I get the vibe of deliverance. I get the feeling of hope and the feeling of learning how to hear the voice of the Lord and learning how to draw closer to Jesus Christ in these times. So as we’re going through these three books this week, that’s what I want to focus on, rather than focusing on a lot of the destruction and the difficulty, there’s plenty of it. Don’t worry.
This is a rough time period for the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. There’s bad stuff going on, and they are right in the thick of it there. However, I want to focus on the goodness, I want to focus on the hope, and I want to focus on the deliverance, because you kind of find what you’re looking for. So we’re going to focus on those things. And as you look for them in these three chapters in your own personal studies this week, look for the hope, look for the deliverance and look for the goodness.
And I promise you, you will find. So that’s going to be what we’re going to focus on for the remaining week of these Bombites episodes. Thanks for watching, thanks for subscribing, and thanks, as always, for sharing these messages. We’re so grateful that you do that. And if you haven’t already, please go check out our amazingly comfortable gospel theme socks@bombstax.com.
You guys have a great day, and we’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.
Guest Author
dyejo
