The Family Bible Journey Podcast

From the deepest depths, Jonah cries to God for mercy. Jonah's three days in the belly of the beast were mentioned by Jesus as a foreshadowing of His own arrest, trial, crucifixion and rest in the tomb.

As Judgment is measured out for the enemies of God, God Himself promises to remember the good deeds done by the saints. This is yet another encouragement to persist in righteousness even though we live in a difficult time. Forever the smoke of God's wrath will smolder and forever the goodness of His redeeming love will be remembered.

When God told Jonah to go east, Jonah literally went in the opposite direction, hopping a ship to go west on the Mediterranean. When that landed him in the depth of the ocean and in the belly of a great fish, he got a divine redirect.

Obadiah is a prophet against the enemies of God's people and against those who gloat at the demise of others. God shows love and mercy to all. taking Obadiah's warnings to heart, let us lift-up the downtrodden and show mercy even to our enemies.

As evil as God's people had become, and as hard as their lives would be in exile, Amos foretold of a day that they would long for the Lord and His Word. The inter-testamental time of nearly 400, years when the prophets no longer spoke, was foretold by Amos. He said this would come before the restoration of God's people, which we see fulfilled by Christ and His Church.

This difficult chapter of the Bible prophecies much suffering and death that the saints will experience for the cause of Christ. This life is hard on God's followers, so we wait patiently on our ultimate deliverance when Christ returns in glory.

Israel had it so good, they no longer felt they needed to listen to the Lord. Living in lax luxury, they were ripe for the picking because their greed and self-rightouesness grew to Biblical proportions. Let us not grow lax or weary of doing good, knowing that when our minds are set on earthly things, the eternal may escape our grasp.

Sadly, people tend to love evil and hate what's good. Why else would it be so easy for us to do evil and so hard to do good? We learn here not to trust our natural inclinations, but to listen to the Lord in faith and walk in His Way.

Powerful prophecy of the spiritual war between good and evil, satan and the Church, plays out in this chapter. Even though the woman appears weak, and the dragon looks like he will swallow her up, she is preserved and he is destroyed!

Israel is here described as a bunch of fat, lazy cows. Spoken by a shepherd, Amos's words were not kindly received. Yet, he persistently warned Israel of their demise, because he was sent by God to encourage these people towards repentence.