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Closing the Old, Waiting for the New

This last Sunday I had hoped to finish the Old Testament portion of this series of teachings I've entitled "From Garden to Glory" - a Big Picture look at the story of the Bible.  Alas, the weather turned ugly with blowing snow and ice and it shut down church services for a large part of southern and central Wisconsin...even well into the northern parts of the state. 

The last part of our Bible is from the Minor Prophets.  They are not called Minor because are as important as the Major Prophets; but they are called Minor because of their length - both in terms of writing as well as history.  These Prophets served God as spokespeople to the nation that had decidedly stepped away from their covenant with God.

Now, lest you say this is all OLD stuff, and therefore it is of little value to us today; I would point out that they are people whose words are timeless....it's as if they could have written it today.  It was Paul Simon who wrote in music:  "The words of the Prophets are written on the Subway walls and tenement halls and whispered in the sounds of silence".  I think we need to take a long and serious look at the timelessness of what they had to say.

As we segue from the Old to the New Covenant the message of God does not change.  There are those who try to say it does...but to quote Jesus "you do not know the Scriptures" when these speak like this.  
These Old Testament Prophets heard two major themes proclaimed from God - The Covenant (which they had forsaken) and The Day of the Lord (which they did not understand).  Here's a couple of videos to remind us of that...but just before you watch them, here the words of Paul Simon again as he reminds us of the times we live in:

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

As the Old Testament closes there is a long period of silence...people who believed waiting for God to fulfill his promise for the Messiah to come.  It's not hard to imagine what they were waiting for because we see their reactions after Jesus arrives.  Still what they expected was not what God was going to give them.  They wanted a warrior King who would destroy the Romans and set up the Kingdom upon the earth...well the King and his Kingdom would come; but it was not the Kingdom they expected.



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