When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me…(Hosea 11:1)

Today’s reading from the prophet Hosea gives me an opportunity to do another one of my big “here’s what’s actually in the Bible” sermons. This time, I’m going to talk about Hosea and the other minor prophets. (The five major prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The twelve minor prophets are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.) We’ve just finished reading all of the minor prophets in our Saturday Bible study, and this gives me the chance to bring everyone up to speed on them. These books are called the minor prophets not because they’re less important, but because of their short length. Their consistent message, each in just a few chapters, is as powerful as the 60 chapters of Isaiah (which we’re studying now –3:30 on Saturdays!).

I always remind us that biblical prophets were not mystics with a crystal ball; they didn’t predict the future but rather warned people of the inevitable consequences of selfish sin. You can think of them sort of like weatherman Bill Ranby on KETV: the prophets are observing the storm clouds gathering on the horizon of Isarel’s moral and spiritual landscape and declaring, with unwavering conviction, that if the people continue on their current path, destruction is sure to come. These books were written between about 800 BC to 300 BC. Across their narrative, you see a span of years warning God’s people their ways would lead to disaster, a span of years of hope and God’s promise of redemption during that exile when disaster came, and a span years of warning again, once they were liberated and returned home but quickly fell back into their sinful ways.

Really, there are only two central themes in all of these prophets, themes that are as relevant for us today as they were in 600 BC.

First, the prophets thundered about putting something other than God first. This wasn’t merely about idolatry in the crude sense of bowing down to carved images, though that certainly was a problem at times. It was about anything that displaced God from the center of their lives: wealth, power, security, pleasure, national pride. When people placed their trust in these things rather than in the Living God, they were, in essence, creating their own gods, gods that promised much but delivered only emptiness and ultimately, ruin.

Second, the prophets relentlessly confronted injustice – specifically, injustice to the poor, the weak, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner. More than 100 times in the Old Testament, and more than 50 times in just the prophets, this is proclaimed. These vulnerable groups represented the moral litmus test of Israel’s faithfulness to God. Their treatment of the vulnerable was a direct reflection of the people’s heart towards God, who commanded justice and mercy. When the rich oppressed the poor, when the powerful exploited the powerless, when the legal system was corrupted to favor the elite, the prophets cried out with righteous indignation. They proclaimed that true worship of God could not be separated from right relationship with one’s neighbor.

Here are some quotes from these minor prophets…

(Obadiah 1:15) “As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head.”

(Amos 2:6-7) “I won’t hold back the punishment, because they have sold the innocent for silver, and those in need for a pair of sandals. They crush the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way.”

(Amos 5:4, 14, 21, 23, 24) “Seek me and live…Seek good and not evil, that you may live…I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies…Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like a river, righteousness like a mighty stream!”

(Micah 6:8) “For God has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

(Hosea 6:6) “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

(Zechariah 7:10) “Do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.”

(Hosea 8:7) “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” When you sow destructive seeds, you cannot expect to harvest anything but destruction.

The minor prophets preached against nationalism, political idolatry, lifting up partisan leaders as saviors, and reliance on military might. They decried the prioritization of comfort, prosperity, and economic growth over righteousness and compassion. They condemned going through the motions of religion while neglecting the poor and oppressed, and they denounced societies structured around the powerful and elite that left the vulnerable behind. They railed against false prophets who offered easy answers rather than difficult truths.

The idols of today may not be golden statues; they might in the end be more pervasive and more insidious. What do we place our ultimate trust in? What do we dedicate our lives to? What gives us our sense of worth? What do we believe will bring us true security and fulfillment? Like ancient Israel, I fear the answer to all of this is “not God.”

The lessons from these Minor Prophets are not relegated to ancient history. The sins they preached against – putting something other than God first, and injustice to the poor, the weak, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner– these are our sins today. When we prioritize material wealth over spiritual well-being, when consumerism and celebrity become our gods, when nationalistic pride blinds us to the suffering of others, we are committing exactly the same idolatry that the prophets condemned—We are sowing the wind and therefore reaping the tornado of anxiety, emptiness, and societal breakdown. The cry for “justice to roll down like mighty waters” is as urgent now as it was then. The simple, straightforward command to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God” remains our fundamental mandate.

These minor prophets are not only doomsayers; they are also voices of love and longing, voices of God’s yearning for us to return to God’ life-giving covenant, and voices that tell of what life under that covenant is like. These are some of the most hopeful and familiar verses from Scripture. Here’s Zechariah 9: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey.” And Malachai 3: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.” And Micah 5:2 “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” And Micah 4: “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s temple shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, and many nations shall come and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths’…They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.”

The prophets offer us a way out, a new path of restoration through repentance and renewed faithfulness, the path to God’s abundant life. Their message is a timeless invitation to examine our own hearts, our own priorities, and our own actions. My prayer this week is that we will all let the echoes of these ancient voices challenge us, comfort us, and ultimately, transform us. When we understand their warnings, we find the wisdom to choose a different path, to live lives that truly honor our God who is just and merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, to live lives that truly bear God’s image to the world. Amen.