Looking at the Major Truths in the Minor Prophets - Seeing Human History in the Book of Joel

     The Ethiopian eunuch told Stephen in Acts that he couldn't understand what he was reading in Isaiah 53 unless someone helped him.  I often feel this way when I read the Life-Studies--I appreciate the clear exposition and spiritual applications  contained in these chapters. 

We had a beautiful January snow this year.

     For example, the book of Joel begins by talking about the stages of a locust.  Without the insight from the Life-Study of Joel, I'd probably just gloss over it. But I learned that these locusts parallel Nebuchadnezzar's great image in Daniel 2.  That's worth a wow.  When I read the Life-Studies of Daniel, I learned that each part of this image from the head of gold which represented Nebuchadnezzar as well as each of the other parts portrays the major empires in world history!!

     In chapter 15 of the Life-Study of Joel I learned that within the history of these empires is a divine history.  Here's that excerpt on pages 99-100:

We should not think that man has a history but that God does not have a history.  In this universe there are two histories: the history of man, the human history, and the history of God, the divine history.  We may liken the history of man to the shell of a walnut and the history of God to the kernel within the shell.  In the Minor Prophets the "shell" is clearly defined, and the "kernel" is revealed in some detail....In Daniel 2 this history is signified by a great human image, with the four sections of this image corresponding respectively to the Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Grecian Empire, and the Roman Empire. Although it is easy for us to see the shell, which is something outward and physical, we must have a kind of intrinsic insight in order to see the kernel within the shell, to know the divine history within the human history  (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of the Minor Prophets.  Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1993, Print). 

           Who would have thought the Minor Prophets contain this lens to view all of human history?  In this chapter Witness Lee also points out that the Lord's incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection are all parts of the divine history that took place during the history of the Roman Empire.  And even the church that the Lord died for on the cross is a part of this divine history that is even now being worked out in human history.  Isn't that incredible!  I would encourage you to click on the above link and read this entire chapter for yourself.

     And all of this can even be brought down one more level.   At the end of this chapter our brother reminds us that when each of us got regenerated, we were reborn into the divine history.  So he leaves his readers with this heart-searching question--"Are we living in the divine history or are we living merely in the human history?"  May God continually show us where we are!



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