Survey of the Major Prophets

Good evening my name is Keith Foskey, and I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church and Tonight we are doing a live stream of our Sovereign Grace Academy class. There's no one here with me. We have had a situation which called for the Canceling of in-person class tonight, but I am here.

I am teaching and If you're a student and you are coming in via the live stream on Facebook Then this would be just like an in-class Situation the only thing is obviously there won't be an opportunity to ask questions as we would normally have in class and for that I apologize.

I hate that we won't be able to interact like we normally would. But keeping that in mind if you do have questions throughout the class feel free to message or email me those questions. And I will try to respond to them as best and as quickly as I can now the only positive for this is that we normally do not broadcast this class via live stream because you are supposed to Join Sovereign Grace Academy you have to come and you have to become a member of the Academy you have to fill out an application.

And so we keep these classes we provide the videos. But we don't provide live feeds because we want the in-class environment to be something that people don't avoid or miss because of It being live streamed so if you are watching tonight you have an opportunity to see something that you might not normally see and that is a Live class and again though there are no students here.

It is only me To give you a little bit of a background on what we're doing tonight we are continuing with our survey of the Old Testament and We are now in lecture number five. Every one of our courses is an eight-week course in the classroom, and then there is a four-week post-class Opportunity where you have to do some type of a project to finish the class and receive your certificate.

So it's eight weeks in the class and then four weeks of independent study. So right now we are at our fifth week so far. We have looked at a survey of the Pentateuch. That is Genesis through Deuteronomy.

We have looked at a survey of the history books. That is Joshua through Esther and We have looked at a survey of the poetical books Which is Job through the song of songs in tonight's session. We're going to be looking over the major prophets the major prophets covers from Isaiah through Daniel and Prior to this lesson if you're a student with Sovereign Grace Academy.

You should have read in our commentary Which is what we're using for this class the believers Bible commentary. Which every one of you should have a copy of prior to tonight's class. You should have read introduction to the prophets which is in this commentary and You would have been properly prepared for tonight's lecture if you did that.

So if you have not done that and you are hoping to earn a certificate in this class. Maybe you got behind for whatever reason then your responsibility will be to add that to the reading list for this week.

The Meaning and Scope of the Major Prophets

Every week we have readings that are required and they prepare you for the lesson that you're going to participate in so let us begin with our study of the major prophets and Before we do even that we're going to very quickly just make a distinction.

Why are we saying major prophets and as many of you know, but some of you may not we break the prophets down. There are 17 books which we call the prophetic books and of those 17 books five of them are referred to as the major prophets and Then 12 of them are referred to as the minor prophets now next week.

Whether we meet in person or not. We'll see but whether or not we do next week. The lesson will be on the minor prophets, which is Hosea through Malachi. The major prophets are Isaiah through Daniel and the important thing to remember about these terms is that the term major and minor Deals with the amount of their prophecy not with the importance of their prophecy.

That is a key thing to remember because oftentimes in our mind we hear the word major and we think Important and minor we think less important. But that is not how the books are grouped rather. They are grouped in relation to their breadth of material.

The major prophets, of course. Being larger and the minor prophets in general being shorter books some of them only being one chapter. Likewise there are prophets in Scripture who do not have a book. If you look up Elijah.

You'll see him mentioned in the Bible and Elijah. They're both prophets, but neither one of them has a book yet. Their prophetic voice was no less important. So let us for a moment consider what it means to be a prophet of God.

How do we define a prophet? The word prophet relates to this. The idea is one who speaks for God. A prophet is one who speaks for God and that is in counter distinction to a priest. A priest is one who speaks to God.

A prophet is one who speaks for God. Both of these offices in the Old Testament were anointed offices and Jesus is referred to as the anointed one. That's what the word Messiah means. That's what the word Christ means Christos and the anointed one.

He is called that because he is in fact Prophet. He spoke for God. He was priest. He spoke to God and he and he exercised the role of priest and making a sacrifice in and of himself and He's also King.

King is another anointed position. Therefore we call Jesus the anointed one because he is prophet priest and King. Prophetic voices go back to the earliest passages of Scripture. Enoch prophesied according to Jude 14.

Noah was called a preacher of righteousness in 2nd Peter 2 and verse 5 and Certainly the patriarchs all had a prophetic voice. Moses of Course had a prophetic voice. He spoke for God. Thus he could be called a prophet.

However, when we refer to the prophetic period. We are typically recognizing that period as having begun during the time of Samuel around 1100 BC. The priesthood had fallen into corruption. The prophets therefore ministered through the age of the divided kingdom until the coming of the Messiah and the final Old Testament prophet was actually John the Baptist he would have been the last of the Old Testament prophets.

Prior to him it would have been Malachi and there was a 400 year division between the two. There's 400 years from the last prophecy of Malachi to the first utterances of John the Baptist and it's interesting to note that 400 year period.

Because if we go back in our study of Bible history we learned that there was another time when there was a 400 year period where there was seemingly no prophetic voice in Israel the time between Joseph and Moses.

The people of Israel were enslaved for around 400 years and that time we could say there was no prophetic voice in Israel and when the voice did come it came in the person of Moses a very powerful and strong prophetic voice fast forward to Malachi and after Malachi, there's 400 years of silence prophetically speaking and then a powerful prophetic voice.

John the Baptist the last of the Old Testament prophets comes and he prophesies what make his paths straight. The kingdom of God is at hand. He preaches Jesus he preaches the way of the Messiah who was coming.

So a prophet is one who speaks for God. The writing prophets Fall into a more limited scope of history even more limited than what we would call the prophetic period. We would say the writing prophets fall into an even tighter window.

They came on the scene during the divided kingdom, which would have been around 930 BC. They prophesied in the two kingdoms through the exile and during the Restoration. If you'll remember back a few classes ago, you'll remember that we had the kingdom first with Saul and then it was given over to David and then David to his son Solomon.

And then after Solomon there was a divided kingdom Kingdom with Jeroboam and Rehoboam. You had the king to the north and the king to the south and you had Israel and Judah. And that divided kingdom would eventually fall 722 the northern kingdom would fall to Assyria and 586 the southern kingdom would fall to Babylonia and they would go into exile and Then after the exile there would be Restoration.

Well If you look at the handout if you're a student and you look at the handout that I gave you in our in our first class The time period you'll see that it's it's during that divided kingdom where the prophetic the writing prophets begin to have their moment in history if you will and From a biblical historical point of view they prophesied from about the time of first Kings to about the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.

So that gives us the time period approximately of the writing prophets. Now, I want to speak for a moment on the methodology of the prophets the methodology of the prophets. When most people think of a prophet they confuse prophecy with fortune-telling there is a sense in which the prophets did announce the future.

In Fact that was the test of a true prophet according to Deuteronomy 1822 if a prophet said something would happen and then it didn't happen. That was the test of how you knew he was a false prophet. Listen to 18 Deuteronomy 18 22.

When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord. If the word does not come to pass or come true that that is a word that the Lord has not spoken the prophet had Spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

So the very test of a prophet in Deuteronomy 18 22 is that if he says something's going to happen and it does not. Then he is not a true prophet. How many prophets today would that disqualify? I'm reminded only recently of prophecies that were made regarding kovat 19 and the coronavirus and There was one prophet in particular who said that it was all going to be eradicated sometime in March well, here we are in June still dealing with it and After his prophecy failed and failed.

Miserably, he came out and said well the Holy Spirit misled me. That is amazing. Because essentially he was calling God a liar and if there is a liar in that situation, it is certainly not God. Deuteronomy 18 22 says when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord if what he says does not come true.

That word is not from the Lord. And he has spoken presumptuously and we should not fear him and I think that test for prophecy still stands today. But again, the methodology of the prophet is that they did speak about things that would come and we call that foretelling.

Prophecy is a type of foretelling its announcement about the future and if they said something would happen and it didn't happen. They were a false prophet. But that is not the only way that the Prophet spoke.

In fact, I would say that is the minority way that the Prophet spoke more common among the prophets rather than Foretelling they did something which is often referred to as Foretelling or rather speaking forth the word of the Lord to the people of God about the present Situation that they were in rather than prophesying about the future.

Oftentimes they gave insight about the present. So it is important when we're reading through the prophets to understand that not everything is a prophecy about the future. Some of it is simply a statement about what is happening at the time.

What you were doing now is Idolatry. What you were doing now is a is is sinful and and the prophets were were strong preachers. And that's what we have to remember about them as they were. The method that they would use was the proclaim proclamation of God's Word.

They were speaking God's Word. They were speaking on behalf of God. They both foretold the future and they forth told or spoke forth. Regarding the present condition of the people that was their methodology.

And now for a moment, I'd like to look at the classification of the prophets we've already said there is a classification of major and minor. But regarding their historical setting in context, this really doesn't help.

Because it's better for us to consider them in a different way rather than thinking of them in major and minor. It's it's better for us to consider them as either pre-exilic Exilic or post-exilic and we talked about this in our first class.

Because when we were going through the timeline, I said see here's the exile and there are there are those who prophesied Before the exile we call them the pre-exilic prophets. There are those who prophesied during the exile.

We call those the exilic prophets and then there was those who prophesied after the exile and really it's easy to break that down because The pre-exilic prophets Make up the majority report there are only two that prophesied during the exile to exilic prophets if you will and they were Ezekiel and Daniel and then the post-exilic prophets would have been Haggai Zechariah and Malachi.

So you have the rest of the 17 major and minor prophets Jeremiah Isaiah Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah all of those prophesied up to and into the beginning of the Exile we would refer to them as pre-exilic prophets.

Another thing to help in understanding who they were who they were was to understand to whom they prophesied and. You have those who prophesied primarily to the northern kingdom. You had those who prophesied primarily to the Southern kingdom and then you have those who prophesied what we would say to the to the surrounding nations the northern kingdom was Hosea Amos and Jonah, even though you could say Jonah fits into the category of the nations as well because he prophesied in Nineveh.

But we would say definitely Hosea and Amos prophesied within the northern kingdom. The southern kingdom would have been Isaiah Jeremiah Joel Micah Habakkuk Malachi Zephaniah Ezekiel Daniel Haggai and Zechariah the majority again were in the southern kingdom and then the ones who prophesied to the nation's again Jonah could qualify for that Nahum and Obadiah so.

Those are different ways. You can say okay. How are we going to how are we going to divine or divide the prophets? We can say they're pre-exilic exilic and post-exilic or you can say there are those who prophesied to the northern kingdom Hosea and Amos and Jonah and then those who prophesied to the nation's Nahum and Obadiah and also Jonah and then those who prophesied primarily to the southern kingdom, which it would have been the rest.

And so those are all ways to identify and why does that matter? Well, it matters when you're going to start interpreting the books knowing to whom they spoke and Knowing when they spoke is a major component of a right understanding of what they spoke.

You want to know what they said and what they meant. You have to understand who they were speaking to and when and. So this is all part of the literature that you have you have your book that can help you.

You have your timeline that I gave you in the very first class. If you're a member of the Academy, then you have all of these things and I encourage you to have them with you when you are studying the prophets but again for the sake of the lesson tonight, we are going to keep with the the what we call the English Bible division.

The English Bible breaks up the Old Testament into The divisions of the Pentateuch the books of Moses the historical books the poetical books the major prophets and the minor prophets. There's five major divisions in the English Bible of The Old Testament and so that tonight we're going to look at the major prophets.

And so but before we do and again, I know I keep saying we're going to talk about the major prophets. But I have a lot of introductory material about prophecy. I do want to say one last thing of introduction before we move on to the major prophets and That is the themes that are found within the books of the major prophets.

What themes do we find in the books of the major prophets. Number one? The theme of Monotheism. There is only one God who created all things. All other gods are false. We see this major theme coming up throughout the prophets.

There is one true God and all the other gods are false. Number two. God is holy. He's not part of his creation. He is sovereign over his or rather. He is above his creation. He separated from it. He is other than his creation.

He is holy and that is something that comes up throughout the prophets. He is sovereign. That's number three. He is sovereign not only over nature, but also over nations. Recently we had our sovereignty of God conference here at Sovereign Grace Family Church and brother Mike Collier preached a message on God.

Using an evil nation to bring judgment on the people of Israel. And it was a it was a proof that God is sovereign even over the work of evil Nations and he was speaking from the book of Isaiah. So again, the prophecies one of the themes of prophecy is the sovereignty of God.

Another theme is God's mercy and grace. The very reason God sent the prophets in the first place was because he was Merciful to the people. He was giving them the prophets for correction and guidance comfort and hope.

Another theme is the justice of God. God is concerned with justice. He calls his people to repent and be obedient to him to love him and to love one another. God is concerned with justice. Another theme is God's covenant and his law.

God's law was the foundation for holy living and his covenant was the foundation for hopeful living. His law gave them the way to live and the covenant gave them for what to live. We live for the promise of God and so his law and his covenant is a major theme in the prophets.

Another major theme, of course is the exile and the restoration. We see warnings prior to the exile. We see comfort during the exile and we see assurance after the exile and so those themes come up throughout the prophets.

And finally a theme that comes up within the prophets is the theme of the Messiah. The central component of hope within Israel Was the coming of a Savior? The coming of the Christ the coming of Messiah and We see him and the promise of his coming throughout the prophets and so there is our introduction to The the prophetic books.

Isaiah: Judgment, Salvation, and the Servant of the Lord

Now, let us begin to Focus our attention on the five major prophets. The five major prophets are Isaiah Jeremiah, and then of course, well, let me back up. There are four major prophets five books. Because there is the book of Lamentations, but as we will see in a moment, we believe that it was written by Jeremiah.

So there would only be four major prophets five Books of the major prophets and so we say the books are Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Ezekiel and Daniel and so we're going to begin with the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah is recognized as one of the greatest of the Hebrew prophets. He is identified as the son of Amoz in chapter 1 verse 1 his name means salvation is from the Lord and What's interesting about that is the word salvation comes up in the book of Isaiah 26 times.

And you say well that doesn't seem like a lot. It is when you compare it to the other books the other prophetic books. Because in the other prophetic books the word salvation only comes up seven times in total.

So the other books mentioned salvation seven times put together the book of Isaiah mentioned salvation 26 times and This becomes the theme that unifies the book. Now tradition states that Isaiah was the author of the entire book.

However, some higher critical scholars argue that there were two Isaiah's there was the Isaiah who wrote chapters 1 through 39 and then there was what some called the deutero Isaiah or the the Pseudo Isaiah the false Isaiah who wrote chapters 40 to 66 however.

This even though there is certainly a distinction that is Recognizable between chapters 1 to 39 and between chapters 4 to 66. It does not necessarily Demand that there is a different author. The New Testament quotes freely from the whole book of Isaiah at times quoting passages from the first 40 or the first 39 and the last 27 chapters and Bringing them together saying this is from Isaiah.

That's important because what that tells us is that the New Testament writers considered Isaiah to be one Unified work not broken up over several authors. Also, the Dead Sea Scrolls show no evidence and those are our oldest Extant manuscripts that testify to the veracity of the Old Testament.

There's no evidence in the Dead Sea Scrolls of any distinction between Isaiah 1 to 39 and Isaiah 40 to 66. The writings of Isaiah span 66 chapters and therefore it has been referred to as the Bible in miniature because if you think about the Bible the Bible is 66 books and Isaiah is 66 chapters and what's even more interesting past that is that if you consider that distinction I mentioned that the first 39 chapters seem to read a little differently than the last 27 chapters that also corresponds to the Bible where we know there are 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament.

Now some make a big deal about that. I tend to not make such a big deal about that for a couple of reasons the primary reason being the Hebrew Bible is not numbered the same way ours is so the Hebrew Bible does not have 39 Old Testament books and they don't have a New Testament to make up 66 books so that would only really be a distinction for the English Bible.

The Chapter divisions were not added until many centuries later. So the idea that this is some kind of Miracle, I I just think it's a very happy coincidence. And of course God is sovereign. So there's really no such thing as a true coincidence.

God has a purpose and everything that he does and so There is a there is a way with our English Bible to see Isaiah sort of mirroring the Bible. The Bible that we have the English Bible 39 books in the Old Testament 27 in the New the 66 total Isaiah 66 chapters the first 39 have a certain tone the last 27 have a different tone and it is Interesting that there would be that Connection, but again, I wouldn't make too much of it.

Isaiah preached a message of judgment and salvation. He was outraged by idolatry injustice unrighteousness and rebellion. The arrogance and scandalous behavior of God's people was his focus and he communicates God's anger and warns of God's impending judgment.

Judah was trusting in their military might and in their political treaties for protection. But unless they repented and reply and relied upon God They would fall into destruction. Several passages in Isaiah should be noteworthy for us and Are worthy of independent study along with studying the entire book?

The first one is one that I think all of us should be very familiar with and that is Isaiah chapter 6. That is Isaiah's vision and that also pinpoints when Isaiah's prophecies began and pinpoints where he sits in prophetic history or Israel's history.

Because he says and says in chapter 6 in the year King Uzziah died I saw the Lord seated in the throne high and lifted up in the temple high and lifted up and so we have Isaiah's vision his calling and we have the.

We have the The timeline it happened in the year King Uzziah died. That's Isaiah chapter 6 and it reminds us of the holiness of God. That's where he saw the seraphim that would say holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty.

The next thing that would be important to point out are the references to Christ. We see the virgin birth announcement and Isaiah 7 14 time does not permit me to Demonstrate that this actually is a statement about virgin birth.

There is some there is some higher critical scholars that say the word virgin is an improper use of the term. However, we know that the Septuagint the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which was translated somewhere around 200 BC before Christ.

The Septuagint uses the Greek word Parthenos there to reference that it was in fact a virgin. And so it was the it does say the virgin will conceive and bear a son. We also have the promise promised announcement of a child being born government be on his shoulders and he will be called a Wonderful counselor mighty God everlasting Father and Prince of Peace.

That's Isaiah 9 6. That's again a reference to Jesus and Then of course we have the suffering servant passage of Isaiah 53 one of the clearest passages not only of Jesus but of the work of Jesus in the penal substitutionary atoning work of the cross.

Where it says by his stripes We are healed that does not mean that we will always be physically healed from every sickness or ailment. It's referring to the healing which comes on the cross, which is the taking away of our sins.

Healing us from spiritual deadness bringing us to new life in him. That's what it's referring to and that's found in Isaiah 53. Another passage of note would be Isaiah 61 1 2 where Jesus Actually would later when he is in the synagogue.

He opens up the scroll and he reads from Isaiah 61 1 2 and he says this passage is about me. So I would encourage you to look at that passage as well. So is our look and again for those who haven't been here We are not able because of time to do in-depth studies of any of these things.

These are all introductions and so this is the introduction to the book of Isaiah. Now I'm going to change my attention to the book of Jeremiah again, if you read your Commentary which you should have read prior to class then you would know that These are you would have read the introduction to these books and you would have a lot of this Information and what I'm doing through the lecture is simply reinforcing what you have read.

Encouraging you and your knowledge of it. Oftentimes we don't learn something the first time we hear it. It takes hearing it a couple times. So tonight is it's just reinforcing a lot of what you have already read in your book so we're going to go now to the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah and the New Covenant

Jeremiah is referred to by many as the weeping prophet. He began his ministry after the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel and He warns of the oncoming destruction of the southern kingdom of Judah.

If the southern kingdom will not repent Jeremiah calls out for the nation to turn back to God and at the same time He recognizes the inevitable or excuse me the inevitability of Judah's destruction due to its unrepentant idolatry and immorality.

Now, I want to read to you a quick summary of Jeremiah and We'll read this quote. It's a paragraph so it's a rather lengthy quote, but it gives an overview of the book. The book of Jeremiah is primarily a message of judgment on Judah for rampant idolatry.

After the death of King Josiah the last righteous King the nation of Judah had almost completely abandoned God and his commandments. Jeremiah compares Judah to a prostitute. Chapter 2 verse 20. Chapter 3 verses 1 to 3.

God had promised that he would judge idolatry most severely and Jeremiah was warning Judah that God's judgment was at hand. God had delivered Judah from destruction on countless occasions, but his mercy was at its end.

Jeremiah records King Nebuchadnezzar conquering Judah and making it subject to him. After further rebellion God brought Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian armies back to destroy and desolate Judah and Jerusalem.

Even in the most severe judgment God promises the restoration of Judah back into the land God has given to them that is Jeremiah 29 and verse 10 and so ends the summary quote. Jeremiah had the courage to speak a message of doom.

But he also had the compassion to weep over God's people in prayer. This is a demonstration of what the man of God should look like the man of God should have the courage to speak the truth and the compassion to weep when necessary.

This is Jeremiah Proclaiming hard truth through bitter tears. Jeremiah also however brings a message of hope in the midst of destruction. God would save a remnant of his people. He would establish a new covenant with his people and If you're reading along if you're if you're with me with I'd like for you to turn to Jeremiah 31 because this is the promise of the new covenant and it is the new covenant that I believe we live in now as Christians.

Jesus when he was in The upper room with his disciples he said this cup is the blood of the new covenant this this represents the new covenant and We see that in Jeremiah 31. Verse 31 it says behold the days are coming declares the Lord.

When I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of The land of Egypt my covenant that they broke.

Though I was their husband declares the Lord. For this is the covenant. I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my People and no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying know the Lord.

For they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity. And I will remember their sin. No more. What a beautiful promise. What a wonderful promise about the new covenant.

Consider the promises of the new covenant that are ours in Christ forgiveness of sin. God remembers our sin no more. Why. Because it has been paid for in the death of Christ. It says they will all know me.

How is that? How is that possible? Well, it's possible because it's speaking of members of the new covenant. And how does one become a member of the new covenant? One becomes a member of the new covenant through the gift of regeneration.

The gift of regeneration where you're born again. And when you are born again into the family of God. You are a member of the new covenant and no more does someone have to tell you to know the Lord because you know The Lord he has made his home within your heart.

He will be their God. They shall be my people. Jeremiah promised and he will put his law within them. We have the law written on our heart as new covenant believers. We have the law of Christ the law of love the law of Liberty in our heart.

Some people argue that we are not truly the recipients of the new covenant because It says the days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel in the house of Judah and they'll say Well, you're not a Jew so you can't be a part of the new covenant and I respond by saying this when Jesus came.

The Bible says he broke down the wall between Jew and Gentile. The first disciples were Jews and the gospel did go to the Jews first but it did not stay within the nation of Israel. It went out into all nations and that was the promise given to Abraham.

Through you all the nations of the world will be blessed. The Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians that God was preaching the gospel to Abraham when he said through you all the nations will be blessed and We are told that when we become members of the new covenant by faith in Jesus Christ that we are grafted in to the family of Israel that we are made sons and daughters of Abraham.

Now, there are some of a particular Theological system that would say no the the church and Israel must always be distinct there must be a wall of separation between Israel and the church and That's why they would say we are no long.

We are not yet in the new covenant, but I would Steadfastly disagree. I would say we have been made partakers of the new covenant because of the work of Christ and There is no longer a dividing wall between Jew and Gentile.

There is no longer a Separation. We are in fact the Israel of God, that's what I Paul calls us in Galatians chapter 6. He calls the church the Israel of God. Because we are engrafted into that family.

So that's the promise Jeremiah gives the promise of a new covenant that is to come. That's a wonderful promise. If you think about the fact that they're about to go into exile. They're about to lose their Their prosperity that they're about to lose their property.

They're a little about to lose their homes. They're about to lose their freedom and yet Jeremiah gives them hope. Even in the midst of pain the hope of a new covenant following Jeremiah we come to the book of lamentations.

Lamentations and the Grief of Jerusalem

The word lamentations itself means a lament or to cry or to weep. The book doesn't tell us who wrote it but tradition says it is Jeremiah. In fact, the tradition is that lamentations is simply a part of Jeremiah.

But in the English Bible we distinguish between the book of Jeremiah and the book of lamentations. It's a relatively short book. It's a cry of grief over the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. When the Babylonians attacked Jerusalem, they destroyed the city and the temple and many people died as a result of that attack and Though they had been warned this was coming.

They still could not believe such destruction had befallen them and Lamentations is the crying of sorrow and repentance of The national sin that brought about this national destruction. Lamentations is a prayer in a sense a prayer for forgiveness a prayer For restoration and it has been noted that this lament in one sense May prefigure the pain of Christ on the cross the Bible caused Jesus a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.

Well we see grief and lamentations and we certainly see the grief of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane as he prepares himself to go and suffer on the cross. As Jeremiah weeped the tears of a prophet and a preacher so Jesus weeped or wept tears as The sacrifice for sin.

Ezekiel's Visions, the Dry Bones, and the New Heart

Well now we move on to the fourth of the major prophets the fourth book third prophet fourth book and That is the book of Ezekiel. The book of Ezekiel Was written by Ezekiel the prophet he is named as he is named in the book in chapter 1 verse 3.